Page 42 of Shock Marriage for the Powerful Spaniard
‘It’s no big deal.’
‘Tell me.’ He ordered a bottle of wine and waited until they had chosen what they wanted and the waitress had vanished. ‘Who did you bump into?’
‘Freddy.’
Rafael stilled and for a few seconds he didn’t say anything. ‘Interesting. I was hoping to do the same but he couldn’t be located for love nor money. The man has a peculiar talent for evasion when it comes to facing me down. What did that waste of space have to say for himself?’
‘Well...’ She sat back as a selection of tapas was placed in front of them, light and tasty and perfect for a late lunch. ‘For a start, I can tell you that he’s not your biggest fan.’
‘I think I came to that conclusion a long time ago.’
‘Aside from the business with work...and he’s very smug that you won’t be able to stop him from doing what he wants to do...he also told me that he didn’t believe in this, inus,and that he might just decide to share that with the rest of the world.’
Rafael regarded her narrowly. ‘Quite the conversation the pair of you had. How did this come about, bearing in mind you were supposed to have had a dedicated tour guide showing you the highlights and lowlights of the company?’
‘I went to the room where there’s a potted history of the company and its expansion. Paula had already shown me around various departments. I left her outside taking a call and the next thing I knew Freddy had entered the room and Paula had disappeared.’
‘And I’m thinking that the two things are somehow connected. Did he think that he could use scare tactics on you because he’s not man enough to face me himself?’
Sofia didn’t say anything. She realised, with some surprise, that she had nibbled away at most of the little dishes and drunk a glass of wine. Her mind had been a million miles away.
‘Do you plan on returning to David’s company after this?’
‘I hadn’t planned on it. You haven’t answered my question, Sofia. Did the man frighten you in any way?’
‘We weren’t having a conversation in a dark alley miles away from anyone.’ She tried to laugh but, thinking about it, hehadcreeped her out.
Rafael leant forward and took both her hands in his. The gesture was so tender and so unsolicited that her heart leapt inside her and she felt thatthingagain, the thing she cautioned herself against—a feeling of beingcared forsomehow.
She knew that it was an illusion but that was where hope always broke free and did its own thing. Hope that all her cynicism might one day be proved wrong. Hope that he would realise that, in the end, she was more, than a business transaction.
They made love, they talked, she made him laugh on occasion...theycommunicated...and then there were these instances of tenderness, a tenderness she knew he didn’t even realise he was indulging. Surely all of that must amount tosomething?
Sofia knew that that was why she just kept on hoping. Kept on hoping that he was interested in a whole lot more than just sex, if only he could see it with his eyes wide open.
‘Not the point,’ he was telling her now, his eyes pinning her to the spot. ‘Did he frighten you?’
‘What would you do if I told you that he had?’ she returned lightly, but then she wondered what she would achieve by mentioning that hehadmade the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end, and if that wasn’t a certain amount of fear then what was? ‘He didn’t, as it happens. Men like Freddy don’t scare me.’
‘Men like Freddy? Join the dots for me, Sofia.’
‘He...yes, he did waffle on a bit about you wasting your time rooting around for something to use against him, and I got the feeling that he was probably telling the truth. He might not be too bright but he’s bright enough to know that anything fraudulent would spell the end of his career at my father’s company, however many shares he was given in the divorce settlement.’
‘He’s read the fine print,’ Rafael said thoughtfully. ‘And you may well be right. I’ve shot down a few dead ends, even when I’ve smelled something fishy, something that might have compromised our man. All I’ve got to show for my hard work is a trail of semi-incompetence and a lot of shuffling and wheedling and machinations to get rid of people who might be inclined to block his crazy ideas and install a bunch of no-hopers who would do whatever he asked them to.’ He shrugged. ‘I might have to resign myself to taking what has been signed over to me and then just keeping a watchful eye on the rest. Damage limitation.’
He sighed with frustration and she could read him so well by now that she knew where that frustration stemmed from. He had assumed he would be able to sort everything out in record time and to find that his efforts might well result in nothing would make his pearly whites snap together in rage. He loathed Freddy, thought he was sly and devious and ultimately capable of ruining the company David had built. Maybe not overnight, but incompetence would eat at the foundations and eventually the whole structure would topple to the ground. And would Rafael be able to stop that? It would be a full-time task and he had his own massive empire to run. Time was not his friend.
‘Thereissomething, though, Rafael,’ Sofia told him quietly. She sipped some water and then, when plates had been cleared away, she leaned towards him, elbows on the table, hands clasped, fingers entwined. ‘He... I’m not sure how to say this...but he touched me. Please don’t think that hefrightenedme, becausehedidn’t, but he did touch me.’
The silence that greeted this was so deep and so dense that a shiver of apprehension raced up and down her spine. Rafael’s face was inscrutable but his eyes were narrowed and for a few seconds she was privy to a vision of the ruthless steel that lay beneath the velvet glove.
‘Not,’ she repeated, ‘in any way that was scary. He just ran his fingers on my arm.’ She laughed but Rafael didn’t return the laugh and his body language was so taut and still that she wanted to demand to know what was going through his head.
‘Did he now?’
There was a sickness rising up inside Rafael that he barely recognised. He clenched his fists and controlled a powerful and bewildering urge to punch something. Was this what jealousy tasted like? No, couldn’t be. He’d never been jealous before. He’d gone out with women who graced the catwalk, and commanded second, third and fourth looks wherever they went, and he’d never had a problem with that. And if some guy had made a pass at any of them? He’d certainly never felt this roar of rage inside him, this pounding in his head and throbbing in his temples.
Was it because she was his wife? Maybe it was because of that. In name only but perhaps he was more of a dinosaur than he’d ever imagined and the fact that he was married to her had evoked some kind of primal, possessive streak he’d never experienced. That surely must be it?
