Modern Romance Books September Books 5-8. Annie West

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       CHAPTER NINE

      SOFIA WAS BASKING in the warm glow of David’s satisfaction. It was writ large in the quiet pleasure in his eyes. He had peppered her with all sorts of interesting anecdotes about some of the people at the company and about deals long done when he had been climbing the ladder of success.

      Sofia listened, quietly marvelling at how far their relationship had come. She had been so antagonistic to start with, so convinced that there could be no meeting ground between them, no place where they could join hands and look to any kind of future without the past being a stealthy, toxic intruder. How wrong she had been. She was guiltily aware that she should have had a bit more faith in her mother who would not have given her heart so completely to someone who wasn’t worth the gift. She had never loved again, even though she had carried on searching for love, and it was as though she had lost her compass, choosing all the wrong kinds of guys, desperately becoming a woman who relied on her looks to find her what she was looking for.

      She wondered what she would tell David about her visit to the company because looking around had not been the straightforward meet-and-greet she had anticipated, interrupted as it had been by Freddy and his threatening behaviour. But she had selectively decided to omit that aspect of her visit and concentrate, instead, on her genuine delight at seeing where everything had started all those years ago.

      Freddy and what was going to happen to him was something she had left at Rafael’s door. Certainly, after her revelations, Rafael had looked like a man on a mission. She would have felt sorry for the younger man if she hadn’t known, in her gut, just how much of a creep Freddy could turn out to be—already was.

      She sneaked a surreptitious glance at her watch, already counting down to when she would see Rafael. In front of her was an assortment of cakes but she wasn’t going to fill up on them because she had cooked earlier and would be eating dinner with Rafael when she was back at the house a bit later.

      ‘Tell me what you thought of the History Room,’ David was saying excitedly, fussing and bustling and pouring her another cup of tea.

      ‘I loved it.’ Sofia smiled. ‘I think it’s very inspirational to have photos of all the hotels and all the work that went into them framed for your employees to see.’

      ‘Rafael’s idea, don’t you know.’

      ‘Was it?’ She leaned forward with interest. Every word uttered about Rafael was of interest to her. She had gleaned so many titbits over time—had gone through old photo albums, taking her time, with Rafael sitting next to her, amused by her fascination, telling David that lengthy chats about youthful nonsense wasn’t of interest to man nor beast. She had almost no photos of herself.

      ‘Oh, yes,’ David was saying. ‘Years ago. He was busy trying to get his own house in order after his parents were killed but still had time to think about me when I was redesigning the headquarters when I bought over the building next door. Sort of chap he is, but I expect you’ve reached that conclusion yourself.’

      ‘Conclusion?’

      ‘I’ve seen you two together, my dear.’ He sat and gazed longingly at the plate of morsels and sighed with resignation when she wagged a finger at him, warning him off eating more than the two he had already had.

      ‘What do you mean?’

      ‘The way you are together. The way you interact.’ He looked at her with satisfaction. He waved one hand, brushing off some distant point in the past he no longer considered relevant. ‘I know that as marriages went this was perhaps not the sort you had ever envisaged for yourself, my dear girl, but I sense that what started out as an arrangement may well have taken wings.’

      Sofia was enjoying this, a guilty sort of enjoyment, because every word was music to her ears. If David had noticed a change in the relationship she and Rafael shared, then surely there was something there?

      ‘What do you mean?’ she prompted, and David shot her a sly, all-knowing look from under his bushy eyebrows.

      ‘Never seen him like this before,’ he confessed. ‘Not with any of those women he’s dated in the past. Sure, you’re married, but we both know that that was not a real marriage, and yet now...you’re both somehow different around one another.’

      Sofia could agree with that verdict. The truth was that there was a physical familiarity between them that neither of them ever bothered to conceal. Intimate, passing touches that were very different from the obvious displays of affection they had made sure to demonstrate for the public at the very beginning.

      ‘You know,’ David said thoughtfully, ‘I can’t even remember Rafael being like this with his first wife.’

      From a long way away, Sofia was aware that her temperature was dropping, that she was getting as cold as a block of ice. She could almost feel her vital organs slowing down as she wrestled to make sense of what had just been said.

      David was bustling again, the way he did, lifting the lid of the teapot, looking at the dainty bell on the table as though debating whether to summon ‘the old dragon’, as he fondly referred to his live-in nurse.

      ‘Yes...first wife...’

      ‘Gemma. Must have told you about her?’

      Sofia’s head was spinning. Suddenly hearing СКАЧАТЬ