Happily Ever After...: His Reluctant Cinderella / His Very Convenient Bride / A Deal to Mend Their Marriage

Raff got to his feet with leonine grace and sauntered over to the rail. ‘I think we agreed on the red shoes for that outfit, didn’t we? It’ll work very well for lunches. What?’ He was regarding her with faint surprise. No wonder. Clara was aware she resembled a fishwife more than a lady-who-lunches, hands on hips and head back. ‘I did introduce you. That was Lisa. We worked together.’

‘Yes, in Somalia,’ Clara said as patiently as she could manage. ‘Why were you in Somalia?’

‘I worked with her husband in Somalia,’ Raff corrected her. ‘I knew Lisa in Sri Lanka. I think...’ he finished doubtfully. ‘It might have been Bangladesh.’

‘Mercenary or spy?’ The words burst out before she could stop them.

‘What?’ The look of utter shock on his face was almost comical.

‘You keep quiet about what you do, you work in some of the most dangerous places on earth, it has to be one or the other.’ It was the only thing that made sense.

‘Because spies and mercenaries love to throw fundraising balls?’ How she hated that amused smile. He had of course honed in on the only flaw in her thinking.

‘Part of your cover.’ Okay, not the best idea she’d ever had.

‘Interesting theory. I like it. I always fancied myself as a suave, martini-drinking type. Sorry to burst your little fantasy but nothing so exciting.’ He paused and handed her another dress, a fifties-style halterneck that Clara secretly rather liked. ‘Here, try this on. I’m a project manager for Doctors Everywhere.’

Oh.

Kitbags, dangerous places, fundraising balls, hospitals. That made sense. Reluctantly Clara let go of her visions of chase scenes, fancy cars, an evil mastermind bent on world domination.

‘Doctors Everywhere?’ she echoed as she obediently accepted the outfit and tottered her way back to the curtain. Of course she had heard of them; they provided healthcare in the Third World, in refugee camps, in war spots.

They were incredibly well respected. Not the natural playground of playboys. Which meant that every little preconception she had was wrong.

Clara changed on autopilot, so many thoughts tumbling around her brain it was as if her head had joined the circus.

Somehow the emotion she could most easily identify was anger. She pushed away the thought that this might be a little unreasonable. After all, what Raff Rafferty did with his time was really none of her business.

He had made it her business, she argued back as she fumbled with the buttons at the back and cautiously zipped up the tight bodice. Employing her, introducing her to his grandfather, buying her these exquisite, over-priced, really very flattering clothes.

He had made her complicit.

The curtain made a most satisfying swoosh as she pulled it open, and she stomped forward only wobbling twice. Damn, she was still wearing the stupid sliver shoes. No wonder Cinderella had discarded her glass slippers; she was probably in agony by midnight.

‘Doctors Everywhere?’

‘Yep.’ He was still standing up, leaning against the back wall. The plain colour of the backdrop suited him, made the hair a little blonder, the eyes even bluer. Not that she was noticing. Not at all.

Oh, no, she was putting her hands on her hips again. Ten years of careful, calm control and yet one day with this man and she was unleashing her inner harpy. ‘Which is obviously such a terrible thing for you to do you had no choice but to lie to your sister and grandfather?’ Clara could hear the sarcasm dripping from her voice and tried to calm down.

This wasn’t her family. Why did she care so much?

He looked at her for one long moment and Clara thought he wasn’t going to answer. After all, the annoying voice of reason whispered, he didn’t have to explain himself to her, but after a moment he sighed. ‘I didn’t lie. They know what I do.’

‘They know? Then why does your grandfather want you to take over Rafferty’s? And why has Polly never mentioned it?’ Clara twisted the heavy curtain fabric around her hand and studied him curiously.

‘According to Grandfather it’s just a phase I’ll grow out of. As for Polly...’ He glanced away, staring at the stark walls as if the answer would be found there. ‘I don’t know what she hates more—that Grandfather always wanted me to have this place or that I don’t want it. I hoped that if I went away she would be able to convince him that she was the better candidate but she accused me of running away. Maybe she was right.’

‘Why?’ So she was curious; it wasn’t a crime.

He pushed himself off the wall and walked over to the small table, which held a jug of iced water and a bunch of grapes, nothing that could mark the valuable clothes. ‘Want one?’ he offered and she shook her head.

He poured himself a glass. Clara watched as he took a long, deep drink, her eyes drawn to the way his tanned throat worked as he swallowed. He set the glass down and, with a purposeful manner, as if he had come to some kind of internal decision, he turned and faced her squarely, eyes holding hers.

