Page 49 of Bedding his Innocent Mistress

He was angry. No, he was furious. She had felt the heat of his emotions, but this, this was unexpected.

“Rafe,” she followed him to the door but when he looked at her, it was with an implacable frustration.

“Do you trust me?”

She looked up at him, the question lodging right in her chest. She nodded without realising what she was admitting to.

Rafe’s eyes glowed with triumph. “My car will leave in five minutes. Get ready.”

She stared at his retreating back with a frown, but the sight of him walking out of her front door galvanised her into action. She stripped her jeans and sweater off and pulled on the dress, grabbing a denim jacket and light weight scarf for good measure, and a beanie too.

She slipped out of the front door with a minute to spare.

He was leaning against the side of the car, his expression grim, his eyes watching her with heated possession. She moved down the steps and approached him with a mounting sense of uncertainty.

“Where’s your phone?”

She held it up and he took it, and she was so confused that she didn’t say anything. He opened the front-passenger door. Right when she was on the brink of regaining some of her ability to think and speak, he caught her wrist and dragged her to his body, and he kissed her, hard and urgently.

“He’s a bastard,” he said into her mouth and she nodded, but it was only Rafe in her mind, on her lips, in her soul.

“Hop in.”

She did as he said, sliding into the passenger seat, waiting while he crossed to the driver’s side.

He throbbed the engine to life and pulled it out onto the street, pressing down on the accelerator. He drove expertly, confidently, and fast.

Somewhere along the way, she realised that they’d missed the turn off for his apartment. “Where are we going?”

He slid a side-long glance in her direction. “This whole thing has been about you forgetting him. Si?”

She nodded, but the description felt wrong. Strange and somehow untrue. And yet it was why she’d first gone to Rafe’s home.

“So? Today, on the day he sought to make you think only of him, you are going to do the opposite.”

Ivy had no idea what magic Rafe was planning on weaving, but she doubted his assertion was at all possible.

And yet, twenty minutes later, he drove the car through a security entrance, waving his driver’s licence at a gate who ushered them forwards. They were at City airport, but instead of heading to the passenger terminal, Rafe had taken them to a different stretch of tarmac. A private jet, large and gleaming, was waiting, and on its side it bore the emblem for Santoro Enterprises.

Ivy’s heartrate accelerated. “This is yours?”

“It’s the company’s,” he corrected. Cutting the engine and stepping from the car in one movement. He came around to Ivy’s side, pulling the door open. As soon as she straightened, he grabbed her hand, holding it tight.

The inside of the plane was the last word in luxury. White leather seats, just like in his Bugatti, a huge cinema screen, and a layout that was more like a home than a plane.

“Sit,” he nodded towards a chair, moving to the back of the plane and grabbing a bottle of wine and two glasses. He took the seat beside her and then poured two glasses of wine.

A couple of staff busied themselves with the operations of the flight, but Ivy barely noticed them.

“Where are we going?” She asked, the question strangely breathy.

“Home.” And he smiled, but it was a smile that was dark and tight, forged by the frustrations that bound them both.

“Spain?”

“Yes.” He made an effort to relax. “How are you?”

It was so silly, after the tumultuous hour they’d just spent together, that she burst out laughing. “I think I’m going to be okay.” The solicitous way he was watching her did something funny to her though, and she sobered, running a finger around the rim of her wine glass. “Why are you being so kind to me?”

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