Книга - A Touch of Notoriety

A Touch of Notoriety
Carole Mortimer


Rules are made to be broken Beth Blake has a perfectly normal life in London – until a secret from the past thrusts her into notoriety and she finds herself in Argentina, under the watchful eye of a bodyguard. Controlling, insufferable and sinfully sexy to boot, Raphael Cordoba is a thorn in her independent side!Guarding Beth should be easy for Raphael – as long as he remembers the golden rule: Do not touch the client. Especially when she’s the sister of your best friend! But feisty Beth requires a particular attentiveness that brings illicit temptation even closer…‘Fastpaced, full of passion and perfect for all romantics!’ – Meg, Retail Sales, Lichfield










Beth stilled, knowing from the closeness of Raphael’s voice that he was standing just behind her.

‘Beth?’

She turned to face him, wavering slightly as she found that Raphael was standing only inches away from her, those piercing blue eyes still narrowed in his harshly chiselled face.

Her eyes flashed darkly. ‘What more do you want from me?’

What did Raphael want from this woman?

It was easy to imagine making love to her: kissing those delectable and poutingly stubborn lips, enjoying and pleasuring those lean, silkily slender curves, caressing and tasting the fullness of her breasts.

Oh, yes—it was all too easy for Raphael to imagine making slow and leisurely love with Beth Blake.

But the sister of his best friend, the daughter of the couple who had long ago taken him in as one of their own…?

No, Raphael could only ever be the man who stood in silent watch over that woman—who ensured, for her family’s sake, that no harm came to her ever again.




BUENOS AIRES NIGHTS


After dark with Argentina’s most infamous billionaires!

Cesar Navarro and Raphael Cordoba—

two Argentinians with the wealth, magnetism and ruthlessness to break many a woman’s heart…

Grace and Beth—

two ordinary British women about to make their

first foray into the sultry heat of Buenos Aires nights…

Read all about Grace and her boss Cesar in:

A TASTE OF THE FORBIDDEN

April 2013

and Beth and her bodyguard Raphael in:

A TOUCH OF NOTORIETY

May 2013




About the Author


CAROLE MORTIMER was born in England, the youngest of three children. She began writing in 1978, and has now written over one hundred and fifty books for Harlequin Mills & Boon


. Carole has six sons: Matthew, Joshua, Timothy, Michael, David and Peter. She says, ‘I’m happily married to Peter senior; we’re best friends as well as lovers, which is probably the best recipe for a successful relationship. We live in a lovely part of England.’

Recent titles by the same author:

A TASTE OF THE FORBIDDEN

(Buenos Aires Nights)

HIS REPUTATION PRECEDES HIM

(The Lyonedes Legacy)

DEFYING DRAKON

(The Lyonedes Legacy)

THE TALK OF HOLLYWOOD

Did you know these are also available as eBooks?Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk




A Touch of

Notoriety

Carole Mortimer

















www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)




CHAPTER ONE


‘PARDON, SEÑORITA?’

Beth looked up to smile at the handsome young man who, until a few moments ago, had been sitting at a neighbouring table enjoying a cup of coffee at the same outside café in the San Telmo area of Buenos Aires, and shooting her the occasional admiring glance from beautiful chocolate-brown eyes.

But before she could respond she saw a movement out of the corner of her eye as another man approached at a speed totally at odds with his overwhelming height and muscular build. Two seconds later one of the younger man’s arms was twisted painfully up behind his back, totally immobilising him.

‘Raphael!’ Beth muttered in embarrassed protest as she rose to her feet, very tall and slim in a black T-shirt and denims beneath her brown leather jacket.

Raphael didn’t so much as glance at her. ‘Back off,’ he ordered the startled young man coldly, not easing his grip for a second, his expression grimly detached.

‘You’re the one who should back off, Raphael!’ Beth shot him an exasperated glance. ‘In fact, you shouldn’t even be here…’ So much for believing she had managed to escape for even a short time; she should have known that Raphael Cordoba would eventually track her down and ruin her few moments of peace!

‘Is this man bothering you?’ The young Argentinian braved the other man’s wrath as he now spoke to her in heavily accented English.

Was Raphael Cordoba bothering her?

Raphael Cordoba had been ‘bothering’ Beth since the moment she first met him! And not just because she hated having him dog her footsteps day and night…

Over six feet of male perfection—dark hair framing a chiselled face dominated by piercing blue eyes that any male model would envy, broad shoulders and a leanly muscled body that not even the three-piece suits Raphael habitually wore could disguise—was apt to do that to a woman!

‘I thought only to talk to you?’ The younger man grimaced, obviously as overwhelmed by the forceful Raphael as Beth was.

‘I know.’ Beth shot Raphael a censorious glance.

‘It is safe to leave you with this man?’

‘Safer than with you, you—’

‘Raphael, please!’ Beth reproved wearily, having to admire the younger man’s persistence in the face of Raphael’s fierce displeasure. ‘It’s…complicated,’ she excused as she smiled at the other man reassuringly. ‘But it’s okay—he doesn’t have any intention of harming me.’

‘You are sure?’

‘She is sure,’ Raphael answered the younger man grimly, with a deadly expression she was also sure would be in those piercing blue eyes currently hidden behind black mirror-shaded wraparound sunglasses.

And if there was one thing Beth was very sure of, it was that Raphael Cordoba wasn’t going to harm her. The opposite, in fact; he was her bodyguard, employed by Cesar Navarro, and here to ensure that no one else harmed her. Or rather, that no one harmed Gabriela Navarro, the young woman everyone now believed Beth to be.

Except Beth herself…

Just a week ago she had been quietly going about her life in England, enjoying her new job working Monday to Friday in a London publishing house, and feeling only mildly anxious that her sister, Grace, had flown to Argentina for the weekend with her new boss, the breathtakingly handsome billionaire Cesar Navarro, in his private jet. Never in a million years could Beth ever have guessed that Grace’s stay in Buenos Aires would have such a profound effect on her own life!

But here she was only days later, also in Buenos Aires, the blood tests having convinced everyone—except Beth herself!—that she was Gabriela, the daughter of Carlos and Esther Navarro, who had been abducted twenty-one years ago.

And Raphael Cordoba, previously Cesar Navarro’s own personal bodyguard, now watched over Beth’s every move. To the point, it seemed, of attacking handsome young men who had only wanted to talk to her!

‘Let him go, Raphael,’ Beth muttered wearily, knowing her few minutes of freedom were very definitely over. ‘I’m leaving now anyway,’ she assured him heavily. ‘I think the milk has gone sour in my coffee!’ She drew some money from her shoulder bag and threw it down onto the tabletop to cover the cost of her drink before walking off without so much as a second glance at either man. Why bother, when she was never going to be allowed to sit and talk to the younger man—it was safer for him if she didn’t—and she knew if she left Raphael would only be a few steps behind her?

As he had been only a few steps behind her in the days since those blood tests had supposedly proven Beth was the missing Gabriela Navarro. Beth clung to that ‘supposedly’. She had to. Because she absolutely refused to accept the results of those blood tests until Cesar Navarro’s investigations had found some other form of proof to back up that claim.

Much as she had come to like Carlos and Esther Navarro these past few days, Beth was still sure there had to have been some sort of mistake. Her parents—her real parents, James and Carla Lawrence—had loved her. Her adoptive parents, the Blakes, had also loved her. Having to accept that she was neither Elizabeth Lawrence nor Beth Blake, but someone else completely, was enough to make Beth’s stomach clench and her hands tremble every time she thought about it.

