Читать книгу The Forbidden Touch of Sanguardo - Julia James - Страница 9

CHAPTER THREE

‘YOU WANT MORE money to renew your contract. That’s it, isn’t it?’ Karl Reiner’s voice grated.

Celeste kept her expression fixed. Karl Reiner had demanded her presence at a dinner in a West End hotel hosted by a fashion magazine keen on retaining its share of the lavish Reiner Visage advertising budget. Since she was still—just—under contract, it had been impossible for her to decline.

She deeply wished she had. Wished she could just walk off the way she had when Rafael Sanguardo had made a move on her at the charity event the previous weekend.

Not, she found herself thinking, that anyone in their right mind would put Karl Reiner and Rafael Sanguardo in the same class. The difference was total. Karl’s stocky stature and slack belly were the complete opposite of Rafael Sanguardo’s tall, lean, honed physique—just as Karl’s pouched, close-set eyes were a million miles from the dark, hawkish eyes that had rested so disturbingly on her. And Karl’s receding dyed hair, swept back into a ponytail that he mistakenly seemed to think made him look creative and bohemian, had nothing of the feathered sable of the South American’s.

Yet again Celeste felt the disquieting quickening of her pulse as an image of Rafael Sanguardo took shape in her mind. It had been doing so repeatedly ever since the weekend. She had tried desperately hard to put him out of her mind but it had been impossible—just impossible! She could bewail it all she liked, try as hard as she could, but it was no good. That encounter, however brief, had imprinted itself on her. Why, she did not know—could not understand. Could not understand why her habitual immunity to men was failing her so pitiably when it came to Rafael Sanguardo.

But if she couldn’t understand it at least she could do her determined best to ignore it. Suppress it and crush it out of her consciousness—out of her life. There was no point—none whatsoever!—in thinking about him.

What Rafael Sanguardo wanted was not what she was free to want...

An old, familiar ripple of revulsion went through her. Those slimy trails across her skin—fetid memory made tangible.

And with Karl Reiner pressingly at her side tonight, making her skin crawl, revulsion came afresh. Recrimination came in its wake. Why, oh, why had she ever got involved with Reiner Visage?

But she knew the reason now—just as she had long ago.

Rejection seared within her.

This is different! Entirely different! Karl Reiner can assume what he likes. I will never go along with it!

Nor was there anything he could say that would make her sign a new contract. She would simply go on stonewalling him, staying as composed and as civil as she could, until she was free in a few weeks’ time.

But his persistent unwanted attentions were becoming even harder than ever to endure. He was badgering her repeatedly to renew her contract, and this evening he had drunk freely, and she could see his temper mounting at her continued refusal. Now, dinner over and guests dispersing, he’d renewed the subject in the middle of the hotel lobby.

‘No,’ she said carefully, ‘it’s nothing to do with more money. I simply don’t wish to extend my contract any further. I’ve been very appreciative of it, naturally—’

‘That’s not the message you’re giving out.’ Karl cut across her brusquely.

Tight-lipped, Celeste refused to react. She knew very well that the cause of his pique was nothing to do with her not renewing her contract—it was because she wasn’t going to do what Monique Silva had done: show her ‘appreciation’ in bed.

Anger flashed across Karl’s face. ‘Who the hell do you think you are?’ he demanded. ‘Models are ten cents a dozen!’

‘As I say,’ she repeated tightly, ‘I’ve been very appreciative of the opportunity to represent the Blonde range of Reiner Visage, but—’

‘But nothing!’ He cut across her again. His face was set petulantly. ‘I’ve done you favours! Now it’s payback time! You damn well know what I want!’

He grabbed at her arm, closing his fingers around it. She halted, turning an icy gaze on him.

‘Take your hand off me,’ she bit out, jaw clenched. When he made no move to do so, she simply lifted his hand off her and stepped away. ‘Goodnight, Mr Rainer,’ she said decisively, and turned to go.

Infuriated, and despite the presence of other people in the lobby, he lurched at her, grabbing at her wrist again, yanking her round forcibly. His face was contorted in fury.

‘Don’t walk off, you stuck-up little bitch! Who the hell do you think you are? Behaving like a goddamn nun!’ he snarled at her.

The alcoholic fumes of his breath reached her. His voice was loud and carrying.

