by Cindy Gerard
Never more than now, she understood the meaning of the word bittersweet as they stood in the grand foyer under an exquisite crystal chandelier that looked like it belonged in the lobby of a five-star hotel. Vibrantly patterned, hand-woven Colombian wool rugs adorned the gleaming marble floor. A medieval custom handcarved wooden staircase wound up three floors and led to a ceiling that rose to the roof.
The villa not only looked like a castle from the outside, the appointments inside ranged from elegant to extravagant to gauche. Sumptuous fabrics, lush leathers, rich brocades and velvets adorned furniture, walls, and windows. Expensive artwork was everywhere—modern oils, ancient-looking vases, and marble busts of Spanish conquistadores perched on lavishly carved pedestals. Intricately woven tapestries were artfully hung on the wall adjacent to the grand staircase.
And there was gold everywhere. Gold leaf. Gold filigreed woodwork. Gold cherubs on ornately carved tables, in the pattern in the wallpaper, in the corners of the crown molding.
“Tío Cesar. Tía Aliria,” Rafe addressed them respectfully, pulling B.J. close to his side. “This is the woman I love. My fiancée, Brittany Jameson.”
They were still in shock, still processing the astounding news that the nephew they had thought long dead was really alive, but they turned to B.J. For a moment, just a moment, she wanted to reassure them. Instead, she flashed a smile that could never be mistaken as sincere.
“Hola. A … grad … able en … con … trar … le.” She was actually fluent in Spanish but no one here was going to know it by the way she intentionally garbled the greeting.
“Did I say that right?” She blinked up at Rafe, all hopeful and pleased with herself and expectant. “Or did I screw it up again? I’ve been practicing,” she assured the Munozes, turning back to them with a marginally apologetic look. “But the truth is, yo no hablo español,” she admitted in a way that clearly expressed that everyone present should speak English anyway because it was simply the civilized thing to do.
The Munozes tried to hide it, but they were clearly appalled by her brash manner.
“Why aren’t they saying anything?” she added in a stage whisper that could have been heard in Cambodia.
“It’s okay, cara.” Indulgence dripped from each word. “I’m sorry, Tío Cesar, Tía Aliria. Brittany has been trying to learn Spanish but no matter how hard she tries, she has been unable to grasp even the slightest nuance.”
“We are the ones who should apologize for not speaking English,” Aliria offered graciously.
“Oh, thank God.” B.J. sighed in relief. “I’m so relieved. Rafe,” she scolded, tapping him lightly on the chest. “Why didn’t you tell me they spoke English? Men.” She flashed a conspiratorial “girl to girl” smile at Aliria. “They just never share the important things.”
“Raphael,” Cesar said, unable to stop staring at his nephew. “I still cannot believe it. I cannot believe that fate has brought you back to us.”
It was a tender moment. One that a sensitive woman would have stepped away from and let unfold.
Brittany Jameson was not that woman. “This place is amazing!” she exclaimed. “It’s like a museum. Or a Vegas casino!” she exclaimed, pleased with her analogy.
Aliria flinched at the insult. Cesar glared, his black eyes judgmental and hard.
“Again,” Rafe said, his indulgence waning a bit, “you’ll have to excuse Brittany. Her excitement, it sometimes outdistances her manners. And she’s exhausted. It feels as if we’ve been traveling for days.”
“What did I say?” she demanded, clearly feeling maligned. “I was complimenting their home.”
“It’s all right,” Aliria said stiffly. “And again, we are the ones who should be apologizing. You are weary. And here we have not even offered you something to drink.”
“Wine would be lovely,” B.J. said, earning a scowl from Rafe.
“It’s a little early, don’t you think, cara?”
“Raphael.” Cesar intervened just as Brittany was winding up to get indignant. “Raphael, please say you are here for a long visit.”
“It is my hope, yes.”
“Bueno. You must stay with us.”
Rafe was about to make a pretense of declining when B.J. interrupted.
“Of course we’ll stay!” She beamed at Aliria and then at Rafe. “It would be rude not to accept such a generous invitation. You can send someone to the hotel for our luggage, right?”
“We will have it no other way,” Aliria insisted, her voice filled with warmth and affection as she smiled at Rafe. “We have much to catch up on. There is much we want to know, Raphael. How you survived the bombing. What you’ve been doing all these years. And of course, we want to know about you, too, Brittany,” she added dutifully.
“See, it’s all settled.” B.J. squeezed Rafe’s arm, then turned a bright smile toward Cesar. “Now, about that wine … not that I’d turn down champagne, mind you.”
“So this is how the other half lives,” B. J. murmured more to herself than to Rafe as she stood on their own private balcony just outside the lavishly appointed bedroom that had been made ready for them.
