Page 19 of Crime of Passion

Pride, self-interest and intelligence ruled against loving a complete bastard. But the fact of the matter was that she did love him, could still hate him with unvarnished energy and passion when he hurt or angered her, but underneath all that was the love and this truly para­lysing longing to be loved back. It terrified her. What had he ever done to be worthy of her love? Nothing, not a single damned thing!

She fell asleep and was wakened by a tiny sound. Startled, she sat up, saw Rafael standing over her and visibly flinched, her natural colour draining away.

'I brought you up some dinner... you were asleep at lunch time,' he proffered tautly.

Georgie was stunned. Rafael with a tray. As unnatural a sight as Rafael up to his elbows in a sink full of dishes.

He looked a little rough too, a blue shadow darkening his strong jawline, harsh lines of strain between his ar­rogant nose and hard mouth. His tie was loose at his brown throat, a couple of buttons on his shirt undone, revealing a whorl of black, curling hair.

She dragged her uncertain eyes from him. 'Thanks, she said woodenly.

He strolled round to the foot of the brass bed and closed his brown hands round the top rail. 'I explained to Teresa that you had been taken ill... and ' he hes­itated '—I changed the bed,' he added in a strained

undertone.

He had changed the bed. What the heck was going on here? Why was he behaving in this weird way? She, was willing to bet that Rafael had never changed a bed in his life before. Of course, he was hiding the evidence. She suddenly wished she were a corpse. Now, that would have given him a real challenge to get his teeth into, the sort of challenge he really deserved. She just bet she was on a flight home tomorrow.

'We need to talk,' he drawled, when it became pain­fully obvious that Georgie was not about to break the silence.

'No.' She didn't even lift her head.

'Then I will talk and you will listen.'

'You could have nothing to say that I could possibly want to hear.'

A lean hand abruptly slashed through the air in a raking gesture of raw impatience. 'I make no excuses for my behaviour over the past forty-eight hours. I must have been out of my mind,' he admitted in a driven un -dertone. 'I abandoned every principle. I behaved dis-honourably. I went off the rails for the very first time-in my life and it has been a sobering experience. I deeply regret everything which has happened between us.'

Georgie's appetite had vanished. She surveyed the ex­quisitely arranged meal through swimming eyes. She was suffering from this truly appalling urge to leap out of bed and put her arms round him. Lord, but she had it bad! Here he was practically on his knees and she didn't even have the gumption to feel any sense of vindicated satisfaction. He had insulted her, threatened her, de-prived her of her freedom, and now he was saying sorry in the only way he could. And since humility came about as naturally to Rafael as walking on water would come to her, she knew exactly what this approach had to be costing him in terms of pride.

'Fine. Apology accepted,' she said with forced lightness.

"That is very generous of you.' It suddenly occurred to her that, in giving way to her shell-shocked emotions earlier, she had been childishly self-indulgent. They had made love, a development she now saw as inevitable. And Rafael had not swept her off to bed without her enthusiastic encouragement. She forced her head up, dealing him a glance from beneath thick copper lashes, and shrugged a narrow shoulder. Least said, soonest mended,' she dismissed, quoting her ate grandmother.

Lustrous dark eyes rested on her with incisive in­tensity. 'You are taking this very well!' I'll be out of here tomorrow. 'Why not?' Georgie contrived another shrug, even managed a faint smile, and felt immensely proud of herself until she realised that she was finding it in­credibly hard to drag her gaze from his darkly handsome features. Memory roamed relentlessly back a few hours and a surge of heat dampened her skin, interfered with her breathing and sent her heartbeat into shameless ac­celeration. In bed, he was her every fantasy fulfilled, and the instant that thought came to her she drowned in self-loathing.

'Bueno.' Rafael expelled his breath in a hiss. Tension sizzled from his stance in palpable waves. From the foot of the bed he watched her, his magnificent physique vis­ibly taut. His hard jawline clenched, a tiny pulse tugging at the corner of his unsmiling mouth.

The silence smouldered. Georgie fingered a prawn off her starter and munched defiantly at it, her cheeks still hot as hellfire from her last thought.

