by Julia James
Why, why, why...?
‘Will you eat as little as you did at the charity show?’ he asked, making her lift her head from the blurring words on the menu.
She frowned slightly. ‘Oh, no—I skipped lunch today, as I was working, so I have a full calorie allowance tonight.’
He nodded. ‘So you’ll go for the baked Camembert, followed by confit of duck, and a very large chocolate mousse with cream to finish—is that it?’
He said it straight-faced, and just for a moment Celeste thought he meant it. Then she saw the glint of humour in his eyes.
‘I wish...’ she said. She looked quickly at the menu again. ‘Undressed prawns, and sole with green vegetables—no sauce.’
‘Hmm...really splashing out, I see,’ Rafael murmured. ‘Do you have any calories to spare for wine?’
‘Dry white,’ she answered, then promptly wished she hadn’t. Rafael Sanguardo was disturbing enough to her without the aid of alcohol...
But he was beckoning the wine waiter and going through the wine list with him in a knowledgeable fashion. Then, their dinner order given and the ritual of the arrival of the wine performed, she was left facing him with no other distractions.
‘What do you think of the wine?’ Rafael was asking, and she took a grateful sip—that would occupy a few moments of time.
‘Very good,’ she said, for it was crisp and tart and perfectly chilled.
‘I’m glad,’ he said. Then, glancing at her, he said, ‘I’m saving the champagne for our breakfast in bed tomorrow morning.’
She choked, clunking her wine glass down on the table. As she recovered, her eyes flew to his face. It was completely deadpan. Then, a second later, that glint in his eyes came again.
‘It’s what you think of me, though, isn’t it?’ Rafael said. He took a breath, his expression changing. ‘You know,’ he said slowly, ‘I’ve never met anyone as...as wary...as you are. I’m truly astonished that I’ve actually finally got you sitting here, of your own free will, having dinner with me.’ His eyes rested on her. ‘Can it be that you’ve finally decided I’m safe?’
Celeste blinked, her eyes flaring. Safe? Rafael Sanguardo sat there and called himself safe? A man who was getting past every defence she possessed? Defences she had never even needed till now!
She pulled herself together. He was giving her the perfect opportunity she was looking for. To inform him, as clearly as was needed, that this was not the start of something—it was the end of it.
‘Mr Sanguardo—’ she began.
‘Rafael,’ he corrected.
She couldn’t bring herself to say his given name. It would create a level of familiarity that was exactly what she was trying to distance herself from.
‘I really do have to make something clear to you,’ she went on. She fiddled with the stem of her wine glass, steeling herself. Why was it so hard to say what she had to say? It wouldn’t be the first time. Usually it never came to this, because men who were keen on her had backed off long before now—frozen out by her lack of response to their overtures—but from time to time she’d had to spell it out with capital letters. This was definitely one of them.
But it wasn’t like any of the earlier times. Because then, she knew, with a hollowing of her insides, it had been no effort at all to say no to what was on offer. Whereas now...
I don’t want to say no to him...
The words were in her head before she could stop them, forcing themselves into her consciousness. For the first time she had finally encountered a man to whom her customary rejection to all males was not easy and effortless to make. For the first time she had encountered a man to whom she did not want to say no.
She wanted to give a completely different answer...an answer that was singing in her blood, that had leapt in her eyes the very first moment she had seen him, that was making her want to do nothing more than let her eyes gaze at him, soak him up. Her nerves were tingling in every limb, her heart was beating that much faster, her breathing was unsteady...
Then harsh reality sounded in her head.
But it’s no good! I have to say no! I have to say no to Rafael Sanguardo. Because I always have to say no.
How could she ever say anything else when that clinging trail of slime still left its fetid trace across her skin...would always do so...?
I can’t escape the past—what I did. And I can never be free of it—never! So what else can I say to any man except no...
And that was exactly what she was going to do now. Make herself do.
‘I have to be completely honest with you,’ she ploughed on. She was looking at him full in the face and he sat back, a veiled look in his eyes. ‘This isn’t personal, I assure you, but it wouldn’t be fair of me to let you think that having dinner like this is in any way...um...well, a date—because it isn’t.’
‘Why not?’ The question cut across her hesitant explication. It was asked with an air of casual curiosity. The veiled look was still in his eyes.
‘Well, because—’ She stopped.
‘Yes?’ One dark eyebrow quirked. He picked up his wine glass, holding it in long fingers but not drinking from it. He looked relaxed, unfazed by what she was saying.
‘Because I just don’t do this stuff, that’s why,’ she said bluntly.
‘Ah, “stuff”,’ he repeated with an air of discovery. ‘That’s very enlightening. Do, please, elaborate.’
She took a breath. ‘Like I said, it isn’t personal, but I’ve made it a rule not to...to... Well, to do what I’m doing now, I guess. Or,’ she added pointedly, ‘anything else!’
‘Such as champagne breakfasts in bed?’
‘Yes!’
