A Touch of Notoriety(18)

‘And you think that the Navarros and Cesar are going to accept that?’ She smiled ruefully.

‘I think the Gabriela I knew would have made sure they were given no choice in the matter!’ he assured her dryly.

Beth exhaled shakily as she realised she had been holding her breath for several minutes. And Raphael was right, of course; no matter what the family pressure—whichever family that might happen to be!—she ultimately didn’t have to do anything she didn’t want to do.

And at the moment what she wanted to do was try to repair the damage she had done to the soggy mess that was now Raphael’s white silk shirt! ‘I’m so sorry about this.’ She attempted to brush away some of that dampness with her hand.

‘Why is it that women never have a handkerchief or a tissue with them when they cry?’ Raphael’s voice was a teasing rumble beneath her cheek. ‘Here, use this,’ he encouraged softly as she made no effort to take the blue silk handkerchief that she knew had been in his breast pocket until a few seconds ago, as a match for the neatly knotted tie at his throat and the colour of his eyes.

‘We don’t decide to cry, it just happens.’ Beth took the handkerchief from him and mopped at the dampness of his shirt before drying her cheeks and blowing her nose. ‘And how many women have you made cry?’ she murmured as she tucked the silk handkerchief into her denims pocket, intending to wash it before returning it to him.

‘None that I recall.’

She gave him a derisive glance. ‘Why do I find that so hard to believe?’

He raised dark brows. ‘I do not know. Why do you?’

Now there was a trick question if ever Beth had heard one!

How did she know women had cried over this man? This man who was as handsome as sin, and just as wickedly dangerous? And unattainable...

Beneath those breathtaking good looks and unmistakeable sensuality, Beth sensed there was an aloofness to Raphael Cordoba, a coldness that said his heart had never been touched by any of the women he might have been involved with since he reached sexual maturity. An aloofness, and coldness of emotions, that challenged at the same time as it gave warning of heartbreak to any who ventured forth.

So, yes, whether Raphael had witnessed it or not, Beth was certain that there had been many women who had cried tears over him. ‘Just a hunch.’ She shrugged dismissively. ‘You so obviously spoke from experience about ladies not having a handkerchief with them when they cry.’

‘I have six sisters, so yes—’

‘Six sisters!’ Beth pulled back slightly to look up at him in disbelief, disconcerted by the admission. ‘Older or younger, or a mixture of the two?’

‘All older.’ He grimaced.

She gave a slightly dazed shake of her head. ‘I can’t even begin to think what it must have been like growing up with six older sisters...’

‘The fights that ensued over the use of the bathrooms were always entertaining,’ he revealed dryly.

‘I would imagine so...’

He shrugged. ‘But being a young boy, with the usual aversion to bathing, helped in that situation, I believe.’

Beth tried to imagine Raphael as a young boy. No doubt his hair would have been longer then, more inclined to curl, and those piercing blue eyes wouldn’t have that hard cynicism to them that had come with maturity—

Or perhaps they would?

She knew nothing of Raphael’s background but the things he had chosen to reveal to her over the past few days—and she hadn’t felt inclined to ask Grace anything about him, either, knowing exactly what conclusions her sister would have drawn from Beth’s interest in the personal life of Cesar’s enigmatic Head of Security!

But Raphael had just revealed that he was the youngest of seven children, which surely meant that his family home would have to have been cramped and overcrowded, and that so many children would have been a severe strain on the family finances. A hardship that would only have been made more painfully obvious by Raphael’s friendship with a man whose family was as rich and powerful as Cesar Navarro’s. A friendship that had perhaps come into existence because Raphael’s family lived and worked on one of the Navarro properties?

‘Are all of your sisters married?’

‘Five of them. Rosa is...slower, than others,’ Raphael revealed tightly. ‘It is not hereditary, you understand—it was caused by complications at her birth.’

‘I wasn’t presuming that it was,’ Beth answered him distractedly, thinking of the fact that Raphael’s parents would have had five weddings to pay for, if not dowries to supply—did the parents still provide dowries for their daughters in Argentina?—as well as the continuing financial support of their remaining daughter. Perhaps Raphael even helped with that support; he had certainly sounded defensive just now on his sister Rosa’s behalf. ‘Does Rosa still live at home with your parents?’