A Touch of Notoriety - By Carole Mortimer Page 0,49

earlier, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t innately known what those feelings were. That somewhere, somehow, in amongst the hours they had spent arguing or annoying each other, and the hours she had spent denying she was Gabriela Navarro, she had managed to fall in love with him. Deeply, wildly, irrevocably in love. With Raphael Cardoba.

No doubt something else Raphael didn’t want to hear...

What a fool she was. What an absolute idiot, not to have realised before tonight what was happening to her. Not that she could have prevented herself from falling for Raphael; she knew falling in love wasn’t like that. She doubted her sister, Grace, would have fallen in love with a man as complicated as Cesar if it were! And now Beth had fallen in love with a man who was just as complicated. A man older and far more experienced than her. A man who seemed to have as many issues with his family as she had.

A man who had earlier made no secret of the fact that his interest in her was purely sexual...

Had been purely sexual.

Because Beth had no doubts that her admission of physical innocence had managed to kill even that.

‘—drive back there now—Beth, are you even listening to me?’ Raphael prompted hardly as he realised her attention had wandered elsewhere.

Although how she had managed to do that he had no idea, his own thoughts solely on the fact that he had almost taken her innocence tonight. He had thought that Beth, although perhaps not as experienced as he was, had at least been to bed with a man before tonight. The shock of realising she hadn’t, and that he had almost taken her innocence without thought or due consideration, would haunt him for a very long time.

As it was, he was furious. Not with Beth. But with himself. How could he have been so stupid not to have realised, not to have known, that she had never taken a lover before tonight?

Yes, Beth had an answer for everything. And yes, she gave every appearance of being a modern young woman with a definite mind of her own. And she had also been the one to inform him earlier that he either took up the offer to become her lover tonight or she would find another man who would. But even then, even then, she hadn’t given any indication that she had taken any previous lovers.

The question as to why she had chosen him to be her first lover was the least of Raphael’s concerns at this moment. Getting Beth home—at least, back to Cesar’s estate in Hampshire—and far away from any breath of scandal being attached to her name, because of the time she had spent here with him tonight, was Raphael’s main priority. Everything else could be discussed at a later date.

Or not, if the challenging tilt to Beth’s chin was any indication...

‘Get dressed,’ Raphael instructed harshly as he bent to collect up his own clothes.

She focused on him with effort. ‘Dressed?’

He nodded abruptly. ‘We are only about an hour away from the estate, and in the circumstances it would be best if we returned there tonight, after all.’

Best for whom? Beth wondered heavily as Raphael turned his back on her to begin pulling on his own clothes, and leaving her with no choice but to go back into the adjoining bathroom, where her clothes were, and lock the door before redressing.

Not that she thought there was any chance of Raphael entering the bathroom uninvited; he had made it more than clear that he had no intention of remaining in this hotel bedroom with her for another minute longer than he needed to!

Raphael didn’t speak to her when she came back into the bedroom a few minutes later to find him once again dressed in his three-piece suit, white shirt and meticulously knotted tie—and looking absolutely nothing like the sensual and predatory man who had made love to her such a short time ago. And whom she had made love to.

Instead he looked grimly remote as he opened the bedroom door for her to precede him out of the room and down the stairs, handing her the keys to the car so that she could continue outside as he disappeared to settle the bill with the landlord.

Any dignity Beth might have managed to salvage, after Raphael’s rejection of her when he realised her physical innocence, completely evaporated at the realisation she had just spent two hours in a hotel bedroom with