A Proposal To Secure His Vengeance

‘And of course the magnificent Blackjack.’

Was that comment as loaded as he made it sound? The truth she knew about the stallion, and the way it made her father’s deal with Raoul null and void, sat like a lump of lead in Imogen’s stomach, forcing her to fight against a twisting rush of nausea.

Raoul reached forward and took Angel’s reins from her limp hands, leading the mare into the open stall. The movement meant that their fingers touched just for a moment, something like electricity fizzing between them, so that Imogen couldn’t stop herself from snatching her hand away as if she’d been burned. Angel didn’t like the unexpected movement and shifted restlessly with a whinny of protest.

‘Sorry, sweetheart...’ she soothed, and the softness of her tone caught on an image in Raoul’s mind, pouring acid onto an already bitter memory.

She had once spoken to him like that, in the darkness of the night, turning the sound of his name into a caress. The change that the spontaneous smile brought to her face was almost magical. Her eyes lit from within for a moment and her skin glowed. He cursed inwardly as the clutch of physical hunger grabbed at him right between his legs so that he shifted uncomfortably where he stood. Wanting to hide the betraying response, he bent to unfasten the girth and ease the saddle from the mare’s back. He had never expected still to have this primitive and instantaneous response to her. Not after all he now knew about her. But it seemed that he could hate and hunger in the same heartbeat.

‘Everyone’s interested in Blackjack,’ Imogen said and, although her eyes were on the bridle she was removing from Angel’s head, he could tell that the words were not the throwaway remark she wanted them to sound like.

She wore no make-up, and the pallor of her porcelain skin was emphasised by the brush of dark shadow under those sapphire eyes, making them look faintly bruised and disturbingly wounded. She was thinner than when he had known her before, he thought again. He knew that brides were traditionally said to lose their appetites before the wedding, but she looked more like someone who was going to face execution rather than marry the man of her dreams.

But, of course, he wasn’t the man of her dreams. Just the thought twisted harshly in his guts. If he’d even suspected that she really cared for Adnan Al Makthabi, then there was no way he would be here. But it was obvious this was a union arranged because of the financial benefits it brought—to the O’Sullivan family at least.

Once again, the cold-blooded gold-digger who had aimed to win herself part of his fortune was setting her sights on someone who had the money she sought. Someone who, it seemed, was more easily persuaded. Or so he’d believed. But, now that he’d met Adnan Al Makthabi, he wouldn’t have put the other man down as the sort to be so easily fooled. He’d also been startled to find that he actually liked him.

But then yesterday he had discovered more about this proposed marriage than either she or her lying father had been prepared to acknowledge.

‘Look, about...’ Imogen began, then hesitated, broke off and, when she began again, Raoul was sure that she had not taken up where she’d left off but had veered onto another topic altogether.

‘Where did you get to last night?’

She tossed the question at Raoul, trying so very hard to make it sound casual and relaxed, and failing miserably on both counts.

‘Nowhere.’

‘But I saw you leave...’

The words faded awkwardly and he raised a dark, cynical eyebrow as he saw the moment she realised she had given herself away. She should have been occupied with her guests, her family and friends, but she hadn’t missed the fact that he had left the dinner early, with no explanation.

‘I needed some air.’

He had been suffocating in the atmosphere in the room. Three O’Sullivans—because of course the father had been there, knocking back the vintage champagne as if it were water—was more than enough for anyone to take. Not caring if anyone noticed, he’d slid his plate away from him, pushed back his chair and stood up.

The huge patio doors had been open to the garden, voile curtains wafting in the gentle breeze. He’d slipped out into the cool of the evening air, the silence of the night. Over to the left were the stables and the exercise yard, the occasional sound of the thoroughbred horses shifting in their stalls and whickering softly to each other reaching him across the stillness.

He could fall in love with this place, he’d admitted to himself as he’d strolled to the edge of the huge patio. The soft green hills and lush fields of this country were so unlike the rougher, drier terrain of his homeland. Here, the climate was closer to the one in the mountains—and of course there was always so much rain. It had been drizzling just a little and he’d held his face up to the moisture while drawing in deep breaths of the clear night air, filling his lungs with it and wishing he could fill his mind in the same way, to wipe away the anger and disgust he felt at finding himself amongst the members of this corrupt, immoral family.

He had almost left then, headed straight for the airport, onto a plane and away. Only the thought that if he went then the O’Sullivan family—the weak, corrupt father and those scandalous O’Sullivan sisters—would all get away with what they’d done and go on their way so carelessly had stopped him. He’d come here to make sure that didn’t happen, and he was not going to back out now.

‘I had hoped that you might show me around,’ he said now, lifting the saddle and carrying it out of the stall to place it with all the other tack at the end of the stables. ‘I’d like to see more of the stud.’

‘I’m afraid I’m much too busy.’

Imogen flashed a cold, tight smile in Raoul’s direction. She certainly didn’t want to spend any time with him if she could possibly help it, and luckily the preparations for the wedding gave her the perfect excuse. He didn’t need to know that there was nothing she had to prepare; that Geraldine Al Makthabi had everything in hand and that her future mother-in-law was enjoying every minute of the time she spent making sure everything was perfect.

‘I have things to do. I am getting married...’

