A Convenient Husband Read Free Page B

tasteful and expensive. It consisted of dark olive trousers and a lightweight knitted polo shirt—not that the details really mattered, not when you were at least six feet four, possessed an athletic, broad-shouldered, skinny-hipped, long-legged body, and went around projecting the sort of brooding sensuality that made females more than willing to overlook the fact you had a face that wasn’t strictly pretty. Strong, attractive and interesting, yes…pretty…no.
    â€˜I know what time it is, I was kind of wondering about you…’ His gaze moved rather pointedly over the disarray in the room. ‘Do you often get the urge to spring-clean in the wee small hours, Tess?’
    â€˜I couldn’t sleep,’ she explained defensively, peeling off the yellow rubber gloves and throwing them on the draining-board.
    She didn’t much care if Rafe thought her eccentric, bordering on loopy; she didn’t much care what Rafe thought at all these days. In her opinion success had not changed Rafe for the better. He’d been a nice, if irritating kid when he’d been two years younger than her.
    She supposed he still must be two years younger, time being what it was, only the intervening years seemed to have swallowed up the two-year gap and had deprived her of the comfortable feeling of superiority that a few extra months gave you as a child.
    Superiority wasn’t something people around Rafe were likely to feel, she mused. He was one of those rare people folk automatically turned to for leadership—not that she classed herself as one of those mesmerised sheep who hung on his every word.
    Still, although she often teased him about his old family name, he wasn’t like the rest of the Farrars who were a snooty lot, firmly rooted in the dark ages. Traditionally—they were big on tradition—the younger son entered the military and the elder worked his way up through the echelons of the merchant bank which had been founded by some long-dead Farrar.
    His elder brother Alec had obligingly entered the bank, even though as far as Tess could see the only interest he’d had in money had been spending it. She didn’t suppose that his family had been particularly surprised when Rafe hadn’t meekly co-operated with their plans for him. Since he’d been expelled from the prestigious boarding-school that generations of Farrars had attended they’d expected the worst of him and he’d usually fulfilled their expectations.
    He hadn’t even obliged them and turned into a worthless bum as had been confidently predicted. He’d worked his way up, quite rapidly as it happened, on the payroll of a national daily. He’d made a favourable impression there, but it was working as the anchor of a prestigious current affairs programme that had really made his name.
    The job was tailor-made for Rafe. He wasn’t aggressive or hostile; he didn’t need to be. Rafe had the rare ability of being able to charm honest answers from the wiliest of politicians. He made it look so easy that not everyone appreciated the skill of his technique, or realised how much grinding background research he did to back up those deceptively casual questions.
    Such was his reputation that people in public life were virtually queuing up to be interviewed by him, all no doubt convinced that they were too sharp to be lulled into a false sense of security. Without decrying his undoubted abilities, Tess cynically suspected that being incredibly photogenic had something to do with him achieving an almost cult-like status overnight.
    â€˜I think better when I keep busy,’ she explained glibly. Tonight, it would seem, was the exception to that rule. Fresh panic clawed deep in her belly as she realised afresh that there was no magical solution to her dilemma.
    Rafe’s narrowed gaze objectively noted the blotchy puffiness under her wide-spaced green eyes. She had that pale, almost translucent