Modern Romance Books September Books 5-8. Annie West

her pulses quickened. Her brain wanted to box this up and neatly label it as the business deal it was, but her body wasn’t falling into line. Her body was too aware of the ring on her finger and all the grey areas that highlighted.

      Looking down, she was startled when she felt the light brush of Rafael’s finger under her chin.

      ‘Look at me,’ he encouraged softly.

      ‘What?’ She jerked back but their eyes locked, and she found she couldn’t tear her gaze away.

      She’d ended up paying little attention to him during the meal. She’d been conscious of him, but her father had consumed her attention. Now, Rafael, her husband, seemed to suck the oxygen out of the atmosphere, leaving her breathless and acutely aware of his intense, smouldering masculinity.

      The other guests—stepbrother, with whom she had barely exchanged a glance, aside—had been young and attractive. Several of the women had been attached to typical corporate-looking types and had been effusive and welcoming, eager to please the man who made sure their husbands were handsomely paid. Others, like the striking, dark-skinned woman who’d sat next to Rafael, with whom he had been discussing business for most of the meal, had clearly been colleagues.

      ‘You did well. If you were nervous, then you did a good job of hiding it.’

      ‘Isn’t that part and parcel of the game we’re playing?’ She looked at him, hating herself, because she knew that there had been instances when it had felt way too real for comfort.

      And she knew why. Scratch the surface and you’d find a woman still yearning to touch her forbidden husband.

      She sighed and gave him a clear-eyed gaze. ‘I was nervous. David...all those people...not to mention Freddy.’

      ‘Forget Freddy for the moment. He’s a parasite and a nuisance and will be sorted. As for David...he wants that bond and, whether you were cracking jokes or not, you were letting him in even if it may not have seemed that way to you.’

      Sofia reddened and her eyes skittered away. How could he be so nice, so...perceptive...and yet at times so coolly remote?

      ‘I’m not looking for a bond with anyone, least of all someone who’s never been part of my life,’ she tried, in the guise of a spirited argument to quell that side of her that seemed so foolishly susceptible to the glimpses she kept getting of a guy who could still get under her skin and stay there.

      ‘Stop looking for an argument, Sofia. We’re going to be...’ his mouth quirked, and again that glimpse of humour that could thread past the defences she knew she should be mounting ‘husband and wife for the foreseeable future. We need to get along...like husband and wife.’ He tilted his head and looked levelly back at her.

      ‘We’ll be leading separate lives. That’s what you said. We won’t even be sharing the same space.’

       He had the most incredible eyes. So deep and dark, glittering with a hard, steely edge that was somehow chilling and sinfully sexy at the same time.

      ‘We will tonight.’

      ‘Will what?’

      ‘Be sharing the same space. We’re going back to my place.’

      ‘I don’t want to do that.’

      ‘Yes, you do.’ He raised his eyebrows and stared at her. ‘You drank quite a bit back there in the restaurant. Are you telling me that you fancy the thought of trekking back to the cottage?’

      ‘You were paying attention to how much I drank?’ Her stomach heaved and she breathed in deeply. Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale.

      ‘I’m your husband. Of course I was. Right now, I’d say you’re looking a little green round the gills. How much did you eat?’

      ‘Not a lot.’ Sofia settled resentful green eyes on him but his crooked half-smile was disarming. ‘What did you expect? I was sitting next to...next to...’

      ‘You can say it.’

      ‘Next to David. Eating and enjoying the food was the last thing on my mind.’

      ‘You were nervous. Like I said. Hence my remark that you did well today. My godfather hasn’t looked so energised in a while.’

      ‘If he was energised, then it wasn’t something I deliberately set out to achieve.’

      ‘It’s not the road you walk but the fact that you get there,’ Rafael drawled. ‘But back to you. You’ve barely eaten and you’ve probably drunk a lot more than you’re accustomed to. Dispatching you back to the cottage to fend for yourself isn’t on the cards. Besides...shouldn’t the blushing bride spend the first night in the same county as her newly acquired husband at the very least?’

      ‘Ha-ha, hilarious.’ She rested her head back against the seat and closed her eyes for a few seconds. When she glanced sideways at him, it was to find his dark eyes resting on her face and she flushed.

      She deliberately held her hand out and reminded herself that the ring on her finger was worth as much as she would have got in a year of dutiful nannying. Business transaction, she told herself. Keep it real.

      ‘Very nice,’ Rafael drawled, and he took her hand in his and looked at the ring, which made her heartily wish she hadn’t drawn attention to it in the first place.

      ‘All in a day’s work,’ she responded, quick as a flash, and he burst out laughing and dropped her hand.

      It burned and tingled where he had briefly held it.

      ‘You don’t give in, do you, cara?’ His eyes rested on her face. He was still grinning. ‘A man could either be scared of that or turned on by it.’

      Which are you? The question sizzled in her brain before she accepted that he was just teasing, playing a game, definitely not flirting.

      ‘Can I ask you something?’ Her voice was hurried and breathless in her eagerness to change the subject and escape the frantic tug of unwanted sensations flitting through her like quicksilver.

      ‘Fire away.’

      ‘You said you wanted to lead a single life, a discreet single life...so is there anyone waiting in the wings for you now that this marriage is out of the way?’ She thought of the eager-to-please English roses and wondered if those were his type.

      He looked momentarily staggered and she fuzzily thought, Why the big show of ruffled feathers when you lied to me about who you really were and what you really wanted? Since when do liars have any right to look shocked at being asked whether they were having an affair with a married woman? It felt strangely comforting to be antagonistic.

      ‘Tell me that you’re kidding?’ Rafael exploded with incredulity.

      ‘Why would I be kidding?’ She shrugged and made to look away but he held her chin in his hand again and she shot him a sullen look from under her lashes.

      ‘We’re here,’ he gritted, ‘but this conversation isn’t finished.’

      His driver disappeared as seamlessly as he had appeared and they entered his sprawling place in silence. She could feel the simmering tension inside him and defiantly told herself that it was a perfectly reasonable question to have asked, given the circumstances of their relationship.

      He slammed on lights and then spun around to look at her.

      ‘Sorry,’ Sofia said stiffly, keeping her distance, ‘I don’t know what made me ask that. None of my business, as I’m sure you’ll rush in and point out, and if you don’t mind I think I’ll go upstairs and go to sleep. Will I be in the same room as before?’

      ‘Apology not accepted,’ Rafael returned, standing with his arms folded, as immovable as the rock of Gibraltar and as menacing as a bouncer facing down a vagrant outside a posh night club.

      ‘Actually,