Despite his experience with women, Rafael surveyed her with something approaching incredulity. How was she managing to turn elemental sex into a conversation topic? He spread his hands in a gesture of mounting exasperation, trying to rein in the ferocious surge of animal lust that still threatened to engulf him. ‘Isn’t it obvious? I find you sexy.’ She tilted her head back and fastened him with her gaze. ‘But you don’t like me, do you?’ Rafael clenched his jaw. Never, if he lived a million years, would he understand a woman’s drive to question the blindingly obvious. ‘And how is that relevant?’ ‘I can’t believe you just asked me that.’ She rubbed a hand over her face to remove the raindrops that still clung. ‘You were kissing me.’ ‘And you were kissing me back.’ ‘Yes.’ She met his gaze without flinching. ‘But then I stopped you. I can’t have a relationship with someone who doesn’t like me. It doesn’t feel right.’ Remembering the heat of her mouth against his, Rafael was about to

‘What are they saying?’‘They’re telling you that the coffee is grown in shade in the forest. In that way none of the forest is destroyed and the trees fiX nitrogen in the soil which helps the coffee bushes grow.’ He broke off as Filomena spoke to them. ‘She says that keeping the trees prevents erosion and protects the coffee from the harsh weather. The natural sugars increase and enhance the flavour of the coffee.’‘And the fallen leaves provide nutrients and help prevent moisture loss from the soil.’ Grace smiled and nodded. ‘Please tell them that I understand the benefits of shade-grown coffee. Every café has a wall devoted to telling that story. People enjoy their coffee knowing that they’re preserving a small part of the rainforest.’‘A marketing goldmine, I’m sure.’ A flicker of contempt in his eyes, Rafael studied her for a moment and then turned and spoke quietly to the woman. She responded immediately with lots of hand-waving and glances towards her husband. Voices were ra

THE walk back through the rainforest to Forest Lodge was charged with tension, the atmosphere between them snapped taut after the outpouring of emotion at the fazenda. And that was hardly surprising, Rafael said to himself as his long legs swallowed up the distance. Women were never at their best when they’d been found out. And Grace Thacker had been well and truly found out. There was no more hiding. Her fraud was exposed, the consequences of her actions thrust in her face. With him standing over her shoulder and Filomena crying, she’d had little choice but to express guilt and remorse and she’d done it most convincingly. In fact, she’d been extremely convincing. If he hadn’t known it to be impossible, he would have thought that the accusations levelled at her had come as a surprise. Indeed, her shocked response and her almost remarkable display of self-condemnation had both been sufficiently compelling to have him on the verge of reaching out with words of comfort and support. He

RAFAEL WAS ALREADY seated at the table when she arrived on the terrace. He had a drink in his hand and his blue shirt was open at the neck and revealed just enough bronzed male flesh to draw her eyes for longer than she would have liked. Even dressed casually he looked cool, sophisticated and way out of her league.She scanned his handsome features and her heart bumped crazily against her chest. What was it about him that had such a powerful impact on her?She didn’t know and she didn’t understand it. But she knew that whatever had scarred him in the past, however bad his experiences had been, she didn’t want him to think her guilty of fraud.She hadn’t intended to bring the subject up again but how could she not? No matter how hard she tried to push the whole thing away until tomorrow, the guilt kept intruding. ‘You must think I’m awful,’ she said impulsively as she slid into her chair, ‘taking money from those people. I know that I’m sort of guilty because it’s my company but I w

Instead she felt the nip of his teeth and the flicker of his tongue against her shoulder and then lower, to the soft hint of flesh that he’d exposed for himself by lowering her dress. His hands, so firm and confident, slid up her body and settled just above her waist and she gave a soft gasp as he dragged both thumbs over the tips of her breasts. Her nipples strained, seeking his attention, and he gave a low laugh of satisfaction and slid his fingers inside the clinging fabric, just as he had in the forest. Only this time it was different.This time nothing was stopping them.The atmosphere pulsed with a heat that was almost unbearable and she gave a low moan as the burning in her body intensified to almost unbearable proportions.‘You feel so hot,’ he groaned, desire thickening his words and his accent, ‘so beautiful.’She hadn’t even felt his hands on the zip of her dress but they must have been there because a slither of silk descending from her body to the floor announced to h