After the Loving Read online

  Their first evening together Raff had deliberately set out to seduce her, with an expensive dinner eaten by candledlight, romantic music playing softly in the background, with a slate-eyed Raff sitting across from her. She hadn’t wanted to be seduced, had found his domineering attitude of earlier disquietening, even if she couldn’t help but be attracted to him.

  She had expected him to take her home by car from the restaurant, instead he had suggested picking his car up later and walking through the park to her home. Her scepticism with this idea turned to enchantment as she realised that no mugger in his right mind would argue with Raff, and that the scent of early summer flowers was even more heady than the wine they had consumed during their meal.

  The biggest surprise of the evening had come when he refused her invitation to come into her apartment for coffee, and instead gave her a lingering goodnight kiss on her doorstep before taking his leave. That single kiss had been enough to tell her she was more attracted to him than to any other man she had ever known.

  When Court telephoned her the next day and invited her out to dinner with him that evening it wasn’t too difficult to refuse him, knowing she was keeping her evening free just in case Raff called. She knew she was behaving like a teenager waiting for a call from her first boyfriend, but she couldn’t help herself!

  He didn’t call, and she spent the evening washing and drying her hair instead, cursing herself for turning down an invitation from such a nice man as Court Stevens on the offchance that a rat like Raff Gallagher might deign to call.

  She was still angry with herself the next day, her mood one of snapping irritation. How could she have been so gullible as to have been taken in by a man like Raff Gallagher! He had proved his point, that they had indeed ‘met again’, and that like all the other women in his life she hadn’t been able to resist him!

  ‘Wishing that pencil were my neck?’ drawled a coolly confident voice.

  Bryna looked up at Raff Gallagher with a start as he stood unannounced in the doorway to her office; she would have a word with Gilly about this oversight later, after she had evicted Raff Gallagher from her office!

  ‘I didn’t think you were the violent type,’ he raised dark brows as he strolled fully into the room, closing the door softly behind him.

  She glanced down at the broken pencil in her hands with some surprise; she hadn’t even realised she had snapped it in two. ‘I’m not.’ She dropped the two halves of the pencil into the bin beside her desk. ‘I don’t believe we have an appointment, Mr Gallagher.’ She looked at him with cool enquiry.

  He bent his long length into the chair opposite hers. ‘Do you have any coffee? I’m in need of waking up.’

  Bryna’s eyes flashed angrily. ‘Then maybe you should have stayed in bed longer!’ How dared he come here demanding she give him coffee after spending the night with one of his women!

  He leant his head back in the chair, closing his eyes briefly. ‘I haven’t been to bed——’

  ‘Mr Gallagher——’

  ‘I must be getting old,’ he drawled ruefully, straightening in his chair, just that few seconds’ relaxation with his eyes closed seeming to have revived him a little. ‘A couple of years ago I would have been able to take flying to the States, working through their evening—our night—and then flying back to England when my business was finished, without any ill-effects.’ He shook his head. ‘Now I just feel exhausted.’

  ‘Well, of course you do,’ scolded Bryna, having listened in horror as he related his gruelling schedule of the last twenty-four hours; no wonder he hadn’t called her, he hadn’t had time! And she knew how shattering jet-lag could be too. ‘You’ll kill yourself working that hard!’ She stood up to pour him a cup of coffee from the percolator across the room.

  He drank the strong black brew gratefully. ‘I couldn’t give Court the opportunity to move in on the woman I so badly want for myself,’ he said softly, watching her over the rim of his cup as he drank some more coffee. ‘Now could I?’ He looked at her warmly.

  A sophisticated lady, used to any amount of male attention during her years as a model, and she blushed! ‘Maybe you should have taken the time to telephone me before you left so that I knew you felt that way,’ she snapped.

  His eyes narrowed. ‘Does that mean I’m too late, and Court has called you?’

