A Convenient Husband (4 page)

Tess choked back a sob and turned her ashen face away from him. ‘I've been so selfish keeping him. I should have encouraged Chloe to take an active part in…' The horror in her voice deepened as she wailed. ‘He won't know what's happening…God, what have I done…?'

Rafe dropped down on his knees beside her chair and took her chin firmly in his hand. ‘You loved him,' he rebuked her quietly. ‘There's one person you haven't mentioned…'

Tess looked at him blankly.

‘What about the father?'

Tess's slender back stiffened defensively. ‘What about him?'

‘Doesn't he have some influence? I take it she does know who…'

‘Of course she does.'

‘He's been providing financial support?'

‘He's not around.'

‘You could contact him and ask—'

‘He's dead,' she interrupted harshly. ‘He died before Ben was born. Chloe is getting married, that's why she feels that now is the time to have Ben live with her.'

‘Who's the lucky man?'

‘Ian Osborne.'

Rafe's brow wrinkled. ‘That name seems familiar.'

‘Ian Osborne the actor…?'

Rafe shook his head.

‘He's got his own series…'

Rafe nodded. ‘The medical soap.'

‘Drama,' Tess corrected automatically.

‘A canny career move on Chloe's part rather than true love, I take it.'

‘Actually, she's besotted,' Tess told him gloomily. From their telephone conversation she had the impression that Ian Osborne had a lot to do with Chloe's change of heart.

‘You're such a cynic, Rafe.'

‘Better than being a victim.'

His casual contempt really hurt. ‘I am not—!'

He was pleased to see the spark of anger in her eyes; anger was way better than that awful dull, despairing blankness.

‘Whatever,' he drawled. ‘You could convince this Osborne guy he doesn't want a kid around.' With a thoughtful expression he drew a hand slowly through his thick hair.

Tess stared at him. Only Rafe could come up with an idea like that and make it sound reasonable. ‘I don't think I want to know what machiavellian schemes are running around in your warped little mind. I need to do what is best for Ben,' she responded firmly, trying to sound braver than she felt. ‘I need to do what I should have been doing all along, I need to prepare Ben to go live with his mother.'

If it was going to happen she'd have to put her feelings on the back burner and make this transition as painless as possible. And if Chloe and this Ian person made him unhappy she'd make them wish they'd never been born!

‘You can't prepare someone to lose the only mother they've ever known!' His hooded eyes were veiled as she stiffly turned away from him. ‘What we need is inspiration. In the meantime, will you settle for coffee?'

‘I don't want coffee.'

‘You need it; you're drunk.'

She opened her mouth to deny this when it occurred to her he was probably right. If she weren't drunk they wouldn't be having this conversation. If she weren't drunk his shirt wouldn't still be damp from her copious tears.

‘Don't move, I'll make it.'

Tess, who hadn't been going to offer, retained her seat. If she hadn't felt so dog-tired she might have asked Rafe since when he'd made her problem his crusade. She already knew, of course, even if he didn't recognise the reason himself at least consciously. The parallels might be tenuous, but she could see exactly why he was so fired up.

Rafe had doted on his own mother; he still did. The reasons that had made her run away, leaving her two young sons behind, had been wide and varied depending on who you listened to in the small community—everyone had their own pet theory.

To say Rafe's relationship with his stepmother had been bad would have been like saying he was
quite
tall and
fairly
good-looking. A child of seven or eight didn't have the weapons required to prevent a clever, manipulative woman from alienating him from his father. These days Rafe wasn't short of weapons, or overburdened with moral qualms about using them. In short, Rafe could be pretty ruthless. Maybe that was what the situation called for…? She firmly pushed aside the tempting idea of letting Rafe have free rein.

A few minutes later Rafe returned carrying two mugs of strong black coffee. ‘Do you take sugar? I couldn't remember…'

The small figure on the rocker stirred restlessly in her sleep, but didn't waken.

G
ROANING
,
Tess subsided weakly back against the pillow. Her head felt as though it might well explode.

‘That wine should carry a warning.' The not unsympathetic response to her visible discomfort came from a point not too far from her left ear.

If her head hadn't felt so fragile she'd have nodded in rueful agreement. ‘If I go so far as to look at that stuff again…' With a disorientated gasp she opened her heavy eyelids with a snap—actually, in her head it sounded like a loud, painful clang.

Dark eyes smiled solicitously back at her. Her disorientation deepened and the clanging got infinitely worse.

‘You're in my bed.'

Tess tried to sound as though finding an extraordinarily attractive man in her bed was an everyday occurrence. She failed miserably to achieve the right degree of insouciance.

Her manic thoughts continued to race around in unhelpful circles without delivering a single clue to explain away this bizarre situation.

‘
On
your bed,' Rafe corrected pedantically as he curved an arm comfortably under his neck and rolled onto one side.

Did that make a difference? She hoped it did! A quick glance beneath the cosy duvet confirmed she was still wearing the least glamorous night apparel in her admittedly largely unglamorous wardrobe. Tess felt anything but cosy at that moment but she did clutch eagerly at this small crumb of comfort. And Rafe was fully clothed; that had to be a good sign…
didn't it
?

