A Touch of Notoriety - By Carole Mortimer Page 0,55

back the long tangle of blond hair from her face.

‘We will shortly begin our descent,’ Raphael answered her distractedly: if anything Beth looked paler to him now than she had earlier. ‘Are you still...in discomfort?’ he amended tightly as he remembered her angry reaction to the last time they had this conversation.

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Raphael...!’ She reacted just as impatiently this time, too, shooting him an irritated glance from beneath lowered brows as she pushed herself up against the pillows.

‘I am merely concerned—’

‘I’m fine!’ Beth glared at him in the hopes of hiding her grimace of pain from him; far from going away, the pain in her side seemed to have got worse! ‘What are you doing?’ She flinched back as Raphael reached a hand out towards her.

‘Checking to see if you have a temperature.’ Raphael scowled at her reaction.

‘I would be flushed, not pale, if I had a temperature,’ she scoffed dismissively.

Raphael ignored her protests as he touched his hand against her forehead. ‘You feel hot...’

‘So would you if you’d had your head buried under the bedcovers for hours!’ Beth swatted his hand away exasperatedly before pulling ineffectually at the bedcovers he sat on. ‘For goodness’ sake, move, Raphael, so that I can get out of bed and come through to the main cabin and strap myself in for landing.’

He remained exactly where he was as he continued to look at her frowningly. ‘Perhaps I should call Cesar and ask him to have a doctor standing by for when we arrive—’

‘And perhaps you should just do as I ask and go away,’ Beth instructed through gritted teeth.

He stared at her in obvious frustration for several long seconds. A penetrating stare that Beth met head on, her chin raised stubbornly.

There was no way, absolutely no way, that she was going to admit to the amount of pain she was in. She certainly wasn’t going to submit herself to some sort of internal examination—along with an embarrassing explanation as to why Raphael felt it was necessary—the moment she arrived at Cesar’s apartment in Buenos Aires. Not only would that be too humiliating, it was likely to cause trouble between Cesar and Raphael.

She might be angry with Raphael, might inwardly wish that he felt the same way about her as she did him, but that didn’t mean she wanted to cause a rift between Cesar and Raphael. As there was sure to be if Cesar learnt just how close she and her bodyguard—former bodyguard—had become these past few days.

Raphael gave a shake of his head. ‘I do not believe this amount of...discomfort is normal, in these circumstances—’

‘I don’t want to hear what is or isn’t normal “in these circumstances”.’ Beth continued to glare at him. ‘Or how you happen to know what’s normal,’ she muttered irritably. ‘I’m a little sore from last night, and slightly hot from sleeping under the bedcovers, but that’s it.’

‘If you are sure?’

‘I’m so sure that if you don’t soon leave then I swear I’m going to start screaming,’ she threatened.

Raphael stood up abruptly. ‘Your bad-temperedness in the mornings obviously extends to whatever time of day you wake up.’

Beth gave a reluctant smile. ‘Nice to know you were listening to me.’

‘Oh, I always listen to you, Beth,’ he murmured huskily. ‘Even when what you are saying is not pleasant.’

She gave him a sharp look. Did Raphael know how she felt about him, after all? And was his answer, to realising she was in love with him, to immediately put Rodney in his place as her bodyguard? God, was the humiliation never going to end?

‘Fine,’ she bit out abruptly. ‘Well, what I’m saying now is that I’m perfectly okay, and that I just need a couple of minutes’ privacy to freshen myself up, and then I’ll join you and Rodney in the main cabin.’

‘Very well.’ He gave a terse inclination of his head. ‘But if you are not improved by the time we get to Cesar’s— Do not scream!’ he bit out harshly as Beth opened her mouth to do exactly that.

She gave an unrepentant shrug. ‘Can’t say I haven’t warned you.’

No, Raphael could not claim that at all; Beth was a woman who always did what she said she was going to do. Including screaming, if he didn’t leave immediately and give her the privacy she asked for.

Which in no way changed the fact that, whether Beth liked it or not, Raphael had every intention of talking to Cesar if she seemed no better by the time