A Touch of Notoriety - By Carole Mortimer Page 0,2
in the US where she grew up, the couple had been sharing a bedroom in Cesar’s apartment since Grace had returned to Buenos Aires with Beth at her side...
Beth sighed heavily. ‘I’m sorry, okay? I just needed some time to myself.’
Raphael looked down at Beth Blake from behind the mirrored shades of his sunglasses, easily able to read the emotions flitting across her expressive—and extremely beautiful—face. A part of him even sympathised with her obvious bewilderment at being taken to be the newly returned Gabriela Navarro. But the medical proof of blood tests could not be easily denied, and, as a childhood friend of Cesar’s, Raphael knew how important this young woman was to the Navarro family. A family—the calm and steady Carlos, the warm and loving Esther, and the coolly arrogant Cesar—who had taken Raphael in as one of their own after a row with his father so many years ago had caused him to leave home.
As such, whether the feisty and stubbornly independent Beth Blake accepted her new identity or not—and she obviously did not—Raphael intended ensuring, by whatever means possible, that she remained safe while on his watch. And, as far as Beth was concerned, his watch now covered the whole twenty-four hours of every one of her days!
Something she had shown him—once again!—by just disappearing from Cesar’s apartment earlier that she deeply resented. ‘Gabriela—’
‘My name is Beth, damn it!’ she corrected, her eyes flashing darkly, two bright spots of angry colour having appeared in her cheeks.
Cheeks normally as pale and smooth as the finest porcelain, her eyes a deep rich brown above her small uptilting nose, her mouth a perfect bow above her stubbornly determined chin. As for her long silky hair...! Raphael had only ever seen one other woman with hair those heavy layers of all shades of blond, from gold to the palest silver, and that was Esther Navarro. The woman’s blood tests had shown to be Beth’s birth mother.
He shrugged broad shoulders. ‘I now think of you as Gabriela Navarro.’ Having been only a precocious two years old when she was taken from her real family, Beth would no more remember having met Raphael before than she did the Navarro family. But he remembered her, had stayed often with Cesar’s family even then, usually during the school holidays, and Gabriela had been Cesar’s beloved baby sister, a golden-haired angel to be petted and spoilt by the two much older boys.
At the moment Beth Blake looked as pettable as a spitting tigress. ‘Well, isn’t it just lucky for me that I have absolutely no interest in what, or who, you happen to think I am!’
‘I do not “happen” to think anything, it has been medically proven as fact that you are Gabriela Navarro. And it is equally lucky for me that I have absolutely no interest in what you may think of me, either.’ Raphael allowed a mocking smile to quirk his lips, knowing by the way those rich brown eyes narrowed that Beth Blake did not appreciate his humour at her expense.
She gave an inelegant snort. ‘You really don’t want to know what I think of you, Raphael!’
As her bodyguard, perhaps not, but as a man? Oh, yes, much as she might wish it were otherwise, the completely carnal glances Beth Blake gave him from beneath those thick dark lashes whenever she thought Raphael wasn’t looking at her told him that she saw him very much as a man. And was attracted to what she saw.
As much as she resented his status as her bodyguard!
A status that Raphael, equally aware of the allure of the fullness of Beth’s breasts and the sensual curve of her gently swaying hips, was determined to keep front and centre in all of his dealings with Beth Blake. To do anything else would compromise his protection of her.
‘Perhaps not,’ he drawled dismissively. ‘Shall we return to the apartment now?’
She shot him a weary glance. ‘Why do you bother asking, when you have every intention of taking me back there now whether I want to go or not?’
‘And why do you bother continually fighting what is, after all, your destiny?’ Raphael eyed her coolly from behind those wraparound sunglasses.
Beth gave a pained frown. ‘Perhaps because I don’t see it as my destiny?’
‘Grace appears to be having little difficulty in accepting the Navarro family as her own.’
Beth Blake gave a rueful smile. ‘It’s different for Grace. She’s chosen to fall in love with Cesar, to accept Cesar’s marriage proposal, and