by Julia James
His eyes shadowed. In his country of birth, still teeming with impoverished masses, there were women so abjectly poor they had no choice but to sell their bodies simply to survive. But here in the rich Western world there was seldom such desperate need. Here it would simply be a matter of making easy money...
In his head, the harsh sound of mocking laughter echoed viciously...
His mouth tightened to a whipped line and forcibly he wiped his mind of all such tainted, toxic thoughts. Celeste was nothing like that—nothing! That was all he had to know. All he needed to know.
Apart from the most important thing of all—how to win her. How to allay her reluctance and wariness and get her, little by precious little, to relax with him. To enjoy his company as he was enjoying having hers this evening.
He put aside such troubling thoughts, focussing instead on making this a pleasant, easy meal to share together, without stress or strain.
He nodded at her with a slight smile. ‘Sole OK?’ he checked as they began to eat.
‘Beautiful,’ she assured him.
‘And I can’t tempt you to a modest spoonful of hollandaise sauce?’ He indicated the silver jug containing the butter-rich sauce that went with his own salmon.
‘You can tempt me,’ she said lightly, ‘but I won’t succumb.’
Even as she spoke she realised it was a double entendre.
Long lashes dipped down over his obsidian eyes. ‘I shall live in hope,’ Rafael murmured, the now familiar humorous glint in his eyes.
She gave a resigned shake of her head even as her lips twitched with unconscious amusement. She was coming to appreciate that this uniquely disturbing man had a beguiling sense of humour that could tease gently—but not threateningly.
He might radiate the sense of powerful self-assurance that sat on many a wealthy man’s shoulders, and beneath the hand-tailored suit there might be an innate underlying toughness that came, she suspected, from the struggles he had faced in his life to make himself what he now was, but for all that—perhaps because of that!—there was a chivalry about him that could only warrant her respect and her appreciation. She felt warmed by it. His intervention in that horrible, ugly scene with Karl Reiner was proof of that—as was the open contempt he displayed towards the man.
No, she acknowledged, with wrenching self-awareness, Rafael Sanguardo posed one threat to her only: he attracted her—attracted her as no other man had ever done!
That is his threat to me! That! And that is why I cannot—must not!—let myself be beguiled by him! However much I want to be! I am not free to be beguiled by him! I am not free to want him as I do!
It was impossible. Always impossible. Which was why this evening could not be the start of anything—only the end.
And so I must make the most of it! Have it as a good memory for the future. The memory of what might have been but cannot be...
That was all she could have. All she could ever have.
She took a breath, made some polite, praising comment about the quality of the food they were eating, and the conversation moved on. It was easy and yet mentally stimulating, too, as well as pleasant and enjoyable—let alone that it quickened her pulse so powerfully, so beguilingly, to talk to Rafael Sanguardo, whatever the subject.
The single glass of crisp white wine she’d allowed herself helped, she knew, and she sipped it carefully as she ate. Quite what they talked about she wasn’t aware—only that they ranged over a variety of subjects. Rafael proved a skilful conversationalist, his wry comments infused with glinting humour, and yet when he was serious—as when they talked about his work and his country—she could see a clear sense of commitment and passion about him.
More and more Celeste found herself thinking well of him, even beyond the oh-so-potent physical attraction that so disturbed her senses. He is an enlightened, upright man, with sound principles and a sense of the responsibility that comes with the kind of wealth he has made for himself—and made for others, too.
A man she could respect. The little stab of anguish came again. And a man she could easily, so dangerously easily, start to feel much more for than respect.
But that reaction must be quashed. She must not give in to her silent urge to hold his eyes, to let her own eyes dwell on the strongly planed features of his face that drew her gaze so much, to let herself feel that shimmer of response to his effortlessly compelling masculinity. She must restrict and restrain herself to being cool and composed and letting no emotion well up from the core of her being.