‘I can pick and choose any model I want—you hear me? And they’ll be grateful! Girls like you put out for anyone who’ll hire you! And since I’ve hired you you’ll damn well put out for me! You’re no different! You’re just a two-bit whore like every other model!’

Celeste gasped in shock. For a second she could not move. Then, behind her, a voice cut through.

‘Let her go,’ it said. It was arctic. ‘Let her go and get out of here before I throw you out onto the pavement.’

Karl’s head swivelled. ‘Who the hell are you?’ he snarled slurringly.

Rafael did not answer him. He simply yanked Karl’s hand away, then took his shoulder and elbow in a punishing grip and frogmarched him to the door, ejecting him onto the pavement.

‘If you try and come back in,’ he said pleasantly, ‘I will pulverise you. Do you understand me?’

He didn’t bother to wait for a reply, just went back into the lobby. His eyes went immediately to the frozen figure standing there, her ashen pallor registering her shock. He went up to her.

‘Brandy,’ he said. ‘Don’t argue. Then I’ll see you home—and don’t argue about that either. That charmless jerk is out on the pavement.’

She couldn’t respond. Couldn’t do anything except stand there, the vile echo of Karl’s accusation slicing through her head.

‘You’re just a two-bit whore like every other model!’

Her face contorted and she felt nausea rise in her throat, foul and choking. Then, from nowhere, her elbow was being taken—not tightly, but firmly—and she was being guided across the lobby and into the hotel bar. Her steps were halting, but she went all the same. Numbness filled her.

Then, as she was helped up onto a bar stool, the numbness was suddenly pierced. Karl Reiner and his vile words disappeared from her consciousness. Replaced, totally, by the realisation of just who it was that was at her side now.

Her eyes flew to the man, tall and lean in a charcoal tailored lounge suit that only emphasised his naturally tanned complexion, who was taking his seat beside her.

Dear God—it was Rafael Sanguardo!

Shock ravined through her. Shock and something much more. Instant awareness, instant consciousness of everything about him that she had sought to suppress these past few days. To force down out of her memory.

Yet he was here now, in all his overwhelming, potent physical presence. Sitting beside her and looking at her with an expression of concern on his face, his dark eyes resting on her.

She hauled her gaze away. She could not cope with this—not now. Not after Karl Reiner’s vile outburst. She could feel herself start to shake.

Immediately she heard Rafael Sanguardo speak. ‘It’s all right. He’s gone. And he won’t be coming back.’

He spoke with certainty, and an underlying grimness. Her eyes lifted to him again.

But he was not looking at her. He had turned his head to address the barman. ‘Two brandies, please.’

As he gave his order he made a notable effort to control his emotions. They were surging strongly. One was an impulse to stride right out onto the pavement, seize hold of the jerk who had said what he had to the ashen-faced, shaken figure beside him and slam his fist into his foul-mouthed face. It took him aback, just how strong that urge was. A wave of protectiveness swept over him.

No one’s going to hurl that kind of abuse at her!

The protectiveness he was feeling was almost overpowering... But him slamming his fist into her abuser was not what she needed right now! What she needed was to stop shaking, to pull out of the shocked state she was clearly in after that vicious little scene back there with Karl Reiner.

He knew who the man was, all right. Just as he now knew the name of the woman who had been dominating his thoughts ever since he’d laid eyes on her.

Celeste Philips—that was her name. It had taken little effort to discover it, courtesy of the organisers of the charity fashion show, simply by describing her. After that her professional bio had been easy to find via her agency. She was currently contracted to Reiner Visage—of which cosmetics company the unlovely Karl Reiner was President. Nor had it taken much digging to uncover Karl Reiner’s even more unlovely reputation for pursuing the models he contracted.

A reputation that the ugly incident just now more than amply confirmed.

The two glasses of brandy were placed in front of him and he slid one towards Celeste.

‘Drink it down,’ he instructed. ‘You’re in shock.’

But Celeste gave a quick, jerky shake of her head. ‘No—no brandy.’ Her voice was slightly high-pitched. In her head she could hear Karl’s foul words snarling at her again. Hear his vile accusation...

She fought to stay calm, at least on the surface. Inside was different...

‘Coffee, then—you need something. You’re white as a sheet.’

She lifted her face, made herself look at the man who had rescued her. The man she couldn’t get out of her head. Who was now here, beside her, dominating her consciousness. ‘I’m fine. It was just—’ She stopped. Swallowed painfully.

