Her honesty surprised him. ‘That’s one reason, yes,’ Rafael replied with an equal amount of honesty. ‘But I also don’t want to see your father get away with stripping money from your company.’
‘No.’ Her eyes lingered on his, warm and admiring. ‘Of course you don’t. You care a great deal about Carlos and Filomena.’
Rafael found himself so captivated by the look of approval in her amazing blue eyes that for a moment he didn’t answer. ‘Yes,’ he said finally. ‘Carlos and Filomena.’
‘You really love them and they love you, too, I could see that instantly. I’m so sorry they’ve been hurt because of me.’ There was a choked note to her voice that halted the instinctive denial that her mention of love had brought rushing to his lips.
She wasn’t going to cry, was she?
So far she held the record for being the only female never to resort to feminine tantrums while in his company.
And, considering everything she’d been through in the past forty-eight hours, he was more and more astonished by her composure.
‘I’m very fond of them, that’s certainly true, and you don’t need to worry about it any more because it will all be sorted out,’ he told her hastily. ‘And when it’s time to leave you can use one of my private jets.’ But as he focused on the tiny dimple that played alongside the corner of her mouth, he promised himself that it wasn’t going to be any time soon.
‘It’s incredibly kind of you to help me.’
‘Not kind,’ he said immediately, frowning slightly as he corrected her altogether inaccurate description of him. ‘I have all sorts of thoroughly selfish reasons for keeping you here.’
‘Like sex?’ The sudden flare of heat in her eyes astonished him.
‘That’s certainly part of it.’
She gave a soft smile. ‘Yes. The sex is pretty amazing.’
Stunned by her direct approach, and feeling an uncomfortable flare of lust, Rafael ran his fingers through his hair. ‘Let’s get on with these numbers while I’m still able to concentrate.’
Three hours later Grace sat back in her chair and let out a long breath. ‘Well.’ She smiled at him. ‘You’re right about one thing. You are brilliant at numbers. And you’re brilliant at teaching.’
For the first time in her life after a session on finance, her head wasn’t bursting and her brain wasn’t twisting itself into knots. Nor did she feel like a complete failure.
Rafael put down the red pen he’d been using to illustrate a certain point. ‘I can see how hard it is for you and that makes the whole thing even more amazing.’
‘What’s amazing?’
He shook his head and leaned back in his chair. His hair gleamed blue-black in the late-evening sun and the usual chill in his eyes had been replaced by something significantly warmer. ‘The fact that you’ve managed to run a successful business despite your problems with numbers. I’m staggered. And impressed.’
‘How can you say that? I didn’t make you a profit and, because of me, Carlos and Filomena lost money.’
The chill was back in his eyes. ‘Not because of you, but the people around you.’ The dark frown cleared from his brow. ‘But that’s history. From now on your advisors are going to be hand-picked by me.’ He glanced back at her company accounts and flicked through the pages with a disbelieving shake of his head. ‘Your takings in the cafés are amazing. If your father hadn’t been draining the money away you would have had a hugely profitable business.’
She couldn’t resist teasing him. ‘Would I have made you rich?’
He glanced up, a strange expression on his handsome face. ?
??If I had more people like you working for me then my life would be a great deal simpler, meu amorzinho. How do you manage to keep the cafés so busy?’
She shrugged. ‘I’m good at ideas. I’m hopeless at financial detail and probably always will be, but I see the bigger picture. I know what people want and what is likely to work. I was good at pulling in the customers.’
‘Don’t put it in the past tense.’ He dropped the accounts onto the table and looked at her thoughtfully. ‘How would you feel about extending Café Brazil?’
Her eyes widened. ‘You mean across the country?’
‘Actually I meant across the world,’ he said drily, the faint smile that touched his mouth telling her how amused he was by her provincial ambitions. ‘I think it’s an idea that could become a global phenomenon.’
‘There are already lots of very successful chains of coffee shops.’
‘True, but none of them have you at the helm. You have an astonishing flare for innovation.’