CHAPTER FIVE
RAJWAKENEDLATER than was his wont, in an empty bed, and he immediately frowned.
Why had Sunny not wakened him? Most particularly after they had shared such an astonishing night together. Had he been the sort of guy who suffered from a fragile ego, he could have felt slighted. But there was nothing fragile about Raj’s ego, particularly when he was recalling a sleepless night of passion such as he had never before enjoyed. She had wanted him as much as he had wanted her, he reflected with confidence as he strode into the shower. But even so, he was already recalling those admittedly glorious moments of unprotected sex and tensing over them. He had got carried away. He would address that potential problem before she flew back to the UK.
Of course, Sunny had got up early to be available for their niece, he assumed, content to forgive her on that score alone. A child’s needs should take precedence over the adults’ desires. He could only wish that he had enjoyed the nurture of a mother like that. Unfortunately, fate had cursed him with a weak, cowardly mother, one enthralled for years by a cruel, manipulative man. Only Clara’s second pregnancy had inspired and strengthened her enough to walk out on Raj’s father. Pansy, however, would only ever enjoy the blessing of Sunny and all the love and attention Sunny could shower on the child.
In her cabin, Sunny finished packing her overnight bag, having already attended to Pansy’s. Every too quick movement jarred her still tender body with muscular aches and faint little pangs in parts never before used with such thoroughness. She smiled to herself. It had been one magical, unforgettable night, she savoured, grateful that she had had the courage to take up the opportunity rather than remaining controlled by a better-buried past. There would be an aftermath of sadness eventually for what could not be in the future, she conceded ruefully, but then that was life, always giving with one hand and then taking with the other. In the meantime, it was only human to be wondering if it was normal to make love that many times in the space of a few hours. Raj had been...insatiable. There was no other word for his hunger for her and she had felt empowered by her apparent desirability. Only that was a shallow, superficial thing, she acknowledged, shamefaced, and not something she could reasonably feel proud of attracting.
As a crew member came to collect their luggage, she was informed that Raj had asked to see her in his office. Leaving Pansy with Maria, who was planning to take the child out onto the deck to see the school of dolphin whose presence they had been alerted to by the attendant, Sunny followed the same man into a lift that whisked her up to the top deck. Her cheeks were hot at the prospect of seeing Raj again. Tiptoeing out of his cabin at dawn had been an easy escape but one that now had to be paid for with the awkward first meeting she had earlier ducked.
‘Good morning, Sunny,’ Raj greeted her with an expansive smile of welcome. ‘I expected to have breakfast with you and Pansy, but you sneaked off early without rousing me.’
Raj looked magnificent in a pale linen suit, more casual in cut than she was accustomed to seeing on him, although nothing could diminish his height and breadth or the taut, fit definition of his musculature below the dark blue open-necked shirt he sported. That very thought made her face warm again and fired an uneasy clenching sensation low in her pelvis, making her shift in her seat.
‘I thought it was easier for us both my way,’ she confided unevenly, breathing challenged by his proximity as he directed her down into a comfortable armchair graced with a panoramic view of the Italian coast and the sea. A faint hint of his designer cologne flared her nostrils and made her even stiffer. ‘You’ve got the most amazing office environment to enjoy up here.’
A knock sounded on the door and a tray arrived.
‘Soothing camomile tea,’ Raj announced, dark eyes gleaming with amusement.
‘And coffee for you. The tea would have been a healthier option but just ignore me when I preach,’ she told him.
‘We were rather bold last night,’ Raj remarked. ‘I sincerely hope that there isn’t any chance of a child coming from that boldness.’
Sunny froze. ‘None whatsoever. I’m infertile,’ she assured him, pale as a ghost at having to repeat what was soothing news to him but a painful recollection for her.
Raj relaxed his guard. ‘I would like you to extend your stay onboard,’ he stated with the utmost casualness.
Dismay lit Sunny’s strained eyes and she lowered her lashes. ‘I’m afraid I can’t. I have to get back to my studio and my animals.’
