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‘It’s okay, Uncle Rafe, Mummy and Daddy kiss each other all the time,’ Daisy told him in that patronizing tone of voice that only a precocious six-year-old could possibly use when talking to an adult. ‘’Course I didn’t know that you and Aunty Cairo kissed, too, but I suppose it’s all right.’ She shrugged.
‘That’s very—adult, of you, Daisy,’ Rafe told her dryly.
‘Grown-ups are always kissing and stuff,’ Daisy assured him with a total lack of interest.
Cairo was hastily dealing with her bikini top—not having as much luck fastening it as Rafe had done unfastening it because her fingers trembled so much!—but even so she was aware of the muscles rippling in Rafe’s back as he suppressed a chuckle at Daisy’s bored dismissal of the scene she had just witnessed.
Cairo certainly didn’t share his humour concerning this totally embarrassing situation. Rafe had only been back in her life a matter of hours and already she was allowing him to kiss her!
Well…no, she hadn’t exactly allowed him to kiss her— being Rafe he had just taken the opportunity to kiss her.
And he wasn’t ‘back in her life’, either—something she intended making very plain to him the next time they were alone together.
So far today Rafe had mocked her, taunted her and insulted her—he certainly wasn’t going to get away with making love to her whenever he felt like it!
Cairo drew in a controlling breath as she stepped out from behind Rafe, her bikini top now firmly back in place. ‘What would you like to do first, Daisy, cook dinner or phone Mummy?’
Daisy’s face instantly brightened. ‘Phone Mummy!’
‘We’ll go and do it right now,’ Cairo promised, determinedly keeping her gaze averted from Rafe’s as she crossed the kitchen to take the excited Daisy’s hand in her own.
‘Don’t worry about me,’ Rafe drawled behind them. ‘I’ll just stay here and clear up this sticky juice from the floor, shall I?’
Cairo turned back to give him a mocking smile. ‘That’s very kind of you, Rafe,’ she accepted lightly. ‘I’m sure you’ll find everything you need in the cupboard under the sink,’ she added.
His eyes glittered dangerously. ‘Not everything that I need, Cairo,’ he ground out harshly.
She gave him a censorious frown. ‘Just do your best, hmm?’ she snapped.
‘I usually do,’ he stated deliberately.
Cairo shot him a silencing glare before leaving the kitchen, Daisy’s hand still tucked trustingly in her own.
CHAPTER THREE
RAFE had showered, dressed, already had the barbecue alight and ready for cooking the steaks for their dinner, and was sitting on the terrace drinking another glass of white wine by the time Cairo and Daisy rejoined him outside. Daisy looked very cute in her blue corduroy skirt and pink T-shirt, and Cairo looked even better in flat sandals, her tanned legs bare, and a dark green, knee-length, strappy silk dress that clung in all the right places.
Or—depending on your point of view—all the wrong ones, Rafe allowed wryly as his gaze lingered on the bareness of her tanned shoulders and the tops of her breasts.
It had been a mistake to kiss Cairo earlier, he acknowledged now. But it was simply the most recent of the many mistakes he had made where she was concerned—allowing himself to fall for her eight years ago having definitely been the worst one of them all….
His mouth tightened as he raised his gaze to hers. ‘Help yourself to a glass of wine,’ he invited as she moved to sit down at the other end of the marble-topped dining table. ‘How was Margo?’
‘Very well,’ Cairo answered distantly as she poured some of the white wine into a second glass—and having absolutely no intention of telling him what her sister’s reply had been when Cairo had challenged her over Rafe’s arrival earlier today.
‘Get over yourself!’ had been Margo’s unhelpful comment.
It wasn’t herself Cairo had to get over—it was Rafe’s mockery of her and her resentment towards him!
‘It’s high time the two of you got over that, too,’ had been Margo’s response to that claim.
Not exactly helpful advice when even now Cairo could feel the antagonism between Rafe and herself burning beneath the surface of this polite exchange.
Not that Rafe looked particularly concerned by it. In fact, he looked altogether too disturbingly handsome in faded denims and an open-necked, short-sleeved shirt the same shade of blue as his eyes, the dampness of his hair brushed back from those hard, aristocratically chiselled features inherited from his Spanish father.
Cairo had chosen her own dress for this evening with care, knowing she would need all her self-confidence to face Rafe again after that heated exchange in the kitchen. She had also swept her hair up and secured it loosely on her crown, leaving her neck and shoulders bare, her face already lightly tanned and requiring only a peach gloss applied to her lips.
The lips that still felt tinglingly sensitive and slightly bruised from the force of Rafe’s kiss!
‘Mummy said to say hello, Uncle Rafe,’ Daisy told him happily.
‘Did she, now?’ he drawled.
‘Yes.’ The little girl nodded. ‘And she hopes you do well at the film festival.’
