Bride in a Gilded Cage

‘What paper?’ Isobel asked now, getting impatient with Rafael’s obvious reluctance to explain himself.

His jaw tightened. ‘The same paper you yourself appeared in. Just a few pages on.’

Isobel waited, but clearly Rafael wasn’t about to enlighten her, so with an impatient sigh she went into the lounge and to her relief saw that the paper was still in the bin. She pulled it out and flicked through the pages until her eye caught on a headline with an article below.

Rafael Romero and his bleeding heart try to do a deal to encourage hundreds of skilled illegal immigrants to come home by buying out a failed electronics plant…

She scanned the piece quickly, feeling her insides constrict more and more as she did so. Bob Caruthers was Rafael’s US partner in negotiations for reopening the plant in Argentina with the same workers who’d originally gone to the US seeking work. Anyone who wanted to stay on in the States was going to be offered free legal aid to obtain legitimate work visas, and Rafael was taking personal responsibility for every one of the immigrants.

The paper dropped out of Isobel’s hands. She felt sick, but this time for entirely different reasons. She felt shamed. She could hardly meet Rafael’s eyes. She’d been labouring under a very erroneous misapprehension over Rafael’s work ethics from the very first moment she’d met him.

He looked as defiant as she felt humbled, and somewhere she recognised that he hated this—being in this position.

‘I’m sorry, Rafael. I had no right to judge what you do on the basis of the one report I read.’

His mouth twisted. ‘I can’t entirely blame you. We needed to keep it quiet for as long as possible to ensure the protection of the immigrants. I’m involved in a programme with the government to try and create jobs here, to dissuade our young skilled workers from leaving. Bob Caruthers is based in the US; it’s Bob I have to deal with over the demise and rebuilding of the company. It’s been a delicate negotiation so far, and Bob still hasn’t signed the last contract to seal the deal. He’s under no obligation to sanction the move of operations to here.’

Isobel just looked at Rafael, and felt the earth shift and sway under her feet.

Rafael’s chest felt tight with the way Isobel was looking at him. Her gaze was so…penetrating, and full of some indefinable emotion. Something was rising within him and he knew only one way to avoid looking at what that was.

In three long strides he’d crossed the room and cupped Isobel’s face in his hands. He felt her startled breath against his palms and his body tightened with need. Her eyes were huge and intensely dark. She opened her mouth, and the desire rushing through Rafael’s blood made him say, more curtly than he’d intended, ‘No. I don’t want to hear it. Enough. Tonight you’ll be in my bed, Isobel.’

A short while later, changed for the charity function, Isobel had herself rigidly in control. She was aware of Rafael flicking her glances in the back seat of the car, and each one fell like a hot caress on her bared and too sensitive skin.

She wore a strapless cocktail dress, fitted to the knee, and her legs were primly together, slanted to the side, as far away from Rafael as possible. She was still reeling from the revelation of finding out exactly what Rafael had been working on and how wrong she’d been. It made her feel now as if a layer of protective skin had been ripped away, leaving her exposed and vulnerable. Too exposed and vulnerable to face the prospect of sleeping with Rafael that night.

She cast him a quick, surreptitious glance. He was looking ahead, coolly remote, and Isobel shivered. She couldn’t hide any longer.

After a short journey they pulled up outside one of Buenos Aires’s oldest and grandest hotels. Isobel’s door was opened by a liveried doorman and she stepped out to be greeted by Rafael taking her hand in a firm grip. Quashing the urge to pull away, she gritted her teeth against the sensations shooting up her arm and let him lead her into the thronged and glittering function room.

Hundreds of dinner tables were set around a dance floor, which was currently occupied by tables showing off the lots for the charity auction. After dinner, when the lots had been auctioned off—Rafael having spent a ludicrous amount of money—the staff started clearing the dance floor.

Despite herself, Isobel’s distaste for this superficial social scene rose up again. Rafael leant close, and it took all her restraint not to move back. His evocative scent was teasing her nostrils mercilessly.

‘What is wrong with you? You look like you’ve swallowed a lemon.’

Isobel tightened her jaw. ‘I just find it hard to sit here and watch the elite throwing their money around when the charity in question probably gets a bare percentage just for the privilege of having its name mentioned in such exalted circles.’

Rafael’s voice was deep and close, lightly mocking. ‘You’re too quick to judge again.’

Isobel burned at being reminded of how quick and absolute her judgment had been.

‘It’s all a game, just like everything else. The people you see here are the most powerful in the country. To a large extent you’re right in your assessment. But you’re discounting what goes on in tandem with this—for instance, the fact that I’ve donated a disgustingly large amount of money to a cancer charity chaired by the Marquesa Consuela Valderosa, who is holding court on the table over there, means that she will now feel compelled, in the nicest possible way, of course, to lend her illustrious name and support to a much less monied charity of my own choice. It’s all about getting what you want from people. You just have to know how to play the game, Isobel.’

Isobel looked at him speechlessly. His eyes were dark and hypnotic, and she had the strong suspicion he was talking about the games he had accused her of playing with him. She felt hot inside.

Just then Rita leant across the table and said excitedly to Isobel and Rafael, ‘They’re playing that tango music from Scent of a Woman. Would you two dance for us…please?’

Isobel looked at Rafael helplessly, her belly quivering as she remembered how he’d strode across the room earlier and taken her face in his hands. He hadn’t even kissed her, but when he’d turned and walked away she’d been trembling all over. She turned to Rita and started to say, ‘I’m sorry—I don’t know if—’

But Isobel felt her hand being taken and then she was being urged up to meet Rafael, who was looking down at her with a glint in his eye. ‘Of course we’d love to dance a tango—wouldn’t we, carino.’

Isobel hissed at Rafael as he led her to the dance floor, where a few couples were trying unsuccessfully to emulate the famous movie scene. ‘My dress is too tight. I won’t be able to dance properly.’

Rafael swept a look down and bent. All Isobel heard was a faint ripping sound. When he led her forward again she gasped as she felt a breeze, and looked down to see that Rafael had effortlessly ripped her dress to mid-thigh.

He brought her to the middle of the dance floor and she looked up at him, ‘What on earth do you think—?’