And, despite her verbal protests, she thought about it a lot…

In the meantime, Cesar Navarro had placed his own bodyguard, Raphael Cordoba, the man who also happened to be Cesar’s closest friend, as Beth’s shadow.

Cesar Navarro…

Now there, although Beth would never openly admit it, was another man she found totally intimidating.

Another man?

Oh, yes, much as Beth liked to pretend otherwise, she found Raphael Cordoba beyond intimidating. All six feet and several more inches of him. There was a predatory stillness about the man, from the top of his military-short black hair, those piercing blue eyes set in that swarthy and startlingly handsome face, to those wide muscled shoulders and washboard chest, tapered waist, powerful thighs, and down the long, long length of his legs, and all shown to advantage in those expensively tailored suits he always wore.

At thirty-three, Raphael Cordoba looked exactly what he was; ex Argentinian military, and scary as hell!

To complicate matters even further, her sister, Grace, was busy making preparations for her wedding to Cesar Navarro next month. And happy as Beth was for her sister, because even she could see how much Grace loved the handsome Argentinian—a depth of love that was unmistakeably returned by that normally coldly aloof man—it also made Beth feel more trapped than ever, when what she really wanted to do was pack her bags and go back to England and just forget all of the Navarro family existed.

Which was never going to happen. Even if Beth could have made good her escape, she couldn’t escape Grace’s engagement and future marriage to Cesar Navarro. And no matter how much Beth might believe she was and only ever had been Elizabeth Lawrence before being adopted by the Blakes, she could never hurt Carlos and Esther Navarro by disappearing—as their baby daughter had twenty-one years ago—in that cruel way.

Fortunately she didn’t have to allow for that concern in regard to hurting Raphael Cordoba’s feelings! ‘Will you just back off?’ she snapped at him now as she sensed him walking—striding with that predatory grace that was such an inborn part of him—close behind her.

Instead he fell into step beside her. ‘It was very foolish of you to disappear from Cesar’s apartment in that thoughtless way.’

Beth winced at the rebuke. ‘I felt as if I was slowly being suffocated!’

Raphael’s mouth tightened. ‘You still should not have worried Esther in that way.’

How did he do that? How did Raphael know exactly the right thing to say to make Beth feel guilty?

Because impossible, unbearable, as her current situation was for her, Beth didn’t want to hurt the couple who had already suffered so much. To the extent that once Cesar was old enough to go to university, and despite their love for each other, Esther and Carlos had no longer been able to live together with the ghost of their beloved baby daughter standing so painfully between them.

A beloved daughter the couple now sincerely believed to have been returned to them in Beth…

It was a belief Beth simply didn’t—couldn’t—accept.

Not least because, at almost twenty-four, she felt like a fish out of water in the opulent lifestyle the Navarros all enjoyed so naturally. And while she had grown fond of the two older Navarros these past few days, and enjoyed nothing more than challenging Cesar Navarro’s haughty arrogance, she innately knew she didn’t really belong here. With the Navarro family. Or in Argentina itself. She was English through and through, and comfortable in her own skin, as a product of her well-off but far from wealthy adoptive parents, Clive and Heather Blake.

Nevertheless, Beth was totally aware—as was Raphael!—of the effect the supposed return of their daughter had had on the older Navarros’ relationship. After years of living apart, Carlos in Buenos Aires and Esther in the US where she grew up, the couple had been sharing a bedroom in Cesar’s apartment since Grace had returned to Buenos Aires with Beth at her side…

Beth sighed heavily. ‘I’m sorry, okay? I just needed some time to myself.’

Raphael looked down at Beth Blake from behind the mirrored shades of his sunglasses, easily able to read the emotions flitting across her expressive—and extremely beautiful—face. A part of him even sympathised with her obvious bewilderment at being taken to be the newly returned Gabriela Navarro. But the medical proof of blood tests could not be easily denied, and, as a childhood friend of Cesar’s, Raphael knew how important this young woman was to the Navarro family. A family—the calm and steady Carlos, the warm and loving Esther, and the coolly arrogant Cesar—who had taken Raphael in as one of their own after a row with his father so many years ago had caused him to leave home.

As such, whether the feisty and stubbornly independent Beth Blake accepted her new identity or not—and she obviously did not—Raphael intended ensuring, by whatever means possible, that she remained safe while on his watch. And, as far as Beth was concerned, his watch now covered the whole twenty-four hours of every one of her days!

Something she had shown him—once again!—by just disappearing from Cesar’s apartment earlier that she deeply resented. ‘Gabriela—’

‘My name is Beth, damn it!’ she corrected, her eyes flashing darkly, two bright spots of angry colour having appeared in her cheeks.

Cheeks normally as pale and smooth as the finest porcelain, her eyes a deep rich brown above her small uptilting nose, her mouth a perfect bow above her stubbornly determined chin. As for her long silky hair…! Raphael had only ever seen one other woman with hair those heavy layers of all shades of blond, from gold to the palest silver, and that was Esther Navarro. The woman blood tests had shown to be Beth’s birth mother.

He shrugged broad shoulders. ‘I now think of you as Gabriela Navarro.’ Having been only a precocious two years old when she was taken from her real family, Beth would no more remember having met Raphael before than she did the Navarro family. But he remembered her, had stayed often with Cesar’s family even then, usually during the school holidays, and Gabriela had been Cesar’s beloved baby sister, a golden-haired angel to be petted and spoilt by the two much older boys.

At the moment Beth Blake looked as pettable as a spitting tigress. ‘Well, isn’t it just lucky for me that I have absolutely no interest in what, or who, you happen to think I am!’

‘I do not “happen” to think anything, it has been medically proven as fact that you are Gabriela Navarro. And it is equally lucky for me that I have absolutely no interest in what you may think of me, either.’ Raphael allowed a mocking smile to quirk his lips, knowing by the way those rich brown eyes narrowed that Beth Blake did not appreciate his humour at her expense.

She gave an inelegant snort. ‘You really don’t want to know what I think of you, Raphael!’

As her bodyguard, perhaps not, but as a man? Oh, yes, much as she might wish it were otherwise, the completely carnal glances Beth Blake gave him from beneath those thick dark lashes whenever she thought Raphael wasn’t looking at her told him that she saw him very much as a man. And was attracted to what she saw.

As much as she resented his status as her bodyguard!

A status that Raphael, equally aware of the allure of the fullness of Beth’s breasts and the sensual curve of her gently swaying hips, was determined to keep front and centre in all of his dealings with Beth Blake. To do anything else would compromise his protection of her.

‘Perhaps not,’ he drawled dismissively. ‘Shall we return to the apartment now?’

She shot him a weary glance. ‘Why do you bother asking, when you have every intention of taking me back there now whether I want to go or not?’

‘And why do you bother continually fighting what is, after all, your destiny?’ Raphael eyed her coolly from behind those wraparound sunglasses.

Beth gave a pained frown. ‘Perhaps because I don’t see it as my destiny?’

‘Grace appears to be having little difficulty in accepting the Navarro family as her own.’

Beth Blake gave a rueful smile. ‘It’s different for Grace. She’s chosen to fall in love with Cesar, to accept Cesar’s marriage proposal, and to become a member of the Navarro family and all that entails.’

Raphael arched dark brows. ‘Does anyone choose to fall in love?’ As Cesar’s personal bodyguard until a few days ago, Raphael had been a silent witness to the other couple falling in love, and he did not believe it to have been in the least as smooth and pleasant as Beth’s words implied that it was.

Perhaps it was now that Cesar and Grace had acknowledged their love for each other and were planning their wedding, but certainly not initially, when the sparks had flown and they had argued about almost everything except the attraction building so rapidly between them.

