her gaze drawn to him by a force the passage of time hadn’t changed. There should be a law against looking so good, so fit and healthy and virile. So very irresistible.
Unlike her, Rafe Angeliri hadn’t changed in the three months since she had seen him last. His dark blue designer business suit and crisp white shirt paid homage to the superior athletic build it covered. Long muscled legs, broad chest and toned arms and an abdomen so hard and flat you could have cracked open a coconut. The open neck of his shirt revealed the tanned column of his throat and a tiny glimpse of masculine black chest hair. Aftershave-model-handsome, tall and lean with a clean-shaven, take-no-prisoners jaw, he commanded a room just by entering it. His slightly wavy black hair was neither long nor short but somewhere stylishly in between, brushed back from his intelligent forehead and curling against the edges of his shirt collar. The loosely casual hairstyle belied the relentless drive and meticulous focus of his personality.
However, his hazel eyes were even more cynical and there were vertical lines running down each side of his mouth that hadn’t been there before.
But there was one other difference Isla detected before he quickly masked it—shock. It rippled across his features, sharpened his gaze, froze his movements until he was as still as a marble statue. But only for a microsecond. He had always had far better self-control than anyone she knew, certainly better than her, and yet she had always prided herself on her ability to mask her feelings. How else had she survived all those childhood foster home placements with perfect strangers?
‘Isla.’ Rafe gave a nod that somehow managed to be both formal and insulting. ‘To what do I owe the pleasure of finding you waiting beside my bed?’
Isla stepped away from the bed as if it had suddenly burst into flames. Being anywhere near a bed when Rafe was within touching distance was a bad idea. A very tempting but bad, bad, bad idea. They had spent more time in bed than out of it during their short and volatile fling. Sex had brought them together in a thunderclap of attraction at their first meeting in a bar—an explosion of lust that had sent shockwaves through her entire body. She hadn’t really enjoyed sex until she experienced it with Rafe. It had been out of this world sex and even now she could feel the memories of it coursing through her body. Little pulses and tingles in her flesh—the flesh he had awakened with his lips and tongue, as if being in the same room as him triggered her body into remembering, longing, wanting.
Isla snatched up some fresh towels from her trolley, desperate to hide the slight bulge of her belly. No one was going to be cracking coconuts on her abdomen any time soon. She had never had a particularly flat stomach, which made her hope Rafe wouldn’t notice the slight change in it now. It had always surprised her that he had found her so attractive. She was nothing like the super-slim and glamorous women he normally dated. She was desperate to occupy her hands in case they were tempted to slap that imperious look off his too-handsome face. Or worse—pull his head down to crash his mouth against hers to make her forget everything but the heat and fire of his masterful, mesmerising, bone-melting kiss.
‘I work at this hotel. Now, if you’ll let me finish your room, I’ll get out of your way and—’
‘I thought you were going back to London to resume your Fine Arts degree?’ A frown tugged at his brow, his green and brown flecked gaze holding hers with the force of a searchlight. ‘Wasn’t that the plan?’
‘I...I changed my mind.’ Isla swung away and strode into the bathroom with the towels. She placed the new ones on the towel racks and then gathered up the damp ones, bundling them against her body like a barrier. Her plans had changed as soon as she found out she was pregnant.
Everything had changed.
Rafe followed her into the palatial bathroom, his presence shrinking it to the size of a tissue box. Isla caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror over the twin basins and inwardly groaned. She had never been more conscious of her lack of make-up, the dark circles under her eyes, the lankness of her red-gold hair under her housemaid’s cap. Or the secret swell of her belly beneath her housemaid’s white frilly apron. Was he comparing her to his latest lover? She had seen photos of him with numerous women in the time since she had brought their relationship to an end. She wondered if it had been deliberate on his part—to be seen out and about with as many women as possible as an I’ll show you how quickly I can move on from you slap to her ego. After all, Isla had been the one to end their fling, which clearly wasn’t something he was used to. Women were queuing up to be with him, not rushing to leave.
‘That was rather sudden, was it not?’ His voice contained a note of scepticism that matched the piercing focus of his gaze. ‘I thought you liked living in London?’
Isla sucked in her tummy to her backbone. She straightened the toiletries on the marble counter for something to do with her hands, annoyed they weren’t as steady as she would have liked. ‘I felt ready for a change of scene. Anyway, I could no longer afford living in London.’
His top lip curled and his glittering eyes pulsated with barely controlled anger. ‘Is there someone else? Is that why you called time on us?’
Isla met his gaze in the mirror, her stomach freefalling at the bitterness shining in his eyes. ‘Us? We weren’t an “us” and you know it. It was a fling, that’s all, and I wanted it to end.’
‘Liar.’ The word came out like a bullet. Hard. Direct. Bullseye. ‘At least have the decency to be honest with me.’
Honest? How could she be honest about anything about herself? About her background. About her shame. It didn’t matter if she was wearing haute couture or hand-me-downs, the shame burned like a flame inside her. ‘There’s no one else. I told you in my note—I simply wanted out.’
Finding out she was carrying Rafe’s baby had thrown Isla into a terrifying world of uncertainty. The thought of him rejecting her, throwing her and their baby out of his life like her father had done to her had been too painful. She couldn’t think of any way she could tell him about her pregnancy that wouldn’t cause irreversible destruction in his life. She hadn’t known him long enough or well enough to trust he wouldn’t try and pressure her into having an abortion. Not that she would have allowed him or anyone to do that. She had enough doubts about her own mothering ability. She had been in and out of foster care since she was seven; her memories of her own mother were patchy at best, painful at worst. What sort of mother would she make? It was a constant nagging toothache type of worry that kept her awake at night. The doubts and fears throbbed on the inside of her skull like miniature hammers.
‘Ah, yes. Your note.’ There was a disparaging bite to Rafe’s tone.
Isla forced herself to hold his searing gaze. She put on her game face, the one she had perfected over the years. The face that had helped her survive yet another placement with strangers. The mask of cool indifference that belied the churning, burning, yearning emotions fighting for room in her chest.
‘You’re the one who needs to be honest. You’re only angry because I was the one to leave you. But you would’ve called time sooner rather than later. None of your flings last longer than a month at the most. I was already on borrowed time.’
A muscle worked in the lower quadrant of his jaw, his eyes still brewing and boiling with bitterness. ‘Couldn’t you have waited until I got home from New York to speak to me face to face? Or is that why you didn’t come with me on that trip while I negotiated that deal? Because you’d always planned to leave while I was away. You didn’t want to risk having me try to change your mind.’
Isla pressed her lips together, struggling to keep her own temper in check. She had known how important that deal was to him. The biggest
