Crime Of Passion

by Lynne Graham

  Georgie compressed her lips. She was a little surprised by his continuing hostility towards her stepbrother in spite of the fact that he now knew the truth. Didn't he now appreciate that he had misjudged Steve just as badly as he had misjudged her? Then, no doubt, Rafael still blamed Steve for that stupid kiss he had witnessed. 'I expect you were as taken aback seeing it as I was when it happened,' she conceded grudgingly.

  'I was in love with you!' Rafael bit out with raw em­phasis, and her head jerked up, her eyes widening. ' "Taken aback" does not begin to describe my feelings that night or the following day!'

  'I find it very hard to believe that you loved me,' she admitted.

  'Don't be more stupid than you can help!' Rafael slung her a glittering golden glance of exasperation. 'For what other reason would I have wanted to marry you?'

  She swallowed hard. The idea that he had loved her four years ago merely piled on the agony. If he had loved her, he hadn't trusted her, and he had walked away without a backward glance. 'Well, it doesn't really matter now, does it?'

  'So you keep telling me.'

  'We've got nothing more to say to each other.'

  'Another platitude,' Rafael derided, a gathering storm of anger lightening his gaze to gold. 'And what platitude will you employ if you find that you are carrying my child in a few weeks? Are we all to be treated to the "Oops, gosh, I didn't think" response that you seem to believe covers every eventuality?'

  Georgie stared back at him, pale as death.

  Rafael absorbed her stunned response with grim eyes. 'No, I didn't protect you. An inexcusable omission, but in all that excitement the risk only crossed my mind for one second, and I foolishly assumed that you would still be on the contraceptive pill. The look on your face tells me you are not...and why should you have been?' he demanded with a sardonic edge. 'You had no reason to take such a precaution.'

  Georgie licked at her dry lips in a flickering motion, briefly lost in a stricken vision of single parenthood, un­employment and family horror. Then her fevered im­agination steadied as she performed some frantic calculations as to the date of her last period, but there was no great comfort to be found there. Whether she liked it or not, there was a slight risk of pregnancy. Not a large risk, she hurriedly consoled herself—at least, she didn't think so.

  'It's not very likely,' she asserted breathlessly. 'But not impossible?'

  'Nothing's impossible, but I would say the chances are probably slim to none.'

  "The eternal optimist.' Rafael slung her a scathing smile and then he asked her bluntly when exactly she could expect to know whether or not she was pregnant.

  "That's none of your '

  'If you're pregnant, it will be very much my business,' he cut in drily.

  Tight-mouthed, she obliged the information. 'I would say computing a risk factor of slim to none is suicidally optimistic,' he returned drily. 'And I have no intention of waiting to find out!'

  Exhausted by all the stress, Georgie sighed. Suddenly she understood another motivation behind his stated desire to marry her. The mere threat of a Berganza being born on the metaphorical wrong side of the blanket was a shattering one for a male of Rafael's breeding. And it was typical of him to look only on the darkest side of the equation. Where Georgie instinctively expected not to be further punished for her recklessness by an un­planned pregnancy, Rafael probably expected triplets. 'God couldn't be so cruel,' she mumbled helplessly.

  'Every child is a gift from God,' Rafael asserted wit! ferocious bite. 'That is why we will get married as soon as possible.'

  A hysterical giggle lodged like a giant stone in Georgie's throat. 'I went to bed with you. I didn't sign my whole life away!'

  'It was my fault. I seduced you.'

  Georgie's sensitive stomach heaved and she looked at him with incredulous eyes. 'Women of my age don't get seduced—revolting word,' she grimaced. 'I take re­sponsibility for my own actions.'

  'But you're dangerously impulsive. You always were

  Incensed by the unwelcome seed of reality to that as­sessment, Georgie stiffened defensively. 'Fortunately, I'm not impulsive enough to agree to a marriage which neither one of us wants! I'm not wrecking my life over one stupid mistake!'

  'It is a mistake which you will have to learn to !iv-with,' Rafael told her, striding towards the door, his hard-edged profile unyielding.

  'In a pig's eye, I will!' Georgie launched back at him 'And don't think you can bully me into changing my mind.'