Much as he and Beth now argued about everything…

No, it was not the same at all, Raphael dismissed determinedly. Much as he might be attracted to Beth Blake’s fiery nature and her beauty, and the supple and desirable curves of her slender body, where she was concerned Raphael had no intention of allowing that attraction to become anything more than visual appreciation. She was Cesar’s beloved little sister returned to him, and as such Beth could never become one of the numerous women who had fleetingly shared Raphael’s bed these last fifteen years.

Which were the only relationships with women Raphael allowed in his life, having learnt of a woman’s treachery at a young age, from his own father’s second wife.

‘Probably not.’ Beth gave a grimace as she answered him. ‘But Grace at least has her love for Cesar as reason to try and embrace his lifestyle.’

‘And you do not have love for Cesar, and your parents, as a reason to try and do the same?’

It was impossible for Beth to miss the censure in Raphael Cordoba’s tone. And no doubt, if she took off those damned sunglasses of his, she would find that same censure in those piercing blue eyes. ‘Stop twisting my words, Raphael,’ she murmured instead. ‘And how can I possibly love three people I didn’t even know existed a couple of weeks ago?’ And there, in the proverbial nutshell, was the reason for Beth’s feeling at a loss as to how to deal with this situation.

She wished she could remember Carlos and Esther as having once been her parents, even the arrogant Cesar as having been her brother, but the truth of the matter was that Beth had absolutely no recollection of any of them. Furthering her belief that she couldn’t possibly be related to them, no matter what those blood tests said to the contrary.

Time would take care of that, the two older Navarros had assured her, together and individually. Time they obviously expected Beth to spend here in Argentina getting to know all of them…

‘Not a day has gone by this past twenty-one years when they have not all thought of you.’ Obviously Raphael Cordoba didn’t feel the same degree of patience towards her in that regard. Or any patience at all, judging by the coldness of his expression as he looked down the length of his arrogant nose at her.

Beth sighed heavily. ‘And I’m sincerely sorry for that. But only in the way any third party would feel after hearing of the abduction of the Navarros’ baby daughter, and the heartache they have suffered in the years since,’ she added firmly.

His jaw tightened. ‘You do not consider that Carlos and Esther have already suffered enough heartbreak on your behalf?’

‘That’s hardly fair—’

‘They are also two of the kindest, warmest people I have ever known.’

‘I’m sure they are.’ Beth looked pained. ‘But I’ve already had, and loved, two sets of parents. A third one not only seems unlikely but…well, excessive.’

Raphael’s eyes narrowed. ‘The difference is that they are your natural parents—’

‘Why is it that none of you will even try to understand why I just can’t accept that?’ Her own eyes darkened almost to the same black as Cesar’s when he was angry or upset. ‘Why I can’t accept any of this? And why I have to go back to England,’ she added determinedly.

‘Everyone is trying—’ He bit back the steely rebuke he had been about to deliver as he instead straightened his shoulders determinedly; arguing with the person he was employed to protect was not conducive to building the trust between them that was necessary in such situations. A trust Beth Blake stubbornly refused to give him. This was something he would need to speak to Cesar about when they were able to speak privately together. ‘If you will not stay in Argentina for the Navarros’ sake, you might at least consider it for Grace’s. She is, after all, arranging her wedding next month to Cesar.’

‘Ooh, low blow, Raphael,’ Beth murmured dryly. ‘If all else fails bring in the sister angle.’

He gave an unapologetic grin. ‘Is it working?’

‘Of course,’ she acknowledged heavily.

Raphael didn’t enjoy seeing the dejected look on that beautiful face. ‘If it is any consolation, Grace argued constantly with Cesar, too, when they first met.’

Beth raised blond brows over surprised brown eyes. ‘Your point being?’

She looked so much like her older brother at that moment that Raphael had trouble holding back his derisive laughter at Beth’s continued insistence that she couldn’t possibly be related to the Navarro family. At this moment she was undoubtedly every inch a Navarro!

‘My point being that the Navarro family cannot be all bad if Grace has learnt to love them in such a short time,’ he drawled dryly.

Beth tilted her head as she gazed up at him quizzically for several seconds. ‘You like my big sister…’ she finally murmured slowly.

‘I do, yes,’ Raphael confirmed without hesitation. Grace Blake was as feisty and outspoken as her younger adopted sister, and was without a doubt the perfect match for the often remote and arrogant Cesar.

Beth gave a derisive smile. ‘Then perhaps there’s hope for you yet, Raphael!’

He arched dark brows. ‘In what regard?’

‘In regard to your belonging to the human race, after all, rather than the unemotional robot I had thought you to be!’ she retorted.

Raphael drew in a hissing breath at the deliberate insult. ‘You will go too far, Gabriela!’

‘And then what?’ Beth chose to ignore his no doubt deliberate use of that name. This time…

‘Then I might have reason to prove to you just how much of a robot I am not!’

Beth looked up at him searchingly, wishing—not for the first time today—that his piercing blue eyes weren’t hidden behind those damned sunglasses. Although perhaps not—no doubt his gaze would be as razor-sharp as his tone…

‘Is that supposed to scare me?’ she prompted lightly.

It was now possible to feel the laser-sharpness of his gaze through those protective shades. ‘There are far more…enjoyable ways of subduing a disobedient woman than scaring her,’ he drawled softly.

Beth felt a shiver of reaction down the length of her spine. Not of fear, but of arousal…

Which was the real reason she constantly felt the need to challenge this man, of course. She had never been so physically aware of another man in the way she was of Raphael Cordoba. Of those arrogant good looks. And the sheer power of that muscled body beneath those perfectly tailored designer suits. Even the way Raphael smelt, sandalwood and lemon and pure healthy male, was enough to put all of her senses on alert. So much so that Beth was usually aware of his presence in a room before she even saw him. It was not a comfortable feeling for a woman who had believed, until she met this arrogant Argentinian, that she was cool and sophisticated when it came to her reaction to men.

Hot and bothered more accurately described her reaction to Raphael Cordoba!

‘“Subduing a disobedient woman”?’ Beth gave him a derisive glance. ‘Do you have to behave quite so much the Neanderthal?’

He gave a tight, humourless smile. ‘I assure you, no woman has ever had reason to complain about my…methods of securing their submission.’

Beth would just bet they hadn’t! The man was sexual seduction on two long sexy legs, so what was there to complain about?

Plenty, when Beth really didn’t want to hear about the other women Raphael had been involved with.

‘Then more fool them,’ she snapped disgustedly before turning on her heel and striding off in the direction of Cesar’s apartment.

All the time aware of Raphael as he continued to follow two steps behind her.

Just as she was also aware, by the tingling sensation quivering down the length of her spine, that those piercing blue eyes were now levelled intently on the gentle sway of her denim-clad hips and backside as she walked in front of him…




CHAPTER TWO


‘OH BUT—’

‘I think we should let Gab—Beth go back to England if that is what she wishes to do,’ Cesar gently interrupted his mother as she would have voiced her protest to Beth’s reminder that she was due to fly home tomorrow.

He surprised Beth with that support; she had felt sure that the arrogant Cesar would be just as opposed to the idea of her going back to England tomorrow as his parents obviously were. Maybe Grace’s more reasonable attitude was having a beneficial influence on the man, after all!

Beth smiled her gratitude across the luncheon table at him. ‘Thank you, Cesar.’

