The Thorn in his Side

by Kim Lawrence

  ‘What happened to Meg was not Rafael’s fault.’

  ‘So you’re saying it was my fault!’ her brother flared back.

  Well aware that no matter what he said her brother blamed himself for allowing Meg to travel, Libby reached out to squeeze her brother’s arm. ‘I’m not saying it was anyone’s fault—’ Tears of hurt sprang to her eyes when Ed flinched away as though her touch were poison.

  Her father shook his head. ‘How could you betray us this way with the man who ruined me?’

  ‘You’re not ruined. With the rescue package everyone keeps their jobs and you keep the house.’

  ‘And you expect me to be grateful.’

  Libby looked at her father and thought, Yes, actually, I do.

  ‘We are allowed to stay in the house like tenants in our own home, reliant on the charity of that man!’

  ‘I know it’s tough, but—!’

  ‘You know nothing, Libby. This so-called rescue package—haven’t you realised that’s just a front?’

  ‘A front?’ Libby was mystified by the comment.

  ‘A smokescreen. This isn’t about charity. He jumped in with both feet wielding an axe. He can’t admit he was wrong so he comes up with this rescue package fooling gullible people like you into thinking he’s some sort of hero when in actual fact he doesn’t have a clue what he’s talking about.’

  As she listened to the rant Libby felt growing anger. Did her father actually believe the stuff he was spouting?

  ‘A man like that doesn’t do anything unless there’s a profit in it.’

  Libby bit her lip and struggled to stay calm. ‘Look, Dad, I don’t want to hurt any of you.’ Her heart sank as she searched their faces, recognising that her words were falling on deaf ears. It wouldn’t matter what she said; their minds were closed to anything she said.

  This ambush was not about listening to her explanations. They wanted remorse, they wanted penitence, and Libby knew she could give neither.

  A fortnight ago, a week even, her reaction might have been different, but not now.

  Now she would not apologise, she would not allow anyone to turn what she had with Rafael into anything sordid and she would not be party to any character assassination. She had made Rafael the scapegoat, blamed him for everything, but now she knew differently.

  ‘Not want to hurt us?’ Kate Marchant echoed, looking at her daughter with a coldness that hurt Libby more than she had imagined possible. ‘Then you have a strange way of showing it!’

  ‘Mum, please …’

  Rafael took a step forward; the anguish in her voice felt like a blade sliding between his ribs. She looked so alone standing there that the need to protect her was too strong to resist.

  ‘At least say you’re ashamed of your dirty secret. That you’re ashamed you betrayed your family.’

  The words brought Rafael to a halt. Fists clenched at his sides, he waited for her reply.

  ‘Leave her, Ed, it’s not her fault. It is that man,’ Kate Marchant cut in. ‘He poisons everything he touches.’

  ‘Yes, I am ashamed.’

  The blood drained from Rafael’s face. It was no more than he expected, he told himself. Why should it hurt? He had been rejected before and survived.

  Libby lifted her chin proudly. ‘I’m ashamed that I ever was ashamed. I’m ashamed that I asked Rafael to keep our affair a secret. I’m not ashamed now, I’m proud. He deserves a lot better, a lot better than me. None of those things that you think about him are true. He’s an incredible person, he’s overcome so many things and … the people who work for him—do you think it’s accidental that they’d do anything for him? Go see for yourselves. You won’t hear anyone say a bad word about him, not the ones that know him.’

  ‘Do you think it’s possible that they’re worried this saint might sack them?’ Ed asked drily. He gave a snort of disgust and shook his head.

  Her family stared in varying degrees of horror as she maintained her defiant stance.

  ‘Look what he did to your father, Libby,’ Kate Marchant inserted. ‘You know what sort of man he is.’

  ‘Grow up, Libby,’ her brother advised harshly. ‘The man’s having sex with you, of course he won’t let you see his vicious side, but once he’s got tired of you just wait and see how nice he is then.’

  He turned to their parents and pointed a finger towards Libby. ‘The man has brainwashed her.’

  ‘No, Ed, he’s not brainwashed me.’

  ‘This has got to stop now,’ her father said sternly. ‘You have to promise us that you never see this man again.’