  The door flipped shut. She slumped back on the pillows. He had proposed to her, which was rather a joke. After all, he had already embarked on arrange-ments for a wedding! Typical Rafael. He always ran a one-horse race. And presumably he had expected her to rush breathlessly into agreement. But he knew she had loved him four years ago, was undoubtedly aware that she would have married him like a shot had he asked her then.

  Like any girl, she had dreamt about marrying the man she loved. But that was then... and this was now, when she was a whole lot older and wiser. Rafael was not in love with her. She found it so hard to believe that he had ever loved her, so icily controlled had he been at their final meeting. Wouldn't a man in love have raged and stormed at her in bitter fury and jealousy? Or were such base but supremely human emotions beneath Rafael and the self-discipline he prided himself on?

  She remembered that last meeting in his apartment so well.

  Rafael had been ice while she did all the humiliating things he had reminded her of just yesterday. She had wept and begged. She had pleaded with him to listen to her. She had begged him not to leave her. Why had she gone to such lengths without the smallest encour­agement to do so?

  She had been passionately in love with him, and what Rafael had believed he had interrupted at Danny's apartment had been so ludicrous. Then, of course, she had not been aware that Rafael had also seen Steve kissing her. And naturally she would not have referred to that embarrassing slip of Steve's. She had calmed down by then, was very fond of her stepbrother and, if family loyalty hadn't kept her quiet, discomfiture over that embrace certainly would have done. Looking back, it merely seemed a silly storm in a teacup. It would never have occurred to her that Rafael could have seen them.

  When she woke up the next morning, she pulled on jeans and a tailored white shirt with roll-back cuffs. No more Barnes. There was no longer any need for games in the cause of self-defence. There was a need for calm and common sense. Presumably Rafael, a decent interval after all that positively gothic talk about honour and nrinciples, would now be calmer and more reasonable too.

  But, as she descended the stairs, her carefully pre­pared cool was instantly smashed by Rafael's ap­pearance in the hall. He was dressed for riding in skin-tight beige breeches and a black polo shirt. Every su­perbly fit line of his gorgeous body was smoothly delin­eated, his lazy stride laced with an utterly unselfconscious animal sensuality. Quite simply, his sheer physical impact stopped her in her tracks. Lean, mean and magnificent. Her mouth ran dry.

  'Buenos dias, querida.' Bracing a polished leather boot. on the bottom step, Rafael treated her to a raking, over­whelmingly male appraisal which made her skin heat. 'Do you still ride?'

  'Only a handful of times since I went to college. I couldn't afford it.'

  'It isn't a skill you forget. I'll take you out with me tomorrow.' Somehow he contrived to make the invi­tation sound as intimate as a siesta in a double bed.

  Georgie tensed. 'I won't be here tomorrow.'

  'You think not?' "Reaching out, he tugged her forward in one smooth motion and encircled her in his arms. Still standing a step higher, Georgie found herself facing him levelly.

  'Rafael.. .no!' she gasped feverishly.

  He penetrated her anxiously parted lips with bis tongue and she shuddered, electrified by the intense eroticism of bis opening assault.

  'Closer,' he urged, his breath fanning her cheek smouldering golden eyes burning down into hers as his hands cupped the swell of her buttocks and lifted her i
nto intimate connection with the hard thrust of his arousal. 'Si... like that...'

  He crushed her mouth under his and she was elec-trified by the hunger which leapt into response inside her. Keen and fierce as a knife, that voracious hunger cleaved through her flesh. Her breasts swelled and ached and her nipples pinched into painfully sensitive points She arched her back like a sensuous cat, desperate for more sensation, her head thrown back, her hands wound round his neck.

  'If you had been in my bed when I woke up, I wouldn't be suffering this way. I would be satisfied,' Rafael mur­mured huskily, rubbing an abrasive cheek intimately against the tender skin of her throat and then reaching up teasingly to tug at her ear-lobe with sharp teeth, and if he hadn't been holding her up at that point she honestly believed she would have folded into quivering female surrender at his feet. By that stage, her entire body was on fire.

  'Ah... we have company.' Swinging her down off the step and turning, Rafael lowered her to the floor, but kept his arms linked round her, her spine welded to the warm, hard wall of his chest. 'Company?' Georgie echoed dazedly. 'Allow me to introduce you to my father's eldest sister, Tia Paola. I know she will want you to address her as one of the family.'

