A Touch of Notoriety

chapter SEVEN



RAPHAEL HAD GIVEN in to the need he had been suffering under for the past hour: to kiss this woman. The initial arousal an hour ago, as he had watched Beth nibbling on bread sticks, had only increased as he had been unable to look away as he watched each morsel of food passing those full and sensual lips.

He gave a groan now and deepened the kiss as Beth parted those lips beneath his, her hands sliding up his chest and over the width of his shoulders, before her fingers became entangled in the short hair at his nape as she curved her body into his.

A response that caused Raphael’s already pulsing arousal to become even harder and more insistent, an insistence that demanded he take this woman...now!

A realisation that shot such a wave of foreboding through him that he abruptly ended the kiss to put Beth firmly away from him before his hands dropped back to his sides, his lids narrowing as he looked down at her warily.

Beth returned that gaze for several dazed seconds, her eyes a dark and slightly unfocused black. ‘What just happened?’

Raphael wished he knew the answer to that. Or did he? This attraction he felt for Beth Blake was becoming something of a problem for him. ‘We have an audience,’ he explained harshly.

Beth glanced dazedly over one of Raphael’s broad shoulders to see several of her work colleagues—including a smilingly indulgent Amy!—looking at the two of them curiously as Beth was very soundly kissed—and returning the passion of that kiss!—outside her office building.

She pulled back abruptly, her eyes accusing as she glared up at Raphael. ‘I don’t enjoy being used!’

He frowned darkly. ‘I believe you were the one who chose to tell your work colleagues that the two of us are involved as a way of explaining my presence here.’

Beth eyed him impatiently. ‘There’s a difference between my having to tell them that and having you make love to me in the middle of a public street.’

Raphael looked down at her for several moments, knowing that he shouldn’t have kissed Beth just now, and feeling angry with himself for further complicating an already complicated situation.

‘As I am sure you are well aware, I had not even begun to make love to you...’ he rasped harshly.

Colour flooded her cheeks. ‘You know exactly what I meant!’

Yes, Raphael knew exactly what Beth meant. Just as he knew the accusation was perfectly justified, and that a few minutes more of kissing Beth and he would have totally ignored—forgotten!—the fact that he was here in England to act as her protector rather than her lover.

He drew himself up stiffly. ‘It will not happen again.’

Beth drew in a sharp breath at the coldness of Raphael’s tone, at the same time as she inwardly acknowledged she was more affected by being kissed by him than she should have been. Or wanted to be. ‘Just—just because the two of us kissed yesterday, doesn’t mean I intend to let you make a habit of it,’ she warned exasperatedly at the same time as her heart skipped a beat—several beats!—just at the thought of being kissed by Raphael again.

‘I have said it will not happen again,’ he rasped icily.

‘And I bet you’re a man who never breaks his word, huh?’ she came back scornfully.

His eyes glittered with that same coldness. ‘I am a man who tries never to break his word, yes.’

Beth grimaced. ‘Well, in this case I advise that you do more than try!’

‘Or?’

Beth was incensed by the glint of mocking humour she detected in those piercing blue eyes. ‘Or you can go to hell along with my big brother—’ She broke off in shocked surprise as she realised that for the first time she had referred to Cesar Navarro as her brother. As if she was finally starting to accept the concept that she just might be Gabriela Navarro, after all... ‘It’s time I went back to work,’ she bit out abruptly, her expression bleak, and her gaze no longer meeting Raphael’s. ‘And no doubt you will continue your vigil throughout the afternoon?’ she rallied enough to mock dryly.

‘No doubt.’ Raphael nodded slowly, ignoring Beth’s outburst in favour of recognising that she had just referred to Cesar as her brother, and feeling a certain amount of relief at that knowledge. No matter how much she would prefer it not to be the truth, it would seem that, inwardly at least, Beth was starting to accept her destiny might be as Gabriela Navarro.

Which might be as well, when Raphael might, hoped, to be in possession of confirmation of that fact later on today...

* * *

‘This morning I now understand, but your silence this evening is very...un-Beth-like.’

Beth turned from gazing out of the window to look at Raphael instead as he once again sat in the front of the limousine beside Edward. A limousine that had, thankfully, been parked around the corner from her office building when Beth left work half an hour ago. At Raphael’s request? Out of consideration for the fact that he knew Beth didn’t want any of her work colleagues to see her getting into the back of a chauffeur-driven limousine? Probably.

To say Beth had been disturbed by that unexpected kiss earlier—no matter what reason Raphael claimed for instigating it!—would be an understatement. So much so that she had found herself wandering over to the windows once or twice during the afternoon—or it just might have been a dozen times!—and gazing down at him in frowning confusion.