Two stories below, spread out over sweeping green grounds and surrounding a huge terrazzo patio, were two swimming pools, each boasting three Jacuzzis. There were brightly canopied social areas, lush gardens, what appeared to be a conservatory, and even a man-made waterfall. Farther out were the stables and an adjoining pasture dotted with horses. She could make out tennis courts beyond the gardens and a full nine-hole golf course. A helicopter sat on a helipad at the rear of the stables.
The balcony outside their bedroom suite was huge. They stood at its far edge, looking out over the grounds, and because they were so far away from the house, felt marginally free to talk. Rafe had pointed out before they had arrived, “Cesar is no fool. He may or may not be glad to find out I’m alive, but because of Aliria, he will welcome me home. I am a stranger to him now. You can be certain that until he is satisfied he can trust me, he will take precautions. And after all these years away, he’ll suspect that I have an agenda.”
That’s why they had immediately slipped a CD into the sound system to muffle the sound of their voices in the event that Cesar had bugs planted while they were waiting for the room to be made ready. As much as Rafe would have liked to search the room, they didn’t dare. A surveillance camera could be hidden in the TV or the alarm clock—anywhere.
Out here, however, as long as they were careful, and the CD played a Latin beat in the background, they could talk softly.
B.J. glanced at Rafe, who stood close beside her, his palms planted on the polished marble railing. He’d grown very quiet once they’d been shown to their room. She could see the strain on his face caused by the struggle with his memories, with his love of family, and with the mission they were on.
“Your aunt loves you very much,” she said, sensing what was weighing on him.
He lowered his head. Breathed deep. “My father was her only family. She thought she’d lost everyone.”
“And you feel like you’re betraying her,” she whispered.
He didn’t have to respond. A horrible sadness filled his dark eyes.
“Cesar is quite a businessman,” he said, moving on. “I imagine the boys are deep into the business now, too.”
The boys—that would be the cousins he had told her about, Felipe and Rodrigo. They had been teenagers, too, when Rafe had escaped to Miami.
“Were you close to them?”
“We were very competitive. Girls, cars, sports. But yes, we were close.”
And that hurt him, too. She didn’t know why she felt compelled to comfort him. Or worse, why she followed through with that compulsion. “We’re not here to destroy anyone,” she said, lowering her voice even further.
“No, we’re just here to use him and my aunt.” He breathed deep. “Look. I know why I’m here. You don’t have to worry that I won’t hold up my end of our bargain.”
“It
never occurred to me that you wouldn’t. I just recognize that this is going to be difficult for you.”
“Yeah, well, when is anything ever easy?”
In her experience? Never. Raphael Mendoza also spoke from experience. She’d lost her father, yes. Had never really had a mother, not in a functioning capacity at any rate. Raphael had had it all. Loving family. Wealth. The good life. And then he’d lost it all. His mother, his sister, his grandmother, and his father, whom he had loved and clearly revered, only to later learn his father had not been who he had thought he was.
He could have lost himself, too. From what he’d told her, he almost had until he’d wised up and gotten his life together. She respected him for that. Saw some of herself in him as they’d both had only themselves to rely on.
And now here they were. Relying on not only themselves but each other.
“Do you think they suspect anything?” she asked quietly, toeing off her heels. Her untouched champagne flute sat on the rail.
He turned to face her, leaned back against the rail, and crossed his arms over his chest. The balcony was shaded by an awning. A cool breeze rustled his gauzy shirt. He’d propped his Ray-Bans on the top of his head and looked every bit the hot Latin lover with his poet’s face and caramel skin tones and hard body. For an instant, a sweet, sharp instant, she wished their relationship was real.
“After that act you put on?”
Right. The act. Touching him. Kissing him. It was all just an act. God. She had to focus. She had a job to do. “You don’t think it was too much?”
He pushed out a laugh, took her hand, and led her to a small table. “No, cara,” he whispered, leaning close. “ It was perfect. They’ll be so absorbed in being annoyed by you they’ll never perceive you as a threat. You should pretty much have free rein at the estate. And I am certain you will be able to convince them you want introductions to their friends.” Their friends being Emilio Garcia and his associates.
“And of course, they’ll do what they can to accommodate me, since I’m going to be a member of the family and all,” she said, deadpan.
He smiled and reached for her left hand, the one sporting her “engagement” ring. “Here’s to a long and happy union,” he whispered, lifting her palm to his mouth and kissing it.
A shiver of sexual heat eddied from the middle of her palm to her breasts, then spread to her belly. It’s all an act, she reminded herself, and closed her eyes, achingly aware of her tight, hard nipples pressing against the fabric of her dress. When she opened her eyes again, he was watching her mouth. Openly. Intensely. Hungrily.
If possible, her nipples got even harder. Painfully hard. That look in his eyes… that was no act.
He wanted her.
She’d known it for some time now. Hadn’t wanted to deal with it or the fact that for the first time in a very long time, she felt that low, deep pull, that sharp, sweet ache that she’d conditioned herself to ignore.
