by Kim Lawrence
Rafael was content with reality.
He rarely had a relationship that lasted more than a couple of months, which was as a rule about the time when he started hearing ‘we’ a lot. It was also generally around this time he began to find the qualities that had first attracted him to a woman irritating.
He was not waiting to find his soulmate.
‘I will leave the domestic bliss to you and Angelina. I do not buy a restaurant if I want a meal and I do not intend to take a wife in order to have sex.’
Alfonso winced and said, ‘Nice analogy.’
‘I do not have a reputation for niceness,’ Rafael reminded him. He did, however, have a reputation for being utterly ruthless and single-minded when he pursued a goal. It was debated whether it was this ruthlessness, his sharp analytical mind or a combination of the two that accounted for his success.
Rafael, not given to introspection, had never attempted to analyse the formula; he did what he did because he liked the challenge—when he stopped enjoying it he would walk away.
An hour later all was still going smoothly—so far, at least. In the days when he’d had to attend every last family event, Rafael had seen far too many that had gone sour to rule out the possibility totally.
It might at least liven the proceedings, he mused, and almost immediately felt ashamed of the selfish sentiment. This day meant a great deal to the proud parents so for their sake he hoped the day stayed boring.
With luck he would not be obliged to see his family until next Christmas.
He put down the drink he had been nursing since he arrived, glanced at his watch and wondered when he could leave without causing offence.
‘Have I thanked you for all this?’
He turned at the sound of the voice behind him, the hard light of cynicism that made several of his relatives uncomfortable absent from his eyes as he smiled at Angelina.
It was hard not to smile, not just because his cousin’s wife was a beautiful woman—it was more than that. Angelina was the most genuine person he had ever met, she had a warmth that made people around her feel good.
A tall woman, and one blessed with symmetrical features set in a perfectly oval face, a slim, elegant figure and an aura of serenity, his cousin’s wife was probably many men’s idea of a perfect woman.
Rafael had wondered more than once why he wasn’t attracted to her in a sexual way, but he never had been.
‘Alfonso has already thanked me.’
She watched the uncomfortable look cross his face and gave him a hug. ‘Why do you hate people to know you can be nice?’ she wondered.
‘I am not nice. I always have an ulterior motive—ask anyone.’
‘Yes, you’re totally selfish. I can see how much you’re enjoying yourself.’ She angled a quizzical look at his dark face. ‘Wondering when to make your escape?’
There was an answering smile in Rafael’s eyes as he asked, ‘Should I mention you have baby vomit on your shoulder?’
Angelina carried on smiling, displaying a perfect set of white teeth as the dimple in her chin deepened. ‘No, Rafael, you should not.’
The first time he had seen Angelina and Alfonso together it had been obvious even to a cynic like him that they were crazy about each other, and as far as he could see the honeymoon was still on.
Ten years down the line, who knew?
‘Motherhood suits you.’ He saw the flicker cross her face and knew he had inadvertently dredged up a memory.
‘Thank you, Rafael. The twins, it’s hard not to think about…It was all so different this time.’
Rafael had no trouble interpreting the disjointed sentence. He watched her swallow and wished he had kept his mouth shut.
He saw her lips quiver and hoped she was not going to start crying. He put a lid on his empathy, a sympathetic word or gesture now would no doubt open the floodgates and he had a major dislike of female tears. ‘Why think about it?’ he said brusquely.
Rafael’s philosophy was if you made a mistake you lived with it. Beating yourself up over it was to his way of thinking a pointless exercise, and an indulgence.
‘You’re right.’
‘If only more people realised that.’
Generally appreciative of his ironic sense of humour, Angelina did not smile.
Her shadowed eyes were trained on the far end of the vaulted hall where her husband, a son balanced expertly on each arm, paused to allow admiring relations to kiss the cherubic cheeks.
‘He is such a good father.’
‘And you are a good mother, Angelina.’
She shook her head. ‘It makes me think…did I do…?’ She lifted her troubled brown eyes to Rafael. ‘Was it the right thing?’
Rafael had no doubt. ‘You did the right thing.’
Rafael had strong feelings about advice: he never requested it and he never gave it.
It was a sound position, it was just a pity that he had forgotten and made an exception for Angelina.
‘But I hate lying…’
‘Confessing might have made you feel better, but what would it have achieved other than—?’
‘Make Alfonso call off the wedding. He would never risk a scandal.’
‘Maybe,’ Rafael lied. In his mind there was no maybe.
He actually had no doubt at all what the outcome would have been had Angelina found Alfonso and not himself at home the day she had arrived at his cousin’s city apartment to confess all.
Would Alfonso have felt sympathy for Angelina, forced to give birth at sixteen to her married lover’s child? Yes.
Would he have married her after she had confessed? No.
‘You did the right thing, Angelina. Why should you suffer now for a mistake you made when you were little more than a child? You were the victim then—is it fair you be the victim now? Everyone makes mistakes…’
‘Alfonso doesn’t,’ she said wistfully.
Rafael might have said that Alfonso wasn’t perfect, but he knew it would be a waste of breath. To his wife he was.