‘I can fix all that,’ Raj pointed out, smooth as ice, bronzed eyes wandering over her at his leisure, his gaze heating her up wherever it lingered, swelling her breasts inside her bra, creating a damp heat between her thighs, which she pressed together hard. ‘I’ll have your art supplies flown out or new supplies obtained. I will organise care for your livestock. You won’t need to worry about anything.’
Sunny breathed in slow and deep. ‘But I want to go home,’ she said tightly. ‘I’ve really enjoyed this very glamorous trip and your hospitality. It’s been a treat and I mean that. I’m very grateful.’
‘Did the sex qualify as a treat or merely as an aspect of my hospitality?’ Raj derided.
Sunny paled at his tone and the tension that had hardened his lean, darkly handsome features to granite. ‘That’s not a fair comment. We both knew and accepted what last night was.’
‘I know what you said but I didn’t believe you or accept what you said or even agree with it,’ Raj admitted boldly.
‘Oh, dear,’ Sunny mumbled uneasily. Shaken by that unvarnished warning of intent, she slowly sipped her tea in its bone china monogrammed cup, the saucer rattling a little as her hand trembled. ‘You should’ve said all that to me last night.’
‘What guy would when he wants a woman? I didn’t believe you meant it because your decision doesn’t make any sense.’
‘It makes perfect sense,’ Sunny sliced in a little louder, determined to be heard. ‘We have different values, different lifestyles. One night was self-indulgent but comparatively harmless in the long term. It ended it, no hard feelings.’
‘Newsflash...I’ve got hard feelings!’ Raj shot back at her rawly.
‘There’s nothing I can do about that except wish that I hadn’t made the decision to stay with you last night,’ Sunny replied curtly. ‘It’s not as if it’s a rejection. It’s simply rational and practical. And we shouldn’t be confusing this relationship for Pansy’s benefit. We’re her uncle and her aunt. We are not lovers.’
‘That’s not a matter of concern while she is still so young!’ Raj interposed fiercely. ‘I wanted you last night. I want you now. I’m not a changeable individual. You cannot switch off a response like that, and that you believe you can only proves how out of your depth you are!’
‘I didn’t say it would be easy to switch off again,’ Sunny objected as she set down the tea and stood up, feeling intimidated by the fact that he was still standing. ‘But that’s the price for the freedom we enjoyed last night. If we continued some sort of affair, it would get messy. You wouldn’t like messy and I refuse to break my own rules.’
‘You’re not a teenager with a curfew any more, Sunny,’ Raj said very drily. ‘You can make your own rules.’
‘Not about accepting your other women, not about the basic truth that we couldn’t work in any field because we are so different,’ she protested and then she paused, and, recognising the shielded detachment in his cool bronzed gaze, she suddenly threw up her hands in frustration. ‘Oh, why am I even bothering trying to explain when you’re not listening...? Just as you refused to listen to me last night. If you don’t want to hear something, you ignore it. If you don’t like it, you ignore it. Well, maybe that works in your world and people feel forced to accept your point of view as supreme, but it doesn’t work in mine and it never will!’
‘Have you anything else to say?’ Raj enquired glacially. ‘Or are you done shouting at me?’
‘I was not shouting!’ Sunny fired back at him furiously.
‘You are definitely shouting,’ Raj informed her gently, watching her pace in front of him, another one of her all-enveloping shapeless dresses flapping around her ankles. ‘And I have a very low tolerance for being shouted at.’
‘Oh, shut up!’ Sunny loosed at him in ferocious annoyance at that measured declaration. ‘Nobody has ever got me as mad as you get me! You stand there giving forth like Moses off the Mount but you’re not going to get away with doing it to me!’
‘And I won’t allow you to sidle away from the truth,’ Raj countered, stepping between her and the door. ‘Is that how you work, Sunny? All charm and appeal until someone dares to challenge you? And then, you run away? That’s not how I work.’
‘You’re being difficult,’ Sunny protested.
‘But isn’t that what you expected from me?’ Raj tossed back, still acting as a very effective block between her and the exit. ‘I won’t allow you to run away from what you refuse to face.’
‘I don’t refuse to face anything!’ Sunny flung at him angrily.