  Georgie's gaze fell on a beaming, plump little woman with white hair and twinkling dark eyes. In spite of her shock that Rafael should be entertaining unexpected vis-tors, and relatives at that, she found herself smiling back. Tia Paola had that kind of face. She moved forward to clasp Georgie's hands warmly and murmur a greeting.

  'And, of course, Tia's ward—Beatriz Herrera Len.' Georgie's attention was drawn by the young woman coming down the stairs towards them, a tall designer-clad brunette of quite stunning looks and presence. Liquid dark eyes regarded her with faint amusement as the introduction was performed. And, all of a sudden, Georgie felt horribly aware of her casual clothing, wollen mouth and thoroughly mussed hair.

  'I am very pleased to meet you, Senorita Morrison,' Beatriz said with cool formality.

  'Miss Leon,' Georgie murmured.

  'Your novia is very beautiful, Rafael.' The brunette's gracious smile embraced both of them but her eyes re­mained cold as charity.

  'Novia?' Georgie parroted, that being one of the very few Spanish words she was familiar with, thanks to Maria Cristina. It meant bride or fiancee.

  Rafael's arms tightened around her. 'Excuse me, we have some calls to make before breakfast.'

  Georgie was dragged—there was no other word for it—into Rafael's library. He closed the door and swung round to survey her with hooded dark eyes.

  'NoviaV Georgie said again, an entire octave higher.

  'Tia Paola has arrived to act as your chaperon.'

  Hands on hips, Georgie stared back at him, aghast. 'My what?'

  'Whatever happens now, I naturally wish to safeguard your reputation. My family is very traditional,' Rafael drawled without apology. 'In bringing you here alone, I compromised you. Tia's presence will silence any ad­verse comment.'

  Georgie pushed an unsteady hand through her mass of vibrant hair. 'They think I'm going to many you, don't they?'

  'You will,' Rafael responded with complete conviction.

  'I told you last night that I wouldn't even consider it!' Georgie stalked across the room in turmoil, raw tension edging every bitten-out word. She spun back to him. 'And I'm not likely to change my mind. All you're going to do is embarrass yourself with your family.'

  'Not at all. If no wedding takes place, they will sigh and say I've wriggled off the hook yet again '

  'Make a habit of that, do you?' Georgie couldn't resist stabbing.

  'I have never raised expectations I had no intention of fulfilling.'

  Once you raised mine. But she didn't say it. The biting pain still lingered, and with it a tortured vulnerability. She felt torn in two. One half of her, what she deemed to be the intelligent half, desperately wanted to go home to sanity, but the other half of her was savaged by the sure knowledge that she would never see Rafael again. 'I won't marry you,' she said stonily. 'I want you more than any woman alive,' Rafael in­toned with a wine-dark harshness underlying his ac­cented drawl. 'Your beauty glows like a vibrant flame in this dim room. You look at me with those passion­ately expressive violet eyes and that enticing sultry mouth and I burn for you. If such hunger isn't a basis for mar­riage, what is?'

  A quiver ran through her slender length. The hair at the nape of her neck prickled. The very sound of his voice could make her ache. In the smouldering silence, the tension was suffocating. Sex, she thought in shame, as her breasts stirred in response beneath her cotton bra. Every skin-cell in her treacherous' body was poised on the peak of anticipation.

  'It's not enough for me,' she said jerkily, lifting her chin, forcing back a response she despised.

  Blazing golden eyes clashed with hers, and for an in­stant she couldn't move, couldn't breathe, couldn't even think straight. He was lounging on the corner of his desk, as terrifyingly beautiful as a hungry tiger, ready to spring. Her heart clenched. The fierce primal power of him sprang out at her in an aggressive wave. Last night's hu­mility hadn't survived to greet the dawn. The driving force of his strong will was stamped in every hard bronzed feature.

