Читать книгу Spaniard's Seduction / Cole's Red-Hot Pursuit: Spaniard's Seduction - Brenda Jackson - Страница 10

Trust him?

Never! Caitlyn drew a shaking breath but kept quiet. Lashing out at the arrogant Spaniard wouldn’t help the fact that she’d exposed Kay to a dreadful revelation.

If she hadn’t pushed him, challenged him, the outcome might have been very different…

“What did you say your name was?” Kay was asking Rafaelo, her face suddenly pale.

“Rafaelo Carreras.”

Slowly Kay started to shake her head. “I don’t know anyone by that name.”

“He’s lying,” Caitlyn said fiercely, determined not to let Kay be upset. She had enough to contend with already.

“Kay—”

“Wait.” Kay warded off Phillip’s attempt to talk to her. “Carreras, it’s Spanish, isn’t it?”

Caitlyn didn’t like the sudden gleam in Kay’s eyes. Nor, it appeared, did Phillip.

“Kay, love, let’s go. There are people waiting to pay their respects.” Phillip curled an arm around his wife’s shoulders, the skin stretched thin across his cheekbones.

But Kay didn’t budge.

Rafaelo placed his hands on his hips, and thrust his shoulders forward. He looked ready for battle. “Madam, my full name is Rafaelo Lopez y Carreras.”

“Lopez? There was a girl…a young woman…” Kay’s brow pleated as her voice trailed away. “I think her name was Maria Lopez. In fact, I’m sure of it. She was researching her family…I seem to remember that her father, or perhaps an uncle, had died in the Napier earthquake. Yes, that’s right. It’s coming back to me. Her name was Maria.”

“My mother’s name is Maria,” Rafaelo said in a flat voice, his eyes shooting daggers at Phillip.

Eyes widening, Kay put her hand over her mouth and, shrugging out from under his arm, turned to her husband. “Tell me this isn’t true.”

Caitlyn’s stomach dropped like a stone at the expression in Kay’s eyes. She clenched her hands into fists. Surely, Kay couldn’t believe what Rafaelo claimed was true?

Phillip took a large white handkerchief from his pocket and, without unfolding it, rubbed it across his brow.

“You are not going to deny it, are you?” Kay’s face had drawn into tight lines. She turned her attention back to Rafaelo, studying him with critical eyes. “How old are you?”

“Thirty-five.”

Kay was not telling Rafaelo to get lost.

“That’s the same age as Roland.” Kay paused and sucked in an audible breath. “When were you born?”

Rafaelo told her.

Hurt flickered across Kay’s face. “That makes you Phillip’s eldest son…even if Roland our—my—first child hadn’t died.”

There was a world of reproach in the look that Kay gave Phillip.

Hurriedly he reached for her. “Kay, I’m sorry. I never—” He broke off, shamefaced.

“Never wanted me to know?”

Phillip didn’t answer and Kay tugged her hand free and walked away. After a horrible silence, Phillip took off after her.

Finding that her hands were shaking, Caitlyn balled them against her mouth. God. It had all happened so fast…

And it appeared that Rafaelo wasn’t lying.

A sideways glance revealed that Rafaelo’s face held no expression. No glee. No gloating. So why had he done it? Why had he come all the way across the world and dropped this devastating bombshell on the Saxons?

He met her questioning gaze with a decided lack of expression and said, “So I am not a liar.”

Then Rafaelo was walking away from her, too, his back ramrod-straight, his black head held at a proud, arrogant tilt. Caitlyn stared after him, her mouth hanging open. Finally she came to her senses.

“What were you hoping to achieve by staging that little scene?” She hurled the words like pebbles at the space between his shoulders.

He stopped, then turned.

Caitlyn glanced around. A little way off a couple stared curiously in their direction. Farther away groups stood around talking. “It’s too public here for the conversation I have in mind. Come with me.”

He didn’t look like the kind of man who followed orders. She half expected him not to follow as she crossed the lane that led past the winery to the house and wound her way along the shoulder of the hill, down the northern slope planted with Cabernet Franc vines. For once Caitlyn didn’t notice the pale green of the leaves, or how the land opened up to meadows where wildflowers had started to bloom in deep drifts along the fence line. She was too mad.

His fault.

Normally, she was even-tempered, easy to get along with—she never lost her temper and rarely even told off any of her cellar hands. But Rafaelo Carreras had managed to get under her skin with his intransigence, with his hard-ass, unbending attitude. She glanced back, he was following. Good.

She quickened her pace.