‘That’s very thoughtful of her,’ Rafe accepted dryly— he had a few things he intended saying personally to Margo once Daisy was safely tucked up in bed! ‘Can your aunty Cairo make a salad, do you think?’ he teased gently as he stood up to turn the steaks on the barbecue.
Daisy gave a giggle. ‘Aunty Cairo cooked omelettes last night.’
‘Did she now?’ Rafe quirked dark, mocking brows. ‘She’s obviously a woman of many talents!’ he added with a taunting sideways glance at ‘Aunty Cairo’.
Daisy seemed completely unaware of the intended insult to her aunt, singing quietly to herself as she began to lay the table outside for the three of them.
But Cairo certainly wasn’t, the narrow-eyed glare she gave Rafe letting him know in no uncertain terms that she wasn’t amused.
Rafe returned Cairo’s look for several long seconds, his smile derisive, before he turned his full attention to cooking the steaks. The problem was that Cairo was just too beautiful for him—or any other man!—to look at for too long without wanting to take her to bed.
Which was something that was never going to happen ever again, Rafe told himself grimly, in spite of the fact that he had enjoyed kissing her earlier. No, he’d more than enjoyed it—he had been wanting to repeat the experience ever since.
Eight years, dammit—and within hours of seeing her again Rafe’s body ached with the desire that had been aroused earlier and remained unfulfilled!
‘How is Margo, really?’ he asked once Daisy had gone into the kitchen to collect the cutlery.
Cairo shrugged those delectably bare shoulders. ‘She believes that the specialist is thinking of admitting her to the clinic tomorrow if her blood pressure hasn’t gone down by then.’
Rafe could hear the underlying concern in Cairo’s voice. ‘She wasn’t ill like this with Daisy, was she?’
‘Not as far as I’m aware, no.’ Cairo frowned. ‘I haven’t spent a great deal of time in England the last few years, Rafe,’ she explained sharply as he raised questioning brows.
His lip curled scornfully. ‘Too busy making a name for yourself in Hollywood, I expect.’
‘That’s where Lionel lived, Rafe,’ she said defensively as she heard the censure in his tone. ‘And where he worked. It was only natural that I should mainly work there, too.’
Really, this man seemed to think that everything she did, everything she said, was suspect—especially if it allowed him to make some cutting comment about it!
‘I seem to remember that you once said your main love was the stage,’ he said huskily. ‘I even talked of moving to England for a while so that I could be with you when you accepted the part you had been offered in The Graduate.’
Cairo gave a pained frown. Yes, Rafe had talked of staying temporarily in England. But that had been before he’d become bored with their relationship and had an affair with another woman!
Her mouth tightened. ‘So you could be with me and all those other adoring females panting at your bedroom door!’ she dismissed scathingly. ‘If you’ll excuse me, Rafe,’ she added, standing up abruptly, ‘I need to go and make the salad.’
* * *
Dinner hadn’t exactly been a relaxed meal, Cairo acknowledged ruefully as they cleared everything away a couple of hours later. Thankfully Daisy, reassured after her earlier chat on the telephone with her mother, was back to her normal, talkative self, and her chatter had filled in the silence that had existed between Rafe and Cairo. The two of them had barely addressed a word directly to one another— ‘could you please pass the salt?’ really didn’t count as conversation!
Rafe excused himself to make a telephone call while Cairo put Daisy to bed, delaying as long as she possibly could in her niece’s bedroom before rejoining Rafe on the terrace. She finally came outside to find him watching the last rays of sunset gleaming redly in the rapidly darkening sky, dozens of lights on in the houses dotted in the valley below.
Cairo stood hesitantly in the doorway, not altogether comfortable with the air of intimacy that surrounded him.
‘Sit down, Cairo,’ he ordered without turning.
She gasped. ‘How did you—?’
‘Your perfume,’ he elaborated as he turned to look at her. ‘Stop hovering over there in the doorway, Cairo, and come and sit down.’
Her eyes widened indignantly at his autocratic tone. ‘You always were arrogant, Rafe. I’m sure that as a director you wield a lot of authority, but I can assure you—’
‘For God’s sake, sit down, Cairo!’ He turned to look at her, blue eyes glittering brightly in the semi-darkness. ‘I want to talk to you about Margo,’ he added impatiently as she remained unmoving in the doorway.
‘Oh. Fine.’ She moved to sit in the chair furthest away from his own. ‘That’s who you were talking to on the telephone just now?’
‘It’s good to know that all those years of marriage to Lionel Bond didn’t completely dull your intelligence!’
‘Rafe—’
‘Will you just shut up and listen for once, Cairo?’ He stood up to move restlessly to the edge of the terrace. ‘I spoke to Jeff, as it happens. Apparently Margo, for obvious reasons, was deliberately keeping the situation light when she spoke to you and Daisy earlier.’ His expression was grim. ‘They’re concerned about the baby now, as well as Margo, and the doctor’s intention is to admit her tomorrow and perform a Caesarian section.’
