Rafe,’ she whispered as she wriggled luxuriously against him. ‘I do love you.’
‘Well, that’s good,’ he said steadily, though he could do nothing about the sudden lump which had risen in his throat. ‘Because I love you too.’
He pulled her closer, reflecting on the last three eventful years. It had been an interesting road they’d travelled together before Princess Sophie of Isolaverde had finally consented to become his wife. She’d meant what she said about doing a cookery course in Paris, but Rafe had quickly established a branch of Carter Communications in the Eighth Arrondissement and they had set up home nearby.
Sophie had graduated from the famous patisserie school with honours and soon afterwards they had married in the Isolaverdian cathedral in a ceremony which included royalty, magnates and film stars. But the glittering congregation might as well not have existed, because all Rafe had been able to see was his beautiful bride, wearing the ruby and diamond necklace which had belonged to her mother and which he had presented to her the day before their wedding, to the accompaniment of her tear-filled eyes and trembling lips. Rafe had been planning to pay any price to get it back from Prince Luc, but the Mardovian royal had insisted on gifting it to them.
‘It is yours,’ he’d said gruffly. ‘For it was always intended for Sophie.’
But there were no hard feelings between Sophie and the man to whom she had once been betrothed—and Luc and his wife Lisa were both guests at the royal wedding. So was Amber, with Conall. Nick, Molly and Oliver. Chase had defied logic and schedules and somehow managed to get himself there from the depths of the Amazonian rainforest and Gianluca was there, too. Even Bernadette had accepted an invitation and Ambrose surprised them all by spending most of the evening dancing with the Irish housekeeper.
And when Rafe had laughingly enquired whether there was some kind of romantic attachment brewing, Bernadette had silenced him with a stern look. ‘There is not!’ she’d declared. ‘Sure and all he wants to talk about is his gout!’
After the wedding, Rafe had asked Sophie where she wanted to live, telling her that they could go anywhere she wanted—but her answer hadn’t really surprised him. For although they visited Europe and America from time to time, their main base was in Poonbarra, where the skies were huge and the air was clean. It was the only place she’d ever really felt free, she told him. And he felt the same. It was their place, now shared with their firstborn—a beautiful bouncing baby boy they named Myron Ambrose Carter.
But before she’d become pregnant, Sophie had experimented with everything she’d learned in Paris and added a few twists of her own—which was how Princess Pastries had come about. Her second cookbook had just been published to great international acclaim and had become an instant bestseller, with all the profits going to an Isolaverdian children’s charity. Despite a lot of pressure from the major networks, Sophie had refused all offers to do her own television show. Why would she want to do anything which took her away from her family? she’d asked Rafe quietly.
Why, indeed?
Rafe stroked the hair which lay so silkily against his skin. Family. And love. It was that simple. He sighed. How could something so simple be this good?
‘What time is it?’ Sophie murmured, her arms tightening around him.
The dawn had not yet streaked the sky and it would be several hours before the wild and beautiful Australian bush sprang into new life. But for now they had the night and they had each other.
Always.
‘Time to kiss me,’ he said throatily.
And in the darkness, she raised her face to his.
* * * * *
Sharon Kendrick
For my wonderful aunt, the gypsy-hearted
Josephine “Dodie” Webb
COME on, come on! With a frustration born out of fear, Isabella jammed her thumb on the doorbell one last time and let it ring and ring, long enough to wake the dead—and certainly long enough to rouse the occupant of the elegant London townhouse. Just in case he hadn’t heard her the first time round.
But there was nothing other than the sound of the bell echoing and her hand fell to her side as she forced herself to accept the unthinkable. That he wasn’t there. That she would have to make a return journey—if she could summon up the courage to come here for a second time.
And then the door was flung open with a force of a powerhouse—and one very angry man stood looking down at her, his crisp dark head still damp and shining from the shower. Tiny droplets of water sparkled among the brown-black waves of his hair. Lit from behind, it almost looked as though he were wearing a halo—though the expression on his face was about as unangelic as you could get.
His black eyes glittered with irritation at this unwelcome intrusion and Isabella felt her heart begin to race. Because even in her current nerve-jangled state of crisis his physical impact was like a shock to the senses.
He was wearing nothing but a deep blue towel which was slung low around narrow olive hips and came to midway down a pair of impressively muscled thighs. Half of his chin was covered with shaving foam and in his hand he held an old-fashioned cut-throat razor which glinted silver beneath the gleam of the chandelier overhead.
Isabella swallowed. She had seen his magnificent body in swimming trunks many, many times—but never quite so intimately naked.
‘Yes?’ he snapped, in an accent which did not match the Brazilian ancestry of his looks and a tone which suggested that he was not the kind of man to tolerate interruption. ‘Where’s the fire?’
‘Hello, Paulo,’ she said quietly.
For the split second before his brain started making sense of the information it was receiving, Paulo stared impatiently at the woman who was standing on his doorstep looking up at him with such wary expectation in her eyes.
He ignored the sensual, subliminal messages which her sultry beauty was hot-wiring to his body, because his overriding impression was how ridiculously exotic she looked.
She wore a brand-new raincoat which came right down to a pair of slender ankles, so that only her face was on show. A face covered with droplets of rain from the summer shower, her dark hair plastered to her head. Huge, golden-brown eyes—like lumps of old and expensive amber—were fringed with the longest, blackest lashes he had ever seen. Her lips were lush, and unpainted. And trembling, he thought with a sudden frown. Trembling…
She looked like a lost and beautiful waif, and a warning bell clanged deep within the recesses of his mind. He knew her, and yet somehow he also knew that she shouldn’t be here.
Wrong place. Definitely.
‘Hello,’ he murmured, while his mind raced ahead to slot her into her rightful place.
‘Why, Paulo,’