  ‘Don’t ask me to choose between him and you, Dad,’ Libby pleaded.

  Rafael watched. Taking a knife to the heart would have been easier than watching her pain.

  Her family began to move away together, turning away from her, offering one another the support they had denied Libby. As much as he despised their actions today he knew that he would have to put personal feelings aside to make this thing right.

  ‘I brought lunch but I see you’ve already eaten.’

  Libby stared at the tall figure who stepped out from the shadow of a tree, a lunch bag rather improbably swinging in his hand. Her immediate impulse was to walk straight into his arms. There were several flaws in this plan, not least the possibility they would not open wide to enfold her the way they did in the scene playing in her head, so she fought the impulse and stayed where she was.

  ‘Since when did you take alfresco lunches?’

  ‘I’m always open to new experiences, embrace them even.’ He glanced at the bag in his hand. ‘This represents quite a big new experience for me.’

  Libby barely registered the odd inflection in his voice; she had to know. She jerked her head towards the now empty bench where sparrows were dive-bombing the remains of her own forgotten lunch.

  ‘You heard that, didn’t you?’

  Rafael swallowed and nodded.

  Libby loosed a mortified groan and dropped her chin into her chest. ‘You weren’t meant to,’ she mumbled miserably.

  ‘I can’t be the cause of a rift between you and your parents, Libby.’

  She gave a teary smile but there was an air of finality to Libby’s response. ‘You can’t stop me, Rafael, unless you are saying you want this … us to stop.’

  ‘Families are important.’ She had something that he did not; he could not let her throw it away.

  Libby looked at him, loving every line of his proud face. He was her family. Pity he didn’t know.

  ‘I know families are important. I love my family, Rafael, but they needed to know—’

  ‘Needed to know what?’

  ‘The truth,’ she said, talking to his tie now.

  He ran a finger down the curve of her cheek and said softly, ‘Look at me, Libby.’

  Libby lifted her gaze.

  ‘They were angry. They did not mean the things they said, you know. Your family loves you.’ If making them value what they had meant he had to force-feed them a few home truths, Rafael was more than prepared to perform this task.

  Libby swallowed and thought, Why can’t you? She pushed away the wistful thought. She had to accept what she could not have and enjoy what she could.

  God, it sounded so easy!

  ‘I know they do. And I love them.’ The difference was she wasn’t asking them to prove it.

  ‘If you are estranged from your family, eventually, not today perhaps or even next week, but the time will come when you will blame me.’

  Libby shook her head in rejection of his theory. ‘That isn’t true!’ she insisted fiercely.

  ‘Go to them, say what they need to hear, take their side. I will be fine with it.’

  ‘Fine with us not …’ Libby, ghostly pale, struggled to keep the tremor from her voice as she said huskily, ‘So you’re saying that you don’t want us to …’

  Rafael dragged a hand through his hair and stared at her as though she had lost her mind. ‘Madre di Dios, of course that is
not what I’m saying.’

  Libby, weak with relief, sighed. ‘Then what are you saying?’

  ‘Say what they want to hear, say you have seen the light and I am the Antichrist, and we can continue to be discreet.’

  ‘Lie, you mean. Hide in a corner and feel cheap, as though we’re doing something wrong, you mean?’ Her voice cracked as she asked miserably, ‘Is that what you want?’ If it was all she could get Libby was willing to take it, but not without trying for more first.

  She took a step back in order to study his face her hands twisted in a white-knuckled knot on her chest.

  Rafael swore and shook his head, not looking at her directly as he growled, ‘Of course it is not what I want.’ He wanted to shout from the rooftops that she was his. ‘But the situation requires compromise,’ he said, struggling to think past the need pounding in his skull.

  Libby leaned back, pressing her head against the bark of the tree trunk as she laughed. ‘You, compromise? Since when?’ she jeered shakily.

  His glowing eyes raked her face, his lips twisting into an ironic smile as he said bitterly, ‘Since I met you.’

  Libby stilled, something in his face making her heart rate pick up.

  ‘I was never the one who wished to keep this affair secret, and that has not changed,’ Libby heard him say, and thought, I have.