Cairo stood up abruptly. ‘I’ll make arrangements for myself and Daisy to return home immediately—’
‘That’s the last thing Jeff wants you to do!’ Rafe turned to her swiftly. ‘Cairo, he has no idea how the operation is going to turn out, for either Margo or the baby, and the last thing he wants is for Daisy to go back to England and get caught up in the middle of that uncertainty. Even if the operation is a success, Margo and the baby will have to stay in hospital for several days, so there’ll be plenty of time then for you to arrange to get back for her homecoming.’
‘Even if the operation is a success’ was the only thing in Rafe’s last statement that registered with Cairo….
She swallowed hard. ‘Is there— What do they think the chances are of them both being okay?’
Rafe wasn’t enjoying this conversation at all. He knew that the two sisters, having lost both parents in a car accident ten years ago, had remained emotionally close, even though they had lived on different continents for years. It was because of the sisters’ closeness that Rafe had got to know Margo and Jeff in the first place….
‘Cairo—’
‘Just answer me, will you, please, Rafe?’ she said tautly, her eyes gleaming brightly with unshed tears, her hands clenched at her sides as she faced him tensely.
Under other circumstances—with any other woman— Rafe knew he would have taken her in his arms and comforted her. But after what had happened between the two of them earlier, Rafe didn’t dare touch Cairo again!
Instead he remained where he was, several feet away, his expression remote. ‘Jeff believes there’s a good chance that both Margo and the baby will be fine—’
‘Thank God!’ Cairo breathed her relief, some of the tension relaxing in her shoulders. ‘But…?’ she added shrewdly, as if she sensed that Rafe hadn’t told her everything Jeff had said.
Rafe grimaced at her perception. ‘He also asked if the two of us would remain here with Daisy until he knows exactly what’s happening.’ And if Cairo thought he was any happier about that request than she was, then she was completely mistaken! ‘The idea being that, between the two of us, we keep Daisy so busy, at least over the next couple of days, that she doesn’t have too much time to telephone or think too much about what’s going on at home.’
Cairo blinked. ‘Jeff wants the two of us to stay on here together?’ she repeated incredulously.
Rafe’s mouth tightened at her tone. ‘I can be civilized about this if you can, Cairo.’
As far as Cairo was concerned it wasn’t a question of either of them being ‘civilized’. She had been hoping, once Daisy was in bed, that she and Rafe could finally have a sensible conversation about one of them leaving. Preferably Rafe. And preferably this evening!
But Jeff’s request had quashed that idea and instead her brother-in-law was asking her to stay on here with Rafe. Well, obviously not just with Rafe—if Daisy weren’t here, then Jeff wouldn’t have needed to make the request in the first place.
Cairo knew perfectly well it would be Rafe who would be the dominant presence over the next couple of days; it was obvious the two of them couldn’t even be in the same country without arguing.
As indicated by this conversation alone!
But at the same time she recognized that Jeff did have a point; after only a few hours Cairo could see the rapport between Rafe and Daisy, and that being with him had already lightened the little girl’s introspective mood. That those same few hours had been absolute purgatory for Cairo really shouldn’t come into the equation when it was Daisy’s peace of mind they were all concerned about.
Nevertheless…
She frowned. ‘Do you actually have to stay here at the villa for us to do that?’
‘I own it, Cairo!’ Rafe reminded her irritably.
She shrugged. ‘Then maybe I should be the one to move to a hotel—’
‘Will you stop being so childish!’ Rafe interrupted forcefully. ‘Or is it just that you don’t trust yourself to be alone here with me even for a couple of days?’ he jeered.
Her eyes glittered with anger as she instantly responded with all the sarcasm of which she was capable. ‘Don’t flatter yourself, Rafe!’
‘Oh, yeah, I forgot.’ His mouth twisted with distaste. ‘You’ve had so many lovers the last few years you were probably looking forward to a break for a few weeks!’
‘I didn’t have any lovers during my marriage!’ Cairo protested vehemently.
He shrugged. ‘That wasn’t what Bond said ten months ago.’
‘He was angry at the time, making things up,’ Cairo defended herself a little shakily.
‘Sure he was—’
‘Don’t use that patronizing tone with me, Rafe!’ she blazed at him. ‘I did not have an affair during my marriage to Lionel!’
Rafe’s brows rose. ‘Aren’t you protesting a little too much, Cairo?’ he taunted softly.
She shook her head. ‘I’m merely trying to explain that Lionel was upset when he made those accusations, because I had left him.’ Her chin rose. ‘Besides, your own numerous relationships over the years haven’t exactly been a well- kept secret!’ she challenged.
As his clandestine relationship eight years ago with his co-star Pamela Raines hadn’t remained the secret he had hoped, either…
‘The difference being that I’m not married,’ he pointed out.
‘No, you’ve never made that commitment, have you, Rafe?’ she scorned.
‘Not if it meant I was ultimately going to end up with an unfaithful wife like you, no,’ he rasped.
