Modern Romance Collection July 2024 Books 1-4

CHAPTER THREE

SUNNYbrEATHEDJUST before Raj bent his dark head and covered her mouth with his.

And once again the world stopped dead, while her heart hammered and her body went off on a slew of discovery she had long since forgotten about. Nerve cells awakened from a lengthy slumber and a visceral response gripped her, heated energy pushing up from her pelvis and spreading like a dangerously contagious infection through the rest of her. Her nipples peaked with painful immediacy while a clenching sensation pulsed at the heart of her.

Raj tasted her as though she were the finest wine and he was determined to savour every tiny drop of it. His lips coasted back and forth over hers, coaxing them open, and then he was in and she was tasting him and every sense spun dizzily on a roller coaster of sensual discovery. His lips were soft and firm and the flavour of mint and man and the very scent of him left her light-headed. The first tiny dip of his tongue into her mouth was a revelation of skill because every inch of her responded with explosive force. As his hand closed round the back of her head in a possessive grip to pull her even closer, she was so overwhelmed by the sheer passion he had unleashed inside her that she yanked herself forcibly back from him.

Raj blinked slowly, allowing the world that had vanished to flood back in. That single taste of her had had the same effect on him as a rocket firing off and he had never felt anything that powerful with a woman before. Predictably, he instantly wanted more of it, all of it, all of her. Hard as a rock and unsated, he breathed in and out slowly, thoroughly tantalised by the revelation that there could actually be more to sex than he had always assumed.

Sunny rested a trembling hand down on the table to steady herself. She had never felt anything like that with a man before, not even with Jack, and it had shaken her inside out. But Sunny always looked before she leapt and she was immediately aware that she and Raj inhabited very different worlds and that he was Pansy’s uncle, would always be Pansy’s uncle. ‘Well, that was—’

‘Exhilarating,’ Raj incised confidently, searching her hectically flushed face and the luminosity of her stunned gaze with satisfaction, knowing with certainty that she had been as affected as he was. No, she couldn’t hide that from him and he liked that, no, he loved that. There was nothing studied or deliberately seductive or calculating about Sunny; she was simply Sunny. And he had never had that confidence with any other woman in his bed.

‘Yes, well—’ Sunny began jerkily.

‘We’ll spend tonight together on my yacht,’ Raj decided, thrusting back his chair and rising to his full intimidating height. ‘Let me show you the herb gardens now...’

Lord of all that he surveys, Sunny reflected, but thankfully not Lord of her as well. It was ironic that she had first wanted to laugh when he’d said that they would spend the night on his yacht together because Raj was making grand assumptions based on what was obviously the norm for him. One kiss and he assumed consent and agreement had been reached? That she would just fall into his bed immediately because he said so? Did she blame him for that? Or other women who had evidently gone to him far too easily?

As Raj reached out a hand to her to guide her down the flight of stone steps that led to the gardens, Pansy let out an ear-splitting screech and Maria scooped her up to try and quiet her. Pansy, however, fought the young woman, her arms stretching out for her aunt and a stifled sob escaping her. Sunny turned back and hurried along the terrace to reclaim her niece. Pansy lurched into her arms as though the poor nanny had been trying to steal her and, soothing her, Sunny walked her back to Raj, the nanny following.

‘She’s friendly with everyone but not surprisingly, after recent experiences, she doesn’t like me disappearing from sight in a strange place,’ she explained quietly.

As a party of four rather than a party of two, they crossed the lawn. Raj’s gaze had chilled and no longer glowed warm burnished bronze. Tough luck, Raj, Sunny thought, she comes first. Able to have Sunny close by, however, Pansy relaxed again and chased a ball.

‘We need to talk about this...er...night on your yacht.’ Sunny broached the subject with all the awkwardness of a young woman unused to such discussions, but one who had already grasped that, with Raj, subtle deflections wouldn’t work. If left to reach the wrong conclusions, Raj would happily power forward on his own steamy assumptions.

‘What’s there to talk about?’ Raj countered dismissively. ‘We’re attracted to each other, strongly attracted. Let’s keep this simple.’

Sunny moistened her taut lower lip. ‘But it’s not simple. It’s not as though we’re dating.’

‘I don’t date.’ Somehow, Raj managed to imbue that last word with distaste.

‘Neither do I, as a rule, but I also don’t jump into bed with strangers.’

Raj said something in another language that had the ring of a bitten-off curse word. ‘I am not a stranger to you.’

