LYNNE GRAHAM: A Fiery Baptism

She dashed a trembling hand across her streaming eyes. Until that moment she hadn’t realised that she was crying. The silence was so familiar, chilling, suffocating. ‘I should have known,’ she framed tremulously, defying the icy silence to the last. ‘I should have known.’

She walked out and they let her go as she had known they would. They would give her time to calm down and in a few days they would approach her, expecting family loyalty to have haltered her out-of-control emotions. Only this time that wouldn’t happen. Sarah only visited for her mother’s sake. She had always made excuses for her mother but now she had to face the fact that Louise had been in full collusion and agreement with her husband and she was nauseated by the knowledge that her parents had deliberately set out to break up her marriage and continued to rejoice in their success. Neither of them was remotely concerned about the high costs she had had to pay five years ago.

She sat in her car in the driveway for several dazed minutes. Her brain was roving off in a dozen different directions until it abruptly settled on one overwhelming necessity, a thread of seeming sanity in the nightmare of confusion. She had to find out where Rafael was staying. She had to see him, speak to him.

Karen answered her phone with a grumbling yawn. ‘Sarah,’ she muttered. ‘Why are you using a callbox?’

‘Do you know where Rafael Alejandro is staying?’ In the lengthy quiet that settled on the line, Sarah regretted her impetuosity and improvised awkwardly, ‘Someone I know needs to get in touch with him urgently.’

‘And you need to see a man about a dog.’ Karen was suddenly sounding very alert. ‘Actually I do know. Elise let it drop last night in a temper.’

‘Elise?’

‘The lady who brought him. Or should I say, the lady he allowed to bring him?’ Karen extended with irony. ‘I think we need a trade-off here, Sarah, my pet. Information for information.’

‘Karen, please!’ Sarah said impatiently.

Karen surrendered with bad grace and supplied the address.

‘Thanks. Thanks!’ Sarah said again. ‘I’ll be in touch.’

It was a small but exclusive apartment block in Belgravia. Pushing a nervous hand through the damp hair adhering to her forehead, Sarah stepped into the lift. She felt hot and bothered, utterly bereft of her usual cool. A little belatedly, she was wondering what she intended to say to Rafael and whether, in the heat of the moment, she might have been too hasty in her urge to immediately seek him out. She flinched when the lift doors whirred back and then she walked uncertainly along a corridor floored with a soft, deep carpet. The nasty suspicion that she might be about to make a gigantic fool of herself increased her reluctance.

A vase of beautifully arranged flowers sat in an alcove to one side of the entrance. Did Rafael own this place? Rent it? Whichever, this luxury was a far cry from the sort of flats they had once shared. She smoothed moist palms down over the tailored navy jacket and straight skirt she wore. Rafael hated navy. Frowning at the irrelevancy that her subconscious had served up, she pressed the bell.

She was midway through a second prolonged ring when the door jerked wide, framing Rafael. He was in the act of donning a white silk shirt, his thick hair damp and tousled from the shower. Drops of crystalline moisture still glistened on the wealth of black curling hair hazing his muscular chest. Involuntarily Sarah averted her eyes from the endless expanse of lean, golden flesh on view. Dry-mouthed, she swallowed. An odd tingling sensation ran down her backbone before she forced her head up again.

Raking golden eyes skimmed over her taut face and the brilliance of the unconscious appeal in her amethyst gaze. His superb bone-structure hardened, his ruthlessly sensual mouth tightening. Sensual…yes, those clean sculpted lines belied by that wholly passionate curve were uniquely sensual. The obscure thought-train surged up on Sarah out of nowhere, shocking her, sending rebellious heat to warm her skin. Her chaotic responses smashed her concentration and she was further confused by his silence. Silence from Rafael was an unknown quantity that unnerved her.

‘I need to talk to you.’ It emerged more as a plea than as the adult acknowledgement she had intended.

He took a fluid step back, employing body language to concede agreement. But it was a grudging invitation. He didn’t have to speak to tell her that. Rafael could put out vibes like placards. She was acutely conscious of the burning hostility he emanated.

‘I’m going out in ten minutes.’ Neither apology nor warning sounded in his intonation. It was an assertion that, no matter what she did, no matter what she said, he had no real intention of listening to her.

‘Perhaps you’ll change your mind when you hear what I have to say,’ Sarah fenced daringly.

CHAPTER THREE

SARAH was shown into a spacious lounge. It was very untidy. Books lay open on the couch. Cushions were tumbled on the floor and empty glasses littered a fine antique occasional table. And, oddly enough, for a timeless moment Sarah felt more at home and less of an intruder. The chaos which Rafael wreaked on his surroundings was disturbingly familiar and it threw up memories that threatened her self-discipline.

‘You have six minutes left,’ Rafael said with flaring impatience.

Sarah collided with intent golden eyes and hurriedly looked away again, her breath catching in her throat. ‘I saw my parents this morning.’

His strong jawline hardened. ‘Surely not an unusual event?’ he jibed. ‘Even when we were living in Paris, you contrived to see them three weeks out of every four!’

Her colour heightened but she decided to ignore the taunt. ‘Until I spoke to them, I had no idea that you returned to England to see me five years ago. Please believe that. They didn’t tell me.’

His narrowed hawk-like stare was discouraging. He exuded a daunting indifference to the revelation she had made. ‘That I can believe,’ he conceded unexpectedly. ‘What I do not comprehend is what this has to do with the present.’

Her emotions were running perilously close to the surface. Rigid with strain, she looked at him in stark appeal. ‘Don’t you understand? If…if I’d known, I would have been there…’

‘De veras?’ Rafael spread eloquent hands wide in a gesture of disbelief. ‘To greet your adulterous husband with open arms?’

Sarah visibly flinched from the suggestion.

Rafael arched a jet brow, his golden appraisal brilliant with contempt. ‘I think not.’

‘Since the situation didn’t arise, I can’t say what would have happened. But I would never have lied to you about the twins! Rafael…’ Her tongue tripped clumsily over the syllables. There was so much she needed to tell him but it was incredibly difficult to find the right words. To be open and honest about past events with so little encouragement demanded a degree of bravado that she had not previously exercised in Rafael’s radius. Frustration ran through her like a current. Self-expression was Rafael’s talent, not hers. Nobody ever went in ignorance of how Rafael felt or what he wanted and that ability, she appreciated now, was no small advantage in life. ‘You must see that this isn’t easy for—’

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.