  Was this man ever too late, had any woman ever denied him? Could she? ‘I think you should go home to bed now, and——’

  ‘Come with me,’ he invited huskily, his tiredness completely gone now.

  Bryna swallowed hard at the directness of his approach. ‘And if you still want to see me again you can call me later,’ she finished firmly, resisting with effort the temptation she had to go home with him right now. If he asked again she might not have resisted, but instead he stood up to leave.

  ‘I’ll call you later,’ he told her throatily.

  She faced him across the room; she hadn’t returned to her seat behind her desk after pouring him his coffee. ‘Fine,’ she acknowledged nervously. Nervous? The woman who had been called icy and distant? Incredible!

  ‘Bryna,’ Raff murmured huskily before taking her in his arms and kissing her lingeringly on the mouth. ‘I’ll definitely call you later,’ he told her ruefully as he straightened reluctantly. ‘And next time I have to go away on business unexpectedly I’ll make sure I call and let you know,’ he promised softly.

  Next time? Bryna pondered over the statement all afternoon. He seemed to be implying that their relationship was going to be a lengthy rather than short one, and knowing about him what she did she knew that any lengthy relationship she had with Raff Gallagher would have to be a physical one. And before she saw him again she would have to decide if that were what she wanted with him.

  If the romantic dinner and the moonlit stroll through the park had come as a surprise to her two days ago when arranged by such a cynical man as Raff Gallagher, then spending the evening at his home with his two children came as even more of one!

  Raff had telephoned just before she was due to leave her office for the day, something she was relieved about because she didn’t think he knew her home telephone number and so she had been contemplating sitting at her desk waiting for him to call. Even if it took all night!

  When he had invited her out to dinner but advised her to dress casually she still hadn’t been alarmed. The suspicion had only begun when they turned into the long driveway to his home!

  Raff gave a derisive smile at her accusing look. ‘I didn’t manage to get to bed this afternoon,’ he drawled. ‘And the thought of sitting in a restaurant and possibly falling asleep in the company of the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met is not something I relish!’

  Her mouth quirked at his self-derision. ‘Your reputation would be shot to pieces!’ she acknowledged.

  He raised dark brows. ‘Don’t believe everything you hear—or read—about me,’ he said drily, opening her car door for her.

  She turned from admiring the Georgian-style house situated in Royal Berkshire to smile at him. ‘You mean you don’t drink champagne for breakfast and wear silk pyjamas?’ she mocked one of the articles she had once read about him, although the thought of the latter against the velvet hardness of his skin sent a shiver of pleasure down her spine.

  ‘No,’ he grinned.

  ‘No to which one?’ Bryna raised blonde brows curiously.

  ‘No, I don’t drink champagne for breakfast, and no, I don’t wear any sort of pyjamas. But I’m willing to reconsider the first if you’ll join me one morning,’ he added huskily.

  A blush darkened her cheeks. ‘Did you say something about dinner …?’

  ‘Coward!’ he taunted as he clasped her arm lightly in his hand as they entered his home.

  The presence in the lounge of the pretty dark-haired girl and a young man as tall and dark as Raff, if not quite as muscular, that he introduced as his children, Paul and Kate, instantly took her aback. She had thought Raff had brought her to h
is home for the sole purpose of trying to seduce her into his bed, and as she glanced at him she could tell by his expression that he had known exactly what she had thought.

  The fact that Kate and Paul obviously intended spending the evening at home with their father, no matter who he had with him, threw Bryna into a state of nervous tension.

  ‘Relax,’ Raff advised softly as he sat down beside her on the sofa after handing her the glass of sherry she had asked for. ‘My children don’t bite!’

  They didn’t bite, but they were so forthright that they made her more uncomfortable than ever with the bluntness of their questions.

  At twenty Paul was very like Raff must have been at that age, and he saw no reason to hide the fact that he found her as attractive as he presumed his father did!