‘You’re enough of a stranger to me that I have no intention of getting intimate with you. And what about the need for us to maintain a good ongoing relationship for Pansy’s sake? Have you thought of how us getting involved could mess that up?’ Sunny demanded succinctly, accompanying him below a rose-clad arch into a very private expanse, bounded by tall hedges. There she paused, enchanted by the vista of a lush, blooming herb garden with gravel paths and geometric beds.

‘Oh, this is heavenly...’ Sunny whispered, drifting away from him to explore as though she had seen some earthly vision of paradise and could see nothing else.

Unaccustomed to being forgotten about and disconcerted by her use of that particular argument on his niece’s behalf, Raj wanted to yank her back to listen to him talk some common sense into her and he withstood that urge only with difficulty. He stalked after her, incensed by his rare failure to get his point across.

‘So, I have to date you to have sex with you?’ Raj loomed over her, blocking out the glorious sunlight.

‘Don’t be silly. That’s not what I said,’ Sunny replied. ‘And if you’re only interested in having sex with my body rather than me, just forget the notion.’

Raj breathed in so deep and long that she was vaguely surprised he didn’t rise into the air with the pressure on his lungs. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘Are you single?’ Sunny asked.

‘Of course I am!’

Sunny tipped her head back to look at him. That violet gaze, some dangerous mix of pale blue and grey, rested on him with a remarkably sceptical quality. ‘Are you seriously telling me that there are no other women of any kind in your life?’

Intelligence warned Raj to lie but he had never lied to any woman who shared his bed, had never allowed the smallest chance of a misunderstanding to occur. The women who entertained his leisure hours knew that they had a limited shelf life and that his interest eventually waned. He got bored quickly, always had, always would. He didn’t get attached in any way. Sex was just another outlet, a harmless diversion and was usually no more important to him.

Sunny watched faint colour edge his high cheekbones and her heart sank because she had hoped that she was wrong and that there genuinely weren’t any other women in his life.

‘There are women...but not in the dating sense,’ he framed with as much delicacy as he could contrive, hoping that she left the subject there.

Sunny’s brows climbed as she continued to stare at him. ‘Hookers?’

Raj was embarrassed, and he didn’t think he had ever been so embarrassed in his life, and he couldn’t credit that she could be digging to that extent or even that he was allowing her to do so. ‘No...now let’s leave.’

‘Escorts?’ Sunny cut in, startling him afresh.

‘No.’ Raj stared down into her feverishly curious face and was startled to find himself on the brink of wholly inappropriate laughter. ‘Mistresses.’

Her brow furrowed. ‘More than one?’

Raj was done. He didn’t even understand why he had answered her nosy questions. He jerked his chin in silent confirmation because no way was she getting one more word out of him.

‘OK...’ Sunny wandered away from him as though he hadn’t spoken and began rhapsodising over a fall of lavender and the way the light falling on it created waving shadows.

She lived on another plane, an artistic plane, Raj acknowledged in frustration. At that moment he felt as though he had just had his insides dug out with a rusty spoon and he didn’t know why that was so, yet she was sufficiently unaffected to admire the vegetation. That was why he didn’t enjoy that comparison.

Sunny bent down to sniff the lavender and break off a piece and rub it between her fingers. Her eyes were still stinging with unshed tears. Mistresses in the plural. Well, at least he was honest about it, but it meant that she could never be with him.

‘You don’t seem surprised.’ Raj hovered nearby, uncertain as to why he was reopening the wretched subject when he refused to discuss it any further with her. He only knew that he needed a response from her.

Sunny scrambled upright again, blinking rapidly. ‘I’m not. It’s practical, efficient...the sort of arrangement I would’ve expected from you,’ she framed in a stiff undertone. ‘Sorry, I pried.’

‘You didn’t. You asked and I chose to answer.’ Raj reached for her hand but she tugged it away from him. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘We shouldn’t get close. We should work on being just friends...but not friends with benefits,’ she hastened to point out in sudden mortification. ‘I’m not the mistress type and I don’t share, so, believe me, we’re at a dead end here.’

Sunny was telling him that he couldn’t have her, but Raj could not accept that refusal because he had never once met a situation he couldn’t conquer or twist to his advantage. ‘You don’t share, so as well as dating you’re talking about something exclusive as well,’ he recapped with a frown of disbelief. ‘That’s not achievable, so we will have to compromise.’

‘No more, Raj,’ Sunny interposed gently. ‘You know that you have no intention of compromising in any way and that you only expect me to compromise. I won’t. I’m as stubborn as a pig when it comes to what’s right for me...and for Pansy.’

‘How do you presume to know me so well?’

