Christine Feehan - Dark Secret

We will be alone soon enough, Colby, there is no need for all this fear. You and the children are under my protection. That is no small thing. If you do not believe in me, then believe in Armando. He sent for the family. They are men of honor. If they believed I would harm you, do you think they would allow such a thing?

I don't know. They're very loyal to you. She didn't know. She honestly didn't. How could she be so attracted to someone she didn't even trust? How could she allow him to do the things he'd done to her body and still crave more? It didn't make sense to her. And the Chevez brothers feared him. She sensed the uneasiness in them whenever the conversation turned to Rafael. He was much more than a man with unique talents such as Colby had. He was far more powerful. And there was a darkness inside of him she often caught glimpses of. As much as she was drawn to Rafael, she was also equally repelled, her sense of self-preservation kicking in strongly. He was taking her over, bit by bit, cell by cell. Her heart. Her lungs. It felt as if she couldn't breathe without him. No one else looked at her with that burning hungry gaze. No one touched her with such command, such need. He was dominant in every way and something in her she couldn't control responded to him, needed him, craved him, even when she wasn't certain of who or what he was.

"Go over the papers, Colby." Rafael sounded tender. "We will be in the other room. Ginny is interested in vegetarian soup recipes and I am quite good in that particular area."

Colby stared at Rafael, almost afraid to make a decision. You won't… she couldn't actually form an accusation. What if he had directed their minds to do something harmful? Could he have done that?

His black eyes ignited with anger for a moment. Yes, I could have, but I did not. He turned on his heel and stalked out of the room.

Paul slipped his arm around Ginny's shoulders. "I'm not going to pretend I know what's going on between you two, but he offered us a huge loan for practically nothing, Colby, and if we don't get money soon we're going to lose the ranch."

Colby shrugged. "Well, maybe you're being altogether too trusting, Paul. You ought to know by now you don't get something for nothing. It never works that way."

"Maybe so, Colby, but then again you're the one who trusted Daniels enough to take the loan," Paul snapped at her.

Colby winced as though he'd struck her. To her shock, her eyes actually brimmed with tears. Ginny ran to her, circling her waist with protective arms, glaring openly at her brother.

"Do not let me hear you speak to your sister again like that, Paul." Rafael's large frame filled the doorway. He always seemed to materialize out of nowhere, moving unseen and silently to appear and take over. He looked directly at the teenager. "You are too old to yell out accusations when you do not have all the facts. Colby deserves far more respect from you." There was a lash in the quiet strength of his voice. "Think before you speak, boy. I am quite capable of introducing you to the concept of manners." Rafael stepped back in invitation to allow Paul to precede him, his gaze steely.

Paul looked defiant for a moment, his face slowly turning red. Ginny moved first, hurrying quickly past Rafael into the other room, pausing just long enough to give her brother one indignant look. Colby, for once, didn't help Paul, staring down at the scuffed toes of her boots as if she couldn't bear to look at him. As if he had hurt her so deeply with his accusation that she couldn't face him or anyone else.

"Colby." He said her name softly, already sorry for lashing out at her. He wasn't even sure why he did it, only that he didn't like the way Rafael was looking at Colby, or the way she was looking back at him.

She shook her head without looking up. Paul followed Ginny into the living room. Colby unfolded the papers reluctantly and spread the offending document onto the kitchen table. It was strictly businesslike, legal and very fair. She could find no fault with it. Rafael had left her no way out, no logical reason to refuse him. The sum was for the amount of money she needed to pay off Daniels and enough to rebuild and even add new equipment. Colby didn't have the kind of cash Daniels or De La Cruz had and she never would.

"Are you planning on scowling at it all day or shall we sign it and get it over with?" Rafael broke into her thoughts, leaning against the doorframe, his arms folded across his chest.

She glanced at him, a slight frown on her face. "I'm reading it over, looking for hidden traps."

"It is not going to work, you know," he said, his voice low.

"What isn't going to work?" she retorted.

"Trying to start a fight with me. It will not run me off. You think to make me go back to my homeland. Do you not realize yet that it is too late for that?"

Colby pushed a hand through her hair and regarded him with serious eyes. "I know we need to have a talk, Rafael."

He indicated the papers with a graceful wave of his hand.

"Is it really so hard to decide? Would you have rather I turned my back on you and the children? It is only money. I would have given it to you, but you would not have taken it. Money means nothing to me, it never has." He sighed, his black gaze fastened on her very expressive face. "You hate the fact that I offered the money, but really, querida, you had me either way. If I had not offered it, what kind of a man would I have been?" There was no note of censure in his voice, he simply was stating a fact.

Colby was instantly ashamed. It was true. She totally resented him either way. And she didn't trust his motives. Rafael extracted a gold pen from his pocket and held it out to her, his dark eyes eloquent. Colby shook her head at the folly of what she was doing, but she took the pen. Her fingers brushed his, sent a frisson of awareness down her spine. He could do that, but was it simple chemistry? Colby didn't know why she was so attracted to him. She thought he was cold, yet he sometimes burned with such intensity she melted around him. Which was the real Rafael? She thought him selfish and arrogant, yet he was first on the ranch helping nonstop in a crisis. He had sheltered Ginny in the midst of the crisis in spite of the fact that he had been in extreme discomfort. And he was offering the money at more than reasonable terms so they could keep the ranch. Had she been that wrong about him?

No, pequena, you were not so wrong about me. The words brushed in her mind almost tenderly.

Colby glanced up at him, startled. It was disconcerting to have him reading her every thought. "I guess we do need to talk. You need to explain to me just what is going on between us, because I don't know what it is." She wasn't going to be put off. He had promised to talk with her and she meant to hold him to it.

"Do you really believe I have something to do with the problems on this ranch?" Rafael stirred for the first time, a lazy, casual move very reminiscent of a jungle cat as he straightened and moved toward her, immediately filling the entire kitchen with his presence.

The phone rang shrilly. They could hear Paul and Ginny both racing to answer it. Colby pushed open the screen door. She needed the night air, the wide-open spaces. She didn't turn her head and she didn't hear Rafael walking, but she felt him moving right behind her.

As they walked across the yard, his hand brushed hers. At once her heart went crazy, pounding wildly before she could prevent it. She glanced up at him from under long lashes, surreptitiously putting her hand behind her back. "Why did you come here, Rafael? Why are you here at all? You don't belong here, do you?"

"My brothers and I rarely travel. We prefer to stay near the rain forest." He glanced up at the looming mountain range shadowing the ranch. "We need the wilds. Even together we have always been solitary."