A Touch of Notoriety(9)

‘She is spoilt and willful.’ A nerve pulsed in Cesar’s rigidly clenched jaw as a door was heard slamming down the hallway. Beth’s bedroom door, no doubt.

‘She is frightened,’ Raphael corrected softly, his gaze still turned in the direction in which Beth had just departed as he rose slowly to his feet. ‘Will you allow me to go and talk to her?’

‘Would you?’ Grace turned to him gratefully. ‘I would go myself, but at the moment Beth seems to see me as having defected to—’ She broke off with an uncomfortable grimace.

‘The enemy,’ Esther finished for her sadly.

‘No, not the enemy,’ Grace assured her instantly. ‘Try to understand this from Beth’s point of view,’ she continued gently. ‘Not only has she lost two sets of parents already, but she’s lived the past twenty-one years of her life in complete ignorance of all of you, and it’s going to take time, and patience on your part—’ she gave Cesar a pointed look ‘—for her to accept exactly who she really is.’

And, in the meantime, for all that Raphael understood and sympathised with Beth’s confusion of emotions, it was time for her to start considering feelings other than her own. ‘If you will all excuse me,’ he muttered with grim distraction before striding purposefully from the room.

* * *

Beth refused to cry as she threw her clothes into the open suitcase she had tossed on top of her bed a few minutes ago.

How and when had her life become such a nightmare? Including all of her carefully made plans for a future in publishing?

The moment Grace had met Cesar Navarro’s parents just over a week ago, that was when. And Beth refused to—

‘If you were my sister—newly returned to me or otherwise—I would have put you over my knee and soundly spanked your spoilt little backside by now!’

She hastily blinked back all evidence of tears before turning sharply to face Raphael, her spine straightening determinedly as he stood overwhelmingly tall and wide in the now open doorway. ‘Then it’s just as well I’m not your sister, isn’t it?’ she snapped.

Those laser-blue eyes narrowed in warning. ‘You hurt Esther just now, and that is as unforgivable to me as it is to Cesar and Carlos.’ The steely edge to his tone was unmistakeable.

Beth eyed him warily. ‘I didn’t mean to hurt Esther...’

‘And yet you did.’

Her gaze dropped guiltily from his. ‘I’ll apologise to her before I leave.’

He sighed heavily. ‘As I said earlier, why do you continue to fight what is inevitable?’

Her eyes flashed darkly. ‘And as I answered earlier—because to me it isn’t inevitable!’

Raphael gave an impatient shake of his head. ‘You are a fool if you believe that. Even more so if you think Cesar will ever leave you, his sister Gabriela, in a position of vulnerability ever again for even a moment! The fact that the Navarros are allowing you to leave at all—’

‘No one is “allowing” me to do anything.’

‘But they are,’ Raphael corrected harshly. ‘You think that Esther could not stop you if she were determined to do so? That she could not break down and cry, beg you not to leave them, and so make you feel too guilty to go?’

Beth flinched. ‘Esther is far too dignified to ever behave in that way.’

‘Yes, she is,’ he acknowledged softly. ‘But you are the daughter she has grieved for for over twenty years. Letting you go now is like having her mother’s heart ripped out for a second time.’

Beth blinked. ‘Then why doesn’t she try to stop me?’

He shrugged. ‘I can only believe it is because she knows it is best to let you go, and simply hope that one day you will choose to come back.’

‘And if I don’t?’

‘You will.’

‘You sound very sure of that.’

‘Yes,’ he replied abruptly.

Beth sighed deeply. ‘You’re so obviously of the opinion that I should just accept all of this—’

‘I think you should accept what is,’ Raphael corrected harshly. ‘And that the sooner you do so, the easier this situation will become for you.’

‘I didn’t ask for any of this—this mess.’

‘Neither did your mother, father, or brother!’

Her cheeks flushed. ‘They aren’t—’