Not only did his dark and brooding good looks make her heart beat faster, but she was also drawn to the quiet strength Raphael exuded, an unspoken assurance that no harm would come to anyone he cared about—or, as in Beth’s case, who was in his care—on his watch. It was a strange, and yet intriguing, combination; dangerous sensuality alongside that quiet and yet totally reassuring strength.

An irresistible combination as far as Beth was concerned!

Which, in the circumstances, was pretty stupid of her...

She gave him a tight, humourless smile. ‘I thought it was a woman’s prerogative to be unpredictable? As well as irrational and unreasonable? Edward obviously understands that, if you don’t,’ she added dryly as she heard the chauffeur chuckle softly.

‘I’m a married man, miss. What else need I say?’ The chauffeur continued to chuckle indulgently.

‘And, as a married man, you find this uncertainty of mood acceptable?’ Raphael gave the other man a searching glance.

‘It is what it is, Mr Cordoba.’ Edward shrugged. ‘Can’t live with ’em, can’t live without ’em. Besides, it’s the unpredictable element of our women that keeps a man on his toes.’

‘If you say so...’ Raphael murmured slowly.

Beth would have laughed at the doubtful expression on Raphael’s face—if she hadn’t been reeling slightly from Edward’s comment of ‘our women’! Because she wasn’t, and never would be, Raphael Cordoba’s ‘woman’.

Did she want to be?

Her life felt too complicated at this moment for Beth to be sure what she wanted. From anyone or anything.

‘You sound less than impressed, Raphael,’ she drawled dryly.

He arched one dark brow. ‘At least you are talking now.’

Beth gave a rueful smile. ‘I thought talking was another thing we women did too much of.’

His mouth twisted derisively. ‘I believe it is the conversations that begin with “the two of us need to talk” that are apt to send shivers down a man’s spine!’

‘And do you speak from personal experience?’ she came back sweetly—at the same time as Beth realised she didn’t like even the thought of Raphael ever being so deeply involved with a woman that there had ever been the need for one of those conversations. That she actually felt jealous of the women from Raphael’s past. And possibly his present? Because they might have discussed whether or not Beth had anyone else in her life right now, but the subject of Raphael’s past or present relationships had never entered their conversation.

‘No, I do not, thank goodness.’ Raphael’s dismissive reply was no help in answering that question, either.

‘I think I’ll close my eyes and have a sleep for the rest of the journey,’ Beth muttered before leaning her head back and closing her eyes, effectively shutting out the sight of Raphael if not her complete awareness of him.

Raphael frowned as he looked at Beth’s closed lids. The eyes were the windows to the soul, he had heard. And it could not have been more true where Beth was concerned. Those dark brown eyes, fiery with anger one moment, gleaming with laughter the next, and then dark and seductive during arousal, were a complete reflection of Beth’s emotions.

Emotions Raphael had no chance of reading when her lids were closed.

Deliberately so, he believed.

Because, for all of her outward bravado, there was another part of Beth that she kept completely hidden. The part deep inside her that was confused and hurting at the mere thought of being Gabriela Navarro rather than Beth Blake.

Raphael had no doubts that her need not to share those emotions with him was because Beth considered him to be another one of the people conspiring to prove that was exactly who she was.

And she would be right...

* * *

Rodney was once again waiting for them in the cavernous hallway of Cesar’s mansion house when they arrived back at the estate half an hour or so later. One look at the bland expression on Rodney’s face as he gave Raphael a brief nod in answer to his silently enquiring glance was enough to set all of Beth’s alarm bells ringing.

‘What’s happened?’ she prompted warily.

Rodney looked at her blankly. ‘“Happened”, Miss Navarro?’

The ‘Miss Navarro’ just made those alarm bells jangle all the louder.

‘Happened,’ she echoed grimly. ‘And don’t try and tell me that nothing has,’ she warned as the security man opened his mouth to reply, ‘because I won’t believe you. Either of you,’ she added with a pointed glance at Raphael.

Raphael’s expression remained coolly aloof. ‘I am sure, after your hard day at work, that you must now wish to freshen up and change before dinner.’

Beth set her feet more firmly on the tiled hallway. ‘Not until I know what’s going on.’

Raphael’s mouth tightened with impatience at the look of stubbornness on Beth’s face as she looked up at him challengingly. ‘You will be informed of what is going on after I have spoken to Rodney. Alone,’ he added tightly as Beth’s expression now set in mutinous lines.