Caitlyn took him to the stable block. As they entered the yard in front of the L-shaped block, several horses stuck their heads over the half doors, ears pricked with interest. The familiar warm smell of horses and hay calmed her a little. At the end of the row, one stall was closed top and bottom and Caitlyn could hear the animal inside battering the door with his hooves as he demanded to be let out.

That would be Lady Killer. Apart from him, there should be no interruptions. Certainly, there would be no danger of being overheard by guests who’d come to attend Roland’s memorial service.

She swung around and glared at Rafaelo. “Do you have any idea what you interrupted?”

“I called the winery. I made an appointment.”

Caitlyn raised her eyebrows. “I don’t think so. Not for today. Not when Kay and Phillip are unveiling a memorial plaque for their son.”

“No, no. The appointment was for yesterday.” His hands raked his hair. “But I experienced some delays.”

She scanned his appearance. Not even the wrinkles and specks of dust could hide the fact that the suit was unlike anything she’d seen before. It fitted like it had been handmade—even if it was looking a little shabby right now. “The security scare in London?” She nodded at his startled look. “I heard about it on the news. I’m sorry, but Phillip and Kay haven’t been taking appointments for the last few days.”

He looked a little abashed. “The woman who answered the phone said something but I wasn’t listening.”

So he wasn’t lying. The frustration in his eyes was too real.

“You must’ve spoken to Amy, the winery’s PA. Roland was her fiancé.” Poor, poor Amy. She would almost certainly not have remembered to tell Phillip about any appointment. She was perilously close to a breakdown. “So I’m sorry, but Phillip probably didn’t get the message.” But that still didn’t excuse Rafaelo’s harsh behaviour. “Once you realised that a memorial ceremony was taking place, couldn’t you have left?”

“So the memorial service is for Roland? The eldest son?”

His face wore a strange expression. Caitlyn gave up trying to decipher what it meant. “Yes, Roland died in a car accident, several weeks ago.” The night of the annual Saxon’s Folly masked ball. “A terrible tragedy.”

“My condolences.” He bowed his head. Briefly. Politely. Then, like a dog with a bone, continued, “I have travelled many miles, I came with a purpose—I’d made an appointment. I wasn’t to know Saxon knew nothing of it. Nor do I have any intention of turning tail and leaving without fulfilling that purpose.”

“That’s it? That’s all you can say?” Caitlyn stared at him in disbelief. “After that confrontation you just forced?”

“I had no intention of forcing a confrontation—it was you who provoked that.”

He gave her a frown filled with dislike. Caitlyn opened her mouth, then shut it again. Oh, why hadn’t she stayed out of it?

Yet she knew that would’ve been impossible. She’d taken one look at the tall, dark foreigner, heard the sardonic edge to his voice as he harangued Phillip and she’d leapt into the fray to protect her employer. Hell, Phillip was more than an employer. He was her sounding board…her mentor…a dear friend.

“You must understand that the Saxons are like family to me.” It was true. “I could no more leave you to bully Phillip than I could walk away from a delinquent drowning a kitten.”

“I am not a bully,” he growled, blood rushing under his olive skin. “I am not a delinquent. I do not drown kittens. I am a man of honour, something that your employer is not. I would never leave a young woman pregnant and alone.”

Suddenly aware of his height and the strength of him as he loomed over her, Caitlyn felt a whisper of fear and took a step back.

He followed, relentlessly closing the space she’d claimed. “I wanted to face my cowardly father with the fact that he has a son he has never cared to acknowledge—and a woman who he had abandoned without giving her any emotional or financial support.”

Another step and the whitewashed wall of the stables pressed against her back; Caitlyn could feel the roughness of the plaster through the linen jacket. She swallowed nervously. “Maybe he didn’t know—”

“He knew!” Rafaelo loomed over her, dark and menacing, and planted a balled fist on either side of her head. “My mother wrote to him when she first learned she was pregnant.”

“Perhaps—” Her voice cracked as he bent forward. Up close the snapping eyes were full of anger, his mouth drawn into a hard line that highlighted the small white scar below his bottom lip. No sign showed of the good humour that the laugh lines around his eyes suggested.

She didn’t know this man at all.

He was a stranger.

What had possessed her to seek out privacy far from everyone else? Caitlyn swallowed again, horribly conscious of how isolated they were here in the empty stable yard.

Bravely she found her voice. “Perhaps the letter went astray.”

“My mother wrote to him again, she was desperate. Is it likely that two letters went astray? New Zealand is, after all, hardly Mars.”

