You might be a wolf, but I can become a she-bear without warning.’
‘Consider me appropriately chastened.’
The laughing tone made her feel absurdly happy. ‘How weird is this conversation, given our current circumstances?’ she whispered, feeling his skin touching hers. They were only hand to hand, cheek to cheek, but it moved with invisible fingertips into her soul.
‘That’s just what I was thinking.’ He relaxed his arms and looked down at her, smiling.
Oh, those silly hot shivers! ‘So, is she still there?’
He checked briefly without seeming to. ‘She is, in a covered corner of the terrasse, and watching us avidly. Time to implement plan B—the wolf must dare the she-bear and we’ll see who wins.’ He lifted her in his arms, his eyes twinkling as he smiled down at her. Slowly, he rubbed his cheek against hers with absolute gentleness. ‘You’re a very little bear. I can bearly feel you.’
Warm, safe and beautiful all at once—oh, this man was too seductive for his own good in making her feel this way, even when he was trying to reassure her with his teasing. ‘Ha ha. That’s because I’m fading away from hunger,’ she complained, trying to joke her way into a normal breathing pattern and heartbeat.
He sniffed and his face darkened. ‘The cheese is burning.’ He put her back down in her chair, turned back and strode over to the terrasse doors. After flashing a dark look at the elderly lady, he wound the built-in blinds down. He kept going even after the startled Frau Heffernan had scuttled away. ‘Good, now we can eat. I’ll clean the pans and be right back.’
Rachel was glad she was sitting down. Her knees really didn’t want to be straight at this point.
Armand’s knees seemed just fine. After he picked up the collection of little trays, he headed for the kitchen with a clean, confident stride. ‘Can you turn the heat down on the grill and take the food off the top while I clean these, please, Rachel? I’ll be back in a few minutes. Hopefully everything won’t get too cold.’
He spoke in his ordinary voice, as though nothing had happened.
Perhaps to him it hadn’t.
‘Okay, consider it done.’ After speaking as calmly as possible, Rachel drew a deep, slow breath, wondering how the world could turn upside down in a few hours. From feeling safely hidden away, she was out of her depth in waters as sweet as they were turbulent, and all because of one tycoon in shining armour …
Feeling a fervent kinship with the elderly woman—she wanted to scuttle away from Armand too, never come back and definitely never see him again—she made a noncommittal noise of assent and began moving the food from the grill.
‘Don’t think about it, just don’t think about it,’ she chanted beneath her breath. She shoved a crispy piece of bacon on her tongue and chewed on it despite the fact that it tasted like ashes in her mouth.
What just happened in there?
Armand leaned against the sink for a moment, just breathing. He tossed the raclette trays in the sink and ran warm, soapy water over them. Even as he cleaned out the hard cheese and washed them he was conscious of the crazy feeling that had sent him running in here. It hadn’t lessened, despite the space between them.
So stupid, to lose his temper over something as simple as burning cheese! He supposed he’d had to do something—and it was either take out his sudden anger on the raclette grill and Frau Heffernan, a rich widow without a life of her own, or give in to the consuming need to touch Rachel again.
How idiotic was it to touch a woman in his own home? And yet it felt so right.
He’d never brought a woman here, apart from Maman, Johanna and Carla. It was their home as much as his, since Papa had left it to them all equally. It had been almost all he’d had left to give after the fire destroyed the first resort, and he’d gambled away everything else. To Armand, this cabin was his home, a sacred place of refuge. He’d never brought a woman here until now.
At first, he’d thought it was simple pity. She was alone in a world turned against her, and her jerk of a husband had betrayed her publicly.
Then he’d seen the way she rubbed at her left wrist almost absently, as if in reminder. Maman had done the same thing, long after the breaks had healed from his father’s repeated beatings. When Rachel had caught him looking, she’d tried to hide it far too quickly, just as Maman had.
Armand seethed and burned still, just thinking about the shame and embarrassment on Rachel’s face. If that damned ‘doc with empathy’ had been here right now …
It came down to this: Rachel Chase needed protection from Rinaldi, and he could give it.
And you have to do it, because you didn’t protect your own mother.
There was the crux of it. More than twenty years ago, Armand had woken one night to see the truth he’d probably always known—his father had beaten Maman two shades too hard to hide the bruises; he’d broken her arm.
Armand couldn’t change the damage done to his family, but he’d stop Rinaldi from damaging Rachel any further. If Rinaldi showed up, he’d be here waiting.
Despite her spunk and her volatile changes, her inner strength and perception, Rachel was no she-bear. She couldn’t protect herself physically against the likes of Dr Pete, let alone stand against the media onslaught. Armand had the skills, the wealth and the place to protect her—and the reputation didn’t hurt. If Rinaldi showed his face here, he’d meet with the Wolf, all right—a wolf in protective mode. He didn’t care what it took right now, he’d keep Rachel safe.
But he could not and would not hold her again. It was too dangerous to the calm demeanour she needed from him. She needed to heal, not have her protector fantasising about making her his lover. And to make sure she was safe, he had to be in control of his emotions.
Damn it, when has touching a woman ever been this emotional for me?
‘So stop looking at her. Stop thinking about it,’ he growled to himself.
Stop remembering how it felt to hold her.
He had to remember instead that she’d called him Herr Bollinger, putting space between them the moment he’d shown her that his male imagination was running riot. She’s been through enough. She doesn’t want you for anything but protection. She needs a friend.
So a friend he’d be. Nothing had happened, really—just a new kind of male reaction to a sweet, curvy bundle of woman in his arms. End of story.
But every single one of the cheese trays had grooves in them from the steel wool he’d gouged into them with his cleaning efforts when he carried them back into the dining table.
When he glanced at her, she was sitting in her place with seeming calm, but her fingers were laced so tightly together they had white patches. Looking up, he saw the apprehension in those shimmering, far-too-expressive eyes, and the paleness of her cheeks.
Had he frightened her with his emotions? He smiled in rueful apology, but it felt as if he’d gouged his smile in place too. Reassure her; be gentle. A friend, only a friend.
This
