Crime of Passion

Georgie compressed her lips. She was a little surprised by his continuing hostility towards her stepbrother in spite of the fact that he now knew the truth. Didn't he now appreciate that he had misjudged Steve just as badly as he had misjudged her? Then, no doubt, Rafael still blamed Steve for that stupid kiss he had witnessed. 'I expect you were as taken aback seeing it as I was when it happened,' she conceded grudgingly.

'I was in love with you!' Rafael bit out with raw em­phasis, and her head jerked up, her eyes widening. ' "Taken aback" does not begin to describe my feelings that night or the following day!'

'I find it very hard to believe that you loved me,' she admitted.

'Don't be more stupid than you can help!' Rafael slung her a glittering golden glance of exasperation. 'For what other reason would I have wanted to marry you?'

She swallowed hard. The idea that he had loved her four years ago merely piled on the agony. If he had loved her, he hadn't trusted her, and he had walked away without a backward glance. 'Well, it doesn't really matter now, does it?'

'So you keep telling me.'

'We've got nothing more to say to each other.'

'Another platitude,' Rafael derided, a gathering storm of anger lightening his gaze to gold. 'And what platitude will you employ if you find that you are carrying my child in a few weeks? Are we all to be treated to the "Oops, gosh, I didn't think" response that you seem to believe covers every eventuality?'

Georgie stared back at him, pale as death.

Rafael absorbed her stunned response with grim eyes. 'No, I didn't protect you. An inexcusable omission, but in all that excitement the risk only crossed my mind for one second, and I foolishly assumed that you would still be on the contraceptive pill. The look on your face tells me you are not...and why should you have been?' he demanded with a sardonic edge. 'You had no reason to take such a precaution.'

Georgie licked at her dry lips in a flickering motion, briefly lost in a stricken vision of single parenthood, un­employment and family horror. Then her fevered im­agination steadied as she performed some frantic calculations as to the date of her last period, but there was no great comfort to be found there. Whether she liked it or not, there was a slight risk of pregnancy. Not a large risk, she hurriedly consoled herself—at least, she didn't think so.

'It's not very likely,' she asserted breathlessly. 'But not impossible?'

'Nothing's impossible, but I would say the chances are probably slim to none.'

"The eternal optimist.' Rafael slung her a scathing smile and then he asked her bluntly when exactly she could expect to know whether or not she was pregnant.

"That's none of your '

'If you're pregnant, it will be very much my business,' he cut in drily.

Tight-mouthed, she obliged the information. 'I would say computing a risk factor of slim to none is suicidally optimistic,' he returned drily. 'And I have no intention of waiting to find out!'

Exhausted by all the stress, Georgie sighed. Suddenly she understood another motivation behind his stated desire to marry her. The mere threat of a Berganza being born on the metaphorical wrong side of the blanket was a shattering one for a male of Rafael's breeding. And it was typical of him to look only on the darkest side of the equation. Where Georgie instinctively expected not to be further punished for her recklessness by an un­planned pregnancy, Rafael probably expected triplets. 'God couldn't be so cruel,' she mumbled helplessly.

'Every child is a gift from God,' Rafael asserted wit! ferocious bite. 'That is why we will get married as soon as possible.'

A hysterical giggle lodged like a giant stone in Georgie's throat. 'I went to bed with you. I didn't sign my whole life away!'

'It was my fault. I seduced you.'

Georgie's sensitive stomach heaved and she looked at him with incredulous eyes. 'Women of my age don't get seduced—revolting word,' she grimaced. 'I take re­sponsibility for my own actions.'

'But you're dangerously impulsive. You always were

Incensed by the unwelcome seed of reality to that as­sessment, Georgie stiffened defensively. 'Fortunately, I'm not impulsive enough to agree to a marriage which neither one of us wants! I'm not wrecking my life over one stupid mistake!'

'It is a mistake which you will have to learn to !iv-with,' Rafael told her, striding towards the door, his hard-edged profile unyielding.

'In a pig's eye, I will!' Georgie launched back at him 'And don't think you can bully me into changing my mind.'

The door flipped shut. She slumped back on the pillows. He had proposed to her, which was rather a joke. After all, he had already embarked on arrange-ments for a wedding! Typical Rafael. He always ran a one-horse race. And presumably he had expected her to rush breathlessly into agreement. But he knew she had loved him four years ago, was undoubtedly aware that she would have married him like a shot had he asked her then.