The turmoil in his eyes twisted Caitlyn’s insides into a knot and her anxiety about her own safety subsided. She fell silent. It did sound bad. But she couldn’t believe Phillip would act so callously. Despite Rafaelo’s accusations, she knew Phillip was a man of honour, a decent man, respected throughout the region for his business acumen and the fund-raising he did for charity.

She had to make Rafaelo understand that.

But before she could try to convince him, he pushed his hands away from the wall. The suffocating space between them widened, and Caitlyn sucked in a breath of relief.

“My mother even contacted him by telephone. Phillip Saxon made it clear that he wasn’t interested in the child he had fathered, told my mother that he wouldn’t be leaving his wife.” There was a corrosive bitterness beneath that exotic accent.

Caitlyn glimpsed pain and suppressed rage in his expressive eyes. Unbidden, her hand came up, driven by an urge to rest it on his shoulder, to comfort him. Then the memory of his head bending over hers—of the suffocating closeness of a moment ago—returned and a sharp sliver of the poisonous fear pierced her. Hastily she dropped her hand to her side.

“There must have been some mistake,” she whispered at last, thinking the response that he roused in her was definitely a mistake. She didn’t want, or need, this.

“It was no mistake. Phillip Saxon abandoned her.”

The edge in his voice took her mind off her body’s incomprehensible reaction and made her think about what it must have been like for his mother to find herself alone and pregnant. Three decades ago it would have been worse; society had been much less accepting.

Yet Caitlyn couldn’t help the wave of sympathy for Kay that flooded her. Poor Kay! How humiliating this must be. How horrible to discover her husband’s betrayal of their marriage vows at a time when she was struggling to come to terms with grief over the loss of her son.

In front of her Rafaelo shifted, his eyes unseeing, focused on an inner hell.

The last lingering vestige of apprehension left her. Caitlyn stepped away from the wall. “You’re not the only one who has suffered.” Surely Rafaelo would see that he had more in common with his father than he believed? “Phillip lost a son recently. Can’t you find it in yourself to show him pity?”

“I’m well aware that I am not the only person to suffer bereavement.” From this close her eyes were level with his mouth. His mouth…

Quickly she glanced up, only to find Rafaelo looking down his haughty nose at her. At once Caitlyn realised that he’d misunderstood her.

“I meant both of you are grieving. Perhaps you can offer comfort—”

“I have no intention of offering him anything,” Rafaelo growled. “I owe him nothing. Nada.”

Caitlyn’s cheeks grew hot at his stubborn intransigence. “He’s your father, and he’s just lost a son. Why don’t y—”

The black eyebrows jerked together. Something violent flashed in the depths of his stormy eyes. “Phillip Saxon is not my real father. My father is dead. My father taught me to ride, to fish, to swim—and about wine. And that man is not Saxon.”

“I’m sorry,” she muttered in a subdued tone, not knowing what else to say.

He sighed then, a harsh, grating sound. “On his deathbed, the man who all my life I’d believed to be my father, informed me that he and my mother had lied to me, that I was not his son.”

He’d felt betrayed. The sympathy Caitlyn felt for him grew. It had been wrong of his mother to keep the truth from him. But what choice would Maria have had? She’d probably wanted to forget Phillip existed. Now Rafaelo had arrived at Saxon’s Folly, betrayed, grieving…angry at the world.

It was an explosive situation. “Kay doesn’t deserve—”

“I concede that my timing is unfortunate.” The dark eyes lost a little of their angry fire. “But it was not my intention to deliberately set out to cause Kay Saxon pain.”

“Only Phillip,” she retorted, and watched his head jerk back. “You want to hurt him. Why? Because he rejected you when you were a child? Or because you’re scared that he won’t accept you now?”

A range of emotions flickered across his face, receding one by one, until only irritation remained. “I am not a child. I am a realist. I don’t even know this man who fathered me—”

“But you want to get to know him?”

“No! I don’t need to know him. I dislike him. I have no respect for hi—”

“So you want to wound him, don’t you?” Caitlyn could feel herself getting hot and bothered as annoyance spread through her. “What do you plan to do to make up for the hurt he caused you?”

“It’s not about me. I want the bastard to pay for what he did to my mother.” The words burst from him in a torrent.

The silence that fell between them was deafening, broken only by the scrape of an iron shoe as a horse shifted.

Rafaelo looked astonished.

There was another emotion, too. Bewilderment? Confusion? Irritation? It passed too quickly for Caitlyn to read. Either way, it showed there was a chink in that impenetrable armour.

