A Touch of Notoriety - By Carole Mortimer Page 0,62

course she was curious! But every time she gave in to that curiosity she remembered that Raphael had discharged his responsibility for her security onto Rodney after they had returned from the inn in Surrey. That he had left to visit his father without so much as a goodbye as soon as they had returned to Argentina. There was only so much pain an already broken heart could take, and her heart had been shattered the moment she knew she was so unimportant to Raphael he had left without saying that goodbye.

‘Yes, Beth, are you not curious as to why I continue to humiliate myself by asking if you will see me, knowing you will once again refuse me, when my every instinct demands that you allow me to speak with you?’

Beth’s head had snapped round towards the sound of that angry voice the moment Raphael first spoke, and she took a few seconds now to drink in the sight of him. His hair was once again neat and tidy, his jaw shaven, and yet there was still that strain about his eyes and mouth, the hollowness to his cheeks. And he was wearing one of those perfectly tailored three-piece suits and a pristine white shirt and grey silk tie, but it was still possible to see that he had lost weight in the week since she had seen him last.

Because he had asked to see her and she had refused him?

She somehow didn’t think so!

‘I’ll leave the two of you to talk.’ Grace straightened.

Beth didn’t take her gaze off the grim-faced Raphael. ‘We have nothing to talk about—’

‘Stop being so damned stubborn for once in your life and just listen to the man. You might actually learn something!’ Grace snapped reprovingly, turning on her heel to step around Raphael before leaving the room and closing the door softly but firmly behind her.

Leaving behind a speechless Beth. The two sisters had both been adopted by the Blakes, but they had bonded from the moment they first met, and Grace never lost her temper with her. Never, no matter how much Beth’s impulsiveness had annoyed or upset her.

‘Why does that never work for me?’ Raphael chuckled wryly as he stepped further into the room.

Her eyes flashed darkly. ‘Probably because—’

‘No, do not spoil it, Beth,’ he cajoled softly. ‘At least let me have my say before you throw me out again.’

‘I thought we had agreed we have nothing to say to each other.’

‘No, Beth, you said we had not, I did not agree. It was only—’ He began to pace the room restlessly. ‘The hospital, with your family all waiting outside, was not the time for this conversation. And you have refused to see me since you came home.’ He scowled darkly.

‘Because—’

‘I have not finished, Beth.’

She drew in a deep breath. ‘Okay.’ She nodded. ‘Say what you have to say, and then will you leave me alone?’

‘I am hoping not, no...’ Raphael looked down at her searchingly. Beth looked much better than she had a week ago when he last saw her at the hospital, but there was still a fine delicacy to the paleness of her face, and she looked as if she had lost weight, her denims and T-shirt slightly too large on her slender frame. It was natural to lose some weight after an operation, of course, but Raphael found he did not like to see her looking so delicate. Not his fiery Beth.

Except she was not his Beth...

‘You said some things to me in the hospital that I feel need an explanation. Not from you,’ he reassured her, ‘but from me. You seem to be under the impression that I passed your security to Rodney because I no longer wished to be anywhere near you.’

A slight blush entered her cheeks. ‘Well, didn’t you?’

‘No.’

She looked up at him uncertainly. ‘No?’

‘No,’ Raphael repeated grimly. ‘I handed your security to Rodney because I no longer trusted myself to be...impartial, where your security is concerned.’

Beth gave a slow shake of her head. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘Obviously not,’ he acknowledged grimly. ‘And I did not say goodbye to you before I left because if I had I would not have been able to leave! And I needed to do so. I had to talk to my father, to attempt to heal the rift between the two of us, before I could move forward with my life.’

‘And did you?’

‘Yes.’ He nodded.

She gave a tremulous smile. ‘I’m glad.’

So was Raphael. He had barely spent more than