‘Damn,’ said Rafael feelingly. ‘I should have hit him. Trouble is...’ his voice was deadpan ‘...I might have spoilt his looks.’

For a moment Celeste was on a knife-edge. Then the balance tipped, giving her a safety net, letting her pull herself together. The laconically uttered insult to the drunken, obnoxious Karl had retrieved her sufficiently for her to manage to find the darkly wry humour clearly intended in the remark.

She bit her lip. ‘That’s a low blow,’ she heard herself murmur.

‘The lower the better,’ Rafael agreed. ‘Low enough to...ah...quell his unwanted ardour.’

She gave a shaky smile, not quite meeting his eyes. She might be pulling out of the shock of what Karl had snarled at her, but that only meant she was now having to cope with this completely unanticipated encounter with Rafael Sanguardo. And cope she must—somehow.

And she must start with the most important priority. Gratitude.

She lifted her eyes again. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Thank you for what you did back there.’

For just a moment, as her eyes met his, she felt weak—as weak as a kitten. The blood seemed to be flooding back into her ashen cheeks, heating them. She could not drag her gaze away—his eyes were holding her...holding her as if there was a physical link between them...as if they were bound together...

She saw something shift at the back of his eyes—his dark, basalt-black eyes. Something that seemed to set every nerve-ending in her body jangling.

Then, with a quick movement of his head, he broke the moment. ‘De nada,’ he said lightly. His tone of voice changed. ‘So, coffee?’ he said enquiringly. ‘Or tea, maybe? Isn’t that what the English drink to settle their nerves?’

‘China tea would be lovely, thank you,’ she assented, grateful for something so normal. She needed to feel normal again—needed it badly.

As Rafael Sanguardo relayed her request to the barman she felt the backwash of what Karl had said to her start to fade. Her state of shock was ebbing, and so, too, finally, was the sense of incessant strain she’d been under all evening. But even as it ebbed a new emotion replaced it—the shimmering awareness of the man beside her.

Who had appeared out of nowhere to wrest Karl Reiner off her—

‘I don’t understand,’ she heard herself say. ‘How did you come to be here like this?’

There was bewilderment in her voice.

‘I’ve been meeting one of my UK CEOs for dinner,’ Rafael replied. ‘But I have to say...’ His tone of voice changed again, and his gaze rested on her. ‘I now understand the meaning of that English proverb that it is an ill wind that blows no one any good.’

He looked at her, but Celeste was blank. Rafael enlightened her.

‘Even though I would not wish Karl Reiner on anyone, at least he has given me the opportunity not only to be of some small service to you—he has also provided exactly the opportunity I have been wanting to take since the weekend.’ He paused deliberately, still looking at her. ‘To see you again,’ he said.

A troubled expression lit her face.

He saw it and said, his voice low, ‘Would that be so very unwelcome to you?’

She bit her lip. She wanted to find some way—a polite, considerate way, especially after his rescuing her from Karl—of telling him that what he wanted was impossible...just impossible!

Rafael saw her silence, needed to know if there was one reason that would be an immovable obstacle for him.

‘Is there someone else in your life right now?’

She swallowed, her expression still troubled. ‘No, but—’ She halted, not knowing what to say. How to say it.

Her hesitation was visible. A hideous thought speared Rafael’s head. His expression darkened. ‘Karl Reiner,’ he began, his voice harsh, ‘is he—?’

‘No! Dear God, no!’

Her rebuff was so instant, so vehement, that it could only be true. Relief flooded through Rafael. If for a moment he’d thought that that despicable piece of ordure had any kind of anything with her—

‘Gracias a Dios!’ he said feelingly.

‘How could you think—?’ She broke off, shuddering.

Of course she had nothing to do with Karl Reiner in that way! Someone like her would never, never think of such a liaison! Hadn’t she reacted strongly enough back there in the lobby to convince him of that? Her shock and disgust had been palpable.

He reached for his brandy, and as he took a mouthful an image formed in his mind. Madeline—Madeline being on the receiving end of what Karl Reiner had thrown at Celeste.

She’d have laughed. Laughed in his face, told him, ‘In your dreams!’ and walked off. Then she’d have regaled Rafael with it in bed. She’d have been totally unfazed by it, totally unaffected—she would have thought Reiner merely physically repellent, not repulsively offensive!