  ‘Perhaps in time your parents will—’

  ‘In time you will have moved on to someone else!’ Her fear slipped out unchecked … She closed her eyes; could she sound more needy?

  A look of utter amazement crossed his face. ‘That is not going to happen. How can you think that?’

  ‘How can I not think that? Because you are so renowned for your long-term relationships! Look,’ she added, struggling for some degree of composure. ‘I’m not complaining. You never pretended it was anything other than it was.’

  ‘I was an idiot!’

  The contempt in this observation made her blink.

  From where she was standing Libby could feel the tension rolling off his big body.

  ‘The thing you did—’

  She watched him swallow and was utterly amazed to realise that Rafael, the epitome of cool, was struggling for composure.

  ‘What thing?’ she prompted gently.

  ‘Lose something you value greatly—that you are willing to do that for me, it means …’ He pressed a clenched fist to his chest and turned his head jerkily away. Libby could see the muscles in his brown throat working as he swallowed.

  There was a space of several nerve-shredding seconds before he turned back. ‘It means a great deal, but I cannot let you lose your family because of me.’

  ‘I won’t, but I can’t let them make me lose you, Rafael.’ Her heart was in her eyes as she lifted her chin and declared, ‘I love you …’ She saw his stunned expression and groaned. ‘Oh, God, I wasn’t going to say that, and you don’t have to look so horrified—I won’t say it again. Honestly,’ she promised, miming a zipping motion across her lips. ‘We can just go on the way we were and—’

  A nerve clenched along his lean jaw. ‘No, there is no question of us going on as we were.’

  Libby caught her trembling lip between her teeth. ‘That’s it, then.’ As her shimmering blue gaze moved across the hard planes and sculpted contours of his face Libby experienced a sudden violent surge of rebellion. She couldn’t give up on something this good—not without a fight.

  ‘No, that’s not it!’

  He arched a brow. ‘It isn’t?’

  ‘You should want me, Rafael Alejandro. I’m a good person and I’m good for you, and one day you’ll regret sending me away,’ she charged huskily. ‘Do you hear me?’

  The blaze died from her eyes when, as suddenly as it had flared, the defiance burning inside her drained away. Her body slumped in defeat like a puppet whose strings had been severed. She looked at the accusing finger she had stabbed into his chest; it had made as little impression as her words.

  ‘Nobody is going anywhere.’ Rafael caught the finger she waved at him and, pulling it to his lips, kissed it, then applied the same treatment to each fingertip, then the palm of her hand, holding her eyes as he did so. ‘Say it again!’ he growled.

  The autocratic demand made her blink. ‘What?’

  Rafael slid his hands down her shoulders and hauled her casually towards him. ‘You heard me, querida.’

  The fiercely tender glow in his eyes stole her breath away. ‘What do you want me to say?’ she whispered hoarsely.

  ‘Say you love me. I want … I need to hear you say it.’ His implacable golden stare burned into her.

  Libby couldn’t tear her fascinated gaze from the nerve throbbing in his lean cheek. Her head was spinning. Was this really happening?

  ‘I love you, Rafael.’ She cleared her throat and added in a louder voice, ‘I love you, I really do … I— ’

  The rest of her impassioned declaration was lost in the warm recesses of his mouth. Having her warm vital body in his arms, her arms curled around his neck, feeling her soft breasts plastered up against his chest, all the things he had been aching for, snapped the frayed threads of Rafael’s control.

  A moan was wrenched from deep inside the vault of his chest, but a second later he pulled back breathing hard.

  ‘What just happened?’ What was happening?

  ‘If you do not know I am definitely losing my touch.’

  ‘You’re not.’

  The feeling in her voice raised a smile, but a moment later it was gone and Rafael was staring at her with a fixed bone-stripping intensity that made Libby feel dizzy.

  ‘You don’t mind—about me … you know?’

  Her awkward shrug raised a tender smile from Rafael, whose eyes had not left her face for a moment.

  ‘I …’ He stopped and said abruptly, ‘I missed you.’ Coward, said the voice in his head.

  It was an accusation he could not deny. Was he ready to take that leap of faith and say the word that changed everything?

