and pulled apart the tissue wrapped around it.
‘It’s a rotary pastry cutter,’ he explained. ‘As I said, not anything fancy but I thought you might like it. Not just vintage, practically antique.’ He studied it for a second and his smile was a little lopsided. ‘Though I realise now that the vintage things you collect are for their connections to your people, not the things themselves.’
‘And the connection of this is to you.’ She beamed at him as she turned the cutter over in her hand. ‘I love it. Thank you.’
‘Really? You love it.’ He put his hand to his heart in an amazed gesture.
‘You must think I’m so ungrateful.’ She winced.
Rafe leaned against the wall and regarded her, suddenly solemn. ‘No, I think you struggle with being given things.’
Her lungs froze. ‘I’m no saint, Rafe.’ She sat on the edge of his bed and played with the small handle of the pastry cutter. ‘You know I went to stay with my father when I was eighteen...’ She drew in a breath to brace herself. ‘It was quite a...celebration, I guess. There was a big welcome party. He’d kept presents for me—for all the birthdays and Christmases we’d been apart.’ She cleared her throat and looked down at her feet. ‘It was so kind...’
‘But?’ Rafe prompted.
She didn’t want to say anything more, it was wrong.
‘It’s okay to be honest, Gracie. You know you can tell me anything.’
She glanced up at him and saw the acceptance in his eyes. ‘It was really sweet,’ she said softly. ‘It wasn’t his fault—he didn’t know me and I didn’t know him and that hurt us both.’
‘The presents were...not your thing?’
She winced. ‘They were...’
‘Be honest,’ he encouraged softly.
‘Not all...my thing. But that wasn’t a surprise, though, right?’ she pointed out, eager to defend her father still. ‘How could he know what I liked when we’d been kept apart for so long? Neither of us knew the other. I’m sure I did things that he wasn’t a huge fan of.’
‘And you couldn’t laugh about it?’
She shook her head. She’d never been able to laugh about much with either of her parents. ‘The problem was that he kept buying me presents.’
‘Impersonal presents,’ Rafe noted.
Yes.
Gracie looked at the little pastry cutter in her hands. How was it that Rafe had got her something that she loved after knowing her for such a short time? But he’d paid attention to her, he’d taken the time to hunt it out, he’d put real thought into it, not simply ordered the number one most popular gift idea online, irrespective of whether it would suit her or not.
‘I asked him not to, told him over and over that he didn’t have to,’ she said urgently. ‘That he didn’t need to feel like he owed me in that way, that he didn’t need to buy my affection... I’m not like that, Rafe.’ She looked up at him earnestly. ‘I don’t care about things in that way.’ She’d had to travel with so little for so long, she had a great awareness of what was truly of value.
‘Anyone who knows you would know that, Gracie.’
Anyone who’d bothered to get to know her. And that was the point, of course. She sent Rafe a sad smile, he was so astute.
‘My father kept buying, kept paying, but I wanted his time, not his money. Not things. I wanted...’ She trailed off and tried to put it concisely. ‘I saw him with my half-brothers and I wished...’
‘You’d had him all your life,’ Rafe finished for her.
‘Then one day he said he had a big surprise for me. He made such a show of it with everyone there. He’d taken out a lease on a little bakery.’ She brushed her hair back. ‘It was only small but in a really hip neighbourhood. A whole actual café.’
She glanced up and saw the small frown pleating Rafe’s brow.
‘Amazing, right?’ she said, burning, bitter tears filling her eyes. ‘You’d think there’d be nothing better than that for me.’ And it should have been. She should have been overwhelmed with gratitude. ‘It had been so incredibly generous. So supportive.’ A tear slid down her cheek but Rafe didn’t move any closer, didn’t take his gaze off hers for a second. ‘But there was a small apartment in it upstairs. For me. I was to move out of their home and into there alone. Immediately.’
They hadn’t wanted her any more.
‘But weren’t you living with him so he could get to know you and catch up on all those years you were apart?’ Rafe asked.
Her throat clogged painfully. ‘His boys were young and he was busy with them and his wife... He promised me he wouldn’t go after Mum. He said he was sorry and that he loved me but that it wasn’t working... I guess it got too much.’
It had come as such a shock. She hadn’t been the daughter he’d wanted. They’d missed years and years and they could never get them back, and once she was finally there, he hadn’t wanted her to stay.
