A Touch of Notoriety(61)

Raphael drew in a hissing breath. ‘Perhaps we should have asked them to remove your viperous tongue at the same time as they removed your appendix!’

‘Perhaps you should.’ She continued to look up at him challengingly.

Raphael bit back his second angry retort as he remembered that Beth had almost died on the operating table two nights ago. That it had taken every shred of expertise the surgeon possessed to ensure that she did not. ‘My presence here is obviously upsetting you—’

‘Not in the least,’ she dismissed dryly. ‘I’m merely wondering why you’re here at all?’

A good question. And one that required an answer. But not here. And not now. Not when the Navarro family and Grace were all outside in the corridor talking to the doctor as they anxiously waited for Beth to regain consciousness.

Raphael gave a shake of his head. ‘I have to tell your family that you are awake.’

‘Which doesn’t answer my question in the slightest,’ Beth persisted. ‘You went away, Raphael. Took two weeks leave. Without so much as a—’ She broke off as her voice quivered with emotion. ‘You handed my security over to Rodney, and then you went away,’ she repeated dully.

He frowned. ‘But I was coming back.’

‘When your two weeks’ leave were over.’ She nodded. ‘Which is why I asked what you’re doing here now.’

That was some reassurance at least; Raphael had thought Beth’s initial comment to mean that she didn’t want him here, and not that he shouldn’t be here because he was on leave. He reached out and lightly clasped one of her hands in his. ‘I came back as soon as Cesar told me that you were in hospital.’

A frown appeared between her eyes. ‘Came back from where? And how could he have told you anything when you were away?’

‘He told me after I had telephoned the apartment yesterday and asked to speak with you.’

She blinked. ‘Speak to me about what?’

Raphael drew in a deep breath. ‘I wanted— I owed it to you to tell you that I had taken your advice and gone to see my father.’

Her eyes widened. ‘And is everything...all right between the two of you now?’

‘Yes. Beth, I—’ Raphael stopped what he had been about to say as he heard Esther’s voice just outside the door. ‘Your family will want to be with you now.’ He released her hand. ‘The two of us will talk once you are home and feeling better.’

Now that Beth was fully awake, and remembered—remembered being with Raphael at the inn, realising how much she loved him, and how he had walked away from her without so much as a goodbye, she wasn’t sure she would ever feel completely ‘better’ again. Oh, no doubt, now that she had regained consciousness, she would very quickly recover from the operation to remove her infected appendix. It was the pain in her heart, her love and longing for Raphael, that would never heal...

She raised her chin. ‘I’m really pleased, about you and your father, Raphael, but I don’t think we have anything else left to talk about.’

He blinked those long-lashed lids over those piercing blue eyes. ‘You wish me to leave?’

Beth nodded abruptly. ‘I believe that would be for the best.’

A nerve pulsed in his tightly clenched jaw. ‘If you are sure that is what you want?’

‘It is,’ she bit out softly.

‘Very well.’ He stepped back from the bedside. ‘I will send your family in now.’

Beth refused to look at him again as she heard the softness of his tread as he crossed the room to the door, the door softly opening, followed by a brief conversation outside before her family rushed to her bedside and she laughingly gave them her reassurances that she really was okay.

There would be all the time in the world for tears later...

* * *

‘Beth, he came back to Buenos Aires the moment Cesar told him you were in the hospital,’ Grace admonished softly.

Beth didn’t turn from where she sat convalescing beside one of the windows in the sitting room of Cesar’s apartment. But she knew who the ‘he’ was that Grace was referring to. The same ‘he’ who had been asking to visit her since she came home from the hospital two days ago. The same ‘he’ that Beth had turned away each and every time Grace came in to tell her that Raphael was outside asking to see her.

‘Beth—’

‘I can’t, Grace!’ She turned to her sister fiercely. ‘Don’t you understand? I can’t see him...!’ she choked.