Marriage on the Rebound. Michelle Reid

door, as always ready to see his responsibilities through to the bitter end. She had told him she didn’t want anyone else near her and he had taken her at her word—which therefore meant he could not desert her himself until he was satisfied he had seen this responsibility through to its conclusion.

      Which was—what? she asked herself.

      Rafe. The older brother. The more successful one. The head of the great Danvers empire. A man with shoulders more than broad enough to take whatever was thrust upon them.

      And Piers had certainly thrust her upon Rafe today, she thought with a bitter little smile.

      ‘Shaan…’

      The voice came from much closer and she opened her eyes, turning her head to stare blankly through the thick bank of steam permeating all around her—to find Rafe’s grim figure standing with a towel at the ready just outside the open shower cubicle door.

      ‘Who said you could come in here?’ she said, too numb to care about her own nakedness—both inside and out. The water was still gushing over her.

      He didn’t move his gaze from her face—not even to make a sweeping inspection of her naked body.

      ‘Come on,’ he said quietly, the towel held outstretched between his hands. ‘You’ve been in there long enough.’

      She laughed—why, she didn’t know—but it was a sound that fell a long way short of humour and probably sounded more bleak and helpless than anything else. Long enough for what? she wondered. After all, I’m not going anywhere, am I?

      Closing her eyes, she lifted her face back to the spray, effectively dismissing him.

      ‘Hiding in here isn’t going to make it all go away, you know,’ he said quietly.

      ‘Leave me alone, Rafe,’ she threw back flatly. ‘You’ve achieved what you set out to do; just leave me alone now.’

      ‘I’m afraid I can’t do that.’ One hand dropped a corner of the towel so he could reach into the cubicle and turn off the water.

      The new silence was engulfed in steam, emanating up from the wet tiles at her feet, and she glanced down to watch it swirl around her body, coiling up her long, slender legs and over the rounded contours of her hips, caressing as it wound around the firm swell of her breasts.

      ‘He didn’t want me,’ she murmured dully. ‘After all he said. He didn’t really want me.’

      The towel came softly about her shoulders, Rafe’s hands holding it there as he gently urged her out of the cubicle and turned her into his arms. ‘He wanted you, Shaan,’ he told her huskily. ‘But he loved Madeleine. In all fairness, he had no right to promise any other woman anything while he still loved her.’

      Yes, Madeleine, she thought emptily. Piers’ first and only love…‘And you had to bring her back into his life,’ she whispered accusingly.

      ‘Yes,’ he sighed, his hand moving gently on her back. ‘You won’t believe this, Shaan, but I’m sorry. I really am sorry…’

      For some reason his apology cut so deeply into her that she reared back from him and, with all the bright, burning, bitter condemnation bubbling hotly inside, she threw her hand hard against the side of his face.

      He took it, took it all, without even flinching. He didn’t even release the hold he had on her, but just stood looking back at her with those cool grey eyes opalescent in his graven face, his mouth a thin, grim line.

      She wanted to cry, but she couldn’t. She wanted to kick and scream and hit out at him again and again and again, in an effort to release all the hurt and anger culminating inside her, but she couldn’t. That one brief flash of violence seemed to have taken what bit of energy she had left from her. All she could do now was stand there in the circle of Rafe’s arms and stare up at him through huge black haunted eyes, wondering if that grim look he was wearing hid satisfaction or any guilt at all for what he had done.

      Rafe had warned her—as long as six weeks ago, he had warned her he wouldn’t just stand aside and let her marry his brother. From the first moment their eyes had met across the elegant width of Rafe’s luxurious home, his contempt for her had been there, vibrating on defences she hadn’t even known she possessed, until she clashed with that look.

      Until that moment she had just been Shaan Saketa, loving daughter of the late and much missed Tariq and Mary Saketa, proud of her mixed blood because she had never been made to feel otherwise—until those silver ice eyes had gone sliding over her.

      Then, for the first time in her life, she’d experienced what real prejudice felt like, and the rare combination of thick, straight jet-black hair, dark brown eyes and skin as smooth and pale as milk, which had been turning people’s heads in admiration all her life, suddenly became something to be sensitive about. She’d had to steel herself to actually take the hand Rafe had held out to her in formal greeting, knowing by sheer instinct that he had no wish to touch her or even be in the same room as her.

      Yet, oddly, not only had he taken the hand but he had held onto it—and clung to the new, very defensive look in her liquid brown eyes—the dark, dire expression in his had managed to chill the blood in her veins in appalled acknowledgement of what his grim expression was telling her.

      It had been the moment when Rafe Danvers had made sure she was rawly aware of her complete unsuitability to become one of the great Danvers family.

      Well, today he had won his battle. And now he could afford to be a little charitable, she supposed. Lend comfort to the defeated.

      She moved out of his arms, clutching the huge bath sheet around her trembling figure as she went back into her bedroom.

      Miraculously, there wasn’t a single sign of bridal attire about the place. The whole room had been completely swept clean of everything while she’d been hiding in the bathroom. The dress, the mad scatter of bits and pieces were all gone, leaving only her rose-pink bathrobe folded on the end of the bed, and her suitcases—so carefully packed the night before—still stacked neatly beside the bedroom door.

      She dropped the towel and picked up the robe, uncaring that Rafe had followed her back into the room and that she was once again exposing her nakedness to him. It didn’t seem to matter, not when the sight of her body held no interest for the man in question.

      She turned to glance at him, though, as she cinched the robe belt around her narrow waist. He was standing in the bathroom doorway, not leaning, but tense, his hard eyes hooded.

      ‘Your suit is wet,’ she told him, sending a flickering glance along his big, hard frame where the pale grey showed dark patches where she had leant against him.

      He shrugged with indifference and moved at last, walking across the now neat bedroom to her dressing table. ‘Here,’ he said, turning back to her and holding out a glass half-full of what could only be brandy.

      She smiled wryly at it. ‘Medicinal?’ she mocked, taking it from him and lowering herself carefully onto the end of the bed. From being rubber-limbed with shock, she was now stiff with it—so stiff, in fact, that even the simple act of sitting down was a painful effort.

      ‘Whatever you want to call it,’ he replied. ‘As it is…’ He turned again, lifting another glass in rueful acknowledgement to her. ‘I’m in need of the same.’ And he came to sit down beside her. ‘Drink it,’ he advised. ‘I can assure you, it will help.’

      She swirled the dark amber liquid around the glass for a moment before lifting it to her bloodless lips. He did the same, sitting close to her, his arm brushing against hers as he moved it up and down.

      It was strange, really, but, having spent the last six weeks avoiding touching her at all costs—except for that one brief contamination when they had been formally introduced—Rafe now seemed quite happy to be as close to her as he could get.

      She glanced at him from beneath her thick black lashes, seeing the rigid tension in his square jaw, in the harsh line of