He nodded. ‘Raphael will accompany you, of course.’ A premature gratitude, obviously! ‘I don’t think so—’

‘And I will arrange for you to fly back in the private jet—’

‘Stop right there, Cesar!’ Beth bristled just at the mention of bodyguards and private jets. An indignation that only deepened as she saw the mocking smile curving Raphael Cordoba’s chiselled mouth as he appeared to be on watchful guard outside in the hallway—while obviously listening to their conversation. ‘I have a perfectly good return ticket booked on the commercial flight back to England tomorrow—’

‘Carlos…!’ A distressed Esther looked at her husband appealingly.

‘Perhaps it might be better if you were to accept Cesar’s offer,’ Carlos Navarro reasoned gently.

‘I’m sorry, but I’m really not comfortable doing that.’ Beth grimaced apologetically. ‘And I certainly don’t want or need Raphael to accompany me anywhere—’

‘Be reasonable, Beth…’ Grace interrupted quietly but firmly even as she touched Beth’s hand cajolingly.

‘I am being reasonable.’ Beth knew that she sounded, and no doubt appeared, childishly mulish rather than reasonable. ‘No one else but the people seated around this table—and Raphael—’ she shot him an impatient glance as she saw that mocking smile had now become a smirk ‘—is even aware that you all think I’m Gabriela—’

‘We know that you are, honey.’ Esther smiled across at her warmly.

Beth swallowed down the emotional lump that had formed in her throat at the unconditional love she saw shining in the older woman’s eyes. ‘Yes. Well. As you know, I still have difficulty accepting that.’ She avoided meeting any of their gazes as she stared down at the dining table, totally unable to deal with the hope she knew was shining in Carlos’s and Esther’s eyes, the censure in Cesar’s, the understanding in Grace’s, let alone the mockery she knew she would see in Raphael’s piercing blue eyes now that he was no longer wearing those dark glasses. ‘Until Cesar can supply me with further proof, I’m still Beth Blake as far as I’m concerned. And Beth Blake has a home and a job in England to go back to,’ she added firmly.

Cesar scowled darkly. ‘I assumed when you said you wished to go back to England that it was only so that you might close up the house there and deal with any other affairs—such as resigning from your place of work—before flying back here.’

‘Why on earth would you have assumed that?’ Beth gave a pained frown. ‘I worked hard to get my degree, and I love my job, so why would I want to give that up?’

‘Possibly because you are Gabriela Navarro, and as such have no reason to work?’ Cesar grated harshly.

‘Even if you do prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that I’m Gabriela—’

‘We already have.’

‘I will still refuse to sit around here like some pampered poodle—’ Beth broke off as she heard a snort of what she was sure was laughter from the direction of the hallway. Nor was she convinced otherwise by the bland expression on Raphael Cordoba’s face when she gave him a long, suspicious glance before turning slowly back to frown at Cesar. ‘I wasn’t brought up to sit around painting my toenails—’

‘Oh, I feel sure a “pampered poodle” would pay someone else to paint their toenails,’ Cesar snapped.

‘You aren’t helping the situation, Cesar,’ Grace cut in with soft reproof.

His expression softened as he smiled down at the woman he loved. But that smile faded as he turned back to Beth. ‘I am sure that Grace would rather you remained here and helped her with the arrangements for the wedding.’

‘Raphael already tried the sister approach,’ Beth told him wearily.

‘And?’

‘And of course I’ll come back for the wedding; I am the chief bridesmaid, after all. But, in the meantime, Grace has Esther to help with those arrangements.’ The latter was an argument she knew Cesar had no answer to. His mother was in her element with the arrangements for his wedding to Grace. ‘Which leaves me free to return to my life and job in England until a few days before the wedding.’

Cesar breathed impatiently down his nose. ‘Perhaps we might…compromise, in that you agree to take a month’s leave of absence from your place of work to come back here—’

‘A month’s leave of absence?’ Beth repeated incredulously as she sat up straighter in her chair. ‘Asking for this week’s holiday just after I had started working there didn’t exactly go down well!’

Cesar’s mouth firmed stubbornly. ‘Then perhaps I should consider buying the company, in which case my first instruction as the new head of that company would be for you to take a month’s leave of absence.’

Beth only wished that he were joking, or at least being sarcastic, but, as she was only too well aware, Cesar was as rich if not richer than several small countries, and so perfectly capable of doing exactly as he said he would.

She turned to give Grace a disbelieving shake of her head. ‘And you’re actually thinking of marrying this megalomaniac!’

Grace gave a husky laugh. ‘I most certainly am. Don’t worry.’ She gave Beth’s hand another conciliatory pat. ‘He improves with acquaintance!’

This time there was no mistaking the sound of Raphael’s throaty chuckle. Beth turned to look at him challengingly. ‘Perhaps you should come in here and join us if you have something to add to this conversation?’

Raphael eyed her mockingly. ‘I am merely an employee…’

This time it was Beth who snorted. ‘I think we both know that, as a long-term friend of Cesar, and head of his security worldwide, you aren’t “merely” an anything! Besides which,’ she continued firmly as Raphael would have spoken, ‘as this conversation has revealed that you’re expected to come to England with me, it would seem to concern you as much as it does me…’ she added with a frown.

‘Yes, come in and join us for coffee, Raphael,’ Cesar invited smoothly before turning to request another cup as Maria brought in the tray of coffee things.

Raphael had found time to speak to the other man before lunch, in regard to Beth’s resentment of having him as her bodyguard, a concern that Cesar had dismissed by assuring him, whether Beth liked it or not, there was no one else to whom Cesar would entrust his sister’s safety. And Cesar knew firsthand just how stubborn the Blake women could be; Grace and Beth might both be adopted, and from completely different parents, but their stubbornness of character was undeniably similar!

‘Please do join us, Raphael.’ Esther turned to smile at him warmly as she poured the coffee for all of them once Maria had returned with the sixth cup. ‘With all that’s happened this last few days I haven’t had chance to ask how your family are,’ she prompted gently as Raphael strode into the dining room.

All that had happened these last few days had included Esther’s own stay in hospital after a car crash in which she had thankfully only received a blow to the head and bruising. She was now fully recovered, but the incident had quickly been followed by the shock of having Gabriela return to them in the guise of Beth Blake. Both were reason enough for her not to have found the opportunity to enquire after the family Raphael usually managed to avoid seeing whenever he was in Argentina!

‘All well, the last time I asked, thank you,’ he dismissed lightly as he folded his length down onto the seat a smiling Carlos had pushed back for him.

‘Does your family live in Buenos Aires?’ Beth’s curiosity obviously got the better of her.

Raphael met her gaze coolly. ‘No.’

‘Then where—?’

‘I believe we were discussing the arrangements for your return to England,’ Cesar cut in decisively.

Beth continued to look at the bland-faced Raphael for several minutes longer, sensing some sort of schism in regard to his own family, a schism the Navarro family seemed well aware of. Not that anyone was going to explain that to her any time soon, if Raphael’s closed expression was any indication. ‘No, you were discussing it.’ She turned back to Cesar. ‘I’ve already stated what my own arrangements are.’

‘Those arrangements are unacceptable,’ the man who would shortly be her brother-in-law—if not her actual brother!—dismissed with his usual arrogance.

‘Not to me.’

‘Beth, try to understand how Cesar and your—His parents feel,’ Grace encouraged softly. ‘They’ve already lost Gabriela once,’ she added.

Beth felt what was becoming a familiar sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach.

Having no children of her own yet—never having come even close to being involved in a serious relationship, let alone thought of having children!—Beth found it hard to completely relate to the tragedy of having a child abducted when she was only two years old, followed by twenty-one years of not knowing what had become of her.

