“Well…” Rafe looked down a moment at her fair head. “Lainie, I find it hard to disappoint you, but I’m flying off home in the morning. Grant is staying on to line up some more business, but I have to get back to the station. As well, I promised Brod I’d keep an eye on Kimbara. You’ve got a dozen people to keep you company,” he consoled her. “Fran and Grant are going on. So is Mark Farrell. I thought you two got on rather well.” He referred to the groomsman. “And Ally must do this sort of thing all the time.”
“You obviously haven’t heard about my killing schedule,” Ally said in a wry voice. “I have to get lots of beauty sleep so I can get up the next morning without telltale bags under my eyes.”
“Bags? Not you,” Lainie retorted.
“So can I drop you off at your hotel?” Rafe looked on sardonically. “You’re staying with Fee and Francesca?”
“Not this time.” Ally shook her head. “Fee has commandeered the best suite. Davey has another.”
“I have to settle for deluxe,” Francesca smiled.
“And a friend has lent me her place while she’s away,” Ally added.
“Rafe are you sure you won’t come?” Lainie persisted, desperately wanting it to happen.
“Sorry, pet.” He gave her his maddening nonchalant smile.
“Well, that takes care of that then,” Grant said with satisfaction. “We were going to drop Ally off, Rafe, but I’m sure she’s happy for you to take over.”
“I don’t have to go,” Lainie looked about vaguely, wishing secretly Rafe would simply take her off to bed.
“Sure you do!” Grant took hold of her arm purposefully, with Francesca, blue eyes twinkling, taking the other. “Let the good times roll.”
Grant looked back at his brother and Ally and tilted a tawny eyebrow.
CHAPTER THREE
THEY were quiet in the taxi, each sitting as far away from each other as possible, but feeling the effects of their enforced intimacy coming at them in electric waves.
“Are you coming in for a moment?” Ally asked when they arrived. “You can have a nightcap. You don’t need to drive.”
He wanted to tell her no. He had already begun to shake his head, but Ally threw open the door, peering up at the apartment block. She didn’t want him to see her nervousness. She didn’t want him to know the cause of it. She moved towards the well-lit entrance, assuming Rafe was paying off the driver.
“Nice place,” the driver said to Rafe. “Beautiful woman. I’m sure I know her from someplace. Your wife?”
“She shied away from accepting me,” Rafe found himself admitting.
“Fancy that!” The driver, of Italian descent, looked amazed. This guy looked like he had it all. “I haven’t seen such a glamorous couple in a long time.”
The lift was empty, the hallway a blaze of illumination. They were quiet again until they reached the door of the unit.
“You know, Ally, you’re nervous,” Rafe observed calmly, taking the key off her and fitting it in the lock. “Not of me, surely?”
The fact was she was excited but edgy, as well. These last months had taken their toll on her. She was starting to act like someone with a real problem, which, in fact, she had. But who could hurt her with Rafe around. He was very much the man in control.
“I could do with a cup of coffee,” she admitted, giving a husky laugh.
He unlocked the door and held it open so she could precede him into the apartment. She’d left a few lamps burning as she always seemed to do these days. Now in the low rosy light she glanced automatically towards the sliding doors that led out onto the terrace with its spectacular views of the cityscape.
Something moved. She stood perfectly still, muscles tensing, adrenalin pumping into her blood.
“What is it? What’s the matter?” Rafe registered her alarm instantly, grasping her arm and staring into her stricken face. “Ally?” She looked primed for panic as though her emerald eyes saw some great wrath. “What the hell’s going on here?”
At the sound of his voice relief flooded into Ally’s face. She could diagnose her own delusion born of months of harassment. She turned to him, her heart still racing, grateful beyond words for how he filled the room with his commanding presence.
“Rafe!” It was little more than a gasp as she waited for the adrenalin in her blood to dissipate.
“For God’s sake! What did you think you saw?” he burst out, letting go of her, moving with a lithe, purposeful tread to the sliding-glass doors. Obviously she thought someone or something was out here. He saw only the night-time dazzle of the city lights and glittering towers, the graceful sweep of the Expressway spanning the broad deep river that meandered through the centre of the city in grand curves.
He turned back to her, shaking his head. “There’s nothing here. Nothing to be afraid of.”
“Good.” She gave a small delicate sigh.
Perturbed himself now, Rafe unlocked the doors, slid them open and walked out onto the terrace. Nothing disturbed the peace. There was a collection of potted plants, a white wrought-iron table with two chairs. Quietly alert he walked to the balcony. Looked over. Directly below him five floors down a young couple was entering the building. They were laughing, hand in hand, eyes only for one another.
Ally watched him come inside, feeling slightly ashamed now of her instinctive reaction. The moment of panic. “Just a trick of the lighting,” she offered by way of explanation. “I thought I saw something move.”
“Something or someone?” His arresting face framed by that burning gold hair was etched with hard concern. Obviously she wasn’t telling him the whole story but he intended to get it out of her. He could see she still looked scared when the Ally he knew was the least nervous of women. She had never jumped at shadows. It made him angry suddenly that life in the city should have made her so. He recognised what he felt was possessiveness. Possessiveness permeated with a sense of powerlessness. She wasn’t his Ally any more.
“It was nothing, Rafe.” Ally tried to shrug the moment off. “Stop looking like you want to pummel someone. I have an overactive imagination.” She turned quickly towards the galley kitchen. “I’m having coffee, would you prefer Scotch?”
“Coffee will be fine.” He began to roam around the open-plan entrance, living/dining room, furnished quietly but comfortably with one stunning piece of art dominating. “This must be like living in a birdcage,” he muttered, a big man in a small, confined space.
“Not everyone can afford grand houses,” Ally pointed out, “and vast open spaces. Actually this is quite an expensive piece of real estate.”
“I imagine it would be with that view.” He glanced back at the sparkling multicoloured lights reflected in the indigo river, then walked nearer the kitchen looking over the counter to where Ally was measuring coffee into