She gave a slow and stiff shake of her head. ‘That isn’t good enough.’

‘Nevertheless—’

‘Raphael, unless I’m mistaken, it’s my life, and my future, the two of you are going to be discussing!’ Her brown eyes flashed darkly with anger.

Yes, it was, and Raphael had no doubts, having come to know Beth much better these last few days, that her present anger was a shield to those other, bewildered and frightened emotions she kept locked inside her, rather than anger itself.

His expression gentled slightly. ‘And if I were to promise to inform you immediately, if what Rodney is about to report is of relevance to you?’ Raphael winced slightly as he sensed, rather than saw, the way Rodney stiffened.

Implying the investigations the other man had carried out today, under Raphael’s instruction, were indeed significant...

Beth was still eyeing the two of them with suspicion. ‘I have your word on that?’

Raphael nodded stiffly. ‘I have just said so.’

She drew in a deep and shaky breath. ‘Okay.’ She nodded tersely. ‘You know where my bedroom is,’ she added with a return of her usual derisive humour, before sending him a mocking smile and moving lithely up the wide staircase.

Raphael ignored the jibe as he waited until Beth had disappeared down one of the hallways at the top of the stairs before turning back to the other man. ‘I take it that your visit to the parish of Stopley in Surrey proved fruitful?’

‘Oh, yes.’ Rodney’s stiff smile of confirmation was more of a humourless grimace.

A grimness echoed in Raphael’s own mood as the two men retired to the privacy of Cesar’s study for the rest of their discussion.

A discussion Raphael had no doubts he would shortly be relating to Beth.

* * *

Waiting to see if Raphael would come up to her bedroom was a little like being in a dentist’s waiting room—and just as painful. That Rodney had something of import to relate to Raphael, she had no doubts. Something of import to her...

In an effort to keep herself busy Beth finished unpacking the last of her clothes from her suitcase, putting them on hangers before placing them in the wardrobe, and then going through to the adjoining bathroom to take a shower and changing out of the business suit and blouse she had worn to work.

None of which helped to settle the fluttering sensation in her chest and the butterflies in her stomach. At this rate, all this suspense and tension were going to give her a heart attack, and then it wouldn’t matter to anyone who she was: Beth Blake or Gabriela Navarro.

And no doubt, despite all of her denials, she was going to find out the answer to that soon enough...

Even so, Beth was slightly taken aback to leave the steam-filled bathroom, wearing only a towel wrapped about her, to find Raphael waiting for her in her bedroom!

His back was turned towards her as he stood outlined in front of one of the two windows, staring out into the wooded grounds at the rear of the house. Those same woods where Beth knew Grace had jokingly suggested Cesar might like to have her buried after one of her sister’s more outspoken exchanges with him!

None of which was of the least importance right now, when Raphael could have only one purpose for being here...

Beth moved further into the bedroom. ‘I take it you have bad news,’ she prompted sharply.

He turned slowly to face her, taking in her appearance with a single glance of narrowed blue eyes, before a shutter came down over those piercing orbs. ‘Surely that depends upon your perspective on the situation?’

She gave a derisive snort. ‘I think we both know my perspective on this situation!’

Raphael frowned darkly. ‘Perhaps you would care to dress before we talk?’

Beth raised one blond brow. ‘Is that going to make what you’re about to tell me any more acceptable?’

He grimaced. ‘Probably not.’

‘Then I don’t think I’ll bother.’ Beth might feel uncomfortable wearing only a towel in Raphael’s presence, but at the same time she could see it was a discomfort he also shared. A discomfort she felt put them on a more equal footing—and she needed all the leverage available to her when in the presence of this imposing Argentinian! ‘Well?’ she prompted when he remained silent.

Raphael sighed, knowing by the light of battle he could see in Beth’s eyes—when he at last managed to drag his gaze away from the wild tumble of her blond hair and the visible swell of her creamy breasts above the dark green towel that barely covered the tops of her long and shapely legs!—that she was not about to make the next few minutes easy for him.

Any more than they were going to be easy ones for her...

His mouth thinned. ‘Our investigations these past few days established that James and Carla Lawrence resided in the Parish of Stopley in Surrey, before they later moved to the house in Kent, where you also resided until their deaths eighteen years ago.’

The tightness in Beth’s chest increased, her breathing so shallow it barely existed at all. ‘And?’

Raphael’s expression was pained. ‘I believe we discussed a scenario some days ago regarding the proof you felt you needed in order to believe the Navarros’ claim?’