It became even more of a nightmare when she considered that the Navarros so obviously believed she was that child returned to them!

And no matter what Cesar and Raphael might think to the contrary, she really did like Carlos and Esther, and had no wish to hurt them any more than they had already been hurt over the loss of their young daughter…

She sighed. ‘Okay, I’ll agree to fly back in the private jet.’ She grimaced. ‘I’ll even agree to having Raphael accompany me—Don’t say a word,’ she warned hardly as he raised mocking brows. ‘But I draw the line at taking a leave of absence from my job—and if you dare to buy the company, Cesar, I will simply hand in my notice and go elsewhere,’ she warned firmly as he would have spoken.

‘At which time I will simply buy whichever company you seek employment with next,’ he stated mildly.

‘You really are a control freak.’

‘And you are as stubborn as a mule!’

‘Hah, it takes one to know one!’

‘I see now, Grace, why you came to the initial conclusion that Cesar and Beth may be related,’ Raphael spoke mildly. ‘Even without the proof of the blood tests, it is possible to see that the two of you are brother and sister,’ he explained as he found himself the focus of two pairs of identical chocolate-brown eyes, the one coolly questioning, the other accusing.

Grace chuckled softly. ‘It is pretty noticeable, isn’t it?’

‘Oh, yes!’ Raphael confirmed with feeling.

‘Everyone’s a comedian!’ Beth threw her hands up in disgust.

Raphael grinned, unabashed. ‘No doubt the situation is more amusing looked at from the outside.’

‘No doubt it is,’ Beth acknowledged dryly. ‘So, where were we? Oh, yes.’ She turned back to Cesar. ‘I’ve agreed, as the sister of your future wife, to the private jet, and having Raphael see that I’m safely delivered back to England, so now it’s your turn to agree to your half of the bargain and let me get on with the career I’ve worked so hard for.’

Raphael looked at Beth appreciatively; she was approaching this situation from a business angle Cesar could and would relate to. The only problem with these particular negotiations was that Cesar never compromised when it came to the welfare of the people who mattered to him. Stubbornly independent as Beth might be—and in denial as to her true identity—Cesar firmly believed her to be the sister he had adored when she was a baby, and for whom he and his parents had mourned these past twenty-one years.

Although none of them could possibly have realised that Gabriela would one day be returned to them a fully grown and independent young woman who refused to accept her heritage!

Cesar sat forward to take his coffee cup from his mother. ‘I do not believe you understood my earlier remark correctly. Raphael will not only accompany you back to England, but remain there for as long as you do.’

‘What?’ Beth gasped incredulously. ‘Not only is that utterly ridiculous, it’s also impractical!’

‘Nevertheless, that is my compromise.’ Cesar remained stubbornly decisive.

Beth turned to look at Raphael impatiently. ‘And you’re happy with that, are you?’

His eyes narrowed. ‘I go wherever Cesar wishes me to go.’

‘Oh, wonderful!’ She gave a disgusted shake of her head. ‘And exactly where do you intend staying while you’re there? Because you certainly aren’t staying in my home with me!’

Raphael eyed her coolly. ‘Hopefully I will have things in place before we leave tomorrow.’

She eyed him warily. ‘What things?’

Raphael maintained a blandly unsmiling expression as he held back his inner amusement at Beth’s obvious suspicion. ‘Things.’

‘Grace, do something!’ She turned to appeal to her older sister.

‘Darling, I know this is difficult for you, but—’ Grace winced ‘—in the circumstances—’ she glanced at Esther and Carlos ‘—I have to agree with Cesar and Raphael.’

‘Unbelievable!’ Beth stood up noisily from the table. ‘By all means, Cesar, you and Raphael arrogantly go ahead and finish making your arrangements—personally, I intend to go and start packing,’ she muttered emotionally. ‘The sooner I’m out of here, the better!’ She rushed out of the dining room.

‘She doesn’t mean it, Esther.’ Grace sat forward to reassure her future mother-in-law as the other woman paled. ‘Beth’s upset, and a little disorientated by all the changes being asked of her.’

‘She is spoilt and willful.’ A nerve pulsed in Cesar’s rigidly clenched jaw as a door was heard slamming down the hallway. Beth’s bedroom door, no doubt.

‘She is frightened,’ Raphael corrected softly, his gaze still turned in the direction in which Beth had just departed as he rose slowly to his feet. ‘Will you allow me to go and talk to her?’

‘Would you?’ Grace turned to him gratefully. ‘I would go myself, but at the moment Beth seems to see me as having defected to—’ She broke off with an uncomfortable grimace.

‘The enemy,’ Esther finished for her sadly.

‘No, not the enemy,’ Grace assured her instantly. ‘Try to understand this from Beth’s point of view,’ she continued gently. ‘Not only has she lost two sets of parents already, but she’s lived the past twenty-one years of her life in complete ignorance of all of you, and it’s going to take time, and patience on your part—’ she gave Cesar a pointed look ‘—for her to accept exactly who she really is.’

And, in the meantime, for all that Raphael understood and sympathised with Beth’s confusion of emotions, it was time for her to start considering feelings other than her own. ‘If you will all excuse me,’ he muttered with grim distraction before striding purposefully from the room.

Beth refused to cry as she threw her clothes into the open suitcase she had tossed on top of her bed a few minutes ago.

How and when had her life become such a nightmare? Including all of her carefully made plans for a future in publishing?

The moment Grace had met Cesar Navarro’s parents just over a week ago, that was when. And Beth refused to—

‘If you were my sister—newly returned to me or otherwise—I would have put you over my knee and soundly spanked your spoilt little backside by now!’

She hastily blinked back all evidence of tears before turning sharply to face Raphael, her spine straightening determinedly as he stood overwhelmingly tall and wide in the now open doorway. ‘Then it’s just as well I’m not your sister, isn’t it?’ she snapped.

Those laser-blue eyes narrowed in warning. ‘You hurt Esther just now, and that is as unforgivable to me as it is to Cesar and Carlos.’ The steely edge to his tone was unmistakeable.

Beth eyed him warily. ‘I didn’t mean to hurt Esther…’

‘And yet you did.’

Her gaze dropped guiltily from his. ‘I’ll apologise to her before I leave.’

He sighed heavily. ‘As I said earlier, why do you continue to fight what is inevitable?’

Her eyes flashed darkly. ‘And as I answered earlier—because to me it isn’t inevitable!’

Raphael gave an impatient shake of his head. ‘You are a fool if you believe that. Even more so if you think Cesar will ever leave you, his sister Gabriela, in a position of vulnerability ever again for even a moment! The fact that the Navarros are allowing you to leave at all—’

‘No one is “allowing” me to do anything.’

‘But they are,’ Raphael corrected harshly. ‘You think that Esther could not stop you if she were determined to do so? That she could not break down and cry, beg you not to leave them, and so make you feel too guilty to go?’

Beth flinched. ‘Esther is far too dignified to ever behave in that way.’

‘Yes, she is,’ he acknowledged softly. ‘But you are the daughter she has grieved for for over twenty years. Letting you go now is like having her mother’s heart ripped out for a second time.’

Beth blinked. ‘Then why doesn’t she try to stop me?’

He shrugged. ‘I can only believe it is because she knows it is best to let you go, and simply hope that one day you will choose to come back.’

‘And if I don’t?’

‘You will.’

‘You sound very sure of that.’

‘Yes,’ he replied abruptly.

Beth sighed deeply. ‘You’re so obviously of the opinion that I should just accept all of this—’

‘I think you should accept what is,’ Raphael corrected harshly. ‘And that the sooner you do so, the easier this situation will become for you.’