But Madeline was cut from completely different material from the woman at his side now. The woman who was cupping one slender hand around a teacup from which a delicate oriental fragrance was coiling upwards, stirring it with a silver teaspoon, focussed only on her task. He watched her for a moment, all thought of Madeline deleted as Celeste stirred her tea, inhaling the scent, and seemed visibly to calm herself.

‘Better?’ he asked quietly.

She nodded, lifting the cup to her lips to take a tiny sip of the hot liquid.

He let her be, contenting himself with looking at her. Her beauty, seen again after a space of days, was etching itself on his retinas. Tonight she was wearing a knee-length cocktail dress in eau de Nil, high cut at the neckline, with short cap sleeves. A jade necklace and earrings were her jewellery. Her hair was dressed differently, in a more complex style with braids and loops, but still worn up. An impulse went through him—a longing to see that incredible pale hair loosed from its confines, flowing like a silvery river over her naked alabaster shoulders...

He pulled his mind back from such impulses, focussing now on her features. Her perfect beauty was just the same as it had been when he’d seen her walking down the stairs at that charity event. A beauty that moved him so strangely—so strongly.

And so, too, did the other quality that had made him watch her then, as it did now.

That sense of aloneness—apartness. As if she moved in the world but was not fully part of it. As if it could not touch her.

What had she said about the stars? That they were very far away...

As she is.

His expression changed. But I will get close to her. With me she will not be alone, apart. I will draw her to me! Woo her and win her!

And he must make the most of this opportunity to begin his journey to that destination. She was here, beside him, and that, surely, was a start.

‘Tell me,’ he said, his voice holding in it nothing but quiet concern, ‘how is it that you were with Karl Reiner tonight if he is so repugnant to you? I know that you are the face of Blonde Visage, but—’

She lifted her face sharply. ‘How do you know that?’

He gave a half laugh. ‘I could say that your face is your giveaway,’ he said lightly, ‘but I have to confess that, since fashion magazines are not my usual reading matter, I found it out from your agency.’

Her face worked. ‘Why were you asking?’ she demanded. But there was no need to ask. She knew. Rafael Sanguardo had shown his interest in her—she had been naive to think that just because she had walked away from him the other evening it would not be possible for a man of his means to find out a great deal about her!

His expression was deliberately transparent. ‘I make no secret of the fact that I want to get to know you better, Celeste.’

It was strange to hear her name on his lips—a name she hadn’t told him. She would have preferred him never to know, so that she could slip back into the shadows of life where she dwelt. But it was too late for that. All she could do now was hold him at bay, make it clear to him that whatever he was hoping for could not be.

‘So why did you have to be in Reiner’s unpalatable company?’ Rafael pursued.

She made herself give a slight shrug. ‘I’m still under contract, so it’s unavoidable. Tonight he was a guest of one of the fashion magazines he places a great deal of advertising with—that was his excuse for me having to be here.’

‘Excuse?’

She gave another shrug, not meeting his eyes, focussing only on the cup in front of her. ‘You heard what he wants. He made it plain enough.’ A sudden thought struck her, and without realising it she lifted her face to look at him.

‘What you did—back there—will he make trouble for you?’ There was concern in her voice. ‘He could do you for assault—’

‘He can try,’ said Rafael.

And there was something about the way he said it that made Celeste realise that Karl—or anyone—would be very, very foolish to attempt to make trouble for Rafael Sanguardo. There was a toughness about him that was unmistakable.

But there was chivalry, too, she acknowledged. Even if his intervention had proved opportune for him, allowing him to do what he was doing now. Getting to know her—

But it’s no use—no use at all. Nothing can come of it—nothing!

That was all she had to remember. And she should act on it right now. She should get to her feet, thank him once again and then go home—home to her little flat in Notting Hill: the fruit of her years of modelling, her quiet haven, where she could be apart from the hectic round of her career. Apart and alone.

The way she had to be.

Because nothing else was possible...would ever be possible...

She was condemned to the solitary life she led.

But Rafael Sanguardo was speaking again, interrupting her troubled thoughts. ‘What about for you?’ he was asking, that note of concern still evident in his deep, accented voice. ‘Will it make things difficult?’

She gave another shrug. ‘I’ve only got a few weeks left to run on my contract, and there’s little he can do in real terms. I most definitely will not be resigning! Oh, there’ll probably be some gossip—I dare say some of the people I work with will hear about it. But he has a reputation already, so it will hardly be a surprise.’