Sunny gazed up at him, her own bewilderment at her conviction mirrored in her bright eyes. ‘I honestly don’t know how, but I do know that you’re a very strong character and that you’ll persist unless I’m firm.’

‘Firm? I’m not a child, Sunny.’

No, she thought, he could do a lot more damage to her than a child ever could. But he was, indisputably, a raging storm of a male, accustomed to getting his own way and capable of manipulation beyond her worst expectations. Gut instincts served her well and that was truly how she saw him. He was dangerous to her peace of her mind and stability and her niece needed a strong and steady parent.

And yet, on another level, she could still barely believe that Raj Belanger, with all the many options he must have, could actually want her. It was not as if she were a supermodel or some sleek socialite or sophisticate.

‘We don’t have anything in common,’ she pointed out quietly.

‘We have passion,’ Raj countered with immense assurance. ‘What more would we need?’

‘If I have to spell out what more, we would be a disaster...and anyway...’ Sunny stood tall and lifted her chin ‘...I don’t want this. I’m happy with my life as it is.’

‘You haven’t had me in your life before.’

Sunny dealt him a reproachful glance. ‘This subject is closed.’

Raj laughed in genuine pleasure at that response. Pansy surged up to his knees chasing her ball and, without thought, he scooped up the ball and lifted it above his head.

‘No...throw it along the ground low or she won’t see it!’ Sunny whisper-hissed at him.

Raj rolled the ball between the flower beds and Pansy giggled and ran after it. ‘She’s much better on her feet,’ he remarked.

Sunny smiled up at him. ‘Yes, she’s all change every day at the moment, moving from being a baby into being a real little personality.’

Her smile had the effect of making him smile and it irritated him because he was not pleased with her. She had handed him an ultimatum and Raj did not react well to ultimatums. In addition, she would now be chary of getting on the yacht in case he was taking them there for some nefarious purpose. Further irritation laced his big powerful frame. That particular problem, however, would be easily solved, he acknowledged as he pulled out his phone and made a quick call.

Sizing up the other issues, he questioned why he was trying to mix business with pleasure for the first time in his adult life. He never made that mistake. True, Sunny and his niece were not business, but they did not fall into the other category either. In fact, they had a category all of their own, somewhat filling that gaping space left by Ethan, that family space, he reasoned. Craving Sunny for pleasure was a messy, complicated desire. He compressed his firm lips. Logic warned him to suppress his hunger for her. But he didn’t feel logical about Sunny. It wasn’t rational or convenient to want her. There was simply something about her, some indefinable quality that called to him...still called to him even when she infuriated him. And it struck him as ridiculous that he, the ultimate cold-blooded, rational male, should appear, even in the trivial pursuit of sex, to have less common sense than eccentric Sunny.

He surveyed her and his niece. Sunny was kneeling in the gravel, showing a flower to Pansy, tickling her chin with it, laughing at the child’s little giggle. The hippy dress already had grass stains and tracks from dusty gravel and she couldn’t have cared less. Messy but somehow appealing for all that. Golden hair shining in the sunlight, luscious pink mouth pouting as she teased Pansy, her ever-ready smile beaming out. Warmth, he labelled, that was what she emanated like a forcefield. Warmth and acceptance and a kind of joy in ordinary life that was utterly fresh and new to him.

Sunny strolled back to the giant fancy house where they enjoyed fancy desserts and coffee on the terrace. It was downright magical with the fabulous view, the glorious weather, the food and the sheer glamour of it all, Sunny conceded, and it was exactly as Raj had probably planned it. The way she suspected Raj planned everything. There it was, that ridiculous belief that she knew how his brilliant mind worked. When he wanted something, he knew how to get it, never mind how unscrupulous his methods might be. After all, she was fairly sure that her visit had been planned as a long, slow seduction over lunch and drinks and glorious herbs in the sunshine. She might be na?ve and inexperienced, but she was far from stupid.

‘Tell me about Christabel as a child,’ Raj asked her.

‘Her mother died when she was quite young. She was eight when I was born, so I have very few memories of her because she was always away modelling or acting and my father was away with her,’ Sunny confided. ‘From what my mother told me, our father viewed Christabel as a superstar from the moment she won her first beautiful baby competition, which was before Mum’s time with Dad. By the time they married, Christabel’s star quality was Dad’s sole interest. He gave up work to chaperone her when she started modelling in Paris at the age of fourteen and then she was starring in that TV soap opera that made her name.’

‘You’re giving me a different take on your sister. She was pushed into the public eye as a kid?’

