Rafael.
Heaving up to her feet, blood didn’t follo
w to her head. She struggled to remain upright as he approached. And he was clapping...albeit with one of his hands in a splint, just as Diego had said.
“That was the best version of Snow White I’ve ever heard. And the most dynamic, entertaining performance I’ve ever seen. You missed your calling. You should be on stage.”
He was dressed as Diego had described. So casually chic and disarmingly handsome it was painful to behold his beauty. And he clearly hadn’t shaved since she’d seen him. His beard had turned him from a soul-stealing seducer to a heart-snatching pirate.
“What are you doing here?” she hissed.
Ignoring her anger, he gently swept a finger around one puffy eye and rasped, “I made you cry.”
Suppressing a shudder, she stepped away. “I made me cry. But I’m done crying. Answer my question.”
Instead of answering, his probing gaze left her to settle on Diego. “Thank you for not drawing attention to my entry and giving me the chance to watch Eliana’s performance. Is she always that fantastic?”
Diego nodded enthusiastically. “Always. She’s the only one who makes us laugh. And she’s the only one who makes me think.”
Something scalding came into Rafael’s wolf’s eyes as they swept to hers. “She’s the only one who makes me...do so many things, too.” He turned to Diego, extended his hand. “Rafael.”
The boy put his small hand in Rafael’s with all the decorum of a young prince meeting a vital new ally. “Diego.”
A painful tightness gripped her throat as Rafael shook the boy’s hand with utmost earnestness. It felt as if she was seeing two versions of Rafael, separated by the chasm of time and circumstance, past and present selves meeting. The way they regarded each other, the awareness in their eyes, as if each recognized something fundamentally the same about the other.
She blinked away the moisture. Where was this coming from? Rafael, the all-powerful tycoon, couldn’t have anything in common with an abandoned boy like Diego. Though she knew nothing about Rafael’s past, she couldn’t imagine he’d ever been as disadvantaged as Diego.
But...what had his childhood been like? How had he become this complex, irresistible force of nature...?
No. Not irresistible. Not to her, not anymore. And she didn’t care about his past or present. She didn’t want to know anything about him, or have anything to do with him.
“I asked Ellie if she could ask you to come again, just earlier so you could visit us for a while before bedtime.”
“It would be a pleasure and an honor, Diego.” He slanted her a glance. “If Eliana approves.”
Ellie tried not to gape at Rafael. It stunned her to see him treat Diego with such respect and regard. Especially after he’d snubbed her father so viciously last night. Before doing the same to her.
“Why do you call her Eliana?” Diego asked. “We all call her Ellie.”
“She is Eliana to me. Do you know what that name means?”
Diego shook his head vigorously.
“It means God has answered.”
“Answered what?”
“Prayers. So Eliana is God’s answer to prayers.”
Completely engrossed, Diego probed, “Whose prayers?”
“Her parents. Mine. And I have a feeling yours, too.”
Rafael’s eyes moved back to her, and the look in them, the way he’d said mine, made her forget how last night had ended in humiliation. But that only lasted for moments before she was back to wanting to rant that she never wanted to see him again.
But Diego clung around her neck with even more fervency than usual. “Please, let him come again.”
Her fury at Rafael intensified. But she couldn’t blast him in front of the starstruck boy, yet she couldn’t raise expectations she’d have to disappoint, either.