The Vasquez Baby

CHAPTER FIVE

WHAT was she supposed to wear for dinner?

She’d fled from Argentina with nothing more than her passport. She certainly hadn’t stopped to pack a wardrobe.

Glancing at her watch, she realised that there were still several hours until dinner, so she picked up her bag and stepped into the elevator.

They were in the centre of Buenos Aires. How hard could it be to find something simple and practical to wear?

She pressed the button for the ground floor, thinking of Raul. He’d changed so much and she didn’t have to look far to discover the cause of their problems.

By becoming pregnant she’d committed the ultimate sin.

The lift doors opened and she gave a gasp of shock because Raul was standing there, anger shimmering in his dark eyes.

‘Do you have a death wish? You are supposed to be resting.’

For a long, agonising moment the tension throbbed between them momentarily blinding both of them. She was painfully aware of his sexuality and her stomach swooped and spun like a ride at a funfair.

Suddenly, looking at his rigid shoulders, she realised that they’d never stood a chance.

They were worlds apart; not just in terms of wealth, but in life experience and culture.

They’d talked all the time, but never about his past, and she was only now realising how little she knew about him.

The phone in his pocket rang and he removed it, scanned the number and then took the call. ‘Sí—I am aware of that.’ He switched between Spanish and English with effortless ease and Faith listened with reluctant admiration, trying not to be impressed but failing because his razor-sharp intellect had always given her a buzz. She’d loved arguing with him because his brain was so fast and challenging him had always resulted in lively debate.

As if sensing her scrutiny, his eyes locked onto hers and a muscle flickered in his jaw. ‘No—cancel…I don’t care, I’m busy right now. They can wait until I’m ready.’

Faith watched as he broke the connection with a decisive stab of one long finger and dropped the phone back into his pocket. She cleared her throat. ‘If you were cancelling a meeting because of me then you shouldn’t have bothered.’

‘How else am I supposed to stop you from doing something foolish? If I don’t watch you personally you will no doubt vanish again, and I have no desire to scrape you off the floor after yet another accident.’ He’d obviously come from a meeting because he was dressed in a dark formal suit but the white cuff of his shirt had ridden up slightly and she found her eyes drawn to the hairs that darkened the bronzed skin at his wrist. That tantalising hint of masculinity was sufficient to trigger an uncomfortably vivid image of him naked and Faith turned her head away quickly, wondering how a physical connection could possibly endure when everything else was so catastrophically wrong between them. It was true that Raul exceeded the most exacting woman’s standards of masculinity, but after everything that had happened, she shouldn’t be feeling this way.

The brain was supposed to be connected to the senses, so why were hers humming and buzzing instead of freezing him off?

Glancing over his shoulder, Faith saw two burly men standing in the opulent lobby. ‘Who are they?’

‘Security.’ Raul stepped into the elevator with her and slammed his hand against a button. He controlled his privacy with the same ruthless efficiency that he used on every other aspect of his life.

‘I need to go shopping—’

‘You were never interested in shopping.’

‘I don’t have anything to wear. All my clothes are at the estancia.’

He stared down at her for a moment. ‘I apologise,’ he said stiffly. ‘I hadn’t realised. You should have said something sooner.’

The doors slid closed and Faith suddenly found herself trapped with him in a small, intimate space.

Erotic ima

ges swirled around her brain and she stared straight ahead, trying to concentrate on something else. The utter stillness of his powerful body told her that he was doing the same thing and she knew instinctively that his brain was playing the same tricks.

So how could not looking intensify the connection between them?

In this closed-in space Faith was agonisingly aware of the latent power of his lean, strong body and she realised with a stab of pain that this was the first time she’d stood this close to him and not touched. In their relationship she’d been the affectionate one and he’d always teased her about it.

‘You can’t go five seconds without checking I’m still here.’