A Touch of Notoriety

by Carole Mortimer

  ‘Of course, Miss Blake, but, as I explained to you this morning, the body takes its own time to recover…’ A voice, one Beth didn’t recognise, became a low and distant murmur, as did Grace’s hushed reply, and there was the soft click of a door closing.

  Indicating that they were no longer in the room?

  Beth’s hands clenched into fists at her sides as she desperately searched her memory in an effort to understand what was going on. She remembered flying back to Argentina. Remembered going to her bedroom in Cesar’s apartment. Remembered Grace telling her that Raphael had gone away. Vividly remembered the screams that had awoken her hours later. The realisation that she was the one screaming.

  The pain!

  Oh, God, Beth remembered the pain now. Pain unlike anything she had ever known before. Before she had been swept away in a whirl of dark and thankful oblivion.

  Grace had mentioned something about ‘two days’. Did that mean that the screaming, the pain, the oblivion, had all happened two days ago? And if so—

  ‘It’s time to open your eyes now, Beth.’

  Beth didn’t so much open her eyes as widen them in astonishment, before turning in the direction of that huskily low voice. A voice she recognised all too easily. Just as she easily recognised the man standing in the shadowed darkness as he leant so casually against the wall several feet away from where she lay in bed. Raphael!

  ‘You aren’t supposed to be here.’ She was sure it was her own voice speaking, because she could feel her lips moving, but the sound that came out of those lips sounded more like a rasping croak than her normal light tones.

  ‘It is good to see you again, too!’ Raphael drawled hardly as he pushed away from the wall to step into the soft glow of light given off by that lamp on the wall above Beth’s head.

  A Raphael with at least a one-day darkness of stubble on the squareness of his jaw, his cheeks slightly hollow—even his military-style short dark hair looked as if it was slightly mussed and in need of a trim. His eyes were the same piercing blue, and his shoulders looked as broad and his chest as muscled beneath the fitted black T-shirt he wore, with faded denims fitting low down on his hips. Beth tried to moisten her lips before speaking again, but her mouth was so dry that it was a wasted effort.

  ‘Would you like some water?’ Raphael looked at her intently with those piercing blue eyes.

  ‘Yes, please,’ she accepted gratefully, attempting to sit up and failing miserably. She simply didn’t have the strength to lift herself up, and even the slight movement she had managed to make had been enough to tell her that her side still ached. Not as it had before, but enough so that Beth knew something was dreadfully wrong. ‘What’s happening to me?’ she demanded emotionally.

  His expression softened. ‘Nothing now. Here.’ He put one of his arms beneath her shoulders to help her to sit up enough so that she could drink through a straw some of the water that he had poured into the bottom of a glass. ‘Better?’ he prompted gently once she had emptied the glass.

  ‘Much.’ Beth sank wearily back onto the pillows before looking about the room in which she lay. A pleasant but totally sterile-looking room that she didn’t recognise. ‘This is a hospital.’ She looked up at Raphael.

  ‘It is, yes.’ He nodded as he turned back from placing the empty glass on the side table, his expression appearing harsh in the shadowed lamplight. ‘Your discomfort three days ago was not because of—’ He gave a shake of his head. ‘You were in pain for several days because your appendix was infected. Two nights ago it decided to burst.’

  She swallowed before speaking again. ‘That can be dangerous, can’t it?’

  ‘Very,’ he confirmed grimly.

  Beth gave him a teasing frown. ‘Aren’t you supposed to murmur reassurances rather than scare me?’

  Raphael looked no less grim. ‘Not when you scared everyone else! You almost died, Beth,’ he added gratingly.

  ‘Well, I obviously didn’t,’ she dismissed, distracted. The water had revived her slightly, enough for her to feel thankful that someone—Grace?—had ensured she was at least wearing a pair of her own pyjamas rather than one of those unflattering hospital gowns. Although her hair was probably a mess, and— What did it matter what she looked like? This man—Raphael—had walked away from her two—no, three—nights ago, without so much as a goodbye.

  Her jaw tensed as she looked up at him challengingly. ‘What are you doing here, Raphael? Have you come back to make sure that it really wasn’t the discomfort of the other night that had made me ill?’

  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 h
im 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.

  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.’