But as they neared the end of their meal Celeste’s determined composure was overset by a quite different source. She had just made an interested reply to something Rafael had said about the new eco-friendly beachfront resort in Maragua that he was investing in when her eye was abruptly caught by a couple taking their place at a table at the far end of the room. They were almost concealed by the red velvet drapery—but not enough to stop her recognising, with a sudden tautening of her stomach, that the man was Karl Reiner.
Then another ripple of unpleasant recognition went through her. The woman he was with was Louise, the young model she’d met the day before.
‘What is it?’ Rafael asked quietly, seeing her expression.
Celeste swallowed. ‘Karl Reiner’s just turned up with a model I know is only a teenager and is totally new to modelling,’ she said tightly.
She looked as if she was going to jump to her feet. Rafael stayed her, loosely cupping her wrist for a moment. ‘Do you think she’s underage?’ he asked, in the same low voice.
Celeste shook her head. ‘No, but she’s made up to look my age—which she is not. I don’t want—’ She stopped.
‘Just keep an eye on her,’ Rafael advised. ‘Has Karl Reiner seen you?’
‘No, and now he’s out of my vision—he’s hidden behind that drape.’
‘Well, he’s not the important one—she is.’
They resumed eating and conversation returned, but Celeste was constantly aware of Louise on the far side of the room.
As the waiter cleared their plates and she glanced again towards Louise she frowned. The expression on Louise’s face had changed. She was looking vacant, and there was a slackness about her posture. She lifted the glass at her setting and drank from it. Water? thought Celeste. Or vodka? Then, as Louise bent her head to fork her food in a suspiciously slow-motion way, Celeste saw Karl Reiner’s hand extend from behind the drape and drop something into Louise’s glass.
She was on her feet in a second. Crossing the restaurant in moments. Standing in front of Louise.
‘Hello, Louise,’ she said. She kept her voice friendly.
Louise lifted her drooping head and smiled. ‘Hi!’ she slurred. Her eyes were glassy, but at least she’d recognised her, Celeste noted.
‘What the hell are you doing here?’ Karl Reiner leant forward belligerently.
Celeste’s eyes lasered him. ‘You’ve put something in Louise’s drink. I saw you! And, looking at the state of her, it’s not the first time this evening!’
Karl’s face darkened. ‘You make accusations like that and I’ll see you in court!’ he attacked belligerently.
A voice behind her spoke. Cool, but with an edge to it that cut like a blade. ‘One moment—’
Rafael’s hand cupped Celeste’s tensed shoulder and he reached forward to pick up Louise’s glass. It looked clear and pristine, but he raised it to his nose.
‘Roofies don’t smell and they don’t taste—and they dissolve instantly!’ Celeste ground out.
‘There’s no damn roofies in that!’ Karl snarled angrily.
The bladed voice came again. ‘Well, if there’s nothing spiked about Louise’s drink you won’t object to drinking it yourself, will you?’
Wordlessly he held it out to Karl. Who did not take it. It was all Celeste nee
ded. She went round to Louise’s banquette.
‘Time to go home,’ she said bracingly, and helped her to her feet.
‘I’m fine,’ said Louise, but as she tried to stand up she started to sway, and collapsed back down again.
The maître d’ was there, having realised something untoward was going on.
Rafael turned to him. ‘Bring a small, unopened bottle of mineral water,’ he ordered. ‘Mr Reiner’s guest is feeling unwell, so we’ll be seeing her home.’
As the maître d’ clicked his fingers to a minion, who scurried up with the requisite bottle, Rafael turned back to Karl Reiner.
‘We’ll get this analysed, shall we?’ he said. He took the bottle, emptied the water it contained into the jug on the table and carefully poured the contents of Louise’s glass into the now empty bottle, screwing on the lid and putting the bottle in his jacket pocket.
‘You can’t do this!’ Karl pushed to his feet.
‘I just have,’ said Rafael. ‘Would you like me to call the police as well?’
