Bride in a Gilded Cage

Isobel felt wrung out, utterly exposed. He thought she was playing with him? He couldn’t be further from the truth. She was terrified that sleeping with him would crash through her already flimsy defences. The problem was, she only seemed to be able to come to her senses when things had already gone too far. And he was right. He’d just shown her exactly who wielded the control and it wasn’t her.

‘You kissed me just now. I never asked for it. I hate you, Rafael.’ But her voice trembled and her conscience struck her, telling her that the person she really hated was herself, for not being able to resist him even though he embodied all the greed and excess of a world she never wanted to be a part of.

‘You did ask for it—with those big expressive eyes, Isobel. Perhaps you need to work on hiding your true desires a little better.’

Isobel opened her mouth to refute his words, but just then a discreet cough sounded nearby, and they both looked around to see a uniformed man waiting. ‘Señor and Señora Romero, your dinner is served. If you’d like to come through to the dining room…’

CHAPTER SIX

‘YOU’RE wrong, you know.’

Isobel looked up from her dinner plate warily. She still felt a little sick to her stomach, but it was directed at herself for being so monumentally weak—exactly as Rafael had accused.

Rafael was not looking at her. He was cradling a halffinished glass of wine, looking into its ruby-red depths.

His mouth thinned. ‘Although I can’t deny I had a life of privilege, it was much the same as you had…’

Isobel winced inwardly. She did deserve that. She’d had no less a privileged upbringing than he. ‘Rafael, I—’

He ignored her, continuing, ‘My father, however, liked to play fast and loose on the stock market. A couple of times he lost almost everything, only to make it back within twenty-four hours. One of those times was after a tip your grandfather gave him, and my father—being the suspicious, resentful man he was—made sure he got his revenge. Hence the deal regarding the estancia. I think it sent my mother a little crazy. But from a young age my brother and I were aware of how fickle wealth was, how it could be taken away from you in seconds…’

Isobel was a little blindsided to hear this. She twisted her napkin in her hand and asked hesitantly, ‘What happened to Rico’s father?’

Rafael took a sip of wine and looked at her. His eyes were very dark and hard and seemed to bore right through her. No emotion.

‘My brother’s father was a rich Greek tycoon. He seduced our mother and disappeared back to Europe when she fell pregnant, not wanting to get tied down in marriage. In a bid to save her reputation a marriage was brokered between my parents. My father’s family needed the status of being married into an elite family, and my mother needed to have her baby in wedlock.’

A muscle twitched in Rafael’s jaw. ‘However, once Rico was born, it was clear he was nothing like my fair father. It was too much for him to take, so he used to beat him. And then when I came along and took after our mother’s darker colouring he beat me, too, irrationally believing that I c

ould be anyone’s son. When Rico was sixteen he took a belt to him. I was in the room, too, due to be next. He beat Rico so badly that Rico turned on him and beat him back. He told him that if he ever lifted a hand to me again he’d come back and kill him. Rico left that day and went to Europe to look for his father.’

Isobel gasped softly. ‘But you must have been just—’

‘Twelve years old. My father never touched me again after that day.’

Isobel’s throat hurt. Remorse filled her. ‘Rafael, I’m sorry for what I said…I had no right to assume anything.’

Rafael’s face was stark. ‘I’m telling you this now because we’re man and wife and you should know these things, but I don’t want to speak of it again.’

Isobel bit her lip and then said in a rush, because she had to know, ‘But how can you of all people be happy with a marriage of convenience when you came from what you did?’

His eyes flashed at her for her impudence, but Isobel wouldn’t back down. She was his wife and she deserved to know.

‘I’m happy with a marriage of convenience precisely because I realised a long time ago not to look for love in a marriage. The only kind of marriage I want is a marriage just like this, where we both know where we stand, with no emotions in the way to cloud things. Just because our parents didn’t provide us with good examples it doesn’t mean that we can’t forge a successful partnership based on mutual respect.’

His eyes held hers captive and Isobel quivered inwardly when he added throatily, ‘And desire.’

Isobel knew right then that Rafael’s threat hadn’t been an empty one. The next time he touched her they wouldn’t be stopping—no matter how much she denied what her body screamed for.

The following evening Isobel sat on the far bank of the small lake behind the house and sighed deeply. The sky was a glorious twilight-infused blue backdrop, and a full moon already hung low in the sky. Golden lights flooded out from the long windows at the back of the estancia and threw a glittering reflection on the still surface of the dark lake.

It was so magically beautiful that her heart ached. She still reeled from her conversation with Rafael last night. Things had got heated so quickly, and she hadn’t been able to control her emotions or her mouth. Or her physical reaction. It was becoming rapidly clear that when Rafael touched her she went up in flames, and she was terrified of getting badly burnt in the process. He shouldn’t have the ability to be touching her emotionally. But she knew he did and that was very scary. The only way she could protect herself would be to try and maintain her distance, even if ultimately she was unsuccessful.

She thought again of what he’d revealed about his childhood and her heart ached. And he’d obviously hated telling her…She wondered why he had—he didn’t strike her as the kind of person who cared what people thought of him, and she knew for a fact that this information was not common knowledge, even though Rico had re-emerged on the other side of the world with another man’s name.

It made her own largely sterile upbringing pale in comparison. She’d never been subjected to the virulent hatred or violence that he had. No wonder there had been that atmosphere between Rico, Rafael and their mother at the wedding. It was as if she was looking at Rafael through refracted glass now, seeing a dozen new images of him reflected back, and it scared her—because she suspected that the Rafael she’d got a glimpse of last night had the potential to do a lot of damage to her equilibrium.

She could see now where his intense ruthlessness came from. The need to amass great wealth at any cost—even at the cost of innocent people. Financial stability must mean everything to him. She still felt sick when she thought of his business ethics, but having got some insight into his family, she couldn’t help but empathise in a tiny way and that felt very dangerous.