A Touch of Notoriety - By Carole Mortimer Page 0,56

they reached her brother’s apartment.

A conversation that would no doubt for ever damn him in Cesar’s eyes, as well as Beth’s...

* * *

‘Beth...! Oh, my God, Beth!’ Esther pulled her into a fierce and emotional hug the moment Beth stepped into the hallway of Cesar’s apartment, the other woman’s body shaking slightly as she burst into unashamed tears.

Beth hesitated for only a fraction of a second before she wrapped her own arms about Esther, tears blurring her vision as she clung to the woman who was her mother, wanting, somehow needing, that comfort at this moment. ‘I’m sorry. So sorry that I wouldn’t believe you before—’

‘And I’m sorry you had to go through the trauma of yesterday alone.’ Esther groaned as her arms tightened. ‘I should have been there for you...!’

‘I wasn’t alone, Raphael was there,’ Beth soothed, knowing, no matter how strained their relationship might be now, that without the strength of Raphael’s quiet support visiting Elizabeth Lawrence’s graveside yesterday would have been every bit as traumatic as Esther thought it was. ‘And it seems to me,’ she continued huskily, ‘that you’ve been there for me, waiting for me to return, for the past twenty-one years.’ She glanced over Esther’s shoulder and saw Carlos standing in the doorway of the sitting room, tears of happiness glistening in his dark eyes so like her own. ‘Both of you have,’ she added emotionally as she removed one of her arms from about Esther’s waist to hold her hand out to Carlos.

Carlos didn’t hesitate as he stepped forward to tightly grasp her hand in his. ‘Brela...!’

Beth gave him a tearful smile. ‘Papa.’ She used the same term of address she had heard Cesar use with their parents, surprised—overjoyed—at how right it sounded, and without feeling in the least a betrayal of the love the Lawrences and the Blakes had shown her for so many years. She had called the Lawrences ‘Mummy and Daddy’ and the Blakes ‘Mum and Dad’. She smiled tremulously at Esther. ‘Mama.’

Esther gave another choked sob as Carlos gathered both women in his arms and hugged them tightly to his chest. As if he never wanted, or intended, to let them go ever again.

How long the three of them remained that way Beth had no idea, clinging tightly to Esther and Carlos as she felt something inside her give way, collapse completely—a door opening into her heart?—to allow these two wonderful people inside.

These were her parents. The mother who had carried her in her womb for nine months, the two wonderful people who had loved and nurtured her for the first two years of her life, who had continued to love, to mourn, the daughter they had lost so many years ago. As Cesar was her brother—

Beth looked up and saw him standing in the same doorway where their father had been only seconds ago, a tall and imperiously arrogant man, and yet there was that same bright sheen of tears glinting in his dark eyes. ‘You, too, ’Zar,’ she encouraged huskily as she held her hand out

to him.

‘Brela...!’ he choked even as he stepped forward to wrap his arms about all of them, the two Navarro men cradling their women within the protective circle of their arms. ‘Oh, God, Brela!’

* * *

Raphael stood off to one side watching this exchange, more happy than he could ever have expressed at seeing the Navarro family reunited at long last.

‘Thank you so much for all that you’ve done, Raphael.’

Raphael glanced down at Grace Blake as she moved to stand beside him, tears falling hotly down her cheeks as she watched her adopted sister being embraced by the man who was her brother—and also the man who would soon become Grace’s own husband—and Beth’s real mother and father, the couple who would shortly become Grace’s own mother- and father-in-law. It was, Raphael decided, a fitting solution to a situation that could have proved so delicately awkward.

He gave a shake of his head. ‘I did very little.’

‘I don’t believe that for a moment.’ Grace gave a firm shake of her head.

He gave Grace an indulgent smile. ‘Why is it that you Blake women never have a handkerchief when you need one?’ he teased softly as he pulled a neatly folded white silk handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to Grace.

She mopped up the worst of her deluge of tears, a frown now between her blue-green eyes. ‘Beth has been crying?’

‘Naturally so.’ Raphael nodded.

Grace glanced across at her adopted sister. ‘I’m so proud