‘I think she was and our father acted as her manager. I only know that Mum felt as though our father married her to give Christabel a mother and then decided that he didn’t need her or have time for a wife as well. She felt excluded. When Mum fell pregnant with me, Dad asked her to get a termination because he said they couldn’t afford another child and that was the last straw for her,’ Sunny admitted. ‘They staggered along for another couple of years and then my gran was grieving so hard for my grandfather that Mum moved in with her. It was supposed to be temporary but it became permanent and my parents got a divorce in the end.’

‘And what about your relationship with your father?’ Raj prompted.

‘It never really got off the ground. He visited a few times when I was a baby and then he passed away, so I didn’t really know him, except through my relatives’ opinions.’

‘You were worth so much more than Christabel. She was as shallow as an envelope.’

Sunny winced. ‘Maybe our father made her that way and taught her only to value her worth through her beauty and fame and earnings.’

‘You always have that compassionate take,’ Raj groaned as though she was paining him.

‘None of us are perfect,’ she argued. ‘All of us have faults. You can’t just judge people from afar.’

Raj groaned again. ‘That’s straight out of the Bible stuff...of course, you go to church.’

‘Was it accurate, that investigation you had done on me?’ Sunny enquired with unmistakeable amusement in her luminous gaze.

‘Yes and no. The facts were correct, but the report didn’t even catch a flavour of you as an individual,’ Raj asserted without concern that she had guessed that he had had a private security firm check her out in advance of their first meeting.

She appreciated his honesty and was tempted to ask what flavour she was in reality, but bit her tongue instead lest he assume that she was flirting with him and digging for a potential compliment.

Later, they climbed into a motorboat to be taken out to the yacht, Belanger I, in the bay and she breathed in slowly, calming herself. Nothing was going to happen between her and Raj because an adult discussion had killed that possibility stone dead. What was wrong with her that, instead of relief, she was experiencing disappointment?

The truth was that Raj had wanted more and so had she, but common sense had prevailed. For the first time in years she had wanted a man and that recognition still shook her. She had shut down that part of herself after the disillusionment served by Jack. Jack had hurt her so badly at such a delicate age when she was still finding herself and she had gone through university specialising in turning potential boyfriends into mates, platonic mates. Yes, there had been presentable men back then, but none who had tempted her to try again.

Sunny shot a guilty glance at Raj as the breeze ruffled his luxuriant black hair above his bold bronzed, hard profile. A frisson of awareness ran through her, lighting her up inside like a shower of fireworks in the dusk skies, and she shivered. Almost instantly, Raj noted that shiver and stepped closer, peeling off his suit jacket and draping it round her, the silky warmth of the lining engulfing her arms and dropping to her knees, big hands resting briefly on her shoulders to steady her, and her tummy flipped as though she were on a roller-coaster ride. The scent of the jacket, of him, engulfed her, an indefinable scent that was just him: warm, male, laced with the faintest scent of cologne, and it felt so intimate that she shivered again.

Raj wrapped both arms round her. ‘You’re really cold. I’m sorry.’

Involuntarily, she encountered a look of surprise from Maria because it was a hot day and the breeze was slight. Her face burned even hotter. Raj made her feel horribly like an infatuated teenage girl.

Off the boat onto the massive yacht that she hadn’t even had sufficient concentration to appreciate from a distance, she returned his jacket to him with a muffled thanks and took her niece’s hand in hers to climb the stairs facing them.

‘I’ll carry her. The steps are too steep for her little legs,’ Raj intervened and swept up Pansy without hesitation, bending down to murmur, ‘Unfortunately, although your legs aren’t much longer, I can’t carry both of you...’

Reddening afresh, Sunny hastened upward and reached the top step to find a woman looking down at them all with a huge, bright smile. ‘Welcome onboard,’ she said in slightly accented English.

‘Sunny, meet Bambina Barelli. She’s an Italian contessa and a good friend.’

‘I don’t use the title these days, Raj...and no need for an introduction to this little girl!’ The brunette reached for the child in Raj’s arms with enthusiasm. ‘You’re Pansy, aren’t you?’

And Pansy chuckled when, for the very first time, her aunt wished she would scream and act distant with a stranger. The meanness of that thought hit Sunny’s conscience hard. Unhappily for Sunny though, Raj’s ‘good friend’ Bambina was absolutely gorgeous, supermodel gorgeous with long swishy black hair, perfect features, almond-shaped dark eyes and legs that looked incredible in a short gold cocktail frock with diamonds glittering at her throat and ears. Sunny felt sick, her stomach swirling with nausea.