His Suitable Bride: Rafael's Suitable Bride / The Spaniard's Marriage Bargain / Cordero's Forced Bride

Rafael frowned and shrugged. ‘You’re better off without me. All the best. R.’ The girl was blushing violently as she transcribed the words onto a piece of paper, and Rafael raised his eyebrows in amusement. ‘Would you say that that is appropriate for a relationship that has outstayed its welcome?’

‘No! It’s horrible!’

Rafael swung round at the voice to find himself staring into a pair of distinctly disapproving eyes, and for a few seconds he was lost for words. Fate had decreed that, of all the small flower-shops he might have walked into from the street on a grainy February morning, he had chosen the one belonging to Cristina.

‘Your shop?’

‘Anthea, I’ll handle it from here.’ Cristina, framed in the doorway of her little office at the back of the shop, folded her arms and looked at Rafael, who looked like no businessman she had ever seen before. The uniform was the same—sharp grey suit, just visible underneath the trenchcoat which was swinging open, black leather shoes—but somehow he’d transcended ‘average man on way to work’ into a category of his own.

She turned just as a man approached from the office to stand next to her, and she gave him a bright smile.

‘So I can call you later in the week?’ she asked.

‘Any time after six.’

Rafael watched this brief exchange through narrowed eyes. The man was stocky but muscular, with the build of someone who spent time outdoors. His hair was straight and very fair, and he was wearing an earring which, to Rafael, immediately spelt ‘disreputable’. He scowled and looked around him, waiting for her to finish her conversation.

‘Who was that?’ he asked as soon as the man had left the shop.

‘What on earth are you doing here?’

‘What do you think I’m doing? And you haven’t answered my question.’

‘Anthea …’ Cristina was aware of her assistant looking at Rafael, goggle-eyed. ‘Why don’t you go and start working on the costings for the delivery?

‘I know what you’re doing here,’ Cristina hissed, remembering why she had snapped at him in the first place. ‘You’re buying flowers, but I’m just amazed that you came here! How did you know the name of my shop? I don’t remember telling you.’

‘You didn’t.’ He wondered how her wealthy, no doubt protective, parents would react if they knew that their daughter was in London consorting with all manner of lowlife. ‘I happened to be walking to work and I needed to send some flowers to—’

‘Someone who had outstayed her welcome?’ Cristina, having been raised on a healthy diet of romance fiction and fairytale-ending movies, bristled on behalf of the unknown recipient of the most expensive flowers in her shop.

Rafael flushed darkly. ‘Had I known that you owned this place, I would have gone elsewhere,’ he grated. ‘As it stands, you should be grateful that I’ve just provided some very healthy business for you. I can’t imagine that random flower shops do that well in the centre of London.’

‘We happen to do very well, as a matter of fact! We specialise in fairly uncommon flowers.’ It was not in her nature to be snide, but the devil inside her made her add, ‘Maybe guilty businessmen find it works when it comes to buying flowers for their girlfriends. Including the discarded ones.’

‘Sarcasm doesn’t suit you, Cristina.’

‘How could you end a relationship on a note and a bunch of flowers?’

Rafael, unused to being criticised, frowned with displeasure. ‘Do you usually leap out of your office and attack people who happen to relay messages you don’t like? Isn’t that slightly beyond the bounds of good customer service?’

‘I couldn’t help but overhear,’ Cristina muttered. ‘I recognised your voice. You have a very distinctive voice.’ She wondered what the mystery woman looked like.

‘Can that girl of yours look after the shop for a few minutes?’ It would take one phone call to cancel his first meeting and Rafael, who had never cancelled work for any woman, decided that this would just have to be a first. He might have had the girl foisted upon him but, notwithstanding, he had some sense of duty towards her. That included setting her straight on the unscrupulous nature of men in London.

‘Why?’

‘There’s a coffee shop a few minutes away. I passed it on the way here.’

‘Aren’t you on your way to work?’

‘Have you forgotten that I own the company?’ No one would guess that, though, Rafael thought with a sense of irony, because he never took time off. In fact, his PA would have to be persuaded not to send round an ambulance crew when he told her that he would be in later than expected.

‘I’m going to give you a sermon about how women should be treated,’ Cristina felt compelled to tell him, even though the thought of having coffee with him had filled her with a suffocating sense of excitement. ‘Do you still want to take me out for a cup of coffee?’

‘Give me five minutes to call my secretary …’ As expected, Patricia seemed to hyperventilate when informed that he would have to miss his meeting. Was he really that predictable? he wondered. A man who so consistently put work ahead of everything else that the slightest deviation from the norm was enough to bring about heart failure in his employees?

What on earth would they all do if he disappeared for a week’s holiday without warning? Self-implode?

‘Okay. Let’s get the sermon out of the way.’

‘I know I don’t have any right to preach to you …’

‘No, you don’t.’ Rafael looked at her over the mug of cappuccino, which she was now attempting to drink even though it was piping hot. A Danish pastry lay on the plate in front of her. In an era of diets and size zeros, it made a refreshing change.

Her outfit today was beyond casual, teetering into the realms of the truly bizarre. Workmanlike overalls and a broadly striped jumper which seemed intent on magnifying the generous proportions of its wearer. Since lack of money didn’t lie behind her choice, he could only conclude that this was yet another quiet rebellion against those supposedly perfect sisters of hers.

‘I don’t usually preach to people.’

‘Then why break the habit of a lifetime?’

‘Why had she outstayed her welcome?’ Cristina asked. She carefully rested the mug on its saucer and bit into the Danish pastry, which crumbled on her lips and was absolutely delicious. ‘What did she do that was so wrong?’

‘Do you live in the real world, Cristina?’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘She didn’t do anything wrong.’

‘You just got tired of her?’

‘This is what sometimes happens in relationships. People get tired of each other. Delilah was … unsuitable.’

‘That’s very harsh, Rafael.’

‘You have crumbs on your mouth.’ He picked up her napkin and brushed them away and Cristina jerked back, startled. ‘Don’t worry. I’m not about to make a lunge for you.’ He laughed, amused at her reaction. ‘And I wasn’t being harsh,’ he continued. ‘Delilah and I enjoyed a brief relationship. I never made promises, and it’s unfortunate that she didn’t understand the boundaries of what we had. Believe me, it wasn’t for lack of clarity.’

‘How sad.’

‘What? What’s sad?’ Rafael frowned, not caring for the unwanted sympathy in her voice. ‘Sad,’ he told her, leaning forward, ‘Is when two people get together hoping for the fairytale ending only to find that no such thing exists. Sad is when hope and expectation disintegrate. If there’s no hope and no expectation, then what you get is an uncluttered relationship with no strings attached.’ He didn’t know why he was bothering to give her a protracted explanation of his theories on the malefemale conundrum, especially when her only response was to look at him earnestly as if each word constituted a mound of earth towards the pit which he was digging for himself.

‘Have you never been in love?’

Rafael’s face tightened. Love? Oh yes. He’d been there, or at least he’d thought he had. In his mind he saw his ex-wife, Helen, beautiful, ethereal, wild with love and promising the earth. How quickly time had dissolved that illusion.

‘Have you?’ He threw the question back at her and watched her eyes grow dreamy.

‘Never. I’m saving myself for the right one. I mean,’ she amended hurriedly, ‘I don’t fling myself into relationships just for the sake of it.’