  Kate was more interested in discussing fashions with her, and she grabbed on to the subject gratefully. Nevertheless, she felt exhausted by the time Paul left to return to his flat in town and Kate went up to her room to listen to a new cassette she had bought that day.

  ‘What did you think of them?’ Raff arched mocking brows as she relaxed for what had to be the first time that evening.

  Bryna took her time answering, formulating her opinion now that the pressure was off her. His children—although their ages precluded them actually being that!—were both friendly and without affectation, and it was a reflection on their father, with all the wealth he had at his disposal and the fact that he had been a single parent for the last ten years, that they had turned out as nice and uncomplicated as they were. It was obvious that he loved them very much, and that the protective emotion was more than returned.

  But she had found Kate’s candour a little unnerving, and Paul had flirted with her endlessly.

  Raff gave a brief laugh at her continued silence. ‘They don’t usually have the effect of leaving people speechless!’ he assured her. ‘Over the years I’ve been told that they’re brash, rude, inquisitive, and spoilt brats.’

  ‘I don’t agree with that,’ she instantly protested. ‘Kate is just brutally honest, and Paul is—well, he’s——’

  ‘I’ll talk to him tomorrow about his behaviour towards you tonight,’ rasped Raff, his mouth tight.

  ‘Oh no,’ she protested again. ‘He was only—only——’

  ‘Trying to steal the woman I want.’ Raff drew her determinedly into his arms. ‘No one, least of all my twenty-year-old son, takes something I want away from me,’ he told her arrogantly before his head bent to hers.

  Looking at him now, as he chatted amiably with her parents, Bryna couldn’t help wondering what she thought she was doing trying to refuse him something he wanted as badly as he seemed to want her child!

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ‘YOU’RE very quiet.’

  Bryna opened her eyes to look across the luxury of the personalised jet Raff had insisted she join him on during her return flight to London. ‘I’m just tired,’ she shook her head.

  She wasn’t just physically tired, but mentally too; she had been fighting a battle with herself all day, talking herself in and out of agreeing to marry Raff as he wanted her to do. She still had no solution to the question he demanded she answer soon.

  ‘Just relax, Bryna,’ he rasped. ‘No one is going to force you into anything.’

  He never had forced her, and she had no doubt that he didn’t intend to start now. He had never needed to use force with her, just as he hadn’t that night they made love after she had remained a virgin for the twenty-four years of her life.

  It had seemed strange spending the evening with his children on only their second date, but neither they nor Raff had seemed bothered by the fact, and so she had told herself she didn’t care either. Despite her protests that she could get a taxi home, because he had to be feeling exhausted by now, Raff had insisted on driving her home himself.

  She turned to him as he parked the car outside her apartment building. ‘I won’t invite you in because——’

  ‘Invite me in, Bryna,’ he urged huskily.

  ‘—you’re tired, and——’ she broke off as she realised what he had said. ‘You want to come in?’ She blinked her surprise.

  ‘More than anything,’ he nodded, his expression intent.

  ‘But you’re tired, and——’

  ‘Bryna, I’m wide awake, and I want you to invite me in!’

  What could she say to a forceful request like that? She shrugged her shoulders. ‘All right,’ she agreed a little dazedly. ‘If that’s what you want …’

  ‘It is,’ he said somewhat grimly, following her into the building.

  Bryna eyed him warily across the width of the lift as it ascended to her floor, aware that the moment of truth had come quicker than she had thought it would, the evening spent with his children having lulled her into a false sense of security where their own physical relationship was concerned.

  Raff was broodingly silent, filled with a tension of his own, and she knew by just looking at him that he would never settle for the basically platonic relationships she had shared with the other men she had dated over the years. As they entered her apartment she knew now was the time to make up her mind what she wanted from him.

  ‘What are you thinking about?’

  Raff’s harsh voice cut in on her memories, and once again she opened her eyes to look across the width of the plane at him. ‘What do you think?’ she scorned irritably.