‘I tried so hard,’ she said, still so hurt. ‘I made the boys my doughnuts, I got them to test all my new flavours. I’d been studying at a culinary arts school, but I tried to fit in, I offered to babysit, I tried to help her around the house... But they were busy, you know? They didn’t need me.’
They had their new happy life and she didn’t fit. So they’d engineered a way to get her out.
Rafe lifted away from the wall and walked over, hunching down so he could look into her eyes. ‘You shouldn’t have had to do things to be needed, Gracie. You should have just been loved. Just as you are.’
Gracie’s body turned to jelly. She quickly put the pastry tool on the bed before she dropped it. She’d wanted to be loved. She’d wanted to be in that big, warm house and been welcome. She’d wanted to be safe and secure and been able to stay. She’d wanted a home and a family, finally and for ever...
Rafe waited but she still couldn’t speak. ‘So you didn’t take the lease on the café?’
She vehemently shook her head. ‘Of course not.’ The misery broke free. ‘That’s never what I wanted from him. But he didn’t want me there any more. None of them did.’ Tears splashed down her cheeks as she sobbed. ‘So I left.’
‘For Europe?’
She nodded, furiously wiping away tears, but more kept tumbling. ‘It’s awful, isn’t it? To be so ungrateful for such a gesture?’
‘Not awful.’
She closed her eyes so she couldn’t see the tenderness in his. Because, no, it was awful. ‘It’s okay.’ She dragged in a steadying breath and tried to pull back her usual calm. ‘It’s stupid to be upset.’
Rafe covered her cold hands with his. ‘It’s not stupid,’ he said firmly. ‘And it’s not okay.’ He squeezed her fingers gently. ‘He thought he was giving you everything but starved you of what you wanted most. Both your parents did that.’ He sighed and ran his hand through her hair. ‘And that sucks, Gracie. That just sucks.’
He’d used her word to describe it. He was right. And she couldn’t see again for crying. She felt his arms go about her and he pressed her close, letting her lean on him, letting her cry against his chest in comfort. And she cried and cried and cried.
‘Oh, Rafe, I’m so sorry,’ she snuffled a long while later.
‘Don’t be.’ His answering caress, the warmth in his tone? It was too soft, too understanding.
She made herself draw back, wiping her eyes again to study him. He steadily, silently regarded her too. He was so unfairly handsome and his gift was lovely but what was even more unfair was his thought for her. He knew her better—understood what she liked—more than anyone else in her life ever had. Right now there were still those bruised shadows in his eyes, remnants of the hurt and confusion from his own complicated family. But there was tenderness and understanding too and something else warm and deep swirling in the mix. A kind of silent support and solidarity in the acknowledgement that sometimes, yes, things sucked.
Bu
t some things were simple. And how she felt now was very, very simple. Rubbing her fingers on his shadowed jaw, she leaned forward and kissed him.
He leaned back a moment later. ‘You’re rewarding me for...?’
‘Nothing. This isn’t for the gift. Not because you were nice to those people, even when you didn’t want to be. Not because I’ve missed you like crazy. The reason I kissed you is so much simpler than that.’
‘Oh?’
‘You’re hot,’ she muttered, needing to bring this back to the light, adult tease it had been from the beginning. ‘And you’re a great kisser.’
But it wasn’t the real reason. It was everything about him and she couldn’t maintain that easy flirtation. He mattered. And she needed to show him that. She needed to hold him.
He didn’t smile as he looked down at her. Intense edginess tightened his features. ‘Gracie—’
‘Yes,’ she answered, before knowing what his question even was.
‘I need you, Gracie,’ he said roughly.
‘Good.’ Because she needed him too. She needed him now.
She moved quickly, pulling at his belt as she kissed him, suddenly desperate to feel him against her completely. For him to fill her and make her feel that wonderful physical freedom again.
‘No,’ he said forcefully, suddenly spinning her and pushing her so she fell right back onto the bed. He followed, and grabbing her wrists he pinned her arms above her head, covering her body with his own. ‘Not fast. Not this time, Gracie.’
She gasped as sensation rippled down her, making her wriggle beneath him. ‘It feels fast to me.’
‘No.’ He bent and kissed her, learning her mouth again with a slow, luscious sweep of his tongue. ‘I’m taking my time.’
He wasn’t teasing. He was torturing. Slowly he stripped her bare. Slowly he touched every secret, soft part of her with such tender, caressing focus it bordered on cruelty. Because she was alight and aching and she needed him. There with her—all the way there. Now. She arched—smiling as she screamed, tears tumbling as his power made her tremble.