Madeleine.
The name slunk like the icy draft of a ghostly spectre across her flesh, and she shivered, grabbing the sides of her dress together and curling tightly onto her side.
‘Go away!’ she whispered wretchedly to that other woman’s beastly presence.
The sound of movement from the bathroom had her rolling off the bed to quickly strip the dress from her body and replace it with her satin wrap. Her fingers shook as she belted it around her, teeth gritted behind tightened lips as anger began to bubble up inside her.
I’ve kicked Piers out of this marriage, she thought bitterly to herself. Rafe can damned well kick Madeleine out!
The bathroom door opened and she stalked towards it, with chin up and eyes flashing in bright, blinding, bitter fury. ‘Don’t ever—do that—to me again!’ she spat into his tense pale face, and stepped past him into the bathroom, slamming the door shut behind her.
Her breasts were heaving, her fingers clenching and unclenching at her sides, that green-eyed monster called jealousy so completely overwhelming her that she wanted to scratch his damned lying eyes out!
He was the one who’d insisted that Piers and Madeleine were to stay out of their bed!
He was the one who had forced this damned sex thing on her in the first place!
She railed on furiously as she stripped off what was left of her clothes, stuffed her hair into a shower cap and stepped beneath the shower.
He was the one who—
‘Oh.’ A huge sob broke from her; she couldn’t seem to stop it. Then another—and another. It was like being on an emotional roller coaster and she didn’t think she could take much more of it.
And suddenly she was doing what she hadn’t done even when Piers had jilted her. She was sobbing her heart out beneath the warm hiss of water.
And once again he was there. A hand switching off the shower. A hand closing around her arm, drawing her out of the cubicle and against his chest. Next thing the shower cap came off her head and a bathrobe settled over her shoulders with his arms closing round it.
He didn’t say a word, not a single word, as she leant there against him and just let it all come pouring out of her.
She felt limp afterwards, limp and lifeless. And still he didn’t say anything in the ensuing dull throb of silence that followed her emotional storm. He just fed her limp arms into the sleeves of her robe, folded it around her body, tied it snugly, then lifted her into his arms and carried her to bed.
She fell asleep wrapped in a bathrobe, wrapped in his arms, gaining a peculiar kind of comfort from the fact that Rafe did not remove his own robe so they lay in a snug bundle of soft white towelling.
* * *
In the morning she woke to find him gone, not just from the bed but from the suite, with only a brief note which told her where he’d gone but gave no clue as to how he was feeling about her foolish breakdown the night before.
And foolish she did feel in the cool light of day. Rafe was a man of thirty-four, for goodness’ sake! He was used to slick, smooth, sophisticated women in his bed, who knew how to respond to a complex man like him.
He was not used to an over-emotional female falling into a hysterical fit because he’d indulged in a bit of rough sex with her—which she had enjoyed anyway, she reminded herself.
It was Madeleine’s ghost she couldn’t cope with. And even her arrival in the bedroom last night had been at her bidding, not Rafe’s.
She sighed, hating her own sense of failure. And hating Rafe for ducking out on her this morning, leaving her to sweat alone on what his mood might be.
Then almost instantly her own mood flipped over to a chin-lifting defiance. If he could escape a showdown then so damn well could she!
‘Business meeting’, his brief note said. ‘Be back around one o’clock and we’ll go for lunch’.
Well, she wouldn’t be here at one o’clock! she decided. Though where she would go she had no idea.
All she did know was that the need to get away from this damned suite of rooms was growing stronger as each second passed by while she hurriedly hunted through her flight bag for her passport and traveller’s cheques.
Ten minutes later, dressed in a simple white soft cotton blouse and a pair of white cotton trousers held up by a contrasting cerise belt, she was travelling down in the lift with her passport and traveller’s cheques safely stashed in her shoulder bag, along with a pair of sunglasses and her purse.
Exchanging a cheque for some Hong Kong dollars was made easy by the hotel’s own bureau de change. It was while she was waiting her turn there that she was drawn into conversation with a sweet old American couple who were standing in the same queue.
They were, Shaan discovered, about to embark on an organised tour of the island with a whole group of fellow Americans. It was pure impulse that made her ask if there might be room for one more on their coach.