The maître d’ looked aghast, and Rafael relented.
He turned back to Celeste. ‘Can she walk, do you think?’
Celeste drew Louise to her feet again. ‘Come on, Louise—let’s go.’
Carefully, they escorted her from the dining room. Rafael phoned for his car. As they passed the reception desk Rafael paused to instruct that his bill be sent to his office.
‘Oh, and cancel Mr Reiner’s room for the night,’ he added. ‘He won’t be needing it after all.’
The expression on the receptionist’s face told him that his assumption had been right.
‘The upper floors are bedrooms,’ Rafael elucidated to Celeste as he guided both her and the woozy Louise out to the pavement. ‘And, no, I was not planning on availing myself of the hotel facility here tonight!’ he added stringently. ‘I leave that kind of crassness to the likes of Louise’s druggist!’
He got them both into the car and helped Celeste strap in a supine Louise. Then, after Celeste’s protracted extraction of Louise’s address from her, he instructed his driver and the car moved off.
He turned back to Celeste. ‘Did you definitely see him spike her drink?’
‘Yes! And that analysis will prove positive!’ she bit out vehemently.
He held up a hand. ‘Celeste, I don’t know the exact legal status of Rohypnol, or anything else it might be, but proving that you saw him do it, plus that it was non-consensual on Louise’s part, is going to be very difficult—if not impossible.’
He saw the stormy expression in her eyes in the street lights and went on, ‘So let’s just get her home, shall we? You can read the Riot Act to her tomorrow. But you know...’ His voice changed. ‘You have to allow for the fact that she was there of her own free will, and might very well have been perfectly willing to go ahead with whatever it was that Karl Reiner had planned.’ He took a breath. ‘I know it’s not anything you could possibly go along with yourself, but there are women who would.’
Women who would do a lot more...
He saw Celeste’s face still. For a moment it was as if he could see the bones beneath her skin. Stark and skeletal. But maybe it was a trick of the strobing street lights.
Louise groaned. ‘I feel sick,’ she said.
Silently Rafael handed Celeste a clutch of paper tissues from the supply in the car. To his relief they were not needed, and some fifteen minutes later they were in Earls Court, pulling up outside the address Celeste had extracted. They got Louise up the steps, and eventually inside, into the hands of the flatmate who had come down to answer the door.
She stayed to explain, briefly, what had happened, sufficiently reassured by the concern of the flatmate, who seemed sensible and level-headed. ‘Probably a roofie,’ she said. ‘Possibly vodka, too. Get her to phone me tomorrow,’ she instructed. ‘Celeste Philips—we’re at the same agency. I have some ground rules to spell out to her if she’s going to survive this modelling game!’
After handing over the woozy Louise, she returned with Rafael to his car. Back in the interior, she closed her eyes. Rafael settled in his seat and looked at her. Her face was tight and stark.
‘I’ll see you home,’ he said quietly.
The car moved off and he found himself looking at her, at her pale, haunting beauty which moved him so. Her eyes stayed closed, her face averted, her taut expression not easing.
His thoughts were troubled. In his head he heard again her voice at the restaurant.
‘I don’t date,’ she’d said. ‘I don’t date and I don’t have relationships. Or romances. Or affairs. Or anything—whatever you want to call them. I just...don’t.’
The bald, blunt words echoed in his mind. Setting his thoughts running.
Had what had so nearly happened to the teenage model tonight happened to Celeste? Was that the explanation for the sad, bleak announcement she’d made? Had she been so badly scared—scarred?—that she’d played safe since then?
Does she see herself in that young, vulnerable girl? Was she once such a girl and there was no one to rescue her in time?
If that were so, no wonder she was now so wary of men!
But resolution seared through him. Well, I must change that! I must show her that desire can be very, very different from lust! I must show her how desire should be between a man and a woman!