‘I didn’t ask for any of this—this mess.’

‘Neither did your mother, father, or brother!’

Her cheeks flushed. ‘They aren’t—’

‘But they are, Beth,’ he insisted softly.

She shook her head. ‘I simply can’t—I won’t accept that, not until Cesar comes up with more conclusive proof.’

‘The blood tests are conclusive proof.’

‘Not to me!’

Raphael sighed. ‘What would it take to convince you?’

‘I have absolutely no idea.’ She sighed wearily.

‘Perhaps a headstone in a graveyard with the name Elizabeth Lawrence, aged two, engraved on it?’

Beth raised her head slowly to look at him, her face paling even as her breath caught in her throat as she could read nothing from Raphael’s closed expression. ‘Are you saying that such a headstone exists?’

He shrugged those broad shoulders. ‘Would it help to convince you if it did?’

The palms of her hands felt clammy just at thoughts of that tiny grave with its damning headstone. ‘Do you already have the proof that Elizabeth Lawrence died?’

‘Not yet, no,’ Raphael admitted reluctantly.

‘But you will have?’

His mouth firmed. ‘Possibly.’

Beth stared at him wordlessly for several moments, unable to look away from those piercing blue eyes. ‘You aren’t just coming to England to act as my bodyguard, are you?’ she realised dully.

He gave a slight smile. ‘Did you ever believe that I was?’

Had she? In her heart of hearts, had Beth really thought that Cesar would ever give up trying to prove she was his sister Gabriela? And that he wouldn’t take full advantage of Raphael’s presence in England to continue those investigations.

‘And if you find that proof?’

Raphael shrugged. ‘Then perhaps you will finally be convinced.’

Would she? Was it really possible the original Elizabeth Lawrence had died? And if so, where was she buried?

It had only been a matter of a few days since Grace had put forward the suggestion that Beth might be the Navarros’ missing daughter, and those blood tests had convinced the Navarros, if not Beth, that she was. But they had also been days when she knew Cesar was continuing his own investigations, looking for the truth of how Gabriela could have been taken from Argentina to England twenty-one years ago, and given the identity of Elizabeth Lawrence…

‘There are many of us who, given a choice, would have preferred to have been born into a family which is not their own,’ Raphael drawled as he saw the array of emotions flickering across Beth’s expressive face. Dismay being the last of them.

‘Even you?’

His jaw tightened. ‘We were not talking about me.’

‘Weren’t we?’

‘No,’ Raphael replied with finality. His family, and the reason for the years of estrangement from his father, was not a subject he wished to talk about. The same reason that Raphael preferred to keep his relationships with women to the physical rather than the emotional. A line Beth Blake deliberately stepped over almost every time the two of them were together…

‘And if—if you find there is such a grave, are you going to tell me about it first or just report straight to Cesar?’ She looked at him challengingly.

His mouth thinned. ‘I am employed by Cesar—’

‘Please, Raphael!’ She looked up at him appealingly.

Raphael frowned darkly as he knew he was not as immune to that appeal as he might have wished. ‘Shall we just wait and see what happens?’

‘You sound as if you’re placating a child!’

‘Then perhaps you should stop acting like one.’ Raphael bit out his frustration with this situation. With the fact that he had never regarded Beth as a child.

Oh, she was almost ten years younger than him, and outspoken in a way he had never encountered before—except perhaps from her adopted sister, Grace—but there was no doubting Beth’s womanly curves, or her kissable mouth, or that Raphael’s response to those curves and those sensual lips was purely male!

She gave a pained frown now before turning away. ‘If you wouldn’t mind leaving now, I need to finish packing.’

‘And if I do mind?’

Beth stilled, as she knew, by the closeness of Raphael’s voice, that he was now standing just behind her. So close that she could feel the heat of his body and smell the spicy allure of his cologne, and that pure male smell that was Raphael alone. An insidious and heady combination, along with the predatory power of the man himself, that Beth responded to in spite of herself…

‘Beth?’

She kept her expression deliberately cool as she turned to face him, that coolness wavering slightly as she found that Raphael was standing only inches away from her, those piercing blue eyes still narrowed in his harshly chiselled face as he looked down the length of his nose at her.

Beth’s chin rose determinedly in the face of that implacability.

‘I’ve agreed to go back to England in Cesar’s jet, and to having you accompany me. Isn’t that enough?’

‘For now, perhaps…’

Her eyes flashed darkly. ‘What more do any of you want from me?’

What did Raphael want from this woman?

From Beth Blake, a woman he could not deny that he found physically attractive?

It was all too easy to imagine making love with that woman; kissing those delectable and poutingly stubborn lips, enjoying and pleasuring those lean and silkily slender curves, caressing and tasting the fullness of her breasts, arousing her until she was wet and open to his sinking his shaft between those delicious thighs, slowly and torturously at first, and then faster, pumping into her until they both found release.

Oh, yes, it was all too easy for Raphael to imagine making slow and leisurely love with Beth Blake.

But as Gabriela Navarro, the woman who was the sister of his best friend, and the daughter of the couple who had long ago taken him in as one of their own?

No, Raphael could only ever be the man who stood in silent watch over that woman, who ensured, for her family’s sake, that no harm came to her ever again.

His mouth tightened. ‘I do not recall ever saying that I want or need anything from you.’

She blinked at the harshness of his tone. ‘Please don’t hold back, Raphael. Just say it like it is!’ she scorned.

He raised cool brows. ‘I thought that was what I was doing.’

She raised her eyes heavenwards. ‘I was being sarcastic!’

‘I am well aware of that.’ He nodded. ‘I have also noticed that you resort to that sarcasm whenever you are feeling defensive.’

Her eyes widened indignantly. ‘Why on earth should I be feeling defensive?’

Raphael shrugged. ‘You would have to tell me that.’

Beth looked up at him wordlessly for several long, searching, seconds. ‘No, I don’t think I have anything else to say to you right now,’ she finally said slowly. ‘And surely you have those other “things” you need to go off and organise before we leave tomorrow?’ she added with hard dismissal.

He allowed a slight smile to curve his lips. ‘I do, yes.’

‘Well, don’t let me keep you,’ she prompted tautly as Raphael still made no effort to leave her bedroom.

Raphael continued to hold that challenging brown gaze with his own as he fought that inner battle not to take Beth in his arms and kiss that smart mouth of hers until she was senseless and wanting in his arms.

To enjoy kissing that sarcastic mouth of hers until she was senseless and wanting!

The problem with that, of course, was that he might just enjoy kissing Beth a little too much. So much that he would not want to stop at just kissing her…

He gave a terse nod of his head as he stepped away from her. ‘I am sure that Cesar will keep you informed as to what time we are to leave tomorrow.’

‘Oh, I’m sure he will, too,’ she replied dryly.

He frowned his irritation. ‘His only concern is your protection.’

‘And what’s your concern, Raphael?’ She eyed him mockingly.

His mouth thinned. ‘Cesar does not employ me to have concerns, only solutions to security problems.’

‘Then it’s probably time you went away and found some!’ Having delivered her final scathing comment, Beth turned away, knowing she was wasting her time trying to bait this man. Raphael Cordoba really was that robot she had accused him of being earlier.

Nevertheless, she breathed a heavy sigh of relief as she heard his predatory step crossing the bedroom seconds later before the door closed softly behind him.

She dropped down weakly onto the side of the bed, her bravado of a few minutes ago completely evaporating as she once again acknowledged that, unless evidence could be found to the contrary, proving once and for all that she wasn’t Gabriela Navarro, her life was never, ever going to be the same again.




