Page 20 of Emergency Engagement

She was an Amazonian beauty with long, long blonde hair piled on her head in an artfully tousled bun and with a figure made for wearing very, very little. That was precisely what she happened to have on: a tiny bikini that left precious little to the imagination.

She took her time wading up the shallow steps and moved to stand behind a plump, elderly man sitting at a table with a couple of other, slightly younger, guys.

‘Happens to all of us in the end,’ Rafael said politely.

Sammy felt the weight of his arm slung over her shoulders and, because she’d taken an instant dislike to the woman, she linked her fingers through Rafael’s and smiled, her smile as polite as Rafael’s response had been.

He raised her hand to his mouth and grazed her knuckles with his lips. Sammy thought that it was a tremendous performance for the guy who didn’t do touchy-feely. Her brain said that. Her body, however, blazed in instant response and she knew that colour was again crawling into her cheeks.

On wicked impulse, she slid her hand along his back and then dipped her finger beneath the waistband of his jeans and got a kick when she felt his body stiffen. She smiled and wriggled her wandering finger under the shirt to feel hard, muscled skin before slowly removing her hand.

Then she was being introduced to everyone.

‘I told her that there was no need for her to sweat over a stove, cooking for us all when she got here,’ he crooned, arm still firmly in place, this time with his hand just below the small swell of her breast. ‘But...’ He turned to her and kissed the tip of her nose. ‘You insisted, didn’t you, my darling?’

‘I did, indeed... I plan on setting up my own restaurant, and practice is always going to make perfect. Practising on a captive audience for a few days couldn’t suit me better!’

For fifteen minutes, doing the rounds, she was able to make some judgements on the group of people she would be deceiving for the next few days. There were seven men, aged between about forty to the oldest, Clement, who was in his seventies. The seven women were mostly in their forties and fifties, with theexception of Victoria, who was a mere year or two older than her.

Rafael still had his arm slung over her shoulders. He was still fully playing to the audience, and it was wreaking havoc with her composure.

She yawned and edged away just a little. There was only so much her blood pressure could take with this game of make-believe.

‘Come along, darling, time for bed,’ Rafael crooned and Sammy looked up at him with a suitably adoring expression. She batted her lashes; he grinned and in return dipped his head to kiss her again. This time his tongue flicked between her parted lips and her breathing hitched. He pulled back with a convincing sigh of regret.

Just as soon as they hit the stairs, she pulled away from him and glared, because he was grinning.

‘Convincing acting,’ he murmured, leading the way.

‘I thought you weren’t the touchy-feely sort. What choice did I have but to respond in kind?’

‘Very true.’

‘It’s why you’re paying me so much money, isn’t it?’

‘I don’t like it when you put it like that.’ Rafael frowned.

‘Too bad. It’s all just an act and I’m fine playing make-believe when we have to.’ Her body was trying hard to agree with that infuriated statement but, when their eyes met, hers were cool and composed.

He nudged open one of the doors at the very end of the landing, outside which was a seating area complete with plants and a window overlooking the back.

Sammy stopped dead in her tracks. In the middle of the room were soft chairs and a sofa interrupted by a low, square coffee table in the middle. There was a sideboard, a bar and a business-like desk that drew the eye to French doors opening out to awarmly lit veranda. Through another door to the side, she could glimpse the bedroom.

‘We’re sharing a bedroom,’ she said flatly, folding her arms and gazing at her luggage waiting for her just outside the bedroom door. The door was ajar, and she couldn’t see the bed through it, but she was guessing that there weren’t conveniently going to be two singles.

‘It’s a thing in this day and age when two people are going out and in love.’

‘We’re neither.’

‘Sammy, perhaps I should have warned you, but I thought you’d probably work that one out without any help from me.’ He turned round, shoved his hands in his pockets and looked at her. Just those dark eyes resting on her reminded her of the kiss that had shaken her to the core and then, hard on the heels ofthatmemory,whyhe had kissed her in the first place.

‘Don’t worry,’ he said wryly. ‘You can have the bed. I’m happy to take the sofa out here. As you can see, it’s plenty big enough for me, even though I’m not small.’

‘You could have said that from the start.’

‘I know, but it’s fun watching you blush.’

‘This isn’t aboutfun.’

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