Everyone was speaking in English in deference to Carin—but where the hell was she? Rafe knew it was ridiculous to be on edge. He’d come up with the idea of this dinner more out of anger than anything else, but this really was the first time any of his friends were going to meet his wife.
His wife. Just thinking those words gave him a strange feeling.
Rafe lifted his glass to his lips again. Claudia said something and gave a trill of laughter. He smiled, too, even though he hadn’t heard a word she’d said. He couldn’t get his thoughts on anything but Carin, and how it would feel to put his arm around her, feel her body fit the curve of his and introduce her.
This is my wife, he would say, and Claudia and her lover, Isabela and Luiz would all see that the woman he’d married was even more beautiful than they’d imagined.
Beautiful, and hot-tempered, and furious at him. But he would change all that, later tonight. After his guests left, he would kiss Carin until her anger turned to passion and then, at last, he truly would make her his wife…
“…still can’t get used to the fact that you’re married, darling,” Claudia said, putting her hand on his arm. “My Rafe, with a sweet little mulher.”
Sweet? Rafe almost laughed. “Prickly” was a better word for his wife.
Dammit, what was keeping her?
Claudia sighed dramatically. “Oh, well. I’ll just have to wait until you get tired of this one and come back to me.”
It was an old line. She’d used it for years. He’d always smiled and taken it as a joke but for some reason it was annoying the hell out of him tonight. And why did she persist in calling him “darling”? That had never irritated him, either, but tonight it grated on his nerves.
“I don’t intend to get tired of this one,” he said, as lightly as he could manage. “Carin and I are married, Claudia. I explained that when you telephoned.”
“Sim, so you did.” She smiled, smoothed the lapel of his white dinner jacket. “You are married, and you have a child. How quickly you work, darling Raphael.”
Rafe frowned into his wineglass. Maybe it hadn’t been such a clever idea, inviting his former fiancée to dinner, but he’d arranged this party on such short notice that there hadn’t been time to do much planning. Besides, all he wanted was to be sure Carin believed him when he said it was time she stopped pretending their marriage was a game. She had to enter into his life, accept her role as his wife…
Her role, in his bed.
An image of her, naked in his arms, flashed before him. Desire, sharp and electric as lightning, sizzled through his blood.
What was wrong with him? He had guests, Claudia was talking to him, and all he could think about was bedding Carin.
“…listening to me, darling? Rafe, you’re hurting my feelings.”
He blinked, forced his attention to Claudia, who was looking up at him from beneath her lashes. She was flirting with him like crazy. Well, she always did; it was part of her and it didn’t bother her that her lover was standing ten feet away, or that his wife was about to join them…
Deus! What an idiot he was. He’d told his former fiancée about his wife, but he had not told his wife about his former fiancée. And, of course, he should have. Women were difficult creatures to understand at best, but he could see that it would not be pleasant for a bride to learn her husband had once intended to marry another woman by coming face-to-face with that woman, with no warning.
Well, it was too late, now, just as it was too late to call this off. What had he been thinking, to make so many changes in one day? He’d moved Carin into his rooms, told her it was time they had a real marriage, and now he was about to introduce her to Claudia.
His jaw tightened.
The fault was hers, as much as his. Carin should not have made him so angry. What sort of man would not get angry, if his wife made it brutally clear she refused to think of him as her husband?
“…fly to São Paulo next week, darling? We could have dinner and…”
Claudia walked her fingers down his arm. He caught her wrist and held on. It was the only method he could think of to keep her from touching him again.
And, dammit, he was still angry. Was this any way for a wife to treat a husband? For her to show him respect? If Carin didn’t appear soon, he’d go upstairs and get her, even if it meant breaking down the door she’d locked against him. How dare she lock him out of his own rooms? How dare she treat him with such condescension?
His hand tightened around the wineglass.
All of that was done with, now. She would do what was expected of her. She would look beautiful, behave demurely, speak when spoken to and charm his guests. And later, when they were alone, he would lock the bedroom door against the world and show her—and show her…
Rafe lifted his glass to his lips and drained it.
What would he show her? That he had a frightening lack of control where she was concerned? That she could enrage him with a cold look? That he had never stopped wanting her in his arms again?
Tudo bem. All right. Memory had turned a simple act of sex into something too intense to be real. Taking Carin to bed would get things back to normal.