A sign of what? a drily satirical voice in her head enquired. It wasn't as if Rafe had ever displayed anything remotely resembling interest in her body. Why would he, when he had an obvious weakness for the tall, statuesque type? His married lover was probably another in the long line of blonde confident goddesses.

When she looked at the situation sensibly Tess was forced to concede that it bordered on the bizzarely improbable that he'd been overcome by lust! A fact which ought to have cheered her up, but since when did being forced to face the fact you didn't have any sex appeal cheer up any girl?

Hell! I just wish I could remember so I know what I need to forget!

Unfortunately her amnesia only covered the problem of how, when and with whom—cancel the with whom, that was fairly obvious—she had gone to bed. The other awful events of the previous day were not at all fuzzy. Chloe and her betrothed were coming to take Ben to the zoo. Even Chloe had recognized—after a little judicious nudging—that she couldn't remove her baby son without a little preparatory work.

Discovering she'd done something she would definitely regret with
Rafe
of all people might confirm her irresistibility, but it would also round off the worst day of her life
perfectly
! No, I couldn't have…could I…? She surreptitiously searched his handsome face for some clue and discovered only a moderate degree of amusement, which could mean just about anything.

‘It isn't the first time I've shared your bed, Tess—not by a long chalk, if you recall.'

Tess was surprised at the reference. Her tense expression softened. She did recall; she recalled hugging his skinny juvenile body to her own and as often as not falling to sleep with his dark head cradled against her flat chest.

The poignant image unexpectedly brought a lump to her throat. She'd never had a friendship as close as the one she'd once shared with a much younger, more vulnerable Rafe. It wasn't reasonable to expect that degree of intimacy to extend into adulthood, but it was depressing to realise how far apart they'd grown recently. If something was that good it was worth making a bit of effort to preserve it. Their friendship might not have thrived on neglect, but at least it hadn't withered and died.

She let out a tiny sigh and allowed herself to feel hopeful. If this time had been as innocent as those far-off occasions he was referring to, she had nothing to worry about. She'd have felt even more relieved if Rafe didn't have the sort of voice that could make something as innocent as a nursery rhyme sound suggestive.

‘Is the old walnut tree still outside the bedroom window?'

These days women usually opened the door for him…except for Claudine…His eyes grew chilly as he recalled that significant door that had been closed firmly in his face. Pity it hadn't closed before he'd made a total fool of himself!

‘No, it was diseased, we had to have it chopped down,' Tess told him in a brisk tone that didn't even hint at how upset she'd been by this necessity.

‘Time gets to us all,' he sighed mournfully.

Her eyes made a swift, resentful journey over his large, virile person.
Sure
, he looked really decrepit! To add insult to injury, she suspected that even in this sizzlingly spectacular condition he was some way off his prime just yet.

‘It doesn't seem right,' he continued. ‘A Walnut Cottage without a walnut tree.'

The same thought had occurred to her but she didn't let on. ‘You're not going all nostalgic on me, are you? If it makes you feel any better,' she conceded, ‘I planted several seedlings after they cut the old one down. And in the interests of accuracy I ought to point out that this was Gran's room back then; so was the bed.'

The one he had shared with her had been a narrow metal-framed affair that would probably collapse under him these days, she thought, letting her eyes roam over his lengthy, muscular frame.

Who'd have thought that skinny kid would turn into something as perfectly developed as this awesome specimen? Aware that her breath was coming faster as her eyes lingered, she took a deep breath and passed the tip of her tongue over her dry lips. When she swallowed, her throat was equally dry and aching as if she wanted to cry—only she didn't.

It was all right to notice that a man oozed sexual magnetism; it was quite another to let the fact turn you ga-ga. Rafe had enough people raving on about his physical perfection without her joining the fan club! She looked up anxiously to see if he'd noticed her drooling display and saw his eyes weren't on her face at all.

‘A lot of things have changed since then.' His deep voice was warmly appreciative as he continued to stare at the up-tilted outline of her small breasts.

He lifted his head and his eyes were slumberously sexy. Her breasts responded as though he'd touched the soft mounds of quivering flesh with his warm mouth. The startling image banished all rational thoughts from her head for one long, steamy moment. Nostrils flared, cheeks burning, she fought her way back to sanity.

‘Some things don't change—things like your complete disregard for other people's feelings.' It was a whopping big lie, so to justify it she began to feverishly search her memory for some example to prove her point. Triumphantly she discovered one. ‘Your family must have worried like crazy about you when you went missing all those times…?' Looking at it now through adult eyes, she saw aspects to Rafe's frequent nocturnal wanderings that her childish eyes had never seen.

‘If concern is expressed by the vigour of the punishment, they were
deeply
concerned.' Something in his cynical voice made her search his stony face.

The memory of the bruises she'd once seen on his back when they had all gone swimming popped into her head. Suddenly all those times he'd refused to take off his heavy, long-sleeved sweater on a hot summer day made horrible sense. Everything clicked into place and she felt sick.

