Crime of Passion

'Don't you dare,' Rafael grated down at her in a snarling undertone.

And the violence in the atmosphere was explosive, catching her breath in her dry throat. Raw aggression had flared in his smouldering gaze and instinctively she backed away, massaging her bruised wrist as he freed her, her heartbeat thumping so loudly in her ears that she felt faint and sick, but still she wanted to kill him, still she wanted to punish him for saying those filthy things to her.

'I'm not like that,' she murmured tightly, turning away, despising the little shake that had somehow crept into her voice, betraying her distress. 'And even if I was, it would be a cold day in hell before I let you touch me.' There was so much more she wanted to say but she didn't trust herself. Once before, she had attempted to reason with Rafael in her own defence. He hadn't listened. He had shot her every plea down in flames, immovably convinced that she had betrayed him in another man's bed. Afterwards she had felt even more soiled and humiliated by his derision. She would never put herself in that position again.

The silence went on forever, reverberating around her in soundless waves.

'Are you able to settle your bill here?' Four centuries of ice in that chilling enquiry—well, what did she care? Numbly she shook her head. 'I'll take care of it.'

For five minutes, she simply stayed there in the empty room, struggling harder than she had ever had to struggle for control. When she had managed it, she walked down to Reception and found him just moving away from the desk. Without once glancing in his direction, she climbed back into the Range Rover. He would take her to the airport, put her on a flight back home. She really didn't care any more.

The silence smouldered, chipping away at nerves that were already raw and bleeding. 'I presume you can take care of the passport problem,' she muttered, half under her breath, thinking of the bribery he had apparently employed to get her out of her cell.

'What passport problem?' His accented drawl was dangerously quiet.

'Well, obviously it went with everything else in my

bag,' she pointed out, surprised that he hadn't grasped that fact yet. .

He uttered a raw imprecation in his own language.

'Oh, don't be shy.. .say it in English!' Georgie sud­denly heard herself rake back with a sob in her voice. 'You think I'm a stupid bitch!'

'Georgie...' Fluent though his English was, he couldn't quite handle the two syllables of her name coming so close to each other. He slurred them slightly, his rich dark voice provoking painful memories. 'Don't start crying '

'I am not crying!' She bit her tongue, tasted blood, blinked back the scorching tide dammed up behind her eyelids.

Soon after that, he stopped the car and got out, leaving her alone for about ten minutes. She waited, enveloped by a giant cloud of unfamiliar depression. It took Rafael to do this to her. He slammed a lid down on her usually bubbly personality. He made her seethingly, horribly angry. And he hurt her. Nothing had changed. She didn't even lift her head when he rejoined her.

'We're here.'

Rafael opened the door. One of his security men already had her bag in one beefy hand.

Rafael extended a black coat.

'What's this?' Georgie had yet to focus on any part of him above the level of his sky-blue silk tie.

'I bought it for you. You cannot walk through the airport with—with your top falling off,' Rafael shared flatly.

She wanted to laugh, because she had managed to forget that she was still wearing yesterday's torn and dirty clothes. But somehow she couldn't laugh. She stuck her arms in the sleeves of the expensive silk-lined raincoat. It was light as a feather but so long it had to look like a nun's habit. Numbly she watched Rafael's fingers do up the buttons. It took him a surprisingly long time, his hands less deft than she had expected.

His double standards were perhaps what she most loathed about Rafael Rodriguez Berganza. He had un­doubtedly stripped more women than Casanova. Maria Cristina had been a gossip while they were at school. Rafael had a notorious reputation for loving and leaving beautiful women. But Georgie would have known anyway.

Many very good-looking men missed out on being sexy. But not Rafael. Rafael was a blatantly sexual male animal, flagrantly attuned to the physical. The air around him positively sizzled. So why the heck was this sophis­ticated, experienced Latin-American lover having so much difficulty buttoning up her coat? Unwarily she collided with glittering golden eyes, and it was like being struck by lightning.

He was so close she could smell a hint of citrusy af­tershave, overlying clean, husky male. Her nostrils flared. Her nipples tightened into painful sensitivity, a spiralling ache twisting low in her stomach. Nearby, someone cleared their throat. She tore her gaze from Rafael's and met the looks of visible fascination emanating from bis bodyguards, standing several feet away. She realised that she and Rafael had simply been standing there staring at each other. Devastated by her overpowering physical awareness of him, Georgie turned away, her throat closing over.

In silence they entered the airport. Her head felt in­credibly light and her lower limbs weak and clumsy. Exhaustion, stress and lack of food, she registered, were finally catching up with her.

Officialdom leapt out of nowhere at them. The crowds parted. Uniformed guards paved every step through the airport, down an eerily empty concourse, their footsteps echoing. There was no sign of other passengers. Clearly she was being put on the flight home either first or last.

As they emerged into the fresh air and crossed the tarmac, she realised incredulously that Rafael intended to see her right on to the plane to be sure she went. It made her feel as though she was being deported in dis­grace. And that was when it happened—something that had never happened to Georgie before. As she fought to focus on him and say something smart on parting, her head swam alarmingly. The blackness folded in and she fainted.

'Lie still.' As Rafael made the instruction for the second time and Georgie attempted to defy it, he lost patience and planted a powerful hand to her shoulder, to force her back into the comfortable seat in which she was se­curely strapped. 'I don't want you to swoon again.'

If he used that word again, she would surely hit him. 'I didn't swoon, I passed out!' she hissed, twisting away from his unwelcome ministrations. 'And will you take that wet flannel out of my face?'

Dense black lashes screened his clear gaze from her view, a curious stillness to his strong, dark face. 'I was trying to help,' he proffered very quietly.

'I don't want your help.' She turned her head away defensively.

You swooned with Rafael and you really hit the jackpot, though, she conceded. The entire aircrew seemed to be hovering with wet flannels, tablets, and glasses of water and brandy. Any minute now the pilot would appear and offer her some fresh air! Dear Lord, she hoped not! Her violet eyes widened in disbelief on the clouds swirling past the port-hole across the aisle... they were already airborne!

'What are you doing on this flight?' Georgie de­manded, feverishly short of breath. 'We've already taken off!'

Rafael rose up off bis knees, smoothed down the knife creases on his superbly tailored trousers and said some­thing to the crew. Everybody went into retreat. He lowered his long, lithe frame fluidly into the seat op­posite and fixed hooded dark eyes on her.

'This is my private jet.'

'Your what?' Georgie gaped at him.

'I am taking you home with me. Until your passport can be replaced, you are stuck in Bolivia.'

'But I don't have to be stuck with you!'

Unexpectedly, Rafael sent her a shimmering, sardonic smile. 'A lamb to the slaughter... I don't think.'

'I don't know what the heck you're getting at, but I do know you could have left me in my hotel...or thrown a few backhanders in the right direction the way you did to get me out of my prison cell!' Georgie derided, hor­rified at the prospect of being forced to accept his grudging hospitality.

He went white beneath his dark skin, his facial muscles freezing. 'How dare y