The Secret Love-Child

'Honey, I'm not the one putting a sexual connotation on this. This divorced bloke thinks his sexy temp has the hots for him and he doesn't like it. Rather makes you wonder why. Is he mentally deranged? Otherwise involved? Gay? Or just bitter and twisted?'

'Maybe he's the kind of man who doesn't like mixing business with pleasure. Unlike some men we know.'

'Man's a fool. He's got it made by the sound of it. Still, Rachel should suit him. She's hardly what you'd call flashy. Or flirtatious.' More like shy and retiring. Sweet, though. Rafe really liked her.

'No, not at the moment. But she used to be very outgoing. And drop-dead gorgeous.'

'Mmm. Hard to visualise.' The Rachel he'd met today had been a long way from drop-dead gorgeous. Okay, so there were some lingering remnants of past beauty in her thin face and gaunt body. Her eyes certainly had something.

But the hardships of minding a loved one with Alzheimer's twenty-four hours a day for over four years had clearly taken its toll. Isabel had told him Rachel was only thirty-one. But she looked forty if she was a day.

'She just needs some tender loving care,' Isabel said.

'And a serious makeover,' Rafe added. 'New hair colour. Clothes. Make-up.'

'Don't be ridiculous, Rafe. Haven't you been listening? This man doesn't want a glamour-puss for a secretary. He wants a woman who looks sensible and who doesn't turn him on.'

'Oh, yeah, I forgot. Better get her a pair of glasses then, because she has got nice eyes.'

'Yes, she does, doesn't she?'

'And get her to put on a few pounds. That anorexic look she's sporting is considered pretty desirable nowadays.'

'Are you being sarcastic?'

'Not at all. Oh, and tell her to wear black for the interview. It looks bloody awful on her. Unlike you, my darling,' he whispered in her ear, 'who looks so sexy in black that it's criminal.'

'Stop that,' Isabel choked out, shivering when he began to blow softly in her ear.

But she didn't really want him to stop. It felt like an eon since they'd been alone together, since he'd held her in his arms. She was going to go mad if she wasn't with him soon.

'Stay with me tonight,' he murmured.

'I...I can't,' she groaned. 'I'm taking Rachel home to Turramurra with me for a few days. I don't want to leave her alone just yet.'

'When, then?'

'I don't know. I'll give you a call.'

Rafe didn't want to press. But he wanted her so much. He needed her. And it had nothing to do with getting her pregnant.

Being in love, he decided, was hell, especially if the person you loved didn't love you back.

And she didn't. Not yet. No use pretending she did.

It was a depressing thought. The confidence which Rafe had projected to Isabel's mother suddenly seemed like so much hot air. What if she never fell in love with him? What if she never fell pregnant to him?

Then he would have nothing.

She had to fall pregnant. Had to. Which meant that he had to do absolutely nothing to frighten her off. He had to keep her wanting him. Had to keep her sexually intrigued.

'How about a couple of hours, then?' he suggested boldly. 'After Rachel's gone to bed. I'll pick you up and we'll go somewhere local for a nightcap, then I'll find a private place for us to park.'

Isabel was startled. 'Park?'

'Neck, then.'

'I haven't necked in a car since I was a teenager.'

He grinned. 'Neither have I.'

'Your car has buckets seats.'

'It has a big back seat.'

She stared at him, her heart hammering inside her chest.

'Well, Isabel, what do you say?'

What did she say?

What she would always say to him.

'Make sure you bring protection with you.'

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

AS RAFE turned down Isabel's street in Turramurra he glanced at the clock on the dash. Just after seven. It had taken him over an hour to drive through the rush-hour traffic from the airport to Turramurra.

Rush-hour traffic through the city was the pits at the best of times, and he wouldn't normally venture outside his front door, let alone catch a flight which landed at Mascot, anywhere near the evening peak. Unless there was a dire emergency.

In Rafe's eyes, there had been more than a dire emergency. It had been a case of life and death.

Two weeks had passed since the funeral, and almost a week since he'd seen Isabel, work having taken him to Melbourne for some magazine shoots this past week.

He'd rung her, of course. Every evening.

She'd been very chuffed on the night after Rachel got the job with Justin McCarthy. Rafe had been subjected to an hour of girl-talk stuff. Not that he'd minded. He loved hearing Isabel happy.

The next night she'd been even more excited. The two girls had spent the day shopping for a new work wardrobe for Rachel. "All non-flashy, non-flirtatious clothes, Rafe had been assured. He'd received a dollar-by-dollar description of everything they'd bought.

The night after that, she'd raved on about how she was now helping Rachel clear out and clean up Lettie's house. Rachel was going to sell it, then buy a unit closer to the city. Isabel was going to look around for one for her, since she wasn't working and wasn't going to get herself another job for a while, if ever.