Functioning on automatic, she walked out of the airport towards the taxi rank, forgetting that she was supposed to meet up with Rafael’s chauffeur in London.
Numb with misery and not thinking straight, she slipped into the back of a cab, trying to come to terms with the fact that yet again her father had done his best to hurt her.
Only this time he’d succeeded far better than he’d ever dreamed.
Because she knew that her relationship with Rafael was over. It had to be. What choice did she have? How could she expose him to this sort of scrutiny, knowing how fiercely he guarded his privacy?
Because of her, his name was all over the papers. Again.
And she’d never be able to control that, would she? If she continued her relationship with him, her father would always find some way of making money out of it. That was the sort of person he was.
And she loved Rafael far too much to let that happen.
Three days later, Rafael was pacing the length of the drawing room in his gated mansion, located in the most exclusive part of London.
Normally only a serious crisis in his business would have dragged him from the rainforest before he was ready to leave, but on this occasion he wasn’t thinking about business. He was thinking about Grace.
The moment she’d left, he’d realised that he’d made a mistake letting her go. There was no way sh
e should be confronting her father on her own.
He’d put in a call to his team in London, instructing them to keep her safely at his house until he arrived.
And that was when he’d discovered that she hadn’t been seen since her arrival in London.
Trying to control his mounting temper, he turned again to the man standing nervously by the desk. ‘Are you seriously telling me that she vanished?’
The man licked his lips. ‘That’s right, sir.’
‘But she flew out of Rio on my plane,’ Rafael pointed out in soft, deadly tones, ‘so at what point, exactly, did you manage to lose her?’
The man swallowed. ‘We’re not honestly sure, sir. She was walking through the airport and then suddenly she wasn’t there any more. She vanished.’
Cursing fluently in English and then reverting to his native Portuguese, Rafael thumped his fist onto the table and looked up with exasperation as another of his staff sidled into the room with a newspaper.’ Now what?’
‘We thought you ought to see this, sir.’
Rafael’s eyes narrowed. ‘I don’t read tabloid newspapers.’
‘I’m aware of that, sir.’ The girl cleared her throat and stepped forward and thrust the newspaper towards him. ‘But I think you’ll want to read this one.’
Grace sat in the little park that was directly opposite the mews house that her father owned.
A week had passed since she’d read the story about herself in the paper and she’d spent the entire time thinking about what she could possibly do or say to make it up to Rafael.
In the end she’d sent a short note of apology and tried not to think of the luxurious private jet that had by now flown back to Rio without her.
Too upset to see her father as she’d planned, she’d checked herself into an anonymous bed and breakfast in an unfashionable part of London instead of returning to her flat. And she’d spent the whole of the last week staring up at the cream-painted ceiling of the small room, trying to work out what to do.
Trying to pull herself together.
It was over. And of course that was disappointing but it had always been going to finish at some point, hadn’t it? Rafael didn’t love her. He didn’t love anyone, so their romantic interlude would have had a limited shelf life.
But none of the phrases going round in her head had offered even the smallest bit of comfort.
And finally the misery had faded and anger had taken its place.
Anger at her father for hurting Rafael.