Bride in a Gilded Cage

Isobel nodded. Rafael took his hand away, but not before trailing that finger down and across her jaw, almost as if he couldn’t help touching her. Isobel’s heart kicked painfully. Even now she was projecting…

‘The other night…I wanted to try and talk to you…so I took you to the milonga…I thought that might make it easier. When we dance it seems like we can communicate on another level…But before I could speak you told me exactly how you feel.’ He looked at her. ‘You need love to go on in this marriage.’

Isobel nodded faintly, barely breathing, spellbound by the intensity in Rafael’s gaze. Surely he didn’t care so much about maintaining this marriage that he was prepared to go to such theatrical lengths just to make her feel cared for?

And then he said, so quietly that she had to strain to hear, ‘But there is love, Isobel.’

Rafael touched his chest, and Isobel could see a tremor in his hand.

‘There is love—in here. I wanted to tell you the other night, but you were so upset, and then I didn’t want to burden you with my feelings when you clearly just wanted to get away from me.’

Isobel couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She shook her head. ‘But…how? I mean, when…?’

Rafael grimaced and ran a hand through his hair, leaving it dishevelled. ‘I think it started when we first met, but I compartmentalised you into my future very neatly. I didn’t start to deal with it until I came to get you in Paris. The truth is, you were affecting me way before that. I couldn’t even sleep with another woman in the six months before I saw you again. The night I saw Ana beside you…it was like seeing a dull piece of dirt next to a bright shining diamond. That was when I knew I was in trouble—even though I didn’t really recognise what was happening. I couldn’t fully admit it because whatever I had felt for her was nothing compared to how you made me feel.’

He shook his head. ‘I’ve been falling and falling and trying to convince myself I wasn’t…I had to admit it when it tore me apart to know that I was making you so unhappy. I know you want out of this marriage, but I still need to try…to see if there is any chance you will stay if you know what you mean to me.’

Feeling the blood start to rush through her veins with a giddying sweep, Isobel forced herself to stay calm. ‘What do I mean to you?’

Rafael’s jaw tightened, and a muscle throbbed. His voice was gruff. ‘Everything. Without you, nothing makes sense.’

He pulled something from his back pocket. It was their prenuptial agreement. He ripped it up and threw it on the ground. ‘That means nothing without you, because if you were to leave I wouldn’t want anything that reminds me of you. The estancia is yours—it should have always been yours. My father was determined to lock me into an arranged marriage because he resented me and the fact that my brother had got away. Your grandfather was a convenient pawn to that end.’

Rafael smiled with a tinge of wry sadness. ‘I had no idea who you were going to become, or how you’d have the power to force me to my knees.’ His smile faded. ‘My experience with Ana made me bitter and cynical. I shut down my emotions, couldn’t believe I’d let someone fool me into believing I’d fallen in love.’ He took a deep breath. ‘But it wasn’t love at all, because I now know what love really is, and it’s standing right in front of me, breaking me apart inside.’

Isobel took a deep breath and picked up Rafael’s hand. Everything was silent around them. She looked up at him and felt a deep sense of peace and homecoming wash over her. She placed his hand over her heart and said, ‘My heart beats for you, Rafael. I wasn’t brave enough to tell you that, though. I told you I needed love, but I needed your love, because I already love you.’

Tears started to threaten, and her voice hitched. ‘I fought it for so long, and the moment I realised it every second became torture—because I was convinced you’d never love me. You’d lost your heart so long ago, and you’d shut yourself off…that’s why I fought against sleeping with you for so long. I knew it was my last defence. On some level I knew I was falling in love with you from the very start.’

Incredulously, Rafael reached out his other hand and pulled Isobel close. ‘Tu me quiero?’

‘Si,’ Isobel said on an indrawn quivering breath. ‘Te quiero mucho.’

With shaking hands Rafael cradled Isobel’s head, spearing his fingers through her hair, tipping her face up to his so reverently that Isobel couldn’t help more tears from spilling over. He bent his head and kissed her once, twice, and then for a long, long time, as if they’d never kissed before.

Isobel could taste the salt of her tears, and when Rafael finally pulled away he wiped his thumbs over her wet cheeks.

‘That’s the last time I want to see you cry…’ he said gruffly.

Isobel smiled a watery smile. Her mouth felt plump and swollen, and she just wanted Rafael to kiss her and keep kissing her for ever.

But just then a sound came from nearby, and they both looked around to where the housekeeper was making an apologetic face as she righted a fallen lantern in the gazebo. Isobel could see that there were at least two other people there, too, but she couldn’t make out who.

Isobel looked up at Rafael questioningly. ‘What’s going on?’

He smiled, and Isobel’s heart ached when she could see that he still looked nervous. ‘This is why I brought you here.’

He got down on one knee before her. He took her hands and said, ‘I want you to know that if I’d been able to choose you for myself I would have brought you here, to this place. And I would have got down on one knee and asked you to marry me—not because of a years-old marriage pact, but because I love you and you love m

e. So, Isobel Miller, will you marry me, here tonight, and make me happier than I ever thought possible?’

Isobel looked up at the night sky for a moment, to try and stem the tears flowing thick and fast. But it was impossible. So she looked back down at her husband and cried and smiled and nodded, and finally managed to get out a choked, ‘Yes, I’d like to marry you very much.’

Rafael stood and led Isobel into the small candlelit gazebo, where she could now see the housekeeper standing beside Miguel Cortez, who looked after the polo horses, and a priest.

There, in front of their two witnesses, they were married again in a heart-achingly simple ceremony by the local priest—who afterwards got onto his bike and followed them back to the estancia, where the celebrations went on until the early hours of the morning.

Four years later, the Isobel Romero Dance Studio, La Boca