She flung the words at him like a dart. His presence might put her totally on edge, as if she was balancing on a very high, very tight rope with savage, bone-shattering rocks beneath, but she wanted him to understand that she was not alone and defenceless. She was in her family home, with her father and her sister—her fiancé just ten minutes away.

No...the instant curdling in her stomach at that thought brought a wave of nausea up into her throat. Adnan might be her friend, and currently her family’s saviour, but he was also a proud and powerful man. His bloodline was saturated with the ferocious strength and arrogance of his Bedouin ancestors. She knew Adnan could be a hard man, a difficult man if his temper was roused. She’d heard stories of his reputation with women, and as a shrewd businessman, but she’d never had that side of him shown to her, and she never wanted to either.

He might have agreed to this marriage of convenience, but if it turned out to be anything else or, heaven help her, became inconvenient, then she had little doubt he would call the whole thing off without even blinking.

‘I’m aware of that.’

Raoul’s wickedly knowing smile left her only too aware of the fact that her attempt at attack had simply bounced off the cold steel of his armoured heart—if it really was a heart that beat inside that powerful chest.

‘That is why I’m here.’

That—and what else? The words were on the tip of her tongue, but at that moment the door opened and Ciara wandered into the stables. Her red-gold hair tumbled round her shoulders, her green-and-white floral sun dress with its thin straps and flirty short skirt looking cool and comfortable in the already growing heat of the day.

‘Hello, honey!’

Imogen’s smile of welcome was blended with a rush of relief at the thought that she was no longer alone with Raoul. The verbal fencing, neither of them coming right out and saying anything real, had stretched her nerves to breaking point. So much so that her heart was racing, her breathing shallow at the ordeal of just being in his company.

She was no longer the wide-eyed innocent who had first met Raoul Cardini on a warm summer evening on a beautiful Corsican beach. Met and fallen in love in the time between the sun burning directly overhead in the middle of the day, and the moment when that fiery ball had slipped below the horizon. She’d found herself in the warm darkness with her heart no longer inside her body but handed over to the care of the devastating man she had secretly nicknamed the Corsican Bandit.

If she had only known how appropriate that nickname would come to be, she would have turned and run, as far and as fast as she possibly could. But now she was two years older, she’d been tested by life, been down some long, dark tunnels and had reached the other side. Perhaps she was still bruised and bloody, with scars barely healing over deep wounds she’d endured, but she was standing, and she wasn’t going to let anyone knock her down again.

But there was a huge difference between feeling that and actually challenging someone like Raoul Cardini to come right out and say exactly what his plans were. Especially when she didn’t know how much danger her whole family was in.

She was aware of the way Ciara had reacted last night when she’d learned that Raoul was their guest, staying at Blacklands for the days leading up to the wedding. She had been subdued all through the evening and this morning; something was clearly upsetting her sister. She looked distracted and unusually unsure of herself, her eyes slightly puffy from lack of sleep in a way that concerned Imogen.

‘Bonjour, Mademoiselle O’Sullivan,’ Raoul inserted smoothly, strolling out of the tack room with lazy grace. Ciara shot a swift, strangely nervous glance in his direction.

‘Morning,’ she muttered almost inaudibly, her hazel eyes focused on Imogen’s face. ‘So, what do we have left to do today, Immi?’

‘Perhaps you can give me a guided tour of the stud that Imogen is apparently too busy to manage today,’ Raoul put in, something in his lazy drawl scraping uncomfortably over nerves that were far too close to the surface of Imogen’s skin. And Ciara’s too, it seemed.

It was definitely an appeal for help that Ciara turned on her now—a plea to be rescued from heaven knew what—but it obviously had something to do with Raoul Cardini. Just what had frightened her sister so badly? Could it be that Raoul had come here not just for the business deal he had described, but perhaps for something to do with Ciara’s past? Perhaps to do with the reason her job as a nanny had ended so rapidly, which her sister had refused to reveal to her? Imogen wished she’d had more time to get to know Ciara properly before the threat of total ruin had brought this wedding on them.

‘There’s plenty still to do,’ she managed over-breezily. ‘We have to sort out that hemline on your bridesmaid’s dress...’

Imogen had made the right move. Immediately some of the tension left her sister’s face and she almost smiled.

‘And you promised Geraldine you’d help her with the name cards for the table.’

Raoul would never know just what a fiction that one was. Adnan’s mother was totally in charge of every preparation for the reception and she would give anyone who tried to intervene very short shrift indeed. But the glance of gratitude from Ciara made the lie worthwhile. Her sister was already turning towards the door, looking like a rabbit that had just been released from a trap,

‘I hope you have a good day, Mr Cardini,’ Imogen tossed in his direction, not quite having the nerve to meet his stony glare, though she hoped her rather breathless tone could be taken for airy and unconcerned. ‘I’ll ask one of the grooms to give you the tour, if you like.’

The tour of the part of the business they’d be happy to show him, and not the one he’d obviously been angling for. The one that wouldn’t let him pry into secrets that were none of his business. So far they’d managed to hide just how bad things were; she didn’t want Raoul finding out more.

‘Oh, don’t bother.’

That lazy voice was back but she could catch the thread of steel that ran through it like a warning rumble of thunder before a storm broke.