A Touch of Notoriety(45)
‘No doubt. Is that going to be a problem?’ Raphael looked at her searchingly.
No, it wasn’t a problem; Beth was already resigned to the fact that she now had no choice but to return to Argentina and the Navarro family—it was the reason she had asked Graham Selkirk for a month’s leave this morning, after all. Her visit to Elizabeth Lawrence’s grave earlier had been more of a courtesy, a show of respect for the baby girl who had died so long ago, rather than the proof Beth had said she needed to confirm the Navarros’ claim of her being their long-lost daughter. If Raphael said the grave existed, then Beth had no doubts that it did. Just as she had known the consequences, to her, regarding its existence.
She gave a jerky nod. ‘Okay, you make your calls and I’ll go and use the bathroom first.’ She quickly crossed the room to enter the adjoining room, locking the door securely behind her before leaning weakly back against it, her breathing sounding ragged in the small confines of the black-and-white bathroom.
She had wanted this to happen, asked for it, and now wasn’t the time for her to be having a panic attack, or have second thoughts, because Raphael was about to give her exactly what she had asked him for...
* * *
Raphael continued to stand in the middle of the fussy bedroom as he stared at that closed bathroom door, knowing, despite her determination earlier, that Beth was having second thoughts—maybe even third and fourth ones!—as to the wisdom of her actions.
He had been deliberately graphic when he’d spoken to Beth earlier, when he had described the many ways he wished to make love to her. Not that he hadn’t meant every word he’d said, because he had, but when—if—he ever made love with Beth, then he wanted her to be very sure it was what she wanted too, and not something she would regret in the morning. Something she would surely do if her only reason for spending the night with him was to block out who she must become tomorrow.
The two of them making love together was an irrevocable step, from which there would be no turning back, and Beth might not exactly hate him in the morning, but she would most certainly be embarrassed and self-conscious enough to want to avoid his company in future.
A future that required she become Gabriela Navarro, the daughter of Esther and Carlos Navarro, and sister of Cesar Navarro...
CHAPTER TEN
THE ONLY ILLUMINATION in the bedroom was from the lamp on the small bedside table nearest the bathroom when Beth returned to the bedroom fifteen or twenty minutes later, wearing only a towel wrapped about her and secured between her bare breasts. They had no luggage with them, and the inn simply wasn’t big enough to supply bathrobes for its no doubt infrequent guests.
Raphael lay sprawled on the other side of the bed, having removed his jacket and tie, and completely unfastened and untucked his shirt so that it left his chest bared, revealing that silky dark hair and flat nipples the colour of deep rose against his bronzed skin, the top button of his suit trousers also unfastened.
He was also, from the slight heaviness of his breathing and his closed lids, very soundly asleep!
Beth moved to the vacant side of the bed to stare down at him in disbelief, not sure if she felt relieved or insulted that Raphael had somehow managed to fall asleep after making his telephone calls. It certainly wasn’t in the least flattering to have the man who had earlier so vividly described how he intended making love to her fall into what appeared to be a dead sleep in the few minutes she had left him while she took a shower.
Especially when Beth considered she had spent those same minutes thinking of the night of lovemaking ahead!
She gave a low and disgruntled humphing sound as she turned back the bedclothes, turning off the light and plunging the room into darkness before dropping the towel and crawling in naked with her back turned towards Raphael. Her feelings of insult turned to ones of irritation as she realised that having Raphael on top of the bedcovers totally restricted her from pulling those bedclothes up over the bareness of her shoulders.
Beth tossed and turned for several minutes trying to get comfortable, and all the time she did Raphael remained totally unmoving beside her, his breathing still deep and steady. She finally sat up slightly to shoot a scowling glance in Raphael’s general direction as she punched her pillows into comfortable submission, a part of her secretly wishing it were him she was punching. How dared Raphael just fall asleep after all those things he had described wanting to do to her? It was beyond insulting, it was—
‘What did that poor pillow ever do to you?’