Happily Ever After...: His Reluctant Cinderella / His Very Convenient Bride / A Deal to Mend Their Marriage. Sophie Pembroke
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honestly.’ Clara wasn’t ready to face the world yet. ‘Let’s just walk. I need some air.’
‘Whatever you want.’ But he didn’t let go of her, not fully, capturing her hands in his, keeping her close as they walked. ‘I am going to insist on tea full of sugar though. I work in a medical capacity, remember? I am fully qualified to prescribe hot, sweet drinks.’
Clara knew that if she spoke, just one word, she’d start to cry. And she didn’t know if she would ever be able to stop. So she simply nodded and allowed him to continue to hold her hands as they ambled slowly through the grey streets.
‘You must think I’m a fool,’ she said finally. They had continued to wander aimlessly until they had reached Regent’s Park. Raff had bought them both hot drinks from a kiosk and they walked along the tree-lined paths in silence.
Raff looked at her in surprise. ‘I don’t think anything of the sort. Why?’
‘Byron.’
He huffed out a laugh. ‘If you judged me on my taste in women when I was eighteen your opinion of me would be very low indeed.’
But Clara didn’t want absolution. The humiliation cut so deep. ‘I thought I was so worldly. I had travelled thousands of miles alone, with a ticket I had saved up for. I had amazing A-level results. I had it all. I was an idiot. An immature idiot.’
She risked looking into his face, poised to see contempt or, worse, pity, but all she saw was warm understanding. ‘I didn’t really date at school. I was so focused on my future, on leaving Hopeford. So when I met Byron...’ She shook her head. ‘We were in Bali, staying in the same hostel. He was two years older and seemed so mature. I had no idea he was from a wealthy family. He didn’t act like it. It was his suggestion we share a house in Sydney and save to go travelling together. It was his own little rebellion against his father’s plans.’
‘We all have those.’ His mouth twisted.
‘At least yours involves saving people’s lives.’ She wasn’t ready for absolution. ‘Byron was just playing. But I didn’t see it. I fell for him completely. When I found out I was pregnant I was really happy. I thought we really had a future, travelling the world with a baby. God, I was so naïve.’ She stopped and scuffed her foot along the floor, as unsettled as a teenager on her very first date. ‘Thank you.’
Raff raised his eyebrows in surprise. ‘What for?’
‘For standing by me, for allowing me to handle it.’
‘Well,’ he confessed, ‘that wasn’t easy. I don’t usually resort to violence but I had to sit on my hands to keep from throttling Byron’s father when he offered you the money.’
‘Why do men keep offering me money? First you and now him. Why do some people think that throwing money at things—at me—solves their problems?’
To her horror Clara could hear that her voice was shaking and feel the lump in her throat was growing. Keep it together, Clara, she told herself, but there were times when will power wasn’t enough.
Clara blinked, hard, but it was too late as the threatened tears spilled out in an undignified cascade. She knuckled her eyes furiously, as if she could force them back.
‘Because we’re fools?’ Raff took her hand in his, his fingers drawing caressing circles on her palm. It wasn’t the first time he had touched her today but this wasn’t comforting; the slow, lazy touch sent shivers shooting up her arm.
‘No, don’t.’ She pulled her treacherous hand away. ‘You don’t have to be nice to me. This is all a pretence, isn’t it?’ The only person she could ask to stand by her wasn’t really in her life at all. How pathetic was that?
Her throat ached with the effort of keeping back the sobs threatening to erupt in a noisy, undignified mess, the tears continuing to escape as Raff took hold of her, tilting her chin up so she had no choice but to look him in the eyes.
‘Not all of it,’ he said, his voice hoarse. ‘It’s not all pretence, Clara. Is it? I know we haven’t talked about it, try and pretend it didn’t happen, but it felt pretty real to me.’
‘That was just sex.’ Easy to say but she knew her tone lacked conviction. There was no such thing as just sex for Clara; she hadn’t trusted anyone enough to get close enough for ‘just sex’ since Byron. Just this man, standing right here, looking down at her with the kind of mixture of concern and heat that could take a girl’s breath away.
‘I’m on your side, Clara. I’m here for you, whatever you need, whatever you want.’
Hope sprang up, unwanted, pathetic, needy; she pushed it ruthlessly away. ‘For as long as we have a deal, right?’ Was that sarcastic voice really hers?
‘For as long as it takes, as long as you need me.’ His hands tightened on her shoulders, his eyes dark, intense as if he could bore the truth of his words into her.
And, oh, how she wanted to believe him. She didn’t mean to move but somehow she was moving forward, allowing herself to lean in, rest her head against the broad shoulders, allowing those strong arms to encircle her, pull her close as the desperate sobs finally overwhelmed her, muffled against his jacket. And he didn’t move, just held her tight, let her cry it all out. For as long as she needed to.
‘YOU LOOK...’ RAFF CAME to a nonplussed stop, trying to find a word, any word, that did Clara justice. It didn’t exist.
‘Beautiful?’ Clara supplied for him. That wasn’t the word; it wasn’t enough by any measure. ‘I hope so. I’ve spent all day being prodded, plucked and anointed. If I don’t look halfway decent at this exact moment in time then there is no hope.’
‘Don’t worry,’ he assured her. ‘You’re somewhere past halfway.’
The truth was that at the sight of her all the breath whooshed out of his body; in a room full of glitter she shone the brightest. In the end she had eschewed all the designer dresses Rafferty’s had to offer and had opted for a vintage dress that had belonged to her great-grandmother, a ballerina-length full-skirted black silk with a deceptively demure neckline, although it plunged more daringly at the back, exposing a deep vee of creamy skin.
Raff immediately vowed that nobody else would dance with Clara that evening, no other man would be able to put his hand on that bare back, feel the silk of her skin.
‘You scrub up nicely as well,’ she assured him.
Raff pulled at his bow tie. He’d owned a tux since his teens but he still felt as if he were dressing up as James Bond.
Or a waiter.
‘Nervous?’
‘A little,’ he admitted. ‘Not about the presentation, more how Grandfather will take it. How is he?’
‘He’s here.’ She pulled an expressive face. Her relationship with Raff’s grandfather had thawed a little; he was at least polite. But although she told Raff—and herself—that his initial rebuff didn’t worry her, she wasn’t being entirely honest. It was all too reminiscent of Archibald Drewe’s treatment of her, an uneasy and constant reminder of her mistakes.
‘Grumpy that he has a special diet and can only drink water but happy he’s away from that damned TV and fool nurse. His words not mine.’
‘I bet he’s glad to be talking work as well.’ Raff had mingled business with business and invited some of Rafferty’s key suppliers and associates to fill the table he had paid for. It was odd seeing his two very different worlds colliding in this rarefied atmosphere of luxury and wealth.
Opting for something a little unusual, Doctors Everywhere were holding the event in a private garden belonging to the privileged residents