CHAPTER THREE


‘COMFORTABLE?’

Beth turned to look at Raphael Cordoba as he sat beside the chauffeur in the front of the car driving them from the airport to the home in London she had once shared with her whole family and now shared only with Grace—had shared with Grace, because, once her sister was married to Cesar, Beth knew Grace would never live in that family home with her again.

Which, besides being sad, meant that the house was going to be far too big for Beth to live in on her own. Maybe she could advertise for someone to share it with her—

‘Gabriela?’

Beth ground her teeth together at Raphael’s deliberate use of the name she refused to recognise as being her own. And it had been deliberate, she was sure. ‘Yes, I’m very comfortable, thank you,’ she assured him with cool politeness. The same cool politeness that had existed between the two of them since Beth said her goodbyes to Grace and the Navarro family the previous evening before leaving for the airport with Raphael.

Beth frowned slightly as she remembered they had been tearful goodbyes on the part of Grace and Esther, stoic but warm on Carlos’s, and slightly disapproving on Cesar’s…

Although Beth had learnt there were definite advantages to those chauffeur-driven limousines and private jets she had previously pooh-poohed at! No long wait at the airport before boarding the flight for one thing, the limousine having driven them straight to the plane, and the aircraft taking off only minutes after she and Raphael had stepped aboard. There had also been a bedroom at the back of the plane, which Beth had definitely enjoyed. Not only had it meant she could sleep for much of the flight back, but it had also meant she’d had somewhere to escape to when she’d had enough of Raphael’s brooding silence. There hadn’t been the long wait beside the carousel for the baggage to arrive, either, once they landed in London, as the bags were instead loaded straight into the boot of another chauffeur-driven limousine waiting for them on the tarmac.

The English weather wasn’t too welcoming, though. Heavy rain was falling as they stepped out of the plane, causing Raphael to grimace with displeasure as he held an umbrella over Beth until she had descended the steps and climbed into the back of the limousine. He put down the umbrella and climbed into the passenger seat beside the chauffeur, drawing up a definite line of demarcation: he was the employee, and Beth was the younger sister of his employer.

He needn’t have bothered; Beth was all too aware of the fact that, as far as Raphael was concerned, she was just another part of his job.

And did that bother her?

Of course it didn’t, Beth told herself firmly. Raphael Cordoba might be dark and brooding, and handsome as sin, but he was also rude and arrogant, and totally disapproving of her, and the sooner he returned to Argentina, the better Beth would like it—

Was she protesting just a little too much?

There was no doubting that Raphael was older, more sophisticated, and just plain more dangerous than any of the men Beth had been attracted to in the past. And she didn’t usually find dark and brooding in the least interesting, either. Or rude and arrogant. And yet…

Much as she might want to deny it, Beth knew she had been aware of Raphael since the moment she first met him, and there had been a definite frisson of physical awareness when she and Raphael had been alone together in her bedroom two days ago. The sort of awareness that had sent a shiver down her spine, causing her nipples to tingle, and between her thighs to feel warm.

Sexual attraction.

She was sexually attracted to Raphael, in a way she never had been with any of the men she had actually been out on dates with.

Or maybe it was just that she saw his disapproval of her as a challenge?

Beth studied Raphael’s profile now as he talked softly with the chauffeur, a strong and chiselled profile: high cheekbones, a long and aristocratic nose, sculptured lips, and a strong square jaw that at the moment was in need of a shave. He was once again wearing one of those perfectly tailored three-piece suits—charcoal today, with a white silk shirt and meticulously knotted blue tie that matched the cerulean blue of his eyes, and yet those expensive trappings of sophistication did absolutely nothing to detract from the leashed power of his lean and muscled body, as if he were coiled and ready to spring at a moment’s notice. Which, no doubt, he was…

Beth felt that familiar shiver course down the length of her spine as she watched him beneath lowered lashes, her nipples tightening, the fit of her denims suddenly feeling uncomfortably tight against the swollen folds between her thighs.

Telling her all too clearly that it was Raphael himself she was attracted to, and not the challenge he represented!

‘Where are we going?’ Beth prompted in some alarm as she realised they were driving away from London rather than in the direction of her home.

Raphael turned to look at her calmly. ‘Your own house proved too difficult to make secure in the time I had available, so we are going to Cesar’s estate in Hampshire for a few days until your house has been made ready.’

Beth stared at him. ‘Ready for what?’

Raphael’s gaze became cool. ‘For you to live in, of course.’

‘It is ready for me to live in as far as I’m concerned.’ She gave a slightly dazed frown. ‘What exactly are you doing to the house? And how did you get in? Did Grace give you a key?’ she guessed heavily.

‘Some days ago.’ He nodded curtly. ‘Your sister is as concerned for your future welfare as the rest of your family are,’ he added as Beth looked hurt at Grace’s treachery.

‘What exactly are you doing to my house?’ she repeated softly.

‘Putting in an alarm system. Outside security cameras—Grace does not approve of cameras inside the house,’ he explained grimly. ‘But there will be alarms on all of the windows, and—’

‘Never mind.’ Beth waved her hand about weakly in protest at hearing any more of the changes being made to her home without her permission. ‘And the estate in Hampshire—are we talking about the same estate where Grace worked for Cesar, and said she felt like a prisoner the whole time she was there?’

‘We are, yes.’ Raphael gave a slight inclination of his head. ‘But again, if you wish it, the security cameras inside the house can be switched off.’

‘But not the sensors on the windows? Or the security codes to get in and out of the doors? Or the dozen or so security guards on the gates and patrolling the grounds?’

His jaw tightened. ‘No.’

Beth gave a shake of her head. ‘I think you had better turn this car around, after all—’

‘Calm yourself, Gabriela—’

‘I swear if you call me that name one more time…!’

‘Yes?’ Raphael arched a cool brow at her vehemence.

‘My name is Beth.’ She breathed deeply in an effort to remain calm, something that was proving more and more difficult to do around this man. ‘I suggest you use it in the future if you want me to answer you.’

He shrugged. ‘I did not ask a question but made a statement.’

Beth’s gaze narrowed to warning slits. ‘Just as I’m stating that I am not staying in some damned prison fortress in the middle of nowhere!’

Raphael held back a smile; if anything, Beth was even more beautiful when she was angry. That beautiful blond hair almost seemed to crackle with electricity. Her eyes glowed. Her creamy cheeks became flushed. The perfect bow of her lips full and slightly parted. And, if he was not mistaken, her nipples were pert and erect beneath the blue sweater she was wearing…

His gaze remained on those aroused breasts as he answered her.

‘I trust you will excuse me for correcting you—’

‘I don’t trust you at all. And I would rather excuse a cobra about to strike than I would you.’ Beth continued to glare at him in her frustration.

‘Have a care, Beth, or you will turn my head with all this flattery,’ Raphael drawled dryly, eliciting a soft chuckle from the chauffeur beside him.

Beth’s eyes glittered darkly. ‘I have yet to find anything about you I could be in the least flattering about! Now ask the driver—’

‘His name is Edward,’ he supplied dryly. ‘Edward, meet Miss Navarro.’

‘Beth Blake,’ she corrected firmly as she smiled at the chauffeur in the driving mirror.

‘Miss,’ he answered tactfully.

‘Would you mind very much turning the car around, Edward, and Raphael will give you the directions to my own home?’ She looked challengingly at Raphael even as she spoke to the chauffeur.