‘It doesn’t seem right I’m this happy. I wonder if she’s happy, my little girl. I wonder sometimes…’
‘Better not to,’ Rafael advised tersely. ‘Why think about what you can’t have?’ He had wasted many nights wanting his mother back, but he was no longer ten and he knew better.
CHAPTER THREE
MAGGIE WANDERED THROUGH the winding streets just soaking up the atmosphere. She had a whole afternoon to do her own thing before she needed to be back at the hotel for what the tour guide had enthusiastically described as an ‘authentic paella experience.’
Attendance was optional but he’d told her it was highly recommended.
Having paused for a glass of wine at a pavement cafe, she pulled the map from her shoulder bag. The tour guide had declared the street market a must for any visitor to the city in search of authentic Spain and, according to her map, it was really close.
Half an hour later and totally lost in a maze of alleys Maggie decided to admit defeat. With the clock ticking and the tour guide’s instruction to be back at the hotel by seven if she planned to join the group for dinner, she finally decided to head straight for the cathedral.
Maggie was just beginning to think that she would miss out on seeing that too when she spotted the distinctive spire of the cathedral directly ahead.
Standing on the pavement, sweat trickling down her back—the day had been hot; the evening was sultry without a breath of breeze to offer relief—she waited for a lull in the steady stream of traffic. It quickly became clear there was none. Not that this seemed to bother other people, who just stepped confidently into the road weaving their way through the traffic to an accompaniment of horns, yells from drivers and rude gestures to the opposite side of the congested road.
Before she could think better of the idea she stepped out.
The security outside the hotel was tight; the media had been kept away, only a couple of approved photographers had been permitted access, though
unfortunately Rafael’s departure coincided with their arrival.
‘Since when were you camera shy, Rafael? I’d heard you are very photogenic. I think your face and reputation keep half the scandal rags in business.’
Rafael reacted to his elderly uncle’s cackle of laughter with a sardonic smile.
‘I suppose I was slightly naive to think that my family at least would give me the benefit of the doubt.’ Rafael liked women, he liked sex, but if he had bedded as many beautiful women as the press liked to suggest he doubted he would have the strength to get out of bed.
‘You were never naive, Rafael—not even when you were a baby like those two…I remember your baptism like it was yesterday,’ his uncle reminisced. ‘You bawled your head off all through and your father kept saying, “Elena, do something,” and she did, though I doubt if Felipe had an affair in mind.’ He angled a look that held more curiosity than apology at his tall great-nephew’s face as he added, ‘No offence intended.’
The muscles along Rafael’s strong jaw tightened, but his expression did not change as he promised, ‘None taken.’
‘Her mistake was confessing. Honesty is not the best policy, especially when dealing with people like your father. How old were you when he…?’
‘Threw her out? Ten.’
Old enough to feel angry and betrayed. An image flashed into his head and he felt nothing as he watched his ten-year-old self begging his mother to take him with her and shouting when she tearfully sobbed she couldn’t.
‘It was a tragedy she died so young.’
Before he ever had a chance to retract the things he had yelled at her as she left.
Not insensible to the sensitivity of the subject, Fernando slid a glance at Rafael’s stony profile before observing, ‘There are worse things in life than being considered a sex god.’
‘A hard reputation to live up to.’
The comment drew a laugh from the older man. ‘Modesty,’ he mocked. ‘That’s not like you, Rafael.’
‘You think I need a lesson in humility?’ Meekness was to his mind an overrated virtue, he had never turned the other cheek in his life and he wasn’t about to start any time soon. In his world displaying any weakness was fatal.
‘You care what I think?’ Fernando stopped dead, his attention straying across the road. ‘Now that is what I call a remarkably good-looking woman…she reminds me of someone…Rafael…?’
It was not hard to identify the object of his relative’s admiration. She stood poised uncertainly on the edge of the pavement watching for a gap in the heavy traffic that moved through the congested street.
A little above medium height, she had a natural poise and elegance that made her stand out from the crowd even wearing standard-issue faded denims and a loose cotton tee shirt that hinted at the lush curves of her breasts, the natural attribute he suspected had first drawn his reprobate great uncle’s attention.
As his glance moved upwards to her face she stepped backwards as a scooter mounted the pavement. As she lifted a hand to throw the ponytail that had flopped forward over her shoulder her head turned and he saw her face for the first time.
The breath left his body as Rafael froze, feeling as if someone had just landed a punch in his solar plexus.
‘Over there…I think she’s trying to cross the road. You see her?’
‘I see her.’
‘Now that is what this party lacked—a few pretty faces to look at.’
‘Not pretty,’ Rafael contradicted.
His elderly relative looked outraged. ‘Not pretty? What is wrong with you? Don’t tell me you like your women like sticks. A woman should be soft and—’
‘Beautiful,’ Rafael corrected, cutting across his great-uncle’s list of womanly attributes.
As his brain emerged from its temporary paralysis his eyes remained trained on the slim figure, but it was not the brunette’s face or her indisputably womanly figure that held his stunned gaze.
