From Waif To His Wife

‘Do you really need me to answer that?’

‘Yes, I do!’ Her green eyes were indignant.

‘OK, then, women have been throwing themselves in my path for years,’ he said deliberately. ‘Don’t think I enjoy it or flatter myself that my money isn’t the draw, I don’t. And this could be an original way of doing it.

‘No,’ he added as Maisie drew a deep breath, ‘the time for furious displays of anger is past, straight-talking is what we need now, Maisie. For example, when you said the only Rafael Sanderson you could come up with was me, does that mean the name meant nothing to you when this man introduced himself as me?’

‘No—yes! I’d never heard of you.’

‘So why would anyone masquerade as me to a girl it meant nothing to?’

Maisie’s eyes widened. ‘I have no idea,’ she whispered.

‘But you assumed there was a bit of substance in his background all the same?’

‘I honestly didn’t give it much thought but I suppose so. He was well-spoken, he’d travelled, he was,’ she grimaced, ‘a lot more sophisticated than anyone else I’d ever dated.’

He smiled a lethal little smile. ‘Well, that’s the kind of thing I’ll be digging into, as well as your background and so on. Do you really want me to go on with it?’

For a moment, Maisie was in two minds as it struck her that this Rafael Sanderson had an aura his impersonator—and it had to be that—had lacked.

Yes, there were physical similarities, colouring, height and so on.

This Rafe had changed again, after rescuing her and kissing her, during which a fair bit of her drenched condition had transferred itself to him, into jeans and a grey, fine-wool round-necked sweater.

With his thick, ruffled dark-blond hair, those unusual eyes, his lean, strong lines beneath his jeans and sweater, and with his beautiful hands, she noticed suddenly, he was just as attractive.

Similar build—glorious physiques in other words, similar good looks, but—two very different characters, she reflected.

The first Rafe had been charming, he’d been easy-going, he’d really made her laugh at the same time as he’d made her feel desirable and able to view the world a little less darkly in his company.

Yet, despite allusions to a wealthy background, she would never have taken him for the CEO of a minerals corporation, whereas the man sitting opposite her struck her as exactly that.

He definitely had the aura of a clever, powerful businessman who knew what he wanted and got it. It was there in the way he spoke, in his gestures and the way he handled people. It had been there in the few images she’d brought up on her computer that had puzzled her and made her wonder if they were one and the same man.

In other words, beneath those good looks, and wonderfully honed, tall body, there was a lot more substance to this man, there was even a faintly dangerous edge to him that made you stop and think twice about tangling with him.

But she was telling the truth, she reminded herself, so what did she have to lose?

‘You may do your darnedest, Mr Sanderson,’ she told him quietly. ‘I have nothing to hide.’

‘I see.’ He said it quite neutrally, but his gaze was extremely penetrating and acute.

So penetrating, Maisie found herself thinking some bizarre thoughts.

How was he seeing her?

Simply as a troublesome thorn in his side? A girl who’d got herself into trouble and was therefore beyond the pale?

Or, had any of the deliciously feminine sensations he’d aroused in her got through to him? Something had prompted him to kiss her, after all, so he’d been the one to make the first move, but…

‘Good,’ he said, breaking into her thoughts. ‘Well, now that we’ve got that settled, let’s make a move.’ He got up and picked up her plate.

‘Oh, I’ll do that—unless you need me up top?’

‘Thanks, but I can manage.’ He turned away and ascended the steps to the deck two at a time.

Maisie watched him go and she drew a sudden, startled little breath to discover that it was far from settled for her.

His athleticism stripped away his sweater and jeans in her mind and presented her with an image of him unclothed, and her imagination ran riot.

She pictured herself on the aft berth with him laughing down at her with tender, wicked amusement as if at an intimate joke only they could share.

Her thoughts roamed on and she realised that if that amusement changed to Rafe Sanderson looking at her with heavy-lidded desire, it would send her to the moon…

Even just the thought of it, and the images that accompanied it, raised her pulses to fever pitch and left her awash with sensation all through her body.

Maisie, Maisie, she thought in some desperation, don’t let this happen to you! Think of your fatherless baby if nothing else.

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