Modern Romance Books September Books 5-8. Annie West

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      ‘Gemma...’

      As a real wife, this was something she would already have known about, but a real wife she wasn’t—even though she had been lulled into thinking that somehow she had turned into one.

      She had to go. Had to think and clear her head. She leapt to her feet and for a few seconds stared in silence at a startled David, while she tried to think of a suitable excuse for flying out like a bat out of hell.

      ‘I’ve—I’ve suddenly remembered,’ she stammered lamely. ‘I have an appointment...with...with the dentist!’

      ‘You have?’

      ‘The cakes have reminded me! A filling needs seeing to before it becomes...er...’

       What was the next step after a filling anyway? Wasn’t a filling the last thing that happened after a toothache?

      ‘Painful.’ David looked concerned, which immediately made her feel guilty.

      ‘I’m really sorry, Dad.’

      They both stared at one another at that slip of the tongue.

      ‘David.’

      ‘You can call me Dad,’ he returned gruffly. ‘And shoo! Call me when you’re next coming over.’

      She didn’t go directly back to Rafael’s house. He wouldn’t have been back at any rate. Instead, head in a daze, she trekked through London, soaking up an atmosphere she had very quickly taken for granted. Everyone was in a hurry. The pavements were packed: shoppers...people hurrying out of offices because it had gone six...tourists drifting without a care in the world, getting in the way...

      She’d changed over the months. It wasn’t just the clothes, the trappings of great wealth. It was her. Something deep inside her had changed. She had become confident in a way she’d never been and it wasn’t just because she could afford stuff. It was because Rafael had made her so. He had allowed her to be herself and had encouraged her to shed the defensiveness that had once been part and parcel of her personality.

      He had made her feel secure.

      What a joke.

      He knew her inside out and she had kidded herself into thinking that she knew him as well, even if he couldn’t see it, even if his stubborn pride prevented him from accepting it.

      She didn’t know him at all and that felt like a crushing blow. She wandered in and out of shops before heading back to his place a little after eight.

      He was already there when she quietly let herself in. He’d obviously been waiting for her to show up because he was in the hall before she had time to sling her jacket over the banister.

      ‘I’ve been calling,’ was the first thing he said, moving towards her.

      ‘Have you?’ Sofia dodged past him and headed straight into the kitchen. ‘I’m sorry. I haven’t looked at my phone at all.’ She heard a tell-tale hitch in her voice and cautioned herself against giving in to self-pity. So she was here, stripped bare of all her illusions, and she only had herself to blame. He’d never promised her more than he could deliver and if she’d hoped for more then that was her fault.

      Love had been a handicap, making her question less, demand less and accept more.

      ‘David said that you had some kind of emergency appointment with the dentist?’

      ‘I haven’t been to the dentist, Rafael.’ She spun round on her heels and looked at him, arms folded, eyes cool.

      Rafael stared back, hesitant.

      What was going on here? Astute as he was at reading situations, he was finding it difficult to get a grip. As a general rule, he had no time for any sort of hysterical behaviour. He didn’t like confrontations or arguments, preferring to walk away from histrionics, and this was shaping up to be all of the above mentioned. Judging from her expression, at least.

      ‘Then where were you?’

      ‘Out. Walking around.’

       ‘Out? Walking around?’

      ‘Thinking.’

      Rafael remained silent, a dark flush delineating his aristocratic, high cheekbones.

      ‘Aren’t you going to ask me what I was thinking about, Rafael?’

      ‘I expect you’re going to tell me whether I ask you or not.’

      ‘I found something out today.’ Sofia heard the wobble in her voice and anchored herself firmly back in the reality of what she was dealing with—a guy who, in the end, cared so little for her that he hadn’t seen fit to tell her about what had probably been the biggest thing in his life to date.

      Had it been a happy marriage? Sad? Disappointing? Something in between all three? How long had it lasted? Had it been love at first sight? What had she looked like? What had happened in the end?

      She had asked David none of those questions, had not wanted to know any details at all except the ones that came from Rafael. Was she overreacting? She didn’t think she was, although some might. As far as she was concerned, this revelation felt like the summing up of everything she’d feared—that this wonderful, complex, infuriating, adorable and strangely vulnerable man felt no real attachment to her. Yes, he wanted her, but that was never going to be enough. And, yes, he liked her well enough but that didn’t touch the surface of what she wanted him to feel. She’d been greedy and this was the price she was now having to pay.

      The truth was that, if he had had the connection with her that she had with him, he would have confided in her, slotted in that piece of the jigsaw puzzle that was such an important part of the whole picture. That was how relationships worked, wasn’t it? Had she found out sooner about this, maybe it would have been different. She might have been able to ease it into the conversation and excuse his reticence on the grounds that they were still finding a way forward with one another, still learning to have a relationship within the confines of their convenient marriage. But to find out when she thought that what they had was something special was truly painful.

      ‘David mentioned that you’ve been married once before.’ She didn’t bother beating about the bush.

      The silence settled between them, suffocating and dense, becoming more and more uncomfortable with each passing second. The shutters had snapped down and his expression, his stunning dark eyes that had warmed when they rested on her, were as remote now as the cold, grey waters of a wintry sea.

      ‘He thought I would have known,’ she laboured on. ‘Of course, that was the first I was hearing of any such thing. I didn’t ask for details. I... I couldn’t. I thought those details would be better coming from you.’

      Rafael’s gaze narrowed, his lean, darkly handsome face betraying immediate and instinctive rejection of what he viewed as a blunt battering ram aimed against his privacy. Things had been going so well between them that this felt like an attack out of the blue and, as with all attacks, his initial reaction was to repel. Taut with frustrated tension, he was at a loss as to the direction he should take, but the mere thought of having СКАЧАТЬ