Before she could respond, her cell phone rang. “Where are you?” Megan demanded. “We need you.”

Oh, damn. She was supposed to be helping with the reception.

“Be there shortly.” Caitlyn hit the button to end the call. Meeting his gaze, she said, “I have to go—and so should you. I think you’ve caused enough disruption today.”

His eyes flashed. “I have every right—”

“Not today,” Caitlyn said with certainty. “You need to calm down before you speak to your father.” She tensed, waiting for him to rail at her for calling Phillip that. But to her surprise he didn’t interrupt, so she continued, “Give the Saxons a chance to mourn, to remember Roland with dignity.”

His eyes narrowed until all she could see were slits of onyx. “Tomorrow.”

Caitlyn started to thank him. The compromise could not have been easy, but he steamrolled over her. “In the evening I am flying back to Spain. I do not have time to—how do you say?—twiddle my fingers.”

“Twiddle your thumbs.” She started to smile, refusing to let his disgruntlement spoil her pleasure in his concession. “It will be for only one night.”

Rafaelo stared at her. Caitlyn shifted uncomfortably.

“You will have dinner with me tonight? At my hotel?”

Suddenly his eyes held a lazy warmth that turned Caitlyn’s knees to liquid. The sensation was disturbing…and extremely unwelcome.

“No, I will not have dinner with you.” She couldn’t. Dared not. Not even to try and talk him out of the hatred he held toward the Saxons. “But may I suggest—”

“You are about to order me around again, no?”

She drew a deep breath. “No. Not order. Make a suggestion that will benefit both you and Phillip—and your relationship in the future.”

“I have told you, I have no relationship with him.” He was all disdain again, looking down that arrogant nose, the glimmer of interest that had warmed his eyes a moment ago well and truly doused.

The Spanish grandee, Caitlyn thought with a brief pang of regret at the loss of his more approachable manner. Then she said, “I think you do want a relationship with your father, otherwise why else did you come all this way?”

“Because—” He checked himself. “This is none of your concern.”

Caitlyn suppressed the urge to roll her eyes skyward. “Oh, yes, because I’m not family, right?”

He stared at her unblinkingly, until an uncomfortable prickle started beneath the loose hair at her nape and shivered down her spine.

Hastily Caitlyn said, “I suggest that you spend the evening planning how best to cement the relationship with your father. I also think you should call tomorrow and let Phillip know that you’re coming and give him some idea what you wish to see him about.”

The edge of his lips curled up. The smile—if it could be called that—was full of male superiority and mockery. And it set her teeth on edge. It was a smile that made it clear that he would not take advice. Not from her. Not from anyone. Rafaelo Carreras was his own man and he would do what the hell he wanted.

Finally his lips moved. “It is not my way to let the opposition prepare.”

Damn, but he was annoying with his formal diction, his immaculately tailored suit, and his give-not-one-inch manner…and that beautiful mouth that said such hateful, intransigent things.

“He’s your father…not the opposition.” Caitlyn heard her voice rising.

His face darkened and his lips parted.

She struggled for calm. “Okay, okay. You don’t need to say it.”

“Say what?”

“That he’s not your father.”

Rafaelo’s mouth snapped shut, but his expression remained black as thunder. As she watched that very same mouth compressed into the hard line she was starting to recognise. Then he said, “Phillip Saxon has done nothing to earn the title of father. Right now he is my enemy.”

Caitlyn tore her gaze from that riveting mouth and met the pair of black, smouldering eyes, where she read his implacable hatred for his father. And unexpectedly her heart ached for Rafaelo—and the Saxons.

After the disturbance he’d caused, Caitlyn was determined to escort Rafaelo politely off the estate herself even if the delay meant that she’d have to contend with Megan’s wrath. She wanted no further chance encounters between Rafaelo and the Saxons. At least, not until this day was over.

But as she marched him back along the lane that led to the winery complex, Heath’s voice broke in from behind them, “Caitlyn, do you know what happened to Mother? She’s crying.”

“Uh…” Caitlyn’s heart sank and she suppressed the urge to utter a short, sharp curse. Making her way to the verge of the lane to get out of the path of an approaching car, she said, “Kay’s crying?”

Kay hadn’t cried since Roland had died. Her unnatural stoicism had caused the entire family much concern. But given today’s emotionally charged occasion, it was hardly surprising that she’d broken down. Beside her Rafaelo paused, too. Caitlyn was aware of his body quivering with tension as he slowly turned to face Heath Saxon.