  'I could make it enough,' he asserted. But I would be the lover, not the loved. Her pride could not tolerate that mortifying image. A flush ran up beneath her magnolia-perfect skin. She would be the toy in his bed, just another possession to a male already bountifully blessed with life's richest possessions. She saw how his natural arrogance had altered the reasoning she had believed she understood mere hours earlier. Forget the reparation angle! Rafael was now telling her that he was freely choosing to marry her for the sexual pleasure he expected her to give him.

  Maybe that had been what he called love four years ago. Desire. A desire honed to a fine lustful edge by her youthful unavailability when they had first met. Hadn't he admitted that himself? That he had never had to wait for anything he wanted before? And she hadn't dis­tinguished herself by making him wait this time, had she? No, she had been an easy conquest, betrayed by passion and need and love. And, if she married Rafael, she would betray herself over and over again in his bed until self-loathing spread through her like a cancer.

  Almost clumsily she folded her arms, as if to hold in the fiery emotions surging up inside her. 'No,' she said again, her voice taut with unbearable strain.

  'And will you be able to live with that choice?' Rafael asked in a velvet-soft purr of enquiry. Tor I will cer­tainly marry someone in the near future. I am of an age to want a wife and a family.'

  Georgie turned deathly white. That one casually cruel statement was like a knife thudding into her unprotected breast.

  Rafael held her darkened violet eyes with savage amusement twisting in his hard mouth. 'Sometimes, I am a primitive bastard, esverdadi But you're taxing my patience. Every jealous, possessive bone in that ex­quisite body of yours revolts at the mere idea of me marrying another woman '

  Wo!' she gasped strickenly, shattered by his in-stinctive cruelty and the cool insight which had made him use that particular weapon against her.

  Rafael lifted his handsome dark head and angled a sizzling smile over her. 'Had we more time at our dis­posal, I would have been more diplomatic, more sen-

  'You arrogant swine!' she shot from between gritted teeth.

  'I will not allow your need to punish me to come be­tween us.' Eyes black as night surveyed her impen­etrably from below lush ebony lashes. 'Nor will I crawl. Remember this, querida you were not the only one to suffer four years ago, you were not the only one whose pride and emotions were injured...'

  Georgie stiffened, deeply disturbed by the assertion. Honesty forced her to admit that she had been less than generous in her ability to see those events from his side of the fence. But then, deep down inside, she still be­lieved that if Rafael had really cared about her he would have betrayed his emotions more and he would at least have tried to listen to her. Was that so unreaso
nable? And what did it matter now, anyway? she asked herself with helpless bitterness. Even if he had loved her then, to the best of his seemingly limited ability, he wasn't in love with her now. If it wasn't for the sizzling animal sexuality he emitted as naturally as some men simply breathed, Rafael wouldn't be half so keen to marry her.

  'Breakfast,' he sighed with sudden impatience.

  Only as he straightened and moved forward did Georgie see what reposed on his desk. She darted forward, an exclamation on her lips. 'My bag!'

  'Si... had informed the hotel manager of your loss. The driver returned the bag to your hotel and it was conveyed here late last night with my guests. Check the contents.'

  Georgie was already in the midst of doing so. Her passport was there... and so was her money. She went weak with relief.

  'Most people prefer the—er—convenience of trav-ellers' cheques,' Rafael remarked.

  'I just didn't have time to get them before the flight out...OK?' Georgie demanded with belligerence. 'I want to give that cab-driver a reward '

  'It's already taken care of.'

  'I'm sorry I called him a thief,' Georgie muttered.

  'He may well have been tempted, but the fear that you would describe him, and might even have the regis­tration of his cab, may have influenced him. Who knows?' Rafael returned with rich cynicism.

  Georgie drew in a deep, sustaining breath and lifted her head. 'There's no problem now. I can go home...

  'But before you leave I will naturally demand the cer-tainty that you are not carrying my child,' Rafael de­creed, his beautifully shaped mouth compressing into a forbidding line. 'And you cannot give me that assurance yet.'

  Frustrated fury hurtled through her. 'Last night, you admitted that you regretted everything you had done!'

  'That does not mean I now give you the freedom to behave with the foresight of a five-year-old,' Rafael de­livered with sardonic bite.

  Rage roared through Georgie in a blinding, seething surge. Her hands clenched into fists by her sides. 'Don't you dare put me down like that! I didn't ask to come here! I wanted nothing to do with you!'