‘I’m sorry but you do,’ Raj countered with grave intent. ‘You don’t want this attraction because it doesn’t meet your requirements...whatever they may be!’
‘Like mistresses in every port of call...like that’s normal!’ Sunny exclaimed in a total fury exceeding anything she had ever felt before. She was outraged that Raj was daring to behave as though he were a single guy able to be with her alone. ‘Yeah, sorry about those normal requirements of mine, but actually they’re fairly basic...if you can tune into the regular expectations of the average woman, which I’m not sure you can.’
Raj stalked forward a step. ‘And what are those expectations?’
‘The expectations you’re determined not to hear,’ Sunny slung back at him vehemently. ‘I don’t share! Would you agree to share me with another man?’
A muscle pulled tight at the corner of his unsmiling mouth. ‘Of course not.’
‘There you are, then,’ Sunny said softly, the anger leaving her in a relieving surge as she realised that she had finally found an argument that he respected. ‘You’re looking at what you offered me and you wouldn’t accept that for yourself. Is that sexism? Hypocrisy? I don’t know. What I do know is that I won’t accept less than you evidently would.’
Raj gritted his even white teeth. He wasn’t accustomed to being outdone in a dispute but he could not, at that moment, come up with a reasonable response and that infuriated him. He was neither sexist, nor hypocritical. The world he lived in had taught him to adapt to certain unavoidable changes. He wanted sex like any young, healthy male but if he didn’t want his bedroom exploits and secrets spread across the tabloids for public consumption, he had to take specific steps to protect himself. And that had inevitably led to the mistress solution, women who accepted that sex was basically all that he required from them. Only Sunny did not fit into that category.
‘I understand that this is a negotiation,’ he returned levelly.
Sunny stared back at him in shock at that assurance. ‘That’s not what this is.’
‘What else can it be? You tell me what you will not accept. I may or may not choose to meet your terms.’
‘You’ve been in business for far too long,’ Sunny argued unhappily. ‘Relationships do not fall into the business realm.’
Raj gave her a very wry smile, lips turning up at the corner in acknowledgement of their directly opposed viewpoints. ‘Sunny...’ he murmured gently. ‘I have never been in a relationship with a woman.’
Sunny was aghast. ‘But that’s not possible.’
‘It is perfectly possible in my sphere. The women...it is only physical. There is no relationship. Barely any conversation...’ His smile became pained. ‘Then again, I am a male with few words and sharing my thoughts feels unnatural. They give me sex. I give them a comfortable lifestyle. It is an exchange at the most basic level and nothing more.’
And it was one of those odd moments that she experienced with Raj when she wanted to wrap her arms round him and point out that he never stopped talking with her. Only then did it occur to her that he had already had something different with her from what he had had with others of her sex and her heart still gave a painful tug. ‘Raj,’ she sighed helplessly.
‘It’s much more with you.’
‘Yes, I get that,’ she muttered, suddenly thrown on the back foot again, unable to see how they could possibly go in that direction.
‘Last night...was special,’ Raj volunteered as she came into his radius on her wandering path to the door. ‘You are the first woman I have trusted in many years. I had unprotected sex with you. I have never before even contemplated taking such a risk with a woman but you are different. You...I trust.’
‘Yes,’ she whispered shakily, overwhelmed by that claim, secretly delighted by it.
‘You, I want,’ Raj completed, reaching out to close his big hands gently over her arms and draw her close.
The scent of him was like an aphrodisiac in the air as Sunny drew it in. She had spent the night in his arms, a night such as she had never dreamt of having, and every moment of it had been precious to her. For the very first time that morning, she relaxed, drawn by the heat and reassuring solidity of his lean, powerful physique.
‘And you want me too,’ Raj completed tautly.
‘But I want more of you than you’re willing to give,’ Sunny chimed in helplessly.
Raj lifted her up to him and crushed her parted lips beneath his and she could feel her own body thrum and pulse like an engine suddenly switched on. Her head fell back as he sent his tongue delving between her readily parted lips to explore further. A quiver of hunger rippled through her and, that fast, she wanted him again and it was an inexpressible need in the situation they were in. Shaken by the experience, torn in two by it, she pulled herself back and stepped away, her lovely face flushed and troubled.