  ‘No, Beth, you said we had not, I did not agree. It was only—’ He began to pace the room restlessly. ‘The hospital, with your family all waiting outside, was not the time for this conversation. And you have refused to see me since you came home.’ He scowled darkly.

  ‘Because—’

  ‘I have not finished, Beth.’

  She drew in a deep breath. ‘Okay.’ She nodded. ‘Say what you have to say, and then will you leave me alone?’

  ‘I am hoping not, no…’ Raphael looked down at her searchingly. Beth looked much better than she had a week ago when he last saw her at the hospital, but there was still a fine delicacy to the paleness of her face, and she looked as if she had lost weight, her denims and T-shirt slightly too large on her slender frame. It was natural to lose some weight after an operation, of course, but Raphael found he did not like to see her looking so delicate. Not his fiery Beth.

  Except she was not his Beth…

  ‘You said some things to me in the hospital that I feel need an explanation. Not from you,’ he reassured her, ‘but from me. You seem to be under the impression that I passed your security to Rodney because I no longer wished to be anywhere near you.’

  A slight blush entered her cheeks. ‘Well, didn’t you?’

  ‘No.’

  She looked up at him uncertainly. ‘No?’

  ‘No,’ Raphael repeated grimly. ‘I handed your security to Rodney because I no longer trusted myself to be…impartial, where your security is concerned.’

  Beth gave a slow shake of her head. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Obviously not,’ he acknowledged grimly. ‘And I did not say goodbye to you before I left because if I had I would not have been able to leave! And I needed to do so. I had to talk to my father, to attempt to heal the rift between the two of us, before I could move forward with my life.’

  ‘And did you?’

  ‘Yes.’ He nodded.

  She gave a tremulous smile. ‘I’m glad.’

  So was Raphael. He had barely spent more than a few hours with his father before learning Beth had been rushed to hospital, but it had nevertheless been long enough for the two proud Cordoba men to reconcile. A reconciliation he had wanted to share with Beth, only to telephone the apartment to instead learn that she was seriously ill. The drive back from his father’s estancia had been a nightmare as he feared for Beth’s very life.

  A chilling fear, which had told him all that he needed to know in regard to his feelings for Beth.

  He reached out and took one of her hands in his. ‘Beth, so much has happened in your life in such a short time. You have discove
red that you are not who you thought you were, but someone else entirely. And that you have a family, a family you were not aware of, who love you very much.’

  She eyed him uncertainly. ‘Yes…’

  Raphael straightened to once again pace restlessly. ‘Now is not really the time for me to— I should not—this is much more difficult than I would ever have believed possible!’

  ‘Maybe if you were to tell me what it is I could help you out a little?’ Beth prompted curiously.

  He gave a slightly impatient shake of his head. ‘Can it be that you are the only one who has not realised what I want to say?’

  She looked at him blankly. ‘About what? I’m really pleased that you and your father have made your peace—’

  ‘Beth, this has absolutely nothing to do with my relationship with my father!’ he interrupted exasperatedly. ‘Well, maybe a little,’ he conceded impatiently. ‘I had to…resolve that part of my life, make things right with my father, before I could—’

  ‘Move forward with your life.’ She nodded. ‘Yes, you said that.’

  ‘Move forward with my life with you!’ Raphael’s voice rose and he ran his hand through his hair in his frustration. ‘Madre mia, woman, the whole of your family knows that the reason I have tried to see you this past week is because I need to tell you that I am in love with you. So very very much in love with you. That I realised this the night we spent together at the inn. That I wish, above all things, that you would love me, too. That I wish to ask you to become my wife. Once you are completely well again, of course.’ He frowned. ‘And once you feel that you could leave your new family. And—’

  ‘And after Grace and Cesar’s wedding. And after their first child has been christened.’ Her eyes glowed. ‘And man has settled on Mars—’

  ‘I do not understand…’ Raphael looked pained as he stood beside her chair looking down at her.

  Beth gave a choked laugh as the happiness welled up inside her and threatened to totally overwhelm her. Raphael loved her. He wanted to marry her. All this time she had been suffering in misery, believing he would never feel the same way about her, and Raphael had been in love with her the whole time, too. To the point that he hadn’t felt able to protect her in the way he felt she needed to be protected. To a degree that he had decided to settle the long feud with his father, to resolve the rift between the two of them, before he asked Beth to marry him.