  He gave an impatient sigh. ‘I thought you were sleeping until I saw your eyes moving under your lids!’ he bit out. ‘Why bother to fight it, Bryna; you know you’ll have to agree in the end.’

  ‘Is that really the sort of marriage you want?’ she flared. ‘Two people who don’t love each other tied together because of a child they accidentally created! Didn’t the failure of your first marriage tell you anything about that sort of arrangement?’ she scorned.

  ‘My first marriage didn’t fail,’ he snapped. ‘Josey and I were too young, too idealistic about our feelings, to survive all the pressures we had put on us. But we did respect each other.’

  ‘But it wasn’t enough, was it?’ Bryna reasoned forcefully.

  ‘This time it will have to be,’ he grated. ‘You talk as if your pregnancy were my fault,’ he snapped. ‘We may have created that child, Bryna, but I don’t believe it was my “accident”.’

  She felt her cheeks pale. ‘I wondered when you would get around to blaming me——’

  ‘I’m not blaming you for anything,’ he gave a weary sigh. ‘But you did tell me you would take care of birth control. I just presumed that you had.’

  As she had presumed nature had done for her years before! She had seen no reason for either of them to use birth control when there was no possibility of her becoming pregnant, although she hadn’t chosen to tell Raff that. ‘I thought I had,’ she told him gruffly, not quite able to meet his gaze.

  He shrugged. ‘Then you did what you could, and it happened anyway.’ He pushed away his seat-belt, crossing the cabin to come down on his haunches in front of her. ‘Bryna, we’ve been lovers for six months, we aren’t strangers who stumbled into bed together, with your pregnancy the result of that night. Would marriage to me really be so terrible?’ he encouraged, gently holding her hands within his own.

  She looked at him searchingly, wishing she could believe that a marriage of necessity to him wouldn’t be the nightmare she thought it would be. Maybe if they were strangers it could have worked, at least then she wouldn’t hunger for his love the way she did now. But to live in the same house with him, be married to him, and know she was only the mother of his child, would be purgatory! And to be married to him and have him make love to her out of duty would be pure hell! She couldn’t win whatever she did, not now that Raff knew about her child.

  Her head went back proudly. ‘I’ve already told you that the only way there would be a marriage is if we led separate lives.’

  His expression darkened as he released her hands to straighten and drop into the se
at beside her. ‘I believe I said separate beds, Bryna,’ he rasped. ‘I have no intention of entering another marriage where we each have our own sexual partners.’

  The colour came and then went in her cheeks. ‘That wasn’t what I meant at all,’ she gasped, the thought of him leaving her in the evenings to go to another woman making her feel ill. And yet he was a sensual man; what else could she expect him to do in the circumstances? ‘I—I suppose I could learn to live with the fact that you—you have other women——’

  ‘I couldn’t accept your having other men,’ he grated. ‘If you marry me you’ll occupy no one’s bed but your own! And if I ever find out you’ve broken that agreement our marriage will be at an end and I’ll do everything in my power to get custody of my child.’

  Bryna was very pale, not doubting for a moment that he meant what he said—or his ability to carry it out. It was only because she was so aware of the power he wielded that she was even considering agreeing to his proposal.

  His eyes were narrowed grey slits. ‘You can carry on working, you can hire a nanny to care for the child, you can do what you damn well please, but you won’t give any other man what you deny me!’

  He was like a child refusing to let anyone else play with his toy even though he didn’t want it himself! Because that was all she would be if she married him, a beautiful ornament for his home.

  ‘Can’t you see that it wouldn’t work, Raff?’ she tried reasoning with him.

  ‘I would make sure that it did work,’ he told her arrogantly.

  She sighed. ‘I’m a person, Raff, with feelings of my own, not some business deal you’re putting together!’

  ‘I’m well aware of the fact that you have feelings,’ he bit out. ‘Which is why I offered you a normal marriage.’