Maybe Raphael should have taken his own advice two days ago and put Beth Blake over his knee before spanking her curvaceous backside!

‘As I was saying,’ he continued coolly, ignoring Beth’s instruction and indicating that Edward should do so, too, ‘Cesar’s estate is not a fortress or a prison, neither is it in the middle of nowhere. There is a town—’

‘Ten point two kilometres away, I believe Cesar told Grace when she made a similar comment,’ she acknowledged dryly. ‘Which, when you’re used to living in a city as big and bustling as London, is the middle of nowhere. And how am I supposed to get to work every morning? I am not being driven to work in a chauffeur-driven limousine—no offence intended,’ she assured Edward distractedly.

‘None taken, miss,’ he assured her lightly.

‘What is wrong with being driven to work in the comfort of a limousine?’ Raphael enquired lightly.

Beth gave him an exasperated look. ‘I’m a junior assistant in the publicity department.’

‘And?’

‘And the top executives of the company don’t arrive at work in a chauffeur-driven limousine!’

He gave a dismissive shrug of his shoulders. ‘That is their loss, of course, but—’

‘Raphael, would you try, just for a moment, to put yourself back in the world of us lesser mortals,’ she cut in disgustedly, ‘instead of this ivory tower Cesar has inhabited for so long and which my sister is trying to drag him from kicking and screaming—and which you appear to have inhabited right alongside him—and realise that in the real world we don’t travel in private jets and limousines, but buses and the underground, with maybe the occasional taxi if we’re feeling flush.’

He gave a slow considering nod. ‘Yes, in those circumstances I can see how this mode of travel might prove a little embarrassing. Understanding your point of view does not mean that I agree with it,’ he added wryly as Beth began to smile triumphantly, instantly causing that smile to fade until it was replaced by a frown. ‘Cesar gave specific instructions as to your security—’

‘And if he told you to go and throw yourself off a bridge would you do that, too?’ Beth came back with false sweetness.

Raphael gave a derisive smile. ‘Not unless it involved saving you from drowning, no.’

‘Then surely there’s a little room for manoeuvre on this, too?’

His jaw tightened. ‘Manoeuvre, yes, stupidity, no. And it would be the height of stupidity,’ he continued firmly as Beth would have spoken, ‘for me to allow you to travel about London, or anywhere else, on public transport.’

‘You know—’ she grimaced ‘—the sooner you accept that you don’t have the right to “allow” me to do anything, then the sooner we’re going to be able to come to some sort of arrangement that suits the both of us.’

Raphael gave a confident smile. ‘Our present arrangement already suits me perfectly.’

Beth had never felt quite so much as if the unstoppable force had met the immovable object. Or felt so frustrated in regard to her own free will. ‘Are you always this stubborn?’

‘Is there not a saying “it takes one to know one”?’

She nodded. ‘Which doesn’t exactly answer my original question, now, does it?’

Raphael appeared to give that question several moments’ thought. ‘When it comes to security matters, yes, I am always this stubborn,’ he finally answered dismissively.

Beth was well aware of her own stubbornness, which didn’t mean, as the unstoppable force, that she didn’t know when to admit she had been defeated by that immovable object, which in this case happened to be Raphael. ‘Fine, I’ll go to the estate in Hampshire for a couple of days.’ She sighed wearily. ‘But I’ll need to go back to my house to pick up my work clothes first. After which I will allow myself to be driven to work tomorrow in this limousine. But, whatever ideas you might have to the contrary, I absolutely draw the line on you coming into my workplace with me. Deal?’ She looked at him challengingly.

‘I am not Cesar—’

‘Oh, believe me, I’m well aware of that! Deal?’ she prompted again determinedly.

Raphael eyed her steadily for several seconds before nodding tersely. ‘Deal.’ He turned away to give the driver Beth’s home address.

Even so, it felt like a hollow victory to Beth, and one that left her wondering if she had really won anything, or if Raphael hadn’t already made contingency plans if she were to make such a request…

‘Grace tells me there’s a gym in the east wing of the house?’

Raphael now turned from talking softly to Rodney, the head of Cesar’s security in England, having made the introductions when they arrived at the estate in Hampshire a few minutes ago after finding the other man waiting for them in the entrance hall of Cesar’s manor house.

Beth had been very quiet since they had driven away from her home earlier, after she had gone upstairs to collect the clothes she had said she needed and left Raphael to talk to the men busy working inside and outside the house. Unusually so, for her.

As he studied her now beneath the light given off by the overhead chandelier Raphael could see that her face was also pale, and her eyes appeared like dark bruises in that pallor. ‘Above the guest bedrooms to the right at the top of the staircase, yes…’ he confirmed softly.

‘Does it have a punch bag in it?’

He raised dark brows. ‘With my face painted on it?’

‘Preferably, yes. Or Cesar’s would do,’ she accepted dryly.

Raphael had no idea why it was that this woman made him want to laugh half of the time and strangle her the other half. On this occasion laughter won out, and he chuckled wryly as he turned to dismiss Rodney before answering Beth. ‘Not that I am aware of, no, but perhaps a photograph of one of us pinned onto it would do for now?’

‘I’m sure it would,’ she accepted with a frown.

Raphael frowned as he saw that Beth’s eyes, despite her attempts at humour, seemed to be overbright, and not with anger but with tears. ‘Are you about to cry?’

Beth almost laughed at the horror she detected in Raphael’s tone; like all big strong men, he probably had no idea how to deal with a woman’s tears. She almost laughed. Except, she really didn’t have anything to laugh about. Cry, yes. Laugh, no. She had believed her situation unbearable while in Argentina, but now they were back in England this nightmare she appeared to be stuck in just kept getting worse.

‘Did you even notice the mess those men are making of my home?’ She gave a pained wince just at the memory of the army of workmen both inside and outside what had once been her family home, but was now being turned into as much of a secure fortress as this manor house set within its equally secure walls and high gates.

Raphael looked regretful. ‘If you had waited a couple of days before going there, as I suggested, it would all have been put back as it was.’

She gave a shake of her head. ‘Somehow I doubt that.’

‘Beth—’

‘Raphael.’ She stared up at him steadily.

His mouth thinned. ‘I promise you, Beth, your home will be just as you left it by the time we return later in the week.’

‘Apart from the fact I can no longer get in my own front door without a security code. Or open the windows without the alarm going off. Or—’

‘You are starting to sound like Grace now!’

‘Possibly because I now feel exactly the same way that Grace does about Cesar’s high level of security!’ She was breathing hard in her agitation. ‘You should be careful, Raphael. If Grace has her way Cesar won’t be using that level of security in future, and then you could be out of a job!’

‘If so I will simply find another.’ He shrugged. ‘And I meant that your home will be just as it was in appearance once the work there has been finished. The men working there are experts at what they do.’

‘I’m sure they are,’ she acknowledged flatly. ‘If you’ll excuse me, I really think I need to go upstairs and find the gym—before I decide not to wait and just punch you on the jaw right now for want of a better target!’

He raised dark brows. ‘I thought I was the target?’

She breathed in deeply. ‘No, at the moment that’s Cesar.’ She breathed out just as deeply. ‘And I need to work off some of this excess energy before I really do hit something. Or someone!’ she added grimly.

‘It is almost time for dinner…’

‘So it is.’ She smiled slightly. ‘And it’s just dawned on me that Cesar’s cook is currently in Argentina with him making arrangements for their wedding next month. And if you’re expecting me to cook dinner for you instead then you’re going to be out of luck. Grace is the cook in our family,’ she added with satisfaction as Raphael looked decidedly crestfallen by her announcement.





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