Beth felt the colour drain from her cheeks, and she stumbled slightly as she moved to drop down weakly onto the side of the bed. ‘A gravestone, dated twenty-one years ago, with the name of two-year-old Elizabeth Lawrence etched into it...’ she related dully.

‘Yes.’

Her eyes widened. ‘Rodney found it?’

‘Yes. Beth—’

‘Don’t, Raphael!’ She held up a hand to ward him away from touching her as he would have moved to her side, unable to so much as look at him as the full shock of what he was saying embedded itself deep inside her.

There was a grave.

With the name of two-year-old Elizabeth Lawrence etched into it.

With her name etched into it.

Except it wasn’t her name.

How could it be, when two-year-old Elizabeth Lawrence had died twenty-one years ago?

And two-year-old Gabriela Navarro had been taken, abducted, to take that other little girl’s place, in the Lawrences’ home as well as their hearts?

And yes, it was the evidence that Beth had said she needed, if she was ever to believe the claim of Carlos and Esther Navarro that she was their missing daughter.

Except it wasn’t.

Not really.

Oh, Beth had verbally denied being Gabriela Navarro, and had physically removed herself from the Navarro family’s vicinity, but deep inside her Beth had known that type of blood test was never wrong, that her likeness to Esther Navarro was too startling to be a coincidence, that the photographs of two-year-old Gabriela Navarro and two-year-old Beth were identical—a likeness, and photographs, that were the main reason for Grace having initially jumped to the conclusion that she had! And now—now there was a grave, with Elizabeth Lawrence’s name on it—

‘Beth?’

She raised bleak brown eyes to look at Raphael as he watched her closely from across the bedroom. ‘I’m really her.’ It was a statement rather than a question.

‘Yes.’

She moistened the dryness of her lips with the tip of her tongue. ‘Do the Navarros know? About Elizabeth Lawrence’s grave?’

‘Not yet.’ Raphael frowned. ‘As you requested, I have informed you of this development first.’

She swallowed hard. ‘That was very—very thoughtful of you.’

‘I have my moments.’

‘Yes. Yes, you do.’ She nodded. ‘I— Do you also know how it was they managed to replace their dead daughter with me?’

He gave a pained wince. ‘Beth—’

‘Please, Raphael!’

He nodded as he obviously heard the strain in her voice. ‘As you already know, Carla Lawrence was Argentinian by birth. Several of the Lawrences’ neighbours still live in the village of Stopley, and clearly remember the tragic and sudden death of their baby daughter from meningitis—’

‘Oh, God...!’

Raphael frowned at the unnatural pallor of her cheeks. ‘The rest of this can wait until later—’

‘No! No,’ she repeated more calmly as she looked across at Raphael with pleading tear-wet eyes. ‘I—I want to hear it all now. I need to know. Please, Raphael,’ she added gruffly.

He drew in a sharp breath, wishing that he weren’t the one having to tell Beth these things. That she wasn’t going to remember, to associate him with having imparted this knowledge, and hate him for it ever afterwards.

He had become used to Beth’s outspokenness, her feistiness, and her anger, but her aversion to being anywhere near him was something else completely. ‘Would you rather wait until Cesar and Grace arrive to learn all of the details?’

‘Cesar and Grace are coming here?’ She groaned her dismay.

‘They will be.’ Raphael nodded confirmation. ‘Cesar instructed me to inform him the moment I received conclusive proof as to Elizabeth Lawrence’s demise,’ he amended gruffly; after all, until a few minutes ago Beth had believed she was Elizabeth Lawrence, and so to her talking of Elizabeth Lawrence’s death was the equivalent of talking of her own death.

‘But you really haven’t told him yet?’ Beth pushed.

‘I have said not.’

‘And if I asked you to delay doing so for another day or so?’ she prompted evenly.

Raphael looked at her through narrowed lids. ‘And why would I want to do that?’

She drew in a ragged breath, her gaze a deep and steady brown as she looked across at him. ‘Because I asked you to.’

‘That does not tell me why, Beth,’ he murmured softly.

She breathed deeply. ‘Because I want you to take me to the churchyard at the village of Stopley tomorrow, so that I can see Elizabeth’s grave for myself, and place some flowers there in remembrance of her. I want— Raphael, I need to say goodbye to her, before I can even think of saying hello to Gabriela Navarro.’

‘Beth—’

‘This is important to me, Raphael!’

Yes, he could see by the glitter of tears in Beth’s eyes, and the brave determination of her expression, that this was very important to her.

Important enough for Raphael to ignore Cesar’s instructions and do as Beth asked?