Modern Romance Books September Books 5-8. Annie West

can have a bottle of water and sit by all means, but you’re going to tell me what the hell you meant by that.’

      ‘Or else what?’

      She looked at him and felt a slow burn as his dark eyes travelled from her mulish gaze to her parted lips.

      ‘I just think I have a right to know who to steer clear of. Those women at the restaurant were stunning.’ She ploughed on recklessly. ‘Who knows if you’re having fun with one of them?’

      ‘They’re wives of friends. Jesus, this is getting more unbelievable by the second.’

      ‘Since when does that make a difference? I’ve had married men hit on me in the past.’

      ‘Don’t go there, Sofia...’

      Suddenly the fight went out of her. Her stomach was back to churning and she could feel a headache coming on.

      ‘I don’t want to have this conversation, Rafael.’ Her voice hitched and she stared down at the expensive shoes. ‘I feel sick and tired and...overwhelmed...’

      ‘You have an annoying habit of starting conversations you don’t want to finish.’ He raked his hands through his hair then, without warning and just as she was about to take a few tottering steps towards the kitchen, her mouth as dry as the desert, he covered the distance between them.

      She froze, and then promptly un-froze when he scooped her up in one easy movement, carrying her towards the kitchen and kicking the door open with his foot while she wriggled and tried to disentangle herself.

      ‘Keep still,’ he warned.

      ‘Put me down!’

      ‘I intend to.’

      He deposited her on one of the kitchen chairs and then stood back as she straightened herself with one shaking hand, barely able to meet his eyes.

      ‘Why did you do that?’ she asked accusingly.

      ‘Because I got fed up having a long, going-nowhere conversation in my hall with you.’ He turned and fetched her a glass of water. ‘Drink this. You need to hydrate. Do you want something to eat?’

      ‘Something like what?’

      ‘God, you’re the most difficult woman I have ever met in my entire life.’

      ‘Well, that doesn’t augur well for this marriage of ours!’ Sofia couldn’t contain her sarcasm and he suddenly grinned. Her pulse-rate accelerated into overdrive.

      ‘Like I said, the one thing it ain’t going to be is boring,’ he murmured. ‘Now, stop talking for five seconds and listen to me carefully. I don’t have relationships with married women. Never. I don’t care how many of them throw themselves at me and I don’t care what they look like. A married woman is out of bounds.’

      ‘But you would be happy to have an affair with another woman even though you’re married!’ Sofia threw at him for the sake of argument, promptly forgetting all good intentions to keep things cool and civil between them without emotions of any sort getting in the way.

      ‘As we both know, this isn’t the real deal. If it were, then there is no way I would go near any woman. Believe it or not, I may have relationships but I like to stick to one woman at a time. You look sick. You need to go to bed.’

      ‘I drank too much,’ Sofia conceded. She stood up but her legs were suddenly wobbly and she had to stand still to gather herself for a few moments. She knew that he was looking at her, so cool, so urbane, so sophisticated. So much the opposite to her.

      And just like that the tears she had been desperately trying to hold back began to leak out.

      Horrified, she stared down at her feet and clenched her jaw.

      ‘You’re...crying. Are you crying, Sofia?’

      Sofia shrugged. She didn’t trust herself to speak but she heard him curse softly under his breath and then he was lifting her up again, as if sweeping her off her feet was becoming a habit, and this time she didn’t bother to put up a fight.

      She squeezed her eyes tightly shut. Her dress was riding up, exposing her thighs, but she couldn’t be bothered to redress that by trying to tug it down.

      Instead, she kept her eyes shut while he laid her very gently on the bed, then she immediately turned away and buried her head in the crook of her arms.

      ‘Wait right there,’ Rafael said gruffly. ‘I’m going to bring up a jug of water and some tablets. And something to eat. You need to put food into your stomach. Don’t move.’

      How long was he gone?

      She didn’t know. She was aware of him putting the water on the table by the bed, and after a while she heard the sound of the door shutting quietly. When she peeped out, it was to find that an inelegantly enormous door-wedge of a sandwich had been made for her, which made her smile.

      It was man fare, but it tasted wonderful.

      And then, still feeling sick but so, so relieved to be in bed, she found herself drifting off.

      The day she had been dreading was at an end. She would put all thoughts of her father on hold for the moment. She would definitely put all thoughts of Rafael on hold! Although, she felt herself smiling again at the sandwich he had made for her, stuffed full of cheese and ham but lacking everything else.

      She fell asleep to the throbbing of a dull headache.

      When she next opened her eyes, the room was pitch-black and it took her a few seconds to surface and remember exactly where she was.

      In Rafael’s house, with the duvet cover loosely draped over her, because she had obviously kicked it off at some point during the night.

      Her half-closed eyes peeped from beneath the duvet but she was already registering what she wanted her startled eyes to confirm. The lilac dress had been removed, as had the shoes she’d been wearing when she had been deposited on the bed.

      No bra! But then, she hadn’t been wearing one. Her underwear, the lacy thong for her eyes only, was still there...

      With a groan of horror, she began sitting up...and there he was, a dark shadow in a chair next to the bed.

      He’d dragged over the chair by the dressing table and positioned it so that he could stretch out his long legs. His hands were linked loosely and his computer was on the ground next to him. She could see the dull flicker of the screen, which had gone into sleep mode.

      Was he asleep? Awake? Something in the middle? He’d changed into a pair of jeans and a T-shirt.

      She’d begun to sink back under the duvet when, as calmly as if he were continuing a conversation they’d only just been having, ‘You’re awake. How’s the head?’

      ‘What are you doing here?’ She shuffled into an upright position, making sure that the duvet was tightly tucked around her, although she could feel the press of her bare breasts against the silky cotton.

      ‘You were sick during the night.’

      ‘I wasn’t!’ Had she been?

      ‘Too much alcohol. Happens.’

      ‘You took my dress off.’

      ‘I took your dress off. One of us had to do it and it wasn’t going to be you.’

      ‘How could you?’ she half-sobbed.

      ‘Sofia, you were half-asleep and clawing at it because you were uncomfortable. No one can sleep in something that’s as close-fitting as a second skin. You’re probably embarrassed, but you don’t have to be. You’re not the first naked woman I’ve ever laid eyes on.’

      Sofia drew her knees up to her chest and rested her head on them, wishing, more than anything else that he would just disappear—poof, like a genie heading back into the