‘Because I was running away,’ he said. ‘Away from expectations and responsibility and guilt and family. I was at a really low point, Polly and I were fighting, Grandfather kept promoting me higher and higher whilst passing her over—and believe me it wasn’t on merit—and then I met up with a friend who was volunteering with Doctors Everywhere. He mentioned that they always needed people with good project-management skills and a second language—to be honest I didn’t think I had a chance. A pampered boy like me who thought travelling second class was slumming it?

‘Nobody was as surprised as me when they took me. But I didn’t ever consider not going.’ He grimaced. ‘I genuinely thought it was a one-off. That I’d be back in three months relieved to be back behind my desk.’ His mouth twisted with a wry humour as he remembered. ‘I nearly was. That first three months was the most difficult, stressful three months of my life. It made prep school seem like a holiday camp. I couldn’t wait for it to be over.

‘But I signed up for my next assignment the day after I was released.’ He shrugged. ‘I didn’t know then that I had been broken in easy—an existing brick-built hospital, my own bedroom, not a war zone. Somalia was a horrid shock. But I signed up again as soon as I returned from there, for six months that time. It’s like a drug. I think I can walk away any time but I always go back for more.

‘Because...it makes a real difference, Clara. Everything I did changed somebody’s world. I might not be the person performing the operations—but I was the person making sure that the operations could take place. That we had beds and kits and food and water. It mattered.’

‘And Rafferty’s doesn’t?’

‘Not to me.’

Raff heard his words echo around the room. He’d thought them many times but had never said them aloud.

But the sky didn’t fall in, the world didn’t end, his grandfather didn’t appear in a puff of smoke to blast him away like a vengeful god. He was still the same man, still standing there.

Only everything had changed. He couldn’t fool himself or his family any longer. He wasn’t working away for a sabbatical or a career break or for an adventure. It was what he did, what he needed to do, what he was. And it didn’t matter whether his grandfather left him Rafferty’s or not, he would just sign it over to Polly. It was hers; she deserved it.

There was no point waiting and hoping that things would work out his way; he had to make them happen.

Clara was still looking at him, that green gaze of hers intent. He didn’t know what he had expected. Shock? Disapproval? Horror? It was hard to remember sometimes that to other people Rafferty’s was no more than a place to buy beautifully gift-wrapped socks or get an expensive but perfect afternoon tea. It wasn’t the centre of everyone’s world.

What was it about this woman that made him want to confess, to spill all the secrets that he preferred to keep locked away so tightly? Was it her directness, her transparency? The unexpected way she lit up when she smiled?

Their eyes were locked, the colour rising faint on her cheeks, her breath coming a little quicker. The full mouth parted slightly. Heat rose through him, sudden and shocking. The walls of the room seemed to contract; all he could see was her. The red-gold hair tumbling around her creamy shoulders, delicate tempting shoulders exposed by the deceptively demure halterneck dress, shoulders that were begging for a man to touch them, to kiss the triangle of freckles delicately placed like an old-fashioned patch.

Raff swallowed, blood thrumming round his body, his heartbeat accelerating. She was so very close, green eyes darkening until they resembled the storm-tossed sea. Just a few short steps...

‘That suits you.’ Raff jumped as Susannah heeled in a third rail. ‘Although I don’t think those are the right shoes.’

Clara pulled her eyes from his, pulling at the hem of the dress. The room felt a good ten degrees colder and suddenly a lot bigger. ‘No,’ she agreed, throwing Raff a faint, complicit smile that warmed him through. ‘After ten minutes in these shoes I am completely convinced that they are absolutely not the right shoes.’

‘Have you made any decisions yet? I’ve brought a few formal evening gowns as Mr Raff instructed.’ Susannah gestured towards the rail. ‘He didn’t specify but with your colouring I thought greens, blacks and golds might be most suitable. Do you want me to stay and help you try them on?’ She picked up a long, dark dress and carried it into the curtained area, hanging it onto one of the silver rails that hung between the floor-length mirrors.

‘That’s very kind but I think I’ll manage, thanks. They all look lovely.’ Clara threw the rail a helpless look. ‘I’m only on my third dress. I’d better hurry up or I’ll never get my reward.’

Cake, she meant cake, Raff reminded himself, fingers curling into a fist as other, equally sweet ways of rewarding her flashed through his head.

Clara took a step back, retreating behind the curtain as Susannah left. Raff paced around the room trying not to interpret every sound he heard. The rustle of a button, the slow, steady zip as the dress was undone, the faint slither of material falling to the floor.

Maybe he should have some more water.

‘Have you ever tried to tell them how you feel?’ Her voice floated through the curtain.