  The word that meant dropping walls he had spent a lifetime building, walls that Libby had been removing brick by brick since she had exploded so dramatically into his life. Libby’s influence had infiltrated every aspect of his life and heart shining light into all the dark corners and, he realized, freeing him from the self-imposed limits.

  Libby blinked. ‘You only saw me this morning.’ Her eyes fell. It had been the first time she had woken up in his arms. She had hated the subterfuge necessary to allow her to stay the night, but it had been worth it. Of course in the end ironically the lies had been wasted; her family knew.

  At least she wouldn’t have to lie the next time and invent excuses—always supposing there was a next time? Rafael’s reaction to her rash declaration of love had not been what she had expected, but it had not been as she had secretly hoped either. Her head ached with the effort of trying to work out what was happening.

  ‘I want to see you every morning.’

  Libby stared at him, a look of astonishment frozen on her face. ‘Are you asking me to move in with you?’

  ‘I’m …’ With a frustrated groan he gathered her to him. ‘No, I’m not asking you to move in with me.’ He felt her stiffen in his arms and begin to pull away. ‘No!’ he said and tightened his grip. ‘I am not doing this well. Dios, but you are beautiful!’

  She looked at his face, his golden skin glistening with the moisture that dusted it, and felt dizzy with lust and love. ‘You are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen, Rafael.’

  Rafael looked startled by the fierce declaration and then smugly pleased.

  ‘What I have been trying to say … what I came here to say is … come …!’

  A totally bemused Libby responded to the imperious command and allowed him to take her hand and drag her back to the bench she had been sitting on to eat her lunch. Ignoring the two young women who were now sitting on one end, Rafael pushed her down onto the wooden seat.

  Libby watched, her bewilderment growi
ng as he unfolded the seal of his lunch bag and tipped the contents in his palm before extending his hand to her.

  ‘I’m not actually hungry, Rafael.s’ Then she saw the small velvet case sitting in his palm and her throat dried, allowing nothing but a small whimper to escape.

  Unable to allow herself to abandon caution, believe the message the joyous pounding of her heart was beating out, she shook her head slowly from side to side.

  ‘What,’ she asked, her voice barely more than a throaty whisper as she forced the words past the aching lump in her throat, ‘is that?’

  Rafael dragged a frustrated hand across his sable hair. He had always understood that women instinctively knew about such things. ‘Open it and see,’ he urged.

  ‘Open it!’ echoed the girl sitting the other end of the bench before her companion hushed her.

  Libby’s hand was shaking as she took the box from his palm. Slowly, hardly breathing, she opened it. Her eyes widened to their fullest extent when she saw the square cut sapphire surrounded by equally impressive diamonds sitting in the velvet bed.

  Watching her, every clenched muscle and stretched nerve ending in his body taut and screaming for release, he waited for her to react.

  ‘If you don’t like it I can …’

  Her eyes flew to his face, the sparkle in them putting the sapphire she took carefully from the box to shame. ‘It’s beautiful, Rafael.’

  ‘Marry me, Libby.’

  Libby’s hand went to her mouth.

  A sigh lifted Rafael’s chest. ‘Say something!’ he pleaded. Then, thinking better of the instruction, added, ‘But not if it’s no, Libby, don’t say no.’ He took her hand and slid the ring on it. ‘Take the ring, take me, Libby.’

  At the other end of the bench someone began to clap and a voice said, ‘For God’s sake, say yes!’

  All Libby heard was the pain in his voice and she hated it. She leaned forward and framed his beautiful face between her hands. ‘I want to say yes,’ she admitted. ‘I’m totally crazy about you, but I’m scared …’ she whispered.

  ‘I’m not, for the first time in my life I’m not scared, Libby, and you did that for me.’ He took her hands from around his face and brought them to his lips. ‘I’d turned my weakness into virtue. I took pride in not needing anyone,’ he admitted with a self-contemptuous shake of his head. ‘I was afraid to give anything of myself, afraid of being hurt, then you came along, so brave, so loving …’ His smouldering glance moved across her tear-stained face. ‘You gave me so much and I took … Let me give now, Libby.’ He watched her luminous eyes fill with tears and said, ‘Let me give you my heart.’