Rafael frowned. ‘If you had warning of his reputation, why did you take the contract?’

She gave yet another shrug. ‘He was involved with one of the other models under contract, so I thought he would leave me alone—which he did, by and large, until now. And the reason I wanted the contract in the first place was simple.’ She looked straight at him, giving him the courtesy of an honest answer, for surely he deserved no less after his rescue of her. ‘It paid well,’ she said.

She lifted up her cup, took a mouthful of tea, breaking her gaze. Then she set down her cup again, looked at him once more. She swallowed, then spoke.

‘Modelling is a crowded profession. Often poorly paid. Only a few make it to the very top. I won’t be one of them, I know, but I’ve not done badly—for which I’m grateful,’ she allowed. ‘Anyway, it’s the only way I know of to make money—’

She stopped, and for a moment—just a moment—there was an emptiness in her gaze. As if she had been scoured hollow.

Then it was gone.

Yet in its aftermath there seemed to Rafael to be the residue of something lingering. Unsettling. He wanted to banish it.

He took another mouthful of his brandy, feeling its warmth filling him. ‘It seems to me you know about astronomy,’ he said.

He’d lightened his tone deliberately. Yet his attempt to lighten the atmosphere seemed to have failed. Her throat tensed; a shadow occluded her eyes. Memory oozed within her of the way she had first gazed desperately up at the heavens, wanting only to be part of them. Incorporeal. Free from her body...

Then she forced the memory from her. He’d obviously only made the remark as a conversational gambit—she must treat it as such.

‘Hard to make a living at that,’ she answered. ‘And I am the rankest amateur!’ she added lightly.

Rafael smiled across at her. ‘Yet your name is ideally suited for a career in astronomy, no?’ She looked blank, and he enlightened her. ‘Celeste—celestial?’ he said.

His eyes rested on her, drinking her in.

And that is her aura, too—celestial. As if the impurities and imperfections of the world below the stars are nothing to do with her! As if she moves through this world apart from everyone else, everything else, untouched by anything that seeks to stain her...

In his head he heard Karl Reiner’s sordid accusation. If ever there was a woman who was an unlikely target for such foul names it was this one!

She was looking at him, a slight expression of surprise in her clear grey-blue eyes. ‘Do you know, that’s never struck me?’ she said. ‘Celeste and celestial...’

His own smile deepened. Absently she noticed how it curved the lines around his mouth, made his basalt-black eyes lighten. Noticed even more the way it seemed to make her breath catch. Made her want to do nothing more than go on sitting here, beside him, being with him—

No! She mustn’t! It was pointless—useless! Talking to him about anything—anything at all—had no purpose! She was calmer now, recovered from that horrible scene out in the lobby, and so she must go—leave—go home to the life she had. A life that had no place for Rafael Sanguardo in it. No place for any kind of relationship with anyone.

She nerved herself to take her leave. To terminate this conversation that could go nowhere—nowhere at all! But he was speaking to her yet again, clearly intent on keeping her in conversation.

‘So what first got you interested in astronomy?’ Rafael asked.

Deliberately he kept his question casual—nothing more than the kind of enquiry anyone might make in social conversation. A safe topic under whose aegis to do what he most wanted to do—set her at her ease. Stop her tensing all the time. Make her comfortable talking with him. Make the most of the opportunity this evening had presented so that he could move on to inviting her out to dinner, and then from there to where he wanted to be—making love to her.

Her arms around me, clinging to me, her mouth opening to mine, my hands curving around the bare column of her back, her hair loosened, streaming like a silver banner across the pillows, her body warm and yielding to desire...

He felt the power of his own imagination, his own desire, kick through him. Surely she must feel it, too? Surely she must? Wasn’t she starting to thaw to him, little by little? Slowly—oh, so slowly—but it was starting to happen, he was sure of it.

Then, as he finished his question, before his eyes he saw her face change. Closed.

Closed completely, as if a shutter had come down.

‘I don’t remember,’ she said. Her voice was quelling. This time there could be no allowances for his simply making conversation. This was a subject that she must terminate—now. Just as she must terminate this encounter. She must go home right now.

Rafael’s eyes narrowed minutely at her stony reaction. What had just happened? The change was total. He saw her reach for her teacup, lift it with a jerking movement and take a mouthful of the pale green fragrant liquid. Then she set the cup down with another jolt. Her eyes swivelled to his.

