A Touch of Notoriety. Carole Mortimer

report straight to Cesar?’ She looked at him challengingly.

      His mouth thinned. ‘I am employed by Cesar—’

      ‘Please, Raphael!’ She looked up at him appealingly.

      Raphael frowned darkly as he knew he was not as immune to that appeal as he might have wished. ‘Shall we just wait and see what happens?’

      ‘You sound as if you’re placating a child!’

      ‘Then perhaps you should stop acting like one.’ Raphael bit out his frustration with this situation. With the fact that he had never regarded Beth as a child.

      Oh, she was almost ten years younger than him, and outspoken in a way he had never encountered before—except perhaps from her adopted sister, Grace—but there was no doubting Beth’s womanly curves, or her kissable mouth, or that Raphael’s response to those curves and those sensual lips was purely male!

      She gave a pained frown now before turning away. ‘If you wouldn’t mind leaving now, I need to finish packing.’

      ‘And if I do mind?’

      Beth stilled, as she knew, by the closeness of Raphael’s voice, that he was now standing just behind her. So close that she could feel the heat of his body and smell the spicy allure of his cologne, and that pure male smell that was Raphael alone. An insidious and heady combination, along with the predatory power of the man himself, that Beth responded to in spite of herself…

      ‘Beth?’

      She kept her expression deliberately cool as she turned to face him, that coolness wavering slightly as she found that Raphael was standing only inches away from her, those piercing blue eyes still narrowed in his harshly chiselled face as he looked down the length of his nose at her.

      Beth’s chin rose determinedly in the face of that implacability.

      ‘I’ve agreed to go back to England in Cesar’s jet, and to having you accompany me. Isn’t that enough?’

      ‘For now, perhaps…’

      Her eyes flashed darkly. ‘What more do any of you want from me?’

      What did Raphael want from this woman?

      From Beth Blake, a woman he could not deny that he found physically attractive?

      It was all too easy to imagine making love with that woman; kissing those delectable and poutingly stubborn lips, enjoying and pleasuring those lean and silkily slender curves, caressing and tasting the fullness of her breasts, arousing her until she was wet and open to his sinking his shaft between those delicious thighs, slowly and torturously at first, and then faster, pumping into her until they both found release.

      Oh, yes, it was all too easy for Raphael to imagine making slow and leisurely love with Beth Blake.

      But as Gabriela Navarro, the woman who was the sister of his best friend, and the daughter of the couple who had long ago taken him in as one of their own?

      No, Raphael could only ever be the man who stood in silent watch over that woman, who ensured, for her family’s sake, that no harm came to her ever again.

      His mouth tightened. ‘I do not recall ever saying that I want or need anything from you.’

      She blinked at the harshness of his tone. ‘Please don’t hold back, Raphael. Just say it like it is!’ she scorned.

      He raised cool brows. ‘I thought that was what I was doing.’

      She raised her eyes heavenwards. ‘I was being sarcastic!’

      ‘I am well aware of that.’ He nodded. ‘I have also noticed that you resort to that sarcasm whenever you are feeling defensive.’

      Her eyes widened indignantly. ‘Why on earth should I be feeling defensive?’

      Raphael shrugged. ‘You would have to tell me that.’

      Beth looked up at him wordlessly for several long, searching, seconds. ‘No, I don’t think I have anything else to say to you right now,’ she finally said slowly. ‘And surely you have those other “things” you need to go off and organise before we leave tomorrow?’ she added with hard dismissal.

      He allowed a slight smile to curve his lips. ‘I do, yes.’

      ‘Well, don’t let me keep you,’ she prompted tautly as Raphael still made no effort to leave her bedroom.

      Raphael continued to hold that challenging brown gaze with his own as he fought that inner battle not to take Beth in his arms and kiss that smart mouth of hers until she was senseless and wanting in his arms.

      To enjoy kissing that sarcastic mouth of hers until she was senseless and wanting!

      The problem with that, of course, was that he might just enjoy kissing Beth a little too much. So much that he would not want to stop at just kissing her…

      He gave a terse nod of his head as he stepped away from her. ‘I am sure that Cesar will keep you informed as to what time we are to leave tomorrow.’

      ‘Oh, I’m sure he will, too,’ she replied dryly.

      He frowned his irritation. ‘His only concern is your protection.’

      ‘And what’s your concern, Raphael?’ She eyed him mockingly.

      His mouth thinned. ‘Cesar does not employ me to have concerns, only solutions to security problems.’

      ‘Then it’s probably time you went away and found some!’ Having delivered her final scathing comment, Beth turned away, knowing she was wasting her time trying to bait this man. Raphael Cordoba really was that robot she had accused him of being earlier.

      Nevertheless, she breathed a heavy sigh of relief as she heard his predatory step crossing the bedroom seconds later before the door closed softly behind him.

      She dropped down weakly onto the side of the bed, her bravado of a few minutes ago completely evaporating as she once again acknowledged that, unless evidence could be found to the contrary, proving once and for all that she wasn’t Gabriela Navarro, her life was never, ever going to be the same again.

      CHAPTER THREE

      ‘COMFORTABLE?’

      Beth turned to look at Raphael Cordoba as he sat beside the chauffeur in the front of the car driving them from the airport to the home in London she had once shared with her whole family and now shared only with Grace—had shared with Grace, because, once her sister was married to Cesar, Beth knew Grace would never live in that family home with her again.

      Which, besides being sad, meant that the house was going to be far too big for Beth to live in on her own. Maybe she could advertise for someone to share it with her—

      ‘Gabriela?’

      Beth ground her teeth together at Raphael’s deliberate use of the name she refused to recognise as being her own. And it had been deliberate, she was sure. ‘Yes, I’m very comfortable, thank you,’ she assured him with cool politeness. The same cool politeness that had existed between the two of them since Beth said her goodbyes to Grace and the Navarro family the previous evening before leaving for the airport with Raphael.

      Beth frowned slightly as she remembered they had been tearful goodbyes on the part of Grace and Esther, stoic but warm on Carlos’s, and slightly disapproving on Cesar’s…

      Although Beth had learnt there were definite advantages to those chauffeur-driven limousines and private jets she had previously pooh-poohed at! No long wait at the airport before boarding the flight for one thing, the limousine having driven them straight to the plane, and the aircraft taking off only minutes after she and Raphael had stepped aboard. There had also been a bedroom at the back of the plane, which Beth had definitely enjoyed. Not only had it meant she could sleep for much of the flight back, but it had also meant she’d had somewhere to escape to when she’d had enough of Raphael’s