“I regret I said something that upset your mother.” Rafaelo stood his ground, lean and dangerous as a jungle cat. “But that was never my intention.”

Caitlyn looked from one man to the other—half brother to half brother. Now that she knew the truth she could see the similarities. Heath was younger, of course. But the dark eyes, the slope of their angular cheekbones, the determined set of the jaw branded them blood kin. Would Heath recognise it?

“What exactly did he say?”

Heath spoke directly to Caitlyn. He didn’t even deign to look at the Spaniard. Misery sliced through Caitlyn as she recognised the icy set to Heath’s features. She sensed the whole unfortunate situation was about to escalate to the next level.

And she had been the catalyst.

Before she could answer, Rafaelo cut in, “I am here, you may address me. I have a name. It is Rafaelo Carreras.”

Heath gave him a brief, insultingly dismissive look. “Did you say something?”

Caitlyn tensed.

But Rafaelo didn’t rise to the bait. “My name is Rafaelo Carreras—”

“I don’t particularly care what your name is,” Heath interrupted. “I want to know what you said to upset my mother.”

Enough was enough. That had been more than rude; it had been downright incendiary. Caitlyn stepped between the two men.

“Heath—” She broke off and rested her hand on his arm, dearly familiar, and tried not to tremble.

It was painful to see Heath and Rafaelo bristling at each other like this. Profiles so similar, so classic, like two sides of an ancient coin.

“Heath, Caitlyn, Megan sent me to find you both. Aren’t you coming to join our guests for coffee?” Joshua Saxon was crossing the cobbled lane toward them.

“First I want to hear what he—” Heath gestured to Rafaelo with a contemptuous flick of his head “—said to make Mother cry.”

Joshua’s eyebrows jerked up. “Mother is crying?”

“Yes, and he’s responsible.”

Caitlyn felt terrible. She’d caused this. If she’d left well enough alone, Rafaelo would have confronted Phillip alone—without her and Kay present—and there would’ve been a whole different outcome.

“Heath,” she said. “It isn’t his fault Kay is crying. It’s m—”

“He might not have intended it.” Heath shoved his shoulders forward. “But whatever he said still upset her.” Heath ploughed forward, thrusting Caitlyn aside with one hand. She stumbled against the kerb stones. Heath made a grab for her, apologising profusely as she regained her footing.

Rafaelo moved like lightning, his jaw clenched tight. “Be careful,” he snarled at Heath. To Caitlyn he said, “Are you okay?”

She gave him a small smile. “I’m fine. Just clumsy.” The stumble had been worth it. It had checked Heath’s aggressive rush at Rafaelo.

Except Rafaelo was staring at where Heath’s hand rested on her arm. Discomforted, feeling as though she’d been caught doing something wrong, Caitlyn pulled free.

Heath raked his fingers through his hair. “You still haven’t told me what you said to my mother.” There was aggression in every line of Heath’s lean, loose-limbed body. Caitlyn knew that stance. Even in university days, Heath-the-hellraiser had never backed away from a brawl, often throwing the first punch.

It would be terrible if he hit Rafaelo.

And for once, Caitlyn wasn’t sure that Heath would win. Rafaelo looked tough and mean, his eyes narrowed, the small scar beneath his mouth pale against his dark skin. A fighter. An accomplished one, she suspected.

That thought was disturbingly disloyal.

Then Rafaelo’s shoulders squared. “I came here today because six months ago I learned something has been kept secret from me all my life. I learned that the man I believed is my father never was, that a man who lives across the world is.”

Caitlyn felt a little of the tension seep out of her. Rafaelo was making every attempt to stay calm and measured in the face of Heath’s animosity. Perhaps the situation could still be saved.

“What does that have to do with—”

“You’re Heath? Correct?” asked Rafaelo.

“Why are you asking?” demanded Heath.

Rafaelo shifted his attention to the taller of the two Saxons. “Then you must be Joshua.”

Joshua nodded, his eyes hooded.

“I am Rafaelo—” he held up a peremptory hand as Heath started to interrupt “—and I am your half brother.”

Heath sucked in his breath, an audible sound. “I don’t think so. I think you’re a scammer!”

“Heath!” Caitlyn’s hands went to her mouth.

“This is not a scam.” Rafaelo’s hand dropped and curled into a fist at his side. “You think this is easy for me?”

“You expect us to believe that you found out six months ago? And it took you until now to act on this laughable claim?” Heath sneered. “Why wait so long?”

