Marriage on the Rebound

Instantly her hands went to the knotted belt holding her towelling robe together.

But one of his hands closing over hers stopped her. ‘What are you doing?’ He frowned.

‘Unwrapping your present,’ she said. ‘It’s me,’ she added softly. ‘I’m your present. If you still want me after the blindly stupid way I behaved today, that is…’

His big chest heaved on a short tense suck of air, his eyes closing, then opening to reveal irises gone almost as dark as her own luminous eyes as he muttered something hoarse beneath his breath.

‘Oh, come here.’ He reached for her then, pulling her against him. ‘Are you really so blind, Shaan,’ he sighed, ‘that you really can’t tell when a man is heart and soul in love with you?’

‘I suppose I must be,’ she conceded sadly. ‘But I’m heart and soul in love with you, too, Rafe!’ she added urgently. ‘I’ve been in love with you so long, in fact, that I can barely recall my life before you took it over!’

‘Good,’ he said, and caught her mouth in a short, hot, masterly kiss. ‘Keep it like that,’ he grimly commanded. ‘Because I’m very possessive of every single moment in your life!’

‘And you think I’m not the same with you?’ she said, then continued on a sudden flash of blistering possessiveness, ‘So if I ever see you so much as peck Madeleine’s cheek again,’ she warned fiercely, ‘I shall walk out on you and never come back!’

‘The woman is a pain in the neck,’ he grimaced. ‘She was a pain in the neck while she had her silly crush on me a couple of years ago and she was a pain in the neck today, when she met me at the airport so she could spend the time it took me to deliver her back to the Connaught trying to talk me into forgiving Piers for the way he’d used you!’

‘Why the Connaught?’ Shaan frowned. After all, Piers had his own apartment right here in London.

‘It’s where she and Piers are staying because they’ve sold his apartment.’ His hand came up to gently smooth the frown from her brow. ‘They’re going to live in Chicago,’ he explained. ‘Piers is going into partnership with his father-in-law. And to be honest,’ he added heavily, ‘I think it will do him good to get out from beneath my shadow.’

‘You still haven’t forgiven him, have you?’ she realised.

His big shoulders shrugged. ‘Beneath all that surface charm he’s not a very nice person, you know.’

‘I know,’ Shaan sighed. ‘But I think he’s beginning to realise that himself, now, if it’s any consolation.’

‘The only consolation I need right now,’ he said soberly, ‘is the assurance that I am what you really want, and not just the guy who caught you on the rebound from Piers.’

‘Oh, don’t,’ she murmured as she saw the ache of real uncertainty glint across his eyes. ‘I’m sorry if what Piers and I almost did hurt you, Rafe. But I can’t think of a way to make that memory go away. Except to say that from the first moment I saw you after Piers and I got engaged I was more obsessed with you and what you thought of me than I was with anything else—and that included Piers. So maybe I was already falling in love with you without really knowing it,’ she suggested anxiously. ‘Maybe I was even too frightened to look any closer at why you disturbed me so much in case I had to face what a terrible mistake I’d made!’

To her surprise, he started smiling. ‘At the risk of sounding arrogant,’ he drawled, ‘I am man enough to know my own worth. All I needed was time with you. Time I didn’t think I was going to get…’

‘You said that on the telephone in Hong Kong,’ Shaan recalled.

‘I also said I was in love with you, only you chose to believe I was talking about Madeleine.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she murmured.

‘Don’t be.’ He grimaced. ‘To be honest, I was never more relieved than when you misunderstood that conversation, since it meant I could at least hang onto a bit of my pride.’

‘While you spent the next two weeks ravishing me,’ she added accusingly.

‘Now that’s a moot point,’ he mocked, ‘as

to who actually ravished who most of the time.’

‘Now, now,’ Shaan protested. ‘Be careful who you malign here, because I have a witness!’ And to prove it she held out her wrist where Minnie Mouse still kept perfect time.

‘Ah, but so do I!’ Rafe responded, and dug into his bathrobe pocket to come up with the palm-sized jade Buddha. ‘You said, “Be lucky, Rafe”—remember?’ he murmured huskily. ‘Well, I am, Shaan. Very lucky…’

He kissed her then, long and soft, and so deeply Shaan felt herself sinking right into him.

‘Come on,’ she whispered, climbing off his lap and catching hold of one of his hands to tug him up with her.

‘Where are we going?’ he asked, as if he didn’t really know!

‘To unwrap your present,’ she said, pulling him with her into their bedroom.