'Then allow me the very great honour of asking you to become my wife,' Rafael breathed, with an ab­ruptness that brutally shattered the tense silence.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Halfway to success in pursuit of a second luscious prawn, Georgie stilled and looked up, met shimmering golden eyes fiercely pinned to her. She tried and failed to swallow. Her wide violet gaze clung to him in rampant disbelief.

'I'm an angel now,' she whispered in shock.

'Que?' Rafael stared darkly back at her.

'You're not serious?' Georgie framed weakly.

'I have already spoken to Father Tomas.'

Georgie bunked rapidly at the calm announcement. 'You've what!'

'Or if you would prefer I could contact an English minister I am acquainted with in La Paz.'

Numbly, Georgie shook her head. Rafael gazed steadily back at her, impervious, it seemed, to her dis­belief. She drew in a slow, shaky breath, her heart thumping noisily in her eardrums. 'I just don't believe I'm hearing this... You don't want to marry me!'

'Had I had more faith in you four years ago, we would already have been man and wife,' Rafael drawled in a tone of finality.

'But that's got nothing to do with now.'

'Georgie...I want to marry you.'

Georgie dragged unwillingly fascinated eyes from his forceful gaze and sighed heavily. 'When you said we were from different cultures, you weren't joking. I suppose you think you have to marry me because—well—be­cause we slept together.'

'I want the right to share that bed with you every night,' Rafael murmured softly.

Her skin warmed. She didn't question the overwhelm­ingly strong attraction between them but she sincerely doubted that in any other circumstances it would have prompted Rafael to offer marriage after making love to her. He was feeling guilty. Rafael, who prided himself on his principles, his sense of honour and his excellent judgement, had just weathered the discovery that he was human after all. Not perfect, not without flaw...and both his manner and his appearance told her just how savaging that revelation had been.

So here he was now, offering the only reparation he could. Marriage. He would marry her because he had slept with her. He would marry her because he had been her first lover. And. perhaps he would also marry her because he had already told her that that had been his intent four years ago. Not for any other reasons. Not because any romanticised view of her lingered from the past. No such illusions could remain after what Rafael had believed about her for so long. But, regardless of all that, Rafael would force himself to make the ultimate sacrifice. He believed that he owed her that wedding-ring. For a split-second she felt so corrosively bitter that it physically hurt to breathe.

'We're just not su

ited,' Georgie muttered. 'But I do appreciate the thought.' It was a lie. Suddenly she hated him for his precious code of honour and decency, light-years away from the values of the more liberated society in which she had been raised. Such a proposal was no compliment. 'Thanks, but no thanks.'

'It wasn't just a thought,' Rafael rebutted tautly.

'No, I expect it took a lot of macho courage for you to ask a woman you don't like and don't respect to become your wife,' Georgie responded, equally tautly.

'But the point is, I don't want to marry you anyway, so it wasn't necessary.'

'That is not how I regard you now.' His retort was level.' I made a very grave error of judgement four years ago '

A knife-edged laugh was torn from Georgie. 'An error of judgement!' she repeated helplessly, and looked heavenward, unable to escape the recollection of how badly she had been hurt by the fall-out.

A dark rise of blood had accentuated his high cheek­ bones, but he held her evasive gaze unflinchingly. 'Think of it from my point of view '

'Your point of view?' she gasped incredulously.

'I knew that Steve did not look on you as a sister. I was aware that he was sexually attracted to you '

Georgie threw her head back, her disgust unhidden. 'Are you still trying to twist the facts? That night, when Steve suddenly grabbed me and kissed me, he had had too much to drink. He was upset because he had had a row with his girlfriend. It was just one of those stupid, crazy things that people do sometimes on impulse and it meant nothing!'

Rafael dealt her a slashing glance. 'You only see what you want to see, Georgie...'

'And what's that supposed to mean?'

His expressive mouth flattened into a compressed white line. 'Steve,' he breathed tautly. 'You still love him as a brother, as a member of your family?'

Georgie frowned, unable to understand his need to state the obvious. 'Naturally, we're close. Why wouldn't we be?' she demanded.

Rafael was very still, his dark features oddly tense and austere as he studied her. There was a long pause. Then he shrugged a shoulder with a grim air of finality. 'When I saw you in his arms, how do you think I felt?'

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