“Rafe?”
Damned right, it would. A wife was meant to sleep with her husband. It was time to teach her that. And, after tonight, she would think of no man but him. He would take her until she was exhausted, until her body ached from his possession. He would make her his, drive the man she had loved, might still love, from her body, her heart, her soul…
“Rafe,” Claudia said again. “Oh, my goodness…” Soft laughter bubbled from her lips.
“Pare!” Isabela hissed, and Claudia’s laughter did stop, but too late. Rafe could feel the hair rising on the back of his neck. His guests were all staring past his shoulder.
“What is it?” he said, and turned around…
And saw his wife, dressed like a bad joke in a fashion magazine.
She stood in the arched entrance to the living room. He thought, at first, she was ill, because her skin seemed so yellow. Then he realized it was the color of her gown that made it seem that way. Deus, the gown was a green so bright it hurt his eyes. It was shiny, too. If a fabric could be said to have a radioactive glow, this one surely did.
The gown didn’t fit right, either. It was tight, but not in the way snug garments could flatter a woman. It pulled at the seams, making doughy lumps of Carin’s lush curves. What were those things at her neck and ankles? Ruffles? Rafe stared, horrified, at the woman who was his wife. He had never imagined her in ruffles. She was too slender, too elegant…at least, she had been, until tonight.
And her hair. What had she done to turn it from silk to straw, to make it a flat brown instead of rich chocolate?
Rafe took a shuddering breath. Surely, this was a bad dream, or some hideous North American joke.
“Rafe,” she said, and smiled.
His hand tightened on his glass. Her mouth was painted a deadly shade of purple; she had a smear of the stuff across one front tooth.
“Rafe, please forgive me. I’m so sorry I’m late.”
She didn’t even sound like herself but like a combined parody of Marilyn Monroe and a world-weary Jessica Rabbit. And why was she begging his forgiveness? The Carin he knew would never beg for anything.
Deus, what had happened? He had sent the doctor away too quickly, and clearly she needed his services. Wasn’t there such a thing as post-partum depression? Sim. There was. The wife of a friend had suffered from it. Perhaps this—this psychosis was one of its manifestations. Was this his fault? Had he pushed too hard, frightened her into trying too hard to please him?
Claudia tittered again, and he flashed her a furious look. Isabela whispered something to her husband, her voice gentle. It was good she was here. She’d had children. Surely, she would know how to deal with…
“Rafe,” Carin said softly, and something in the way she spoke his name froze his blood. He looked away from the terrible gown, the hi
deous shoes, the purple mouth, looked into her eyes…
White-hot rage exploded deep inside him. For a moment, his mind went blank.
His wife’s eyes were not filled with pleading, or teary with depression. They glittered, hard as stone, with cold, sharp, malice.
She had done this deliberately.
He wanted to kill her.
No, not that. Killing was too easy. What he wanted to do was throw his guests out the door, grab Carin and shake her until her purple-smeared teeth rattled, until those hideous ruffles danced, until she really did beg and plead for mercy. Then, only then, he would rip that ugly gown from her body, tear off his own clothes, take her, right here, on the floor, until she knew that he was her master, that he would not tolerate such behavior.
He took a deep, deep breath, then glanced around the room. Isabela da Sousa was staring fixedly at the wall. Luiz was slugging down the last of his whiskey. Claudia’s lover, whatever the hell his name was, was pop-eyed with shock. Claudia, still standing beside him, was flushed with anticipation of what would happen next.
Well, she was going to be disappointed.
Rafe fixed a smile to his lips, walked towards Carin and took her hand.
“Ah, querida,” he said, and pressed his mouth to her fingers, “I was beginning to wonder why you were delayed in joining us, but now I can see it was because you were making yourself even more exquisite than you already are.” Carin’s pupils contracted; he felt her hand jerk within his and he tightened his hold. “I’ve been telling our guests all about you.”
Her eyes narrowed. Whatever reaction she’d expected, it wasn’t this. Good, he thought savagely. Let her see that two could play at this game.
“Come, querida.” He tucked her hand into the curve of his arm and drew her away from Claudia, towards the da Sousas, instinctively leaving what surely would be the best moment for last. “Isabela, this is Carin. My wife.”
Isabela cleared her throat. “How nice to meet you, my dear.”