‘Thank you so much for the tea, Señor Sanguardo. And thank you for intervening back there. It was very good of you.’ She spoke rapidly, in clipped tones. Clipped, impersonal tones that went with the totally closed expression on her face.

He could see her total withdrawal happening in front of his eyes.

She’s gone away again—back into that separate space she lives in. The one she uses to keep the rest of the world at bay.

She was getting to her feet, slipping gracefully off the high bar stool.

‘Thank you so much,’ she said again, her tone formal. She picked up her clutch bag from the bar surface and bestowed a tight, perfunctory smile on him again.

Rafael got to his feet as she did. ‘I will see you home,’ he announced.

Again, that look of immediate wariness—more than wariness...alarm—flared in her eyes.

‘Purely and solely,’ he continued, ‘for the purposes of ensuring that you do not risk any further unwanted attention from the uncharming Mr Reiner. My car is outside, and it is no trouble, I assure you.’ He looked down at her. His eyes were steady, their message clear. ‘I will see you safely to your home and then leave you. Does that meet with your agreement?’

Celeste opened her mouth. She wanted to say, No, it can’t possibly meet with my agreement! I can’t want to spend the slightest further amount of time with you because there is no point—absolutely and totally no point! I am not going to let you get to know me better and I am not going to have anything more to do with you and that is all there is to it!

But she didn’t say it. A sudden vision of Karl Reiner waiting outside her flat assailed her. However reluctant she might be to allow this magnetic, disturbing man who had behaved so chivalrously to drive her home, it was preferable to encountering Karl Reiner again—drunken and angry and still trying to press his hateful attentions on her.

Then, without any answer from her at all, she felt Rafael Sanguardo’s strong hand cup lightly around her elbow and guide her out of the bar. It was only a light, courteous touch, but she was vividly aware of it. He dropped his hand the moment she seemed to be going the way he wanted her to—which was across the lobby and out onto the pavement. A hovering car glided to the kerb, and then a chauffeur was opening the passenger door for her and she was getting in.

‘Where to?’ Rafael asked her as he took his place beside her.

With a flurry of consternation Celeste realised she was going to have to tell him where she lived. Well, if he’d found out who she was, then he’d be perfectly capable of finding out where she lived as well. So she gave her address, and the car started to make its way westward out of Mayfair towards Park Lane.

It would take a good fifteen minutes at least to reach Notting Hill, Celeste knew, and in the meantime she had better make anodyne conversation to prevent Rafael Sanguardo getting any other ideas about how to pass the time in the back of his car...

‘What part of South America do you come from, Mr Sanguardo?’ she heard herself asking. Her tone was no more than politely interested.

He glanced at her. There was amusement in his eyes. ‘Am I to take it that you’ve been making enquiries about me in return?’ he asked.

Damn, she thought, I walked into that one!

‘One of my fellow models the other evening at the charity show mentioned it,’ she replied, making her voice as unconcerned as she could.

Did she, now? Rafael thought. And does that mean that you’d asked her? A ripple of satisfaction went through him. She was not as studiedly indifferent to him as she was trying to make out. How long, he wondered, before she finally admitted that? Before she finally started to lower her guard to him?

But whenever that happened—and it would happen; he had set his mind to it, and nothing in the intervening days since seeing her walk down that marble staircase, captivating him with her opalescent beauty, had changed his mind on that—it was not happening now.

Her guard was sky-high. A guard consisting of polite attentiveness and the kind of impersonal conversation she could have with anyone at all. Well, he reminded himself, it was better than her doing her disappearing act again, and he would make the most of it.

‘She was a little out,’ he answered. ‘My country of origin is Maragua, which is in Central America.’

He could see her give a little frown in the passing street lights as the car drew out into Park Lane.

‘I thought Managua was the capital of Nicaragua?’ she commented.

‘It is. Which is why my country, Maragua, is so often overlooked. It’s very small—hardly larger than El Salvador—and similarly has only a Pacific coastline.’

‘I don’t think I’ve really ever heard of it,’ Celeste said apologetically.

‘De nada—not many Europeans have,’ he said. ‘Which, overall, is probably a good thing.’ His voice was edged. ‘After all, the reason most developing countries are known about in the Western world is their wars and disasters! Fortunately we have few—though like all Pacific Rim countries we are subject to earthquakes.’

