rang and rang. When it finally picked up, what he got was not her but her voice mail.
“Marilyn,” he said impatiently, “it’s Rafe Orsini. Pick up if you’re there. Or call me back, fast. It’s urgent.”
He’d hardly closed the phone when it rang. He glanced at the face plate, saw with relief that it was her.
“Marilyn. Thanks for getting back to me so fast. No, I’m okay. I’m just in a messy situation, is all. See—” She interrupted. He blinked. “You’re where?”
She was in Istanbul. Five thousand miles away. Something about the first vacation she and her husband had taken in years, blah-blah-blah, but Rafe didn’t give a damn. All that registered was that she’d be gone another week.
“A week?” He shook his head as he navigated a particularly crowded stretch of Sixth Avenue. “Impossible. I have a problem. A personal problem. And—Marilyn?”
The call broke up, then died. Rafe cursed, hit redial. Marilyn picked up and said they had a bad connection.
“Yeah. I know. Listen, this problem I have—”
She interrupted again, told him to get in touch with her partner. He’d handle things. Rafe shook his head, as if she could see him. Sayers’s partner was ninety if he was a day, a starchy old guy who wore a vest, carried a pocket watch and took ten years to shuffle across a room.
Explain to him how he’d come to have a wife who wasn’t a wife? Ask him to expedite things so they could get divorced quickly because if they spent another day together, he was liable to strip his wife-who-wasn’t-a-wife out of her ugly black clothes and bare all her soft, sweet flesh to his eyes and hands and mouth?
“No good,” he growled. “I need you, not your partner.”
It was useless. Sayers was sorry but—The line went dead. Rafe snarled and closed the phone with a vengeful snap.
Okay. What now? Easy. Get Chiara out from under his roof. A week’s wait was nothing, once he’d done that. Out of sight, out of mind.
He’d find her a place to live. It was an excellent idea, one that would bolster the fact that the marriage wasn’t a marriage at all. And how hard could it be to find someplace to stash her? The city was loaded with real estate agents. He just needed one who’d move his request to the top of the list.
Of course!
Rafe flipped the phone open, checked his contact list again, hit a button.
“Chilton Realtors.”
“Elaine Chilton, please.”
It was the perfect solution. Why deal with an agent he didn’t know when he had one at his fingertips? He’d met the Chilton woman somewhere. A party, a dinner. It didn’t matter. She’d tugged his phone from his hand after he’d taken a call, smiled prettily and programmed in her number.
“In case you ever need me,” she’d purred.
He hadn’t. He’d been involved with Ingrid at the time but he sure as hell needed her now.
“Hello?”
“Elaine? It’s Rafe Orsini.”
“Well, well, well,” she said in a throaty whisper, “how are you, Mr. Orsini?”
He said he was fine and then he cut to the chase, said he was interested in seeing her.
“It’s urgent,” he said.
She gave a sexy little laugh. “How nice!”
Rafe felt a second’s unease. Were they talking about the same thing?
“Where are you?” she asked.
He told her.
“Perfect. I have a rental a couple of blocks away.”
“What’s it like?”
Another little laugh. “I’m sure you’ll think it’s perfect.” She gave him the address, told him to meet her there in twenty minutes.
Rafe disconnected, his concerns gone. Perfect? Absolutely. He checked his watch, turned down Fifty-seventh Street.
Half an hour later, he was striding towards his condo, furious at fate, at life, at his own stupidity.
Elaine Chilton had been waiting for him, all right… on a pale pink sofa in a red silk teddy and black stilettos, and okay, maybe he hadn’t handled things exactly right. Maybe you didn’t look at a half-naked woman and say, “Oh sorry! See, what I meant was, I’m interested in finding an apartment for this woman who’s living with me.”
Definitely a poor choice of words, he thought as he marched into his own apartment building, glowered at the hapless doorman and stepped into his elevator.
He probably deserved the names the Chilton babe had called him, if not the slap. At least he’d stopped himself from saying, “Okay, now that that’s out of the way, what about the rental?”
The car shot upward. Next step was to call a hotel. The Waldorf. The St. Regis. Not as homey as a furnished apartment but who cared? What counted was that Chiara would be there, he would be here. And as soon as Sayers was in her office, things would start to be okay.
The elevator door slid open. Rafe stepped out—and found Chiara, waiting for him as Elaine Chilton had been waiting.
Not quite.
No silk teddy. No stiletto heels. No pink sofa. Chiara was seated in his foyer in an Eames chair, back straight, knees all but locked, hands folded in her lap, dressed in yet another of those incredibly ugly black outfits.
Then, why did seeing her go through him like a surge of electricity?
“Raffaele.” She rose to her feet, hands still tightly clasped. “I am sorry.”
Her voice was small but her eyes were steady on his. She was that combination of vulnerability and defiance that got to him every time.
“I seem to say that to you a great deal but…” She licked her lips. He could no more have kept from following the quick swipe of her pink tongue than he could have kept from breathing. “But I overreacted. You were simply trying to save me from embarrassment in front of your housekeeper. I should have understood that.”
Rafe forced his gaze from her mouth. Not a good plan. He looked into her eyes, instead, and saw that they glittered with unshed tears.
“No,” he said, “it’s my fault. I’ve handled this all wrong. I know what you want and I—” Why was his voice so rough? He cleared his throat. “I’ve been in touch with my attorney.”
Chiara shook her head. Her hair was still loose. He’d set it free hours ago, when he’d kissed her. The wildness of her curls was in direct contrast to her black dress and sensible shoes.
“Please, let me finish. This is difficult for me but I must say it.” She drew a deep breath.