Like any girl, she had dreamt about marrying the man she loved. But that was then... and this was now, when she was a whole lot older and wiser. Rafael was not in love with her. She found it so hard to believe that he had ever loved her, so icily controlled had he been at their final meeting. Wouldn't a man in love have raged and stormed at her in bitter fury and jealousy? Or were such base but supremely human emotions beneath Rafael and the self-discipline he prided himself on?

She remembered that last meeting in his apartment so well.

Rafael had been ice while she did all the humiliating things he had reminded her of just yesterday. She had wept and begged. She had pleaded with him to listen to her. She had begged him not to leave her. Why had she gone to such lengths without the smallest encour­agement to do so?

She had been passionately in love with him, and what Rafael had believed he had interrupted at Danny's apartment had been so ludicrous. Then, of course, she had not been aware that Rafael had also seen Steve kissing her. And naturally she would not have referred to that embarrassing slip of Steve's. She had calmed down by then, was very fond of her stepbrother and, if family loyalty hadn't kept her quiet, discomfiture over that embrace certainly would have done. Looking back, it merely seemed a silly storm in a teacup. It would never have occurred to her that Rafael could have seen them.

When she woke up the next morning, she pulled on jeans and a tailored white shirt with roll-back cuffs. No more Barnes. There was no longer any need for games in the cause of self-defence. There was a need for calm and common sense. Presumably Rafael, a decent interval after all that positively gothic talk about honour and nrinciples, would now be calmer and more reasonable too.

But, as she descended the stairs, her carefully pre­pared cool was instantly smashed by Rafael's ap­pearance in the hall. He was dressed for riding in skin-tight beige breeches and a black polo shirt. Every su­perbly fit line of his gorgeous body was smoothly delin­eated, his lazy stride laced with an utterly unselfconscious animal sensuality. Quite simply, his sheer physical impact stopped her in her tracks. Lean, mean and magnificent. Her mouth ran dry.

'Buenos dias, querida.' Bracing a polished leather boot. on the bottom step, Rafael treated her to a raking, over­whelmingly male appraisal which made her skin heat. 'Do you still ride?'

'Only a handful of times since I went to college. I couldn't afford it.'

'It isn't a skill you forget. I'll take you out with me tomorrow.' Somehow he contrived to make the invi­tation sound as intimate as a siesta in a double bed.

Georgie tensed. 'I won't be here tomorrow.'

'You think not?' "Reaching out, he tugged her forward in one smooth motion and encircled her in his arms. Still standing a step higher, Georgie found herself facing him levelly.

'Rafael.. .no!' she gasped feverishly.

He penetrated her anxiously parted lips with bis tongue and she shuddered, electrified by the intense eroticism of bis opening assault.

'Closer,' he urged, his breath fanning her cheek smouldering golden eyes burning down into hers as his hands cupped the swell of her buttocks and lifted her i

nto intimate connection with the hard thrust of his arousal. 'Si... like that...'

He crushed her mouth under his and she was elec-trified by the hunger which leapt into response inside her. Keen and fierce as a knife, that voracious hunger cleaved through her flesh. Her breasts swelled and ached and her nipples pinched into painfully sensitive points She arched her back like a sensuous cat, desperate for more sensation, her head thrown back, her hands wound round his neck.

'If you had been in my bed when I woke up, I wouldn't be suffering this way. I would be satisfied,' Rafael mur­mured huskily, rubbing an abrasive cheek intimately against the tender skin of her throat and then reaching up teasingly to tug at her ear-lobe with sharp teeth, and if he hadn't been holding her up at that point she honestly believed she would have folded into quivering female surrender at his feet. By that stage, her entire body was on fire.

'Ah... we have company.' Swinging her down off the step and turning, Rafael lowered her to the floor, but kept his arms linked round her, her spine welded to the warm, hard wall of his chest. 'Company?' Georgie echoed dazedly. 'Allow me to introduce you to my father's eldest sister, Tia Paola. I know she will want you to address her as one of the family.'

Georgie's gaze fell on a beaming, plump little woman with white hair and twinkling dark eyes. In spite of her shock that Rafael should be entertaining unexpected vis-tors, and relatives at that, she found herself smiling back. Tia Paola had that kind of face. She moved forward to clasp Georgie's hands warmly and murmur a greeting.

'And, of course, Tia's ward—Beatriz Herrera Len.' Georgie's attention was drawn by the young woman coming down the stairs towards them, a tall designer-clad brunette of quite stunning looks and presence. Liquid dark eyes regarded her with faint amusement as the introduction was performed. And, all of a sudden, Georgie felt horribly aware of her casual clothing, wollen mouth and thoroughly mussed hair.