A Touch of Notoriety(60)
‘Of course, Miss Blake, but, as I explained to you this morning, the body takes its own time to recover...’ A voice, one Beth didn’t recognise, became a low and distant murmur, as did Grace’s hushed reply, and there was the soft click of a door closing.
Indicating that they were no longer in the room?
Beth’s hands clenched into fists at her sides as she desperately searched her memory in an effort to understand what was going on. She remembered flying back to Argentina. Remembered going to her bedroom in Cesar’s apartment. Remembered Grace telling her that Raphael had gone away. Vividly remembered the screams that had awoken her hours later. The realisation that she was the one screaming.
The pain!
Oh, God, Beth remembered the pain now. Pain unlike anything she had ever known before. Before she had been swept away in a whirl of dark and thankful oblivion.
Grace had mentioned something about ‘two days’. Did that mean that the screaming, the pain, the oblivion, had all happened two days ago? And if so—
‘It’s time to open your eyes now, Beth.’
Beth didn’t so much open her eyes as widen them in astonishment, before turning in the direction of that huskily low voice. A voice she recognised all too easily. Just as she easily recognised the man standing in the shadowed darkness as he leant so casually against the wall several feet away from where she lay in bed. Raphael!
‘You aren’t supposed to be here.’ She was sure it was her own voice speaking, because she could feel her lips moving, but the sound that came out of those lips sounded more like a rasping croak than her normal light tones.
‘It is good to see you again, too!’ Raphael drawled hardly as he pushed away from the wall to step into the soft glow of light given off by that lamp on the wall above Beth’s head.
A Raphael with at least a one-day darkness of stubble on the squareness of his jaw, his cheeks slightly hollow—even his military-style short dark hair looked as if it was slightly mussed and in need of a trim. His eyes were the same piercing blue, and his shoulders looked as broad and his chest as muscled beneath the fitted black T-shirt he wore, with faded denims fitting low down on his hips. Beth tried to moisten her lips before speaking again, but her mouth was so dry that it was a wasted effort.
‘Would you like some water?’ Raphael looked at her intently with those piercing blue eyes.
‘Yes, please,’ she accepted gratefully, attempting to sit up and failing miserably. She simply didn’t have the strength to lift herself up, and even the slight movement she had managed to make had been enough to tell her that her side still ached. Not as it had before, but enough so that Beth knew something was dreadfully wrong. ‘What’s happening to me?’ she demanded emotionally.
His expression softened. ‘Nothing now. Here.’ He put one of his arms beneath her shoulders to help her to sit up enough so that she could drink through a straw some of the water that he had poured into the bottom of a glass. ‘Better?’ he prompted gently once she had emptied the glass.
‘Much.’ Beth sank wearily back onto the pillows before looking about the room in which she lay. A pleasant but totally sterile-looking room that she didn’t recognise. ‘This is a hospital.’ She looked up at Raphael.
‘It is, yes.’ He nodded as he turned back from placing the empty glass on the side table, his expression appearing harsh in the shadowed lamplight. ‘Your discomfort three days ago was not because of—’ He gave a shake of his head. ‘You were in pain for several days because your appendix was infected. Two nights ago it decided to burst.’
She swallowed before speaking again. ‘That can be dangerous, can’t it?’
‘Very,’ he confirmed grimly.
Beth gave him a teasing frown. ‘Aren’t you supposed to murmur reassurances rather than scare me?’
Raphael looked no less grim. ‘Not when you scared everyone else! You almost died, Beth,’ he added gratingly.
‘Well, I obviously didn’t,’ she dismissed, distracted. The water had revived her slightly, enough for her to feel thankful that someone—Grace?—had ensured she was at least wearing a pair of her own pyjamas rather than one of those unflattering hospital gowns. Although her hair was probably a mess, and— What did it matter what she looked like? This man—Raphael—had walked away from her two—no, three—nights ago, without so much as a goodbye.
Her jaw tensed as she looked up at him challengingly. ‘What are you doing here, Raphael? Have you come back to make sure that it really wasn’t the discomfort of the other night that had made me ill?’