‘We can’t do this. I should go and be with Pansy.’
‘Your mind is closed to me, closed to any solution that does not agree with yours.’
‘That is as may be, Raj...but I’m free to have my own opinion and protect myself.’
His brilliant dark eyes rested on her and hardened. ‘Of course, but you insult me when you imply that I would harm you in any way.’
A rueful smile curved Sunny’s reddened mouth. ‘You wouldn’t do it deliberately, but you don’t look at the whole picture and you would do it without intending to,’ she responded quietly.
And she accompanied him down onto the deck where Pansy was racing about in pursuit of an electronic cat that purred and made squeaky noises.
‘I don’t give her advanced toys of that sort,’ Sunny confided. ‘I prefer the basic stuff.’
‘Don’t restrict her to what you played with as a child,’ Raj advised. ‘The world has moved on, as must we to stay relevant.’
On the flight back home on the private jet, Sunny was exhausted. Pansy slumbered beside her and, eventually, Sunny drifted off as well. After all, she hadn’t slept much the previous night and she was emotionally drained in a way she had never experienced before. Raj wound her up and more feelings than she had known she even possessed came surging up out of her to create an inner turmoil that scared her.
The first thing she noticed when she drove into the yard was that her barn had been repaired. How could that be possible? She climbed out and released Pansy before standing back to get a proper look at the barn. Before she’d left, she had only reached the stage of requesting quotes from local builders. Unfortunately, the insurance company had already indicated that they were not prepared to pay for the whole job because the barn rafters were rotten. Since she was still recovering from the recent stresses of the court case on her bank account, she had planned to go for the best repair job she could afford and hope the building came through the winter intact. But now her barn rejoiced in what appeared to be a completely new roof.
‘What happened to the barn?’ she asked her friend, Gemma, as she carted sundry bags into the hall.
Gemma was her nearest neighbour and the older woman fostered many rescue animals. All Sunny’s pets had come to her through Gemma and when either of them travelled, they looked after the other’s home and the animals as well.
‘The barn?’ Gemma’s pencilled brows disappeared behind her auburn fringe. ‘I never saw a team of men work as hard in my life as they did. They arrived almost as soon as you left and they had the old roof off and the new one on by this morning. They worked all night with floodlights and the like. Muffy spent the night in the paddock and I took the pets home with me. Oh, by the way...’
A chihuahua raced forward and gambolled at her feet in welcome.
‘Bert’s been returned.’
‘So I can see. What went wrong for him this time?’ Sunny asked, stooping down to pet the little animal while her brain was still turning over ‘team’, ‘worked all night’ and ‘floodlights’. Unless she was very much mistaken, only Raj could command such astonishing service.
‘Bert barked through the fence at his new owner’s neighbour’s dog and wouldn’t stop, so back he came. He’s his own worst enemy.’ Gemma sighed. ‘But he’s been very quiet since he came back through the door. He hasn’t annoyed Bear once. Oh, yes, to keep you up to date with local gossip...apparently, Jack Henderson’s marriage blew up last week.’
The sudden change of topic bemused Sunny. ‘My goodness...what happened?’
‘Nobody knows exactly. Ellie Henderson has moved out of the marital home and in with Jack’s cousin, but she’s left the kids behind with Jack. His mother is living with him now to help with the grandkids.’
‘Wow.’ Sunny was taken aback.
‘Didn’t you and Jack once date?’ Gemma prompted.
‘When we were teenagers, we were close, but we broke up and never really talked after that,’ she confided.
Bear lay down at Pansy’s feet and the little girl giggled, bending down to stroke his broad back. Sunny made tea for Gemma and chatted and the whole time her brain was working at a mile a minute on how best to tackle the barn problem with Raj. As soon as her friend had left, Sunny lifted her phone and rang Raj.
‘Did you arrange for my barn to be fixed?’ she asked.
‘Yes. I own construction companies.’
‘And did you arrange for the work to be done while I was in Italy?’ Sunny asked tightly.
