A Touch of Notoriety - By Carole Mortimer Page 0,31

for several dazed seconds, her eyes a dark and slightly unfocused black. ‘What just happened?’

Raphael wished he knew the answer to that. Or did he? This attraction he felt for Beth Blake was becoming something of a problem for him. ‘We have an audience,’ he explained harshly.

Beth glanced dazedly over one of Raphael’s broad shoulders to see several of her work colleagues—including a smilingly indulgent Amy!—looking at the two of them curiously as Beth was very soundly kissed—and returning the passion of that kiss!—outside her office building.

She pulled back abruptly, her eyes accusing as she glared up at Raphael. ‘I don’t enjoy being used!’

He frowned darkly. ‘I believe you were the one who chose to tell your work colleagues that the two of us are involved as a way of explaining my presence here.’

Beth eyed him impatiently. ‘There’s a difference between my having to tell them that and having you make love to me in the middle of a public street.’

Raphael looked down at her for several moments, knowing that he shouldn’t have kissed Beth just now, and feeling angry with himself for further complicating an already complicated situation.

‘As I am sure you are well aware, I had not even begun to make love to you...’ he rasped harshly.

Colour flooded her cheeks. ‘You know exactly what I meant!’

Yes, Raphael knew exactly what Beth meant. Just as he knew the accusation was perfectly justified, and that a few minutes more of kissing Beth and he would have totally ignored—forgotten!—the fact that he was here in England to act as her protector rather than her lover.

He drew himself up stiffly. ‘It will not happen again.’

Beth drew in a sharp breath at the coldness of Raphael’s tone, at the same time as she inwardly acknowledged she was more affected by being kissed by him than she should have been. Or wanted to be. ‘Just—just because the two of us kissed yesterday, doesn’t mean I intend to let you make a habit of it,’ she warned exasperatedly at the same time as her heart skipped a beat—several beats!—just at the thought of being kissed by Raphael again.

‘I have said it will not happen again,’ he rasped icily.

‘And I bet you’re a man who never breaks his word, huh?’ she came back scornfully.

His eyes glittered with that same coldness. ‘I am a man who tries never to break his word, yes.’

Beth grimaced. ‘Well, in this case I advise that you do more than try!’

‘Or?’

Beth was incensed by the glint of mocking humour she detected in those piercing blue eyes. ‘Or you can go to hell along with my big brother—’ She broke off in shocked surprise as she realised that for the first time she had referred to Cesar Navarro as her brother. As if she was finally starting to accept the concept that she just might be Gabriela Navarro, after all... ‘It’s time I went back to work,’ she bit out abruptly, her expression bleak, and her gaze no longer meeting Raphael’s. ‘And no doubt you will continue your vigil throughout the afternoon?’ she rallied enough to mock dryly.

‘No doubt.’ Raphael nodded slowly, ignoring Beth’s outburst in favour of recognising that she had just referred to Cesar as her brother, and feeling a certain amount of relief at that knowledge. No matter how much she would prefer it not to be the truth, it would seem that, inwardly at least, Beth was starting to accept her destiny might be as Gabriela Navarro.

Which might be as well, when Raphael might, hoped, to be in possession of confirmation of that fact later on today...

* * *

‘This morning I now understand, but your silence this evening is very...un-Beth-like.’

Beth turned from gazing out of the window to look at Raphael instead as he once again sat in the front of the limousine beside Edward. A limousine that had, thankfully, been parked around the corner from her office building when Beth left work half an hour ago. At Raphael’s request? Out of consideration for the fact that he knew Beth didn’t want any of her work colleagues to see her getting into the back of a chauffeur-driven limousine? Probably.

To say Beth had been disturbed by that unexpected kiss earlier—no matter what reason Raphael claimed for instigating it!—would be an understatement. So much so that she had found herself wandering over to the windows once or twice during the afternoon—or it just might have been a dozen times!—and gazing down at him in frowning confusion.

Not only did his dark and