‘Because the Pacific Ocean’s floor is moving under the continental plates,’ she acknowledged. ‘Does that mean you have volcanoes, too?’

He nodded his head. ‘One or two—fortunately inactive.’ He paused. ‘Your geology is as good as your astronomy, it seems.’

His eyes rested on her expectantly. He felt another ripple of satisfaction. Beauty, even so notable as hers, was one thing, but it was inadequate on its own. Her stargazing had told him that she was informed and intelligent, and here was further proof.

‘I like plate tectonics,’ she answered. ‘It makes sense of so much.’

‘The whole planet earth is a living jigsaw—endlessly changing, endlessly renewing itself.’ Rafael paused. ‘I find that quite encouraging. If even the ground beneath our feet can change, then so can we. We can make ourselves anew.’

She looked at him. Her eyes flickered. His words echoed in her head. We can make ourselves anew.

For just a second she could feel something flare inside her—then it died. Crushed by the weight of the past. The past that was always her present. And her future...the only future possible for her.

Feeling a stone suddenly in her chest, she turned her head to look out of the car window. They had reached Hyde Park Corner and were turning into the park now.

Rafael indicated with his hand. ‘What is that enormous house there, do you know?’ he asked. He wanted her to keep talking to him—not slip away into that separate world she inhabited, shutting him out.

But she answered readily enough. ‘Oh, that’s Apsley House,’ she said. ‘It’s the London home of the Duke of Wellington—you know, the Battle of Waterloo. Well, his descendants anyway. It’s always known as Number One, London. I suppose it’s because it’s the premier private residence in London.’

If she was gabbling, she didn’t care. This kind of innocuous exchange was all she could cope with. It blocked those tormenting words he’d said—We can make ourselves anew. Anguish gripped her. But I can’t—I can’t make myself anew! It’s impossible—impossible!

His voice relieved her. ‘Is that the Serpentine?’ he asked, glimpsing a dark mass of water to one side of the car as they cut across the park.

‘Yes,’ she answered. The stone was back in her chest. She launched into relating everything she knew about the Serpentine, then moved on to Rotten Row as they crossed it.

‘It’s still a bridle path,’ she said. ‘In the nineteenth century it was very fashionable for the upper classes to ride their horses there.’

Somehow she managed to make the subject of Victorian high society last till they reached her flat, and as the car pulled up along the quiet kerbside she turned to Rafael.

‘Thank you so much,’ she said brightly. ‘It really is very kind of you.’

The chauffeur was holding the door open for her and she climbed out gracefully. The night air seemed cool after the interior of the car. Or perhaps it was just because she felt heated in her blood.

‘Please don’t get out,’ she told Rafael.

‘Which is your flat?’ he asked, ignoring her and stepping out onto the pavement.

‘Um...second floor,’ she said. She was fumbling for her keys in her clutch.

She’d coped with the car ride, sounding like a tour guide to London, but her nerves were at breaking point. She had to get in. Get away from him.

‘I’ll wait until I see your light come on,’ said Rafael.

Relief flooded through her. ‘Thank you,’ she said. She hurried up the steps to the front door, opening it with her key. She turned. He was still standing there. ‘Goodnight, Mr Sanguardo,’ she said, her smile flickering uncertainly.

For a moment she just went on standing there, looking at him. Letting the impact he made on her retinas be absorbed into her.

‘Goodnight, Celeste,’ he answered. He gave her a brief nod of farewell and got back into the car. The chauffeur slammed the door and went to the driver’s seat.

Celeste went indoors, walking swiftly up to her flat. As she turned the light on and went to the living room windows to see the car pulling away she could feel her heart’s hectic beating.

And she knew exactly what had caused it.

Rafael Sanguardo...

His name echoed in her head. Not letting her go.

Later, as she lay in bed, she knew she should get to sleep. She had an early start tomorrow and looking haggard was not acceptable for a model—yet she lay sleepless all the same.

Memories from the evening circled in her mind. Not the stressful dinner with Karl Reiner, but the time she had spent with Rafael Sanguardo. It was his words that kept playing in her head.

We can make ourselves anew...

Her eyes stared out into the darkness of her bedroom.

Can we? Can we make ourselves anew?

But the question was hollow. Its flavour bitter. And into her head came more words. Karl Reiner’s...

Anguish gripped her.