Carole Mortimer - A Touch of Notoriety

Beth stilled, knowing from the closeness of Raphael’s voice that he was standing just behind her.

‘Beth?’

She turned to face him, wavering slightly as she found that Raphael was standing only inches away from her, those piercing blue eyes still narrowed in his harshly chiselled face.

Her eyes flashed darkly. ‘What more do you want from me?’

What did Raphael want from this woman?

It was easy to imagine making love to her: kissing those delectable and poutingly stubborn lips, enjoying and pleasuring those lean, silkily slender curves, caressing and tasting the fullness of her breasts.

Oh, yes—it was all too easy for Raphael to imagine making slow and leisurely love with Beth Blake.

But the sister of his best friend, the daughter of the couple who had long ago taken him in as one of their own…?

No, Raphael could only ever be the man who stood in silent watch over that woman—who ensured, for her family’s sake, that no harm came to her ever again.

After dark with Argentina’s most infamous billionaires!

Cesar Navarro and Raphael Cordoba—

two Argentinians with the wealth, magnetism and ruthlessness to break many a woman’s heart…

Grace and Beth—

two ordinary British women about to make their

first foray into the sultry heat of Buenos Aires nights…

Read all about Grace and her boss Cesar in:

A TASTE OF THE FORBIDDEN

April 2013

and Beth and her bodyguard Raphael in:

A TOUCH OF NOTORIETY

May 2013

CAROLE MORTIMERwas born in England, the youngest of three children. She began writing in 1978, and has now written over one hundred and fifty books for Harlequin Mills & Boon ®. Carole has six sons: Matthew, Joshua, Timothy, Michael, David and Peter. She says, ‘I’m happily married to Peter senior; we’re best friends as well as lovers, which is probably the best recipe for a successful relationship. We live in a lovely part of England.’

Recent titles by the same author:

A TASTE OF THE FORBIDDEN

(Buenos Aires Nights)

HIS REPUTATION PRECEDES HIM

(The Lyonedes Legacy)

DEFYING DRAKON

(The Lyonedes Legacy)

THE TALK OF HOLLYWOOD

Did you know these are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk

www.millsandboon.co.uk

‘PARDON, SEÑORITA?’

Beth looked up to smile at the handsome young man who, until a few moments ago, had been sitting at a neighbouring table enjoying a cup of coffee at the same outside café in the San Telmo area of Buenos Aires, and shooting her the occasional admiring glance from beautiful chocolate-brown eyes.

But before she could respond she saw a movement out of the corner of her eye as another man approached at a speed totally at odds with his overwhelming height and muscular build. Two seconds later one of the younger man’s arms was twisted painfully up behind his back, totally immobilising him.

‘Raphael!’ Beth muttered in embarrassed protest as she rose to her feet, very tall and slim in a black T-shirt and denims beneath her brown leather jacket.

Raphael didn’t so much as glance at her. ‘Back off,’ he ordered the startled young man coldly, not easing his grip for a second, his expression grimly detached.

‘You’re the one who should back off, Raphael!’ Beth shot him an exasperated glance. ‘In fact, you shouldn’t even be here…’ So much for believing she had managed to escape for even a short time; she should have known that Raphael Cordoba would eventually track her down and ruin her few moments of peace!

‘Is this man bothering you?’ The young Argentinian braved the other man’s wrath as he now spoke to her in heavily accented English.

Was Raphael Cordoba bothering her?

Raphael Cordoba had been ‘bothering’ Beth since the moment she first met him! And not just because she hated having him dog her footsteps day and night…

Over six feet of male perfection—dark hair framing a chiselled face dominated by piercing blue eyes that any male model would envy, broad shoulders and a leanly muscled body that not even the three-piece suits Raphael habitually wore could disguise—was apt to do that to a woman!

‘I thought only to talk to you?’ The younger man grimaced, obviously as overwhelmed by the forceful Raphael as Beth was.

‘I know.’ Beth shot Raphael a censorious glance.

‘It is safe to leave you with this man?’

‘Safer than with you, you—’

‘Raphael, please!’ Beth reproved wearily, having to admire the younger man’s persistence in the face of Raphael’s fierce displeasure. ‘It’s…complicated,’ she excused as she smiled at the other man reassuringly. ‘But it’s okay—he doesn’t have any intention of harming me.’

‘You are sure?’

‘She is sure,’ Raphael answered the younger man grimly, with a deadly expression she was also sure would be in those piercing blue eyes currently hidden behind black mirror-shaded wraparound sunglasses.

And if there was one thing Beth was very sure of, it was that Raphael Cordoba wasn’t going to harm her. The opposite, in fact; he was her bodyguard, employed by Cesar Navarro, and here to ensure that no one else harmed her. Or rather, that no one harmed Gabriela Navarro, the young woman everyone now believed Beth to be.

Except Beth herself…

Just a week ago she had been quietly going about her life in England, enjoying her new job working Monday to Friday in a London publishing house, and feeling only mildly anxious that her sister, Grace, had flown to Argentina for the weekend with her new boss, the breathtakingly handsome billionaire Cesar Navarro, in his private jet. Never in a million years could Beth ever have guessed that Grace’s stay in Buenos Aires would have such a profound effect on her own life!

But here she was only days later, also in Buenos Aires, the blood tests having convinced everyone—except Beth herself!—that she was Gabriela, the daughter of Carlos and Esther Navarro, who had been abducted twenty-one years ago.

And Raphael Cordoba, previously Cesar Navarro’s own personal bodyguard, now watched over Beth’s every move. To the point, it seemed, of attacking handsome young men who had only wanted to talk to her!

‘Let him go, Raphael,’ Beth muttered wearily, knowing her few minutes of freedom were very definitely over. ‘I’m leaving now anyway,’ she assured him heavily. ‘I think the milk has gone sour in my coffee!’ She drew some money from her shoulder bag and threw it down onto the tabletop to cover the cost of her drink before walking off without so much as a second glance at either man. Why bother, when she was never going to be allowed to sit and talk to the younger man—it was safer for him if she didn’t—and she knew if she left Raphael would only be a few steps behind her?

As he had been only a few steps behind her in the days since those blood tests had supposedly proven Beth was the missing Gabriela Navarro. Beth clung to that ‘supposedly’. She had to. Because she absolutely refused to accept the results of those blood tests until Cesar Navarro’s investigations had found some other form of proof to back up that claim.

Much as she had come to like Carlos and Esther Navarro these past few days, Beth was still sure there had to have been some sort of mistake. Her parents—her real parents, James and Carla Lawrence—had loved her. Her adoptive parents, the Blakes, had also loved her. Having to accept that she was neither Elizabeth Lawrence nor Beth Blake, but someone else completely, was enough to make Beth’s stomach clench and her hands tremble every time she thought about it.