Rafael responded ruminatively. ‘Well, I can understand why, if you move in a world populated by the likes of Karl Reiner, you have that rule, and I regard it as entirely sensible. But, Celeste...’
Now his eyes were unveiled, and she reeled from the expression in them that blazed like a searing fire.
‘I am not cut from that cloth, and therefore you have absolutely nothing to be wary of in that respect. I had hoped you’d realised that already, but if I have to make it even clearer then I shall!’
‘It isn’t that. I don’t think you’re anything like Creepy Karl. It’s just—’
‘Yes?’
He was back to veiling his gaze again, waiting to hear what she said next. She looked away a moment. Only a glance into the restaurant beyond her. But it went a lot further than that.
Back through time...
Then, slowly, she brought her gaze back to his face.
‘I don’t date,’ she said. ‘I don’t date and I don’t have relationships. Or romances. Or affairs. Or whatever you want to call them. I just...don’t.’
She could hear the silence. Hear it stretching between them. Keeping them apart.
She saw him set down his wine glass, straighten in his seat, lean towards her. He reached a hand out and covered one of hers, still lying palm-down on the tablecloth. His hand felt warm and strong. He held it for a few seconds only, then released it. It felt cold, suddenly, without his there.
‘We’ll take it very slowly,’ he said.
She shook her head. She felt a heavy weight in it. Yet with a flicker of her mind she knew she did not sense the weight as crushing.
Comforting...
The word formed in her mind and she tried to shake it loose. She must not think that—must not.
She heard his voice continue. ‘As slowly as continental drift,’ he said.
And now his eyes were resting on her, and the expression in them was one she had not seen. It did strange things to her, tightening her throat as if she were about to cry, which made no sense at all.
‘Will that be slowly enough for you?’ he asked.
She
felt her head incline, for the weight it was bearing was too great. Continental drift... A pull of desolation went through her. She had her own version of continental drift.
An island of my own, cut off from the rest of the land—drifting ever further away, taking me with it, taking me away from everything like this. Everything that goes with a man like Rafael Sanguardo...
She wanted to tell him so—tell him that even geological time would not be enough to accomplish what he wanted. But she kept silent.
‘Good,’ he said. His voice was quiet. Then, in a different tone, he said, ‘Ah, I believe this is our food arriving.’
It was, and she was glad. It gave her the chance to pull herself together, to shake loose the weight in her head. What had happened just then she did not know—only that she was glad she was past it. She’d said what she had to say—that his attempt to persuade her into dating him, romancing him, having an affair with him, was not going to work and could not work—and that was the important thing. At least his words had indicated that he wasn’t going to try and hustle her, pressurise her or hurry her. And that meant, she realised with a little ripple of relief that carried agitations of its own, that she didn’t have to keep her guard sky-high this evening. That she could afford to lower it a little—just a little.
The way I want to...
The realisation was impossible to suppress. And that in itself was disturbing, too. But she was here now. To stand up and leave would be rude, and churlish, and he did not deserve that. It was not his fault that she could not do what he had so openly stated he wanted to do.
He’s done nothing wrong—he has not behaved badly. When he intervened over Karl Reiner he was chivalrous and protective. Now he is only being attentive, as he said he wanted to be. There is nothing to fault him.
No, the fault was not in Rafael Sanguardo...
She felt them again—those trailing tendrils that dragged across her skin, the miasma of the mind that she could never banish. Never free herself from. That barred her for ever from what Rafael Sanguardo was offering her.
All I can have of him is this—this brief time with him.
And she must make the most of it! Take what little she could. Put aside, just for now, her endless reserve, for she had made it as clear as she could that there could be nothing between them—nothing more than this.
So slowly, very slowly, she started to feel the tension around her begin to ebb a little. She would have this evening and then go home. Home to her solitary life. The only life she could have.
But until that moment she was here, with Rafael Sanguardo, making conversation with him, safe and innocuous.
‘Apparently,’ he said, ‘this house was owned by a Victorian banker who bankrupted himself aspiring to impress the aristocracy—doubtless those who went riding in Rotten Row, as you described the other evening—but they regarded him as a parvenu.’
‘You were only supposed to inherit money then,’ Celeste commented, ‘not make it yourself.’
‘That rules me out, then,’ Rafael replied, that mordant glint in his eyes again.
‘I think,’ she answered with a slight frown, ‘that if you were foreign it was actually a bit easier to get into high society. No one knew who you were, you see.’
One dark, arched eyebrow quirked. ‘Wouldn’t I have been regarded as one up—if that—from a savage native escaped from the jungle?’
‘I think you would have been considered exotic,’ she said. ‘And mysterious.’
And you’d have had Victorian maidens swooning by the dozen...
Rafael gave a laugh, the lines around his mouth deepening.
Make that by the hundreds...
Celeste dragged her mind away. She’d set him clear on what she was not going to do—get involved with him in any way—so she had to stop, right now, thinking any thoughts at all that countered that.