‘Of course I did,’ Raj confirmed without a shade of embarrassment or remorse. ‘It meant that you wouldn’t have your life disrupted.’
‘And it also meant that I wouldn’t be here to object to the work being done,’ she slotted in curtly.
‘Obviously,’ Raj agreed. ‘I didn’t want you to make a fuss.’
Sunny gritted her teeth. ‘Send me the bill.’
‘Oh, no, I won’t be doing that,’ Raj declared. ‘You sent me a valuable painting which cost me nothing. I’m saying thank you with a new roof on your barn.’
Sunny dragged in a steadying breath. ‘You know that that painting was a gift and, besides, you already sent me a scratching post for my cat.’
‘Only because I was hoping you would take the log out of your living room. You’re family, Sunny. You needed the barn fixed and I took care of it. That’s what I do. Now I can sleep at night knowing that Muffy is dry and warm.’
Sunny swore under her breath. ‘Raj, I can’t.’
‘Could we continue this some other time?’ Raj enquired gently. ‘I’m in the middle of a business meeting.’
‘Yes, of course,’ she said stiltedly and cut the call.
He was so devious and so smooth about his manipulation that he made her want to scream. And yet at heart she was grateful that the barn was no longer a problem. Worrying about how she could afford to fix it without taking out a loan had been stressful. Even trying to find builders to make a quote had been stressful. Raj had done her a favour, done Muffy a favour too, she conceded with a groan.
She texted him and attached a photo of Muffy in her stall.
Thank you very much.
That Sunday, she was picking up Pansy from the creche after the church service when she ran into Jack picking up his children from their Sunday School classes. There was one of those uncomfortable standoffs until he smiled down at Pansy and asked with curiosity, ‘And who is this?’
‘My half-sister’s little girl. Christabel and her husband died in an accident. I’m adopting Pansy.’
‘I’m sorry for your loss...but that’s wonderful news for you,’ Jack said heartily.
And she looked at him: the young man who had broken her heart as a girl with his rejection. He was tall, broad and blond with frank blue eyes. The years that had passed hadn’t dimmed his looks but he no longer made her heart beat a little faster. Raj had surpassed him.
In any case, she now felt sorry for Jack. His wife had been carrying on an affair with his wealthier cousin for several years. All too many people had seen Jack’s wife and cousin entangled in parked cars at deserted spots. Jack had wed in haste and ensured that his wife produced four kids in swift succession, but Ellie’s attention had strayed and now he was being left to raise the kids he had wanted so badly on his own. She hoped his life would smooth out again and that his children would survive the breakdown of their parents’ marriage without too much damage. But her interest was no more personal than that.
Six weeks later, Sunny returned to her doctor’s surgery for the results she had been promised.
She had felt out of sorts for several weeks, had felt nauseous, dizzy and off her food and, when that had escalated into actual bouts of sickness, she had gone to her doctor for a check-up. It was obvious to her that some virus had got a hold of her and she was under par, possibly in need of some kind of tonic to help her shake off the bug.
‘You are pregnant,’ Dr Smyth informed her quietly.
Shock engulfed Sunny in a dizzy wave of disbelief. ‘But I was told that wasn’t possible when I was seventeen and I’ve always believed that I would be childless,’ she admitted.
‘I don’t presume to criticise the doctor who told you that.’
‘No, it was actually my mother who told me that I would never have a child,’ Sunny interrupted, wanting to be fair.
‘You were only twelve when you had surgery after a ruptured appendix. Your reproductive organs were damaged but you were fortunate to have a skilled surgeon in the aftermath,’ the older man explained. ‘Evidently, the repairs he undertook and the healing that took place in your young and healthy body were successful. And here you are now...’
‘Yes,’ Sunny agreed, wrenched between delight and horror at the truth that she was receiving. What she had assumed was impossible was, after all, possible. And the news shook her inside out and upside down.
Good grief, how could she ever tell Raj? She had assured him that it was safe to have sex without precautions and she had been wrong. Miraculously, she had conceived, but she was not na?ve enough to assume that Raj would react to her announcement in the same way. Raj would be appalled and her heart sank at the prospect of telling him...