A Touch of Notoriety(62)

Grace crossed the room until she was able to go down on her haunches beside Beth. ‘You love him.’

Beth breathed raggedly. ‘Yes.’

‘Then—’

‘He doesn’t feel the same way about me, Grace.’ She sighed. ‘He— I don’t know why he came back from his father’s ranch. Or why he keeps asking to see me now. A guilty conscience maybe? But I can’t—!’ She gave a fierce shake of her head, her hands tightly clasped together in her lap.

‘Why should Raphael have a guilty conscience where you’re concerned?’ Grace looked at her searchingly.

Beth drew in a deep and shaky breath. ‘I’m sure you can guess why. He thought— He originally thought that the pain I was in had been caused by—’ Her cheeks flushed a fiery red as she shook her head. ‘He thought he had hurt me in some way. I told him he hadn’t, but he kept fussing, and—’

‘That still doesn’t explain why he keeps asking to see you now,’ Grace maintained firmly.

Beth looked at her searchingly. ‘Don’t you have something to say about—about my...closeness, to Raphael?’

‘Why should I?’ her sister returned lightly. ‘You’re a big girl now, and quite capable of making up your own mind about who you go to bed with.’

‘I didn’t— We didn’t—’ Beth gave a pained frown. ‘We didn’t get that far,’ she admitted uncomfortably.

‘Even more reason for me to question why Raphael rushed back here the moment Cesar told him you had been taken to hospital, and refused to leave your bedside once he arrived back.’

‘He must have gone to the bathroom occasionally—’

‘Beth!’

She grimaced. ‘I don’t know why Raphael did that. Maybe he felt it was his duty, as Cesar’s Head of Security, to rush back and protect Cesar’s little sister while she was in hospital?’

Grace gave her an admonishing glance. ‘Aren’t you even a little bit curious as to why he’s asked to see you a dozen times since you got home?’

Was Beth curious as to why Raphael had asked to see her these past two days? Of course she was curious! But every time she gave in to that curiosity she remembered that Raphael had discharged his responsibility for her security onto Rodney after they had returned from the inn in Surrey. That he had left to visit his father without so much as a goodbye as soon as they had returned to Argentina. There was only so much pain an already broken heart could take, and her heart had been shattered the moment she knew she was so unimportant to Raphael he had left without saying that goodbye.

‘Yes, Beth, are you not curious as to why I continue to humiliate myself by asking if you will see me, knowing you will once again refuse me, when my every instinct demands that you allow me to speak with you?’

Beth’s head had snapped round towards the sound of that angry voice the moment Raphael first spoke, and she took a few seconds now to drink in the sight of him. His hair was once again neat and tidy, his jaw shaven, and yet there was still that strain about his eyes and mouth, the hollowness to his cheeks. And he was wearing one of those perfectly tailored three-piece suits and a pristine white shirt and grey silk tie, but it was still possible to see that he had lost weight in the week since she had seen him last.

Because he had asked to see her and she had refused him?

She somehow didn’t think so!

‘I’ll leave the two of you to talk.’ Grace straightened.

Beth didn’t take her gaze off the grim-faced Raphael. ‘We have nothing to talk about—’

‘Stop being so damned stubborn for once in your life and just listen to the man. You might actually learn something!’ Grace snapped reprovingly, turning on her heel to step around Raphael before leaving the room and closing the door softly but firmly behind her.

Leaving behind a speechless Beth. The two sisters had both been adopted by the Blakes, but they had bonded from the moment they first met, and Grace never lost her temper with her. Never, no matter how much Beth’s impulsiveness had annoyed or upset her.

‘Why does that never work for me?’ Raphael chuckled wryly as he stepped further into the room.

Her eyes flashed darkly. ‘Probably because—’

‘No, do not spoil it, Beth,’ he cajoled softly. ‘At least let me have my say before you throw me out again.’

‘I thought we had agreed we have nothing to say to each other.’