Cinderella’s Wedding Wish

‘Then should you be out wasting time on a Monday thinking about a ball?’

‘The ball is part of my strategy.’

Rafe put down his own coffee and leant back, stretching his arms along the back of the bench. He wasn’t touching Miranda at all, but she was desperately aware of his hand behind her shoulder. He seemed to be taking up an awful lot of space, and she found herself stiffening and edging along the bench.

‘Strategy?’ Her voice was humiliatingly thin and high, and she cleared her throat. ‘What strategy?’ she tried again.

‘What do you know about me?’

Miranda hesitated. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Had you ever heard about me before I caught you abusing that photocopier?’

She would have loved to have denied it, but she had never been any good at lying. ‘Of course.’

‘So what am I like? Go on, there’s no need to be polite,’ said Rafe. ‘What do the gossip columns say about me?’

‘Well…that you’re a playboy, I suppose. You’re wild and extravagant and very rich. You go out with lots of beautiful women.’

‘That’s it?’

‘I don’t know what you want me to say. You seem to have an incredible jet set life, skiing with movie stars and sailing in the Caribbean with models. You know, just the same old, same old.’

‘But what do I do?’

‘Nothing.’

There was a tiny pause. ‘Right, so I just drift around going to parties and sleeping with a lot of women, is that it?’

Miranda bristled a little at his tone. ‘I haven’t seen you do anything else,’ she pointed out. ‘The first time I met you, you were wandering around the office as if you didn’t know what to do with yourself. Then you were at that stupid party with a model hanging on your arm. This morning I came in to work for you, and the first thing you do is drive off in a sports car to have lunch in the country and talk about a ball.’

‘Hmm, it doesn’t sound good when you put it like that.’

‘How would you put it?’

‘I wander round the office so I get to know how the different departments work and who does what. I only went to that party because it was a book launch, and I thought I might meet some interesting people there-wrong, I know! I’d never met Kyra before that evening, and I didn’t sleep with her, and today…well, this is part of my plan to change my reputation.’

‘I think you might have to work a bit harder to do that!’

CHAPTER FOUR

‘THE board think like you do,’ said Rafe, and to Miranda’s relief he dropped his arms and leant forward to rest them on his knees instead. ‘They think like my father did. They’re horrified at the idea of me taking over Knighton’s, but there isn’t much they can do about it yet. They’re hoping that if they give me enough time, I’ll screw up, and then they’ll be able to get rid of me, but I don’t intend to do that.’

‘What are you going to do about it?’

‘It’s clear that I’m never going to get anywhere as long as they think I’m just the spoilt party boy I used to be,’ said Rafe. ‘I know I was wild. I made plenty of mistakes, and I’m sorry for them, but I’m not that boy any more. I’ve accepted responsibility for the stupid things I’ve done, and moved on. Now all I want is for the board, and everyone else, to recognise that.’

‘It’s hard to change people’s expectations of you,’ said Miranda, thinking of her own family. For as long as she could remember, she had been the sensible, practical sister, the one the others relied on to sort things out and deal with any problems, and she couldn’t imagine Belinda or Octavia ever thinking of her as any different. She couldn’t imagine being any different now.

‘We get pigeon-holed as a certain type of person quite early on, and sometimes it’s difficult to know whether we’re really that person, or whether we become that person just because that’s how everyone expects us to be.’

‘Exactly.’ Rafe’s eyes lit with relief as he turned to look at her. She was the first person who had ever understood.

‘My father always thought of me as an irresponsible boy, so that’s the way I was for a long time,’ he told her. ‘I got a degree, but everyone just assumed that it was given to me on a plate, and I knew that if I got a job, they would all think the same. My father didn’t trust me with any responsibility at Knighton’s, so I ended up messing around, taking stupid risks and behaving badly and generally being determined to live down to my father’s expectations.’

Miranda shifted a little uncomfortably. She had never troubled to think about why Rafe might have behaved as he had. She had been like everyone else, damning him on appearances, and assuming that anyone showered with wealth and privilege and good looks must have the easiest of existences.

Rafe was shaking his head ruefully at the memory of his younger self. ‘The trouble is that a single-minded pursuit of fun and excitement wears pretty thin after a while. It isn’t a very satisfying way to live. One day I realised that I’d had enough of it. I knew I would never change what my father thought of me, but I could change what I thought about myself.’

She studied him thoughtfully. Changing how you thought about yourself probably wasn’t nearly as easy as it sounded. ‘How did you do that?’

‘I went to work as a volunteer setting up micro-finance projects in West Africa. I’m not completely useless,’ he said, reading Miranda’s astonished expression without difficulty. ‘I studied economics at university and I did actually read some books.’

‘Yes, but…’ Miranda had been expecting him to say that he had gone travelling perhaps, or done some trendy self-development course. She lifted her hands in a helpless gesture, unable to express what she thought. ‘I’d no idea,’ she said at last.

‘No one has. They all think I’ve been partying for the past four years.’

Having assumed precisely the same thing, Miranda had the grace to blush. ‘I can’t imagine you in Africa.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because of the way you dress, I suppose.’ She gestured at him. Even in jeans and a casual shirt, he looked immaculate. ‘You’re always so…well groomed.’

He looked amused. ‘You wouldn’t have thought that if you’d seen me there, I promise you.’

Perhaps not, but Miranda was prepared to bet he had never looked hot and sticky and crumpled and dusty the way she surely would if she had to work in the crushing heat.

‘What was it like out there?’

‘Africa? I loved it.’ Rafe’s voice was warm with enthusiasm. ‘I met so many wonderful people and learnt so much. It was the best thing I’ve ever done.’

Miranda tried to picture him in a dusty African village, but it was hard. He was too much there, beside her, looking as if he had stepped out of an ad for designer clothes. He was leaning back once more, long legs stretched out in front of him and crossed at the ankle. His shirt was rolled up to reveal powerful-looking forearms covered in fine dark hairs, and the open neck revealed a strong brown throat.

Her eyes flickered to his profile, to the forceful lines of his cheek and jaw and the cool curl of his mouth, and a disturbing warmth quivered into life deep inside her. He was so strong, so solid. How could she ever have dismissed him as little more than a clothes horse? This was no wild boy with nothing to recommend him but his looks and his charm. This was a powerful man whose magnetism ran far deeper than the clothes he wore.

Suddenly breathless, Miranda made herself look away. ‘Why did you come back if you loved it so much?’ Amazingly, her voice came out perfectly normal.

‘My father died.’ Rafe’s expression sobered. ‘We’ve got that in common. Both our fathers have died recently.