But it was hard to sit here, only a few feet away from him, and not think such thoughts. Not to feel again the confusion, the incomprehension, about just why it was that he could make her think such things. Feel such things...
‘You make me sound like a character in Dickens,’ he replied.
‘More like Joseph Conrad, I think. You know—Nostromo,’ she went on. ‘It’s a novel set in your part of the world. About a town that has vast mountains of silver and how that wealth tempts everyone. Corrupts many.’
‘There was such a mountain,’ he told her. ‘In Peru. And it tempted and corrupted, and in the end caused the death of many. Including the wretched miners forced to mine it for their masters.’ His expression changed. ‘It may sound ironic, but it’s actually been a blessing that Maragua has very little mineral wealth to exploit, since such exploitation has so seldom been for the benefit of the mass of inhabitants of the countries.’
She looked across at him. ‘Is there great poverty still in Maragua?’
‘Substantial—but it is diminishing. There was a change in government in Maragua a few years ago,’ he continued, clearly approvingly, ‘to one that is more moderate, less extreme. It has helped considerably. It understands that prosperity is built on investment—investment in infrastructure, the environment, education, entrepreneurship—and a lot of hard work by everyone, not just the peones.’
She looked at him curiously. ‘But you live and work in Europe and the USA, don’t you?’
‘It’s where I made my money, yes,’ Rafael allowed. ‘But the habit of sending remittances home by those working abroad has a long tradition in Latin America and it actually contributes signally to the economy of the region en masse. However, at my level those remittances can take the form of specific investments in targeted projects for long-term national benefit. I work closely with several other Maraguans who, like myself, have “made good”, and we now intend to grow our native economy and welfare for the benefit of all our fellow citizens.’
‘That sounds very...admirable...’ Celeste sought for the right word.
He gave a dismissive shrug. ‘It makes sound economic sense. Wealth begets wealth—as the Western world learned last century. If the masses become prosperous they drive the economy further upwards in a virtuous circle.’
Celeste frowned. ‘But isn’t there a danger of pollution and environmental degradation as living standards rise with consumer demand?’
‘Yes. Which is why we now focus on sustainable development and reversing the damage that has been done in the past.’
He warmed to his theme, describing reforestation programmes to extend areas of native rainforest, which went hand in hand with developing ecotourism—an area he was investing in himself. Rafael could see her listening attentively, and she asked intelligent, penetrating questions.
Just as Madeline had used to.
Emotion flickered through him. He wanted Celeste to be completely different from Madeline, yet in this she was proving similar.
Or was she?
He had come to realise that the superb grasp of economics that Madeline possessed, allowing her to soar in the business world, did not extend to being overly concerned about the very issues he was now talking about with Celeste. The shadow in Rafael’s eyes changed to something harder—more critical. He could still hear Madeline arguing with him, refuting his enthusiasm for such projects as ecotourism and long-term sustainable development and natural resource conservation.
Her assured, confident voice sounded in his head now. ‘Rainforests are a prime capital asset that have to be exploited to get anything useful out of them! You can’t hold back economic growth by sentimentalising over a bunch of trees and the monkeys living in them! Get real, Rafe! It’s a dog-eat-dog world out there, and we both know it! You and I both came from nowhere, and look at us now! We’ve made good by following the money—using our talents to get our share of it! Being sentimental would have got us nowhere!’
He heard her vehement, scornful voice—knowing now, although he had once ignored it, that her callous attitude should have been a warning sign to him long before she had revealed her true character and finished their relationship for good.
Celeste’s reaction to his environmental concerns was very different. Sympathetic, enthusiastic, approving. Sharing his values.
His eyes rested on her warmly, darkening momentarily with desire. He wanted to do more than share his environmental values with her...he wanted to share his bed... Fold her to me, hold her in my arms, embrace and caress her...
He felt frustration mingle with desire. She was so set on rejecting him—rejecting all men!
But then, he reasoned, if the kind of men she came across were all of the same stamp as Karl Reiner, was that so surprising? Rafael’s thoughts darkened. And if men like Karl Reiner were used to models sleeping their way into lucrative contracts, exploiting their beauty with rich and influential men to further their careers, no wonder Celeste did not want to run the slightest risk of being tainted by embarking on any kind of relationship with anyone who could be considered in that light.
Such as himself, Rafael acknowledged. His wealth, as he knew only too well, made him a target for just such women, and he also knew that it was precisely the fact that Madeline had already made her own money—huge amounts of it!—that had been a key factor in their relationship. There had been no question that Madeline had wanted him only in order to further her career!
But he didn’t want to think about Madeline—he wanted to think about Celeste—
Is she worrying that people might think she turned down Reiner for a man even richer? Is that the reason for her reluctance? Because it would show her to be no better than that other model who did have an affair with Reiner to advance her career?
If so, it was a tribute to her character, demonstrating yet again how right he was to want her as deeply as he did! He could be confident that he could trust her not to be venal or corrupt—not to be the kind of woman who would trade herself for financial advantage!