His eyes rested on her where she sat, so close to him and yet locked in her lonely world, so apart, so separate. He felt emotion coursing through him. Desire—sweet and strong, yet tender, too. He felt his hand lift and almost grazed her silken hair, almost cupped the sculpted turn of her cheek, brushed the tip of his thumb across the alabaster satin of her eyelids...
With an effort he drew back, waited until the car had completed its journey back to Notting Hill and drawn up outside her flat. She opened her eyes as the engine was cut, automatically turning her head towards the kerbside.
Her gaze collided with Rafael’s. For a moment her unguarded gaze poured into his. He felt his breath catch. Then, before he could stop himself, he was doing what he’d had to hold himself back from. His hand moved towards her, slid around the nape of her neck. His fingers shaped her jaw, lifting her face to his as he lowered his mouth.
As his lips grazed hers he felt her give a little gasp, almost a tremor. But it was too late. He could not stop himself. He could only give himself to the overriding impulse surging within him to move his mouth to enclose hers, to feel the silken brush of her lips against his, feel her hesitation, her uncertainty.
He wanted to sweep them away! To melt them away until she was soft and molten in his embrace! Willing and ardent!
And just for a moment he felt that melting that he sought from her! Felt her soften, yield, felt her tremulous lips start to part so that he could do what every fibre of his being was urging him to do—taste the sweetness of her honeyed mouth.
Triumph swept through him. Not the triumph of conquest but the triumph of trust bestowed, that she had chosen—chosen!—to let him kiss her.
And then she was withdrawing.
Instinctively he wanted to catch her to him again, to coax and persuade her silken lips to open to him again. But with a higher knowledge he knew he must not. He must relinquish her. For if he did not she would be scared away again, and what he had achieved would be lost already.
Yet even as she drew away from him his hand lingered at her cheek and the tips of his fingers threaded into her hair. His eyes poured into hers, lambent in the dim light of the interior of the car. Absently he was glad of the smoked glass between them and the driver, but even so he could not care. The whole world could have witnessed this moment! With his blessing!
For she was holding his ardent gaze, open and transparent, and he was seeing into her eyes, into the depths of her, with nothing between them.
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‘Celeste...’ Her name was on his lips, husky and low, and his fingers stroked at the delicate bones of her cheek.
‘Rafael—I...I...’ She could say no more.
He did not want her to. ‘Hush...’ He spoke softly, intimately, to her alone. ‘This is my promise to you, Celeste.’ His eyes spoke with his voice, his gaze rich and full. ‘My promise is that if you give yourself to me I will give myself to you in equal measure. With me all shall be well—I promise you. Whatever scarred you long ago will be undone.’ He gave a wry smile, letting his hand fall from her while his eyes still held hers like precious pearls. ‘We will take it slowly—as slowly as you need. I promise you.’
He drew back, straightening, holding her gaze for one last moment. Then he was opening the passenger door, stepping out, turning back to take her hand in his and help her out. He made no attempt to kiss her again. He would keep his word—take this as slowly as she needed.
But for all that he knew, with an absolute conviction that coursed through him like a strong, dark current as his eyes rested on her with a last, caressing glance, that ‘slowly’ did not mean that in the end they would not reach the destination that he sought...
Celeste in his arms...his embrace...his bed...
CHAPTER SIX
IN A DAZE, Celeste walked upstairs to her flat. Her mind was reeling, her senses were reeling and the blood in her veins seemed to be alive with a spirit she could not quench or quell.
He had kissed her! Rafael had kissed her! And the touch of his lips was seared upon her own as if he were kissing her still—as if that coaxing, seductive velvet were still working its magic upon her.
Unconsciously she put her fingertips to her lips as she stepped inside her flat, leaning back breathless against the door, her vision blinking in the bright light, seeing not this light but the dim lamplight of the car’s interior, the sculpted outline of Rafael’s strong face, the dark light of his eyes as they held hers.
Her breath caught. How long—how emptily, achingly long?—had it been since she had been kissed? Years upon empty years!
