Miraculously, there wasn’t a single sign of bridal attire about the place. The whole room had been completely swept clean of everything while she’d been hiding in the bathroom. The dress, the mad scatter of bits and pieces were all gone, leaving only her rose-pink bathrobe folded on the end of the bed, and her suitcases—so carefully packed the night before—still stacked neatly beside the bedroom door.
She dropped the towel and picked up the robe, uncaring that Rafe had followed her back into the room and that she was once again exposing her nakedness to him. It didn’t seem to matter, not when the sight of her body held no interest for the man in question.
She turned to glance at him, though, as she cinched the robe belt around her narrow waist. He was standing in the bathroom doorway, not leaning, but tense, his hard eyes hooded.
‘Your suit is wet,’ she told him, sending a flickering glance along his big, hard frame where the pale grey showed dark patches where she had leant against him.
He shrugged with indifference and moved at last, walking across the now neat bedroom to her dressing table. ‘Here,’ he said, turning back to her and holding out a glass half-full of what could only be brandy.
She smiled wryly at it. ‘Medicinal?’ she mocked, taking it from him and lowering herself carefully onto the end of the bed. From being rubber-limbed with shock, she was now stiff with it—so stiff, in fact, that even the simple act of sitting down was a painful effort.
‘Whatever you want to call it,’ he replied. ‘As it is…’ He turned again, lifting another glass in rueful acknowledgement to her. ‘I’m in need of the same.’ And he came to sit down beside her. ‘Drink it,’ he advised. ‘I can assure you, it will help.’
She swirled the dark amber liquid around the glass for a moment before lifting it to her bloodless lips. He did the same, sitting close to her, his arm brushing against hers as he moved it up and down.
It was strange, really, but, having spent the last six weeks avoiding touching her at all costs—except for that one brief contamination when they had been formally introduced—Rafe now seemed quite happy to be as close to her as he could get.
She glanced at him from beneath her thick black lashes, seeing the rigid tension in his square jaw, in the harsh line of his strong profile. He was nothing like Piers to look at. The two brothers were as different in every way as two men could possibly be. Where Rafe was dark, Piers was fair—so fair, it hadn’t come as a complete surprise to her to find out later that they were only half-brothers. Which also answered the question as to the ten-year gap in their ages. Piers was the handsome one of the brothers, the one with the uncomplicated smile which went with his uncomplicated character.
Or so she had believed, she amended grimly as she took another sip at the brandy. It burned as it went down, and the taste was gross, but it did at least put some warmth back inside her.
‘What happened to everything in here?’
Rafe glanced around the pristine, tidy room. ‘Your aunt and your friend cleared it all out while you were busy in the bathroom,’ he explained. ‘They—needed to feel useful.’
‘I’m surprised Jemma didn’t throw you out,’ she murmured.
‘Not your aunt?’ he queried curiously.
‘No.’ Shaan shook the thick, wet pelt of black hair. ‘My aunt has never been rude to anyone in her home in her life.’
‘Unlike me.’
‘Unlike you,’ she agreed, not even trying to work out why they were sitting here having this stupid conversation in her bedroom of all places—he being who he was and she…
‘Jemma tried throwing me out,’ he admitted, taking a quick sip at his drink. ‘But I—conviced her that you would handle all this better with me here rather than anyone else.’
‘Because you don’t care.’ She nodded understandingly. She knew exactly why she had clung to Rafe rather than anyone else.
‘That isn’t entirely true, Shaan.’ He sounded gruff all of a sudden. ‘I know you won’t believe this, but I knew from the beginning that Piers was not the man for you. All right,’ he conceded at her deriding glance, ‘I’m relieved he came to his senses before it was too late. But I am not proud of the time he took to do it. Nor will I forgive him easily for the way he’s hurt you today. No one,’ he finished roughly, ‘has the right to wound another human being like he has done… If it gives you any satisfaction at all to know it, I can tell you that he and Madeleine are not proud of themselves for—’
‘It doesn’t,’ she cut in, rising abruptly to her feet. ‘And I really don’t want to hear it.’
Lifting the glass to her mouth, she tossed the full contents to the back of her throat, then stood, back arched, ey
es closed, breath held, while she absorbed the lick of liquid heat and waited for it to begin numbing her again.
She didn’t want to feel anything yet. She wasn’t ready. She didn’t even want to think—not about herself, not about Rafe, and especially not about Piers and Madeleine.
‘All right, Rafe.’ Putting down the glass, she turned suddenly on him. Her eyes were still too big in her pale face, but her mouth was steadier, the colour beginning to ease back into her shock-whitened lips. ‘I know this has all been an ordeal for you, and I thank you for the bother you’ve taken with me, but I’m going to be all right, and I would like you to leave now.’ Now, before it all came hurtling on top of her, before the real hurting began, before…
But he gave a grim shake of his dark head, not even attempting to get up, and Shaan jumped in alarm when his hand snaked out to close around her wrist, the sudden tingle of her defences warning her that she wasn’t completely numb as he pulled her back down to sit beside him.
‘I’m not going yet,’ he informed her bluntly. ‘I have a proposition to put to you first. And I want you to hear me out before you say anything. I know you’re in shock, and I know you can’t possibly be capable of making decisions of any kind. But I’m going to force this one on you for the simple reason that I think, if you agree, we can at least save your pride if nothing else from this mess.’
He paused, then turned to look directly at her, those grey eyes of his very guarded but unwavering as they caught and held onto her own gaze.
‘Will you marry me instead of my brother, Shaan?’ he requested gravely.