“I had responsibilities. I had a man to bury—the man I believed to be my father,” Rafaelo said with what Caitlyn considered great restraint. “Afterward there was my mother to comfort and legalities to tend. I came as soon as my obligations allowed.”

With Rafaelo standing to one side, his fisted hands the only evidence that he wasn’t quite as relaxed as the curl of his lips would have them all believe, the air grew thick with menace. Caitlyn held her breath. Heath and Joshua stood shoulder to shoulder, brother beside brother, staring him down.

Caitlyn had seen that pose before. She shuddered. It wouldn’t take much for the frozen tableau to ignite into a brawl.

Determined to prevent that at all costs, she stepped forward to stand beside Rafaelo and, without thinking, placed a hand on his arm. “Rafaelo is about to leave.”

He turned his head. “I am?”

There was a sardonic light in his eyes.

She tightened her grip on his arm. With a sudden sense of shock she felt the texture of the fine wool of his dark suit give under her fingertips, felt the hardness of flesh and muscle beneath. It scorched her.

“Yes, you are. I was walking you to your car,” she said with quiet determination, even as her heart began to race, and the terrifying fear that she worked so hard to avoid bolted through her bloodstream.

“That’s our Cait!” Heath said loudly. “Mate, you better do what she says if you know what’s best for you.”

Rafaelo went rigid under her hold. “I am not a milksop.” He gave Heath an insulting head-to-toe-and-back-again look. “I do not let a woman placate the enemy on my behalf. I do what I want—not what a woman dictates.” When his eyes met Caitlyn’s appalled gaze, his features curdled with contempt. “So you fight his battles all the time?”

Instantly the thrill of apprehension that touching him roused and her irritation at his overt chauvinism were superseded by horrified concern. Not for him—if the Spanish grandee had his features rearranged by Heath it would serve him right. The concern was all reserved for Heath…for the Saxons. Kay would hate to learn that her sons had gotten into a brawl on this day because she’d cried.

Was Rafaelo stupid? Did he not realise what he was provoking? Or did he want a fight for reasons of incomprehensible masculine pride?

That notion caused her to worry even more. But there would be no fight. Not if she could help it.

“Sometimes the little woman knows best,” Caitlyn cooed up at Rafaelo, fluttering her lashes, and moving squarely in front of him, daringly brushing his lapels free of imaginary fluff. Anything to stop Heath swinging the punch that she suspected was pending. But the tension in the lean body so close to hers, the sudden bulge in the chest muscles under her fingers, made her wish she hadn’t been so reckless.

Heath watched and laughed uproariously. “Our kitten is now Cait-the-seductress. Priceless.”

That hurt.

She blinked back the sudden prick of tears and, feeling totally ridiculous, she yanked her hands away from Rafaelo.

Furiously angry with Heath for highlighting how unwomanly she was, with Rafaelo for starting this whole debacle just by being there, and with Joshua for doing nothing to stop it, Caitlyn swung away, turning her back on all three of them.

“Fine,” she said in a voice that indicated the situation was anything but okay. She pushed an annoying strand of hair out of her face, wishing it was back in its customary ponytail. And wishing that she could kick off the uncomfortable shoes and skirt and unfamiliar jacket. Above all, wishing she was a million miles from this maddening trio. “Do it your way. I’ll just leave you all to bash each other’s brains out. See if I care.”

“Slowly, querida.” Rafaelo caught her arm.

His hold was firm, possessive. His fingers were square and tanned against the apricot hue of her jacket. No rings. But the knuckles were ridged. Yes, a fighter.

Shockingly, her arm started to tingle alarmingly under the warmth of his touch. Caitlyn lifted her gaze and gave him a fulminating glare. There was speculation in his expression—and something else. He glanced at Heath and back to her. He released her arm, and his gaze became calculating.

And that was when she knew that he’d seen what no one else had. The miserable remains of her hopeless infatuation for Heath.

Horror swept her. He wouldn’t say anything, would he?

Then she realised that of course he would. Why shouldn’t he? The damn man didn’t like her one little bit. She’d been a thorn in his side since the moment he’d arrived. Why shouldn’t he humiliate her?

But instead of adding to her humiliation, she heard him say, “Caitlyn will walk with me. I am leaving. But be warned, I will be back.”

Relief flooded her as he wheeled away from Joshua and Heath. But Caitlyn wasn’t sure whether it was because the fistfight had been forestalled…or because one of her heart’s innermost secrets had been saved. Either way, she couldn’t help feeling a surge of gratitude toward Rafaelo as she trotted off in his wake.