Tess forgot her throbbing head; she jerked herself upright.

Outrage glowed in her eyes. ‘He hit you!' She thought of Guy Farrar with his mean little mouth and big meaty fists and her skin crawled. ‘You never said!' she began angrily.

Nobody, not her dimly remembered parents or dear gran Aggie had ever laid a finger on her. Her chest felt tight and her eyes stung. She knew now what should have been obvious to her ages ago: their efforts to force Rafe to fit the mould of a perfect Farrar had gone beyond the verbal chastisements she'd heard often enough for herself…they'd tried to beat him into submission!

‘Leave it, Tess,' Rafe said curtly.

‘But—!'

‘You're hyperventilating,' he told her, studying with clinical interest the agitated rise and fall of her small but shapely breasts. So, he'd noticed she had breasts! It was no big deal. However, noticing was one thing, staring was another. He firmly averted his eyes.

Tess wasn't about to apologise for her emotional response; she couldn't understand his lack of it! ‘I'm not!' she denied breathlessly. ‘Doesn't it make you mad?' she persisted incredulously.

For a long time it had, but Rafe had no intention of explaining how much effort and determination it had taken him to finally shelve the resentment that had simmered for years.

Her firm jaw tightened and her smouldering eyes narrowed. ‘I'd like to—!' she began hotly.

Rafe took hold of her hands and, inserting his thumbs inside her clenched fingers, slowly unfurled her white-knuckled fists. ‘I can see what you'd like to do…' he remonstrated softly.

Rafe frequently thanked his lucky stars that his only personal legacy from a father who'd automatically raised his fist on the frequent occasions when his troublesome younger son had annoyed him was a deep revulsion for violence and individuals who used it to control those who were weaker and more vulnerable. He was well aware that all too often the pattern repeated itself in each successive generation.

There had only been the one occasion when he'd used his physical strength to punish someone else—actually there had been three of them, sixth formers who had been making the life of another fourth former a living hell.

It was a sad fact of life, he reflected, but some kids had victim written all over them, and bullies of all ages could smell fear. You only had to be a little bit different—different but desperate to be the same as everyone else.

Rafe had walked into the common room one day to find them holding the kid up against a wall taking it in turns to punch him. He'd literally seen red; a red haze had actually danced before his eyes. That day he'd rid himself of several devils, and got expelled.

The touch of his thumb against the skin of her palm made Tess grow very still. The odd shivery sensation deep inside brought a troubled frown to her smooth wide brow as, warily, her eyes encountered his rather dark, rather luscious velvety orbs.

She hadn't been prepared to discover this sort of intensity in the searching quality of his dark glance. Quite suddenly the quality of the tension that gripped her altered. If anything, this fresh, tingling jolt of sexual awareness was even more intense than before. It left her incapable of doing anything but staring dry-throated and breathless back at him.

‘I know you're aching to ask…'

Tess ignored the melting sensation low in her belly. It was perfectly understandable—Rafe's low drawl was pitched at an intimate, toe-curling level guaranteed to bemuse, bewilder and befuddle just about any female with a hormone to call her own. Tess's hormones, after years of wilful neglect, were staging an ill-timed comeback. She was aching all right, in ways she didn't want to think about; it was all extremely embarrassing.

‘But, no, I didn't accept your drunken invitation. However, I couldn't leave you asleep in that chair so I carried you up to bed.'

‘I didn't invite you into my bed!' Fists clenched, she robustly rejected his gentle taunt.

Stomach lurching horridly, she glanced uncomfortably at the solidity of his biceps. It wasn't difficult to see how he'd carried her up the stairs. It was so easy, in fact, that a ridiculously romanticised version of this event was playing in her head at that very second. The only thing that was difficult to see was how she'd forgotten it…

‘No,' he agreed with a grin that was slightly strained around the edges. The frequent occasions in the night when she'd cuddled up to him couldn't legitimately be called invitations—they could be called extremely…provoking, however, and they had been a reminder that, though his heart might be broken, his more basic bodily functions were still in full working order!

The enigmatic quirk of his sensual lips sent her tummy muscles into a fresh series of uncomfortable fluttery acrobatics. Tess ruthlessly gathered her straying wits and recognised that this was only half an explanation. Rafe had carried her up, but that didn't mean he'd had to stay—in fact if he'd been a gentleman the idea would have occurred to him!

‘And you were overcome by exhaustion…?' she suggested tartly.

‘I guess I was,' he conceded, not responding to the challenge in her eyes.

Tess permitted herself a little snort of disbelief. He didn't look exhausted; in fact, she decided crankily, it ought to be illegal for anyone to exude that sort of vitality this early in the morning.

‘Trust
you
to turn out to be a morning person,' she grumbled.

‘Not exclusively,' Rafe corrected her solemnly.

Tess's puzzled frown encountered the sensual, amused gleam in his eyes; a few seconds later heat washed over her as the meaning of his smutty innuendo hit home.