The memory of the kiss they’d shared in the driveway came back to her with alarming clarity. His lips were so soft, yet so firm and so amazingly warm and welcoming and exciting.
“They’re watching, you know,” he’d said.
“Would I be doing this if they weren’t?”
She’d thought she’d known the answer then. Now, not so much.
She was in deep trouble with this man. The trouble became even deeper when in the next instant, he stood and pulled her into his arms.
“In case someone is watching now,” he whispered, searching her eyes.
There was no one on this balcony but them. There was no need to put on a show for anyone. That’s what she should have told him.
But she didn’t. She couldn’t. And worse, she didn’t want to.
“In case someone is watching,” she murmured, and lifted her mouth to meet his.
20
Rafe wasn’t sure what he’d expected. Resistance, maybe. Tolerance, possibly. An act, most definitely. But this wasn’t an act. This was a sweet, astonishing surrender. A generous, willing acquiescence from a woman who lived, breathed, and practiced total control and rigid restraint. A woman who suppressed her feelings, her emotions, even her own sexuality with the diligence of a castle guard.
She wasn’t guarding anything right now. Now, she was all about compliance and participation as her mouth opened beneath his and she finally, finally, let him taste her without pretense or playacting tempering the way.
She melted into his kiss, accepted his tongue, moved into the erection pressing against her belly. When he backed her up against the wall and pressed his hips deeper into her, she made a sound in her throat that damn near buckled his knees.
It was a sound of total submission, without restrictions. A sound of pleasure and invitation and of a longing so desperate and demanding it stole his breath.
Closer. You couldn’t have slid a strand of her hair between them and still, he wanted to get closer. Couldn’t get enough of her taste and her scent and the silk of her skin as he slid a hand down her leg, then tunneled under her dress. He encountered nothing but bare thigh, bare sweet ass, and a thin scrap of damp lace covering that part of her he would willingly crawl naked over glass to taste.
He lowered his head to her throat, tracking kisses along the pulse that beat wildly there. She gasped when he covered her with his hand, cupped her where she was wet and hot and… vulnerable.
He stilled when she rocked against his hand. Stiffened like a tree trunk. Swore against her neck.
Vulnerable.
There it was.
There was the reason he had to stop and he had to stop now.
Cristo.
He sensed the instant she came back to herself, when she realized he’d put on the skids. The next moment, desire transitioned to regret, then embarrassment, and finally self-disgust.
And he couldn’t let her feel any of those things. This was too important. She was too important.
“Get. Off. Me,” she grated out through clenched teeth.
Ah, that was the B. J. Chase he knew and … well, that he knew.
“It’s all right, querida.” He backed away but only slightly, pressing a tender kiss on her temple. “In fact, it was more than all right.”
“That didn’t just happen,” she managed on a shaky breath, her entire body stiffening.
“Oh, but it did. And it was amazing. When the time and the place is right, it will happen again.”
He touched a hand to her wild beautiful hair, stroked it back and away from her face, her incredible, stunning face, as a war of emotions battled for dominance. “Don’t look like that. Don’t overanalyze it. Don’t be angry about it. Not with yourself. Not with me. But do remember it. And think about what it will be like between us when we finally have our time together.”
She opened her mouth to deny that possibility, he was certain, but he placed two fingers over her lips, rubbed them lightly back and forth along with the motion of his head. “When the time is right.”
Then, marshalling all the self-control he possessed, he stepped away from her. He walked into the bedroom, headed straight for the bathroom. He turned on the shower, stripped naked, and ducked under the rainwater shower spray.
He stood, rock hard and jutting, his hands flattened against the tile wall, his head lowered between his arms. Every muscle in his body was drawn tight and taut. He shook all over from the need to have her, cursed himself in English and Spanish for not taking her then.
She’d been his. She’d been wet and willing and … vulnerable, he reminded himself again. And she would never have forgiven him for taking advantage of that vulnerability.
He didn’t want her that way. He wanted her to come to him. He wanted the choice to be hers. Without coercion. Without duress. And absolutely without the weapons of anger and blame to hide behind afterward.
In the meantime, they had a job to do. Until it was over he would suffer. It was small consolation to know that she would be suffering, too.
B.J. s
tood exactly where Rafe had left her, leaning back against the outside wall, her breasts rising and falling with her erratic breaths, aching with need and embarrassment and anger.
She was a professional, for God’s sake. She was there on a mission. How could she have let him get to her like that? Why had she let things go so far?
She wasn’t one of those weak, simpering women who let a man dominate her or a sexual creature who was ruled by her libido. In short, she wasn’t Brittany Jameson.
She had a mind. She had a backbone. She had a … oh God. She had a major problem.
Raphael Mendoza had just turned her on like a faucet and all she could think about was the touch of his hands on her body, the taste of his tongue in her mouth, the promises he had made.