He glanced briefly at his great-uncle, who played the forgetful old man card when it suited him but was anything but; the last thing Rafael needed at this moment was Fernando to realise why the girl looked familiar to him.
He was surprised he hadn’t already.
The sooner he got him safely away from this potentially explosive scene, the better.
Rafael dragged his eyes off the brunette. Still aware of her in the periphery of his vision, and aware he was not the only one aware of her—this was a woman accustomed to male attention—he offered his great-uncle a supportive arm, nodding to the driver who held the door open as Fernando took his place in the car.
The car moved off and Rafael was able to focus all his attention on the brunette.
She was obviously heading for the hotel. If she walked in now he could imagine the reaction and there were photographers to record the moment for posterity and every tabloid on the planet!
An illegitimate love child reunited with her mother while the unsuspecting husband and social elite looked on. My God, the girl had to have engineered the moment for maximum embarrassment—not that her motivation or her feelings were what he needed to concentrate on now, he told himself, blocking out this line of speculation.
This was about damage limitation. Let Angelina have this day at least before disaster in the shape of this girl arrived.
He couldn’t let her go into the hotel.
So how did he stop her?
He found himself wistfully contemplating a less civilised and much simpler age when he could have simply slung her over his shoulder.
This not being an option, he had to repress his natural instincts and opt for more subtle methods. As he sifted through the possibilities he was very aware that no matter what action he chose, he could not give this situation a happy outcome.
The story had everything: sex, money and a beautiful woman—or in this case two!
If she walked through those doors now he could imagine the reaction to that face and tomorrow’s headlines. He couldn’t allow it to happen.
Rafael tried to narrow his focus to the here and now. It was a struggle: he had a mind wired to asking why…where; a question mark was a challenge to him.
As he walked towards the road his mind was working fast as he sifted through the possibilities. What was she doing here?
Coincidence did not even make it to the list.
Rafael did not believe in coincidence any more than he believed in the Easter bunny or the general decency of his fellow man…or in this case woman. He did believe in protecting the people he cared about.
His silver grey eyes narrowed. The brunette, her hair and other things bouncing gently, had begun crossing the road towards the hotel entrance, confirming all his worst suspicions.
He felt something kick low in his stomach—anger, he told himself—as he watched the gentle sway of her hips in the tight jeans she wore.
Of course there were decent and genuinely good people—people like Angelina. He liked to think he was not without the odd scruple, but this woman was not one of life’s innocents.
It always amazed Rafael how that vulnerable minority managed to get through life with their ideals and their lives intact while most people were out for what they could get regardless of the people they trampled over in their pursuit of whatever ambition drove them.
What was driving Angelina’s daughter?
Greed, revenge…possibly a combination?
A child genuinely wishing to discover a parent would hardly choose a public occasion to do so.
Then as he watched she stepped off the pavement. Dios, he might not have to worry about scandal—the girl was a traffic statistic waiting to happen!
It was pure luck that she reached his side of the road before disaster struck—or almost. He watched as she jumped in response to the blast of a scooter horn as it whizzed past her, lost her footing and began to fall back into the moving traffic.
CHAPTER FOUR
MAGGIE lifted her head, a smile of gratitude ready to thank t
he person who had leant a steadying hand and pulled her onto the safety of the pavement.
‘Thank you…’ The words and the smile died a death as she found herself looking into the lean face of her saviour.
The sound of the traffic retreated somewhere into the recesses of her shell-shocked brain. She was looking into the dark face of the most beautiful man she had ever seen or even imagined.
She was too startled to disguise her reaction. Maggie’s gaze travelled in wide-eyed appreciation over his strongly sculpted features.
This was not a face anyone would forget in a hurry.
As a child Maggie remembered wondering what her mum had meant when she spoke of someone’s ‘beautiful bones.’
He was what she meant.
The genetic gene pool had been very generous to this tall Spaniard, who had been gifted cheekbones sharp enough to cut yourself on, a strong aquiline nose and a firm, angular jaw.
His unlined brow was broad and intelligent and he possessed the most striking eyes she had ever seen—pale icy grey, almost silver, the striking colour intensified by the dark ring around the iris, they were fringed by incredibly long spiky lashes that were as dark as his strongly delineated ebony brows.
But it was his mouth that Maggie couldn’t take her eyes off. Was it the hint of cruelty she saw in the sensual curve of his sculpted lips that tugged so strongly at her senses and made the aura he projected so overtly sensual and masculine?
Close your mouth, Maggie, you’re drooling.
In an effort to respond to the ironic voice in her head, she gave herself a mental shake.
It didn’t help. Her head remained a swirl of impressions and her nerve endings continued to thrum, sending shivers across the surface of her overheated skin.
She’d had too much sun, Maggie decided, shading her eyes as she struggled to find an explanation for being struck dumb and foolish at the same moment—an explanation that did not involve being in the presence of a six-feet-four black-haired Mediterranean male who looked like a fallen angel who worked out!
The fine lines around his marvellous eyes deepened as he looked down with concern into her face.