A Touch of Notoriety(41)
She reached over and placed her hand on top of his as it rested on the table. ‘I don’t want anyone else but you, Raphael.’
He gave an impatient shake of his head. ‘You don’t even know me—’
‘I know far more about you than you realise,’ she assured him softly. ‘For instance, I know that you’re thirty-three years old, that you went to the same school as Cesar, that your father owns a successful vineyard and ranch in Argentina, but that for your own private reasons you are estranged from that father and prefer to work with Cesar, your closest friend, that your sister Rosa is special to you—’
‘Enough!’ A nerve pulsed in his tightly clenched jaw as he glared across the table at her.
Beth was prevented from answering him for several minutes as she removed her hand as the waitress arrived with their food, a cheese salad for her, and chicken and salad for Raphael. ‘You’re right, Raphael, I am upset at the moment,’ she continued huskily once the two of them were alone again, ‘and a little emotionally off balance from all that I’ve learnt today. But,’ she continued firmly as he would have spoken, ‘not so much that I don’t know what I’m doing. What I’m asking.’
That nerve still pulsed in his tightly clenched jaw. ‘And you want— Let me get this clear. You are asking that the two of us spend the night here together, making love?’
‘Yes.’
He gave a shake of his head. ‘It is a natural reaction to want to reaffirm life after the shock of death—’
‘Elizabeth Lawrence died twenty-one years ago, Raphael.’
‘As far as you are concerned, she died only hours ago!’
That was true. And Beth Blake had died hours ago as surely as Elizabeth Lawrence had. It now only remained for Gabriela Navarro to be reborn. But before that happened Beth wanted this one last thing for herself. Wanted to spend the night with Raphael, the man who had made it clear to her that he considered Gabriela Navarro to be off limits to him, for all of the reasons he had previously stated. ‘Are you going to make me beg, Raphael?’ she prompted huskily.
Raphael groaned inwardly. Dear God in heaven! The last thing he wanted was for Beth to beg him for anything, least of all to make love with her, something he had ached to do from the moment she had arrived in Argentina over a week ago.
He hadn’t known exactly who she was at that time, of course, had only been introduced to her as Grace Blake’s younger sister, but even so he had wanted her. Had taken one look at the beauty of her face surrounded by that cascade of raggedly styled blond hair, the lean and yet curvy lines of her body, and felt his shaft thicken with instant and pulsing arousal. The same desire and arousal that had consumed his every waking moment since.
So much so that having Cesar ask him to take care of Beth’s security had been like asking a drug addict to watch over a heroine shipment, or the alcoholic to guard the distillery.
And now Beth was asking—offering to beg, if necessary—for him to make love to her...
CHAPTER NINE
USUALLY BETH HAD a problem knowing what the enigmatic Raphael was thinking or feeling at any given moment, but here and now, seated across a varnished dining table in an innocuous country inn, she had no problem at all reading the desire, battling with conscience, in the tightness of his expression. Right now, at this moment, Raphael wanted her as much as she wanted him, he just wanted her to be very sure as to why it was she was suggesting the two of them spend the night here together.
She breathed in deeply. ‘Would you excuse me for a moment?’ She placed her napkin carefully down on the table top before standing up.
‘Beth?’ Raphael reached out to lightly grasp her hand as she would have walked past him, his gaze searching as he looked up at her.
She gave him a reassuring smile. ‘I’ll only be a couple of minutes.’
‘Oh.’ His brow cleared and he slowly released her hand. ‘I noticed the sign for the ladies’ room out in the hallway as we came in.’
‘So did I.’ She nodded her thanks before walking away.
Except Beth wasn’t going anywhere near the ladies’ room...
* * *
Raphael was more than a little concerned when Beth hadn’t returned within ten minutes of leaving the table; either she had become ill once she reached the privacy of the ladies’ room or she had decided to somehow leave without telling him to go in search of that ‘someone else’ who would agree to spend the night with her. The former he could deal with, if it became necessary, but his discomfort at the thought of it being the latter wasn’t helped in the least by the fact that the older man from earlier kept shooting him raised-eyebrow glances from the bar area—as if he also suspected that Beth might have run out on him!