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Panic at his proximity made her blurt out, ‘If I had a choice I wouldn’t marry someone like you in a million years.’
His eyes flicked up and down, and Isobel felt her skin grow hot. ‘So you keep saying. I’m going to think you’re protesting just a little too much if you keep this up.’
Rafael just looked at her for an intensely long moment, and then went back to sit down. With a few feet separating them again Isobel felt her heart slow down and her brain cleared. Was he suggesting that on some level she wanted this? That she would choose this if given a choice? Nausea rose. She couldn’t want this on any level. It went against everything she believed in and wanted for herself.
Isobel stayed silent as they taxied and then took off into the air. She watched as Paris fell away below them, gradually becoming smaller and smaller until it got obscured with clouds and disappeared completely. To her surprise, her dominant feeling as they left wasn’t of sadness or even anger, it was a kind of ambivalence. Had it really touched her so superficially?
Far too disturbed to investigate that line of thinking, Isobel got her book out of her bag and pretended to be engrossed. But all the while she was acutely aware of every movement Rafael made just feet away.
CHAPTER FOUR
THEY arrived in Buenos Aires on a cool August morning, with dawn breaking over the horizon, sending crimson ribbons across the sky. For some reason it felt like an omen to Isobel, and she wasn’t sure if it was good or bad. She could sense Rafael behind her, urging her on to go down the steps. She had to move forward. She took a deep breath and stepped out. When she came to the bottom of the steps and stood on Argentinian soil for the first time in three years she felt something intangible move within her and thought of her grandparents. To her utter disgust, emotional tears prickled ominously.
Blinking them back and feeling betrayed by her emotions, telling herself it had to be tiredness, jet-lag…anything but the fact that she’d actually missed Buenos Aires…she felt Rafael take her arm and lead her over to a waiting car.
Once they were in the back Isobel sent him a quick glance, disgusted to see that Rafael looked as if he’d just woken from a deep, restorative sleep—which, she had to remind herself, he had. He’d worked for a bit at the start of the flight, they’d eaten a meal, and then he’d reclined his chair and snored softly for the whole flight. Isobel knew because she’d been tense and wound up the whole time, casting him suspicious looks, hating him for sleeping so easily.
‘What happens now?’ she asked, trying to ignore his perfection.
He faced her. ‘What happens now is that I drop you at your house. I’ve been invited over this evening for dinner, and I’ll bring your engagement ring with me. It belonged to my grandmother.’
‘Engagement ring…’ Isobel repeated weakly, with visions of an enormously ostentatious ruby-red rock surrounded by diamonds.
Rafael frowned, unaware of the horror rising within Isobel at how fast things were moving. He took one of her hands and inspected it, making little fires of sensation race up Isobel’s arm. ‘Your fingers are slim. I’ll probably have to ge
t the size adjusted, but that shouldn’t take long…’
Isobel pulled her hand free and choked back the urge to shout at the driver to turn right around and go back to the plane. They were entering the outskirts of BA, and Isobel found that she was experiencing that same welling of emotion she’d had on leaving the plane. Her hands clenched in her lap. How could her emotions be so fickle? When she was coming home to be all but marched up the aisle with a gun to her head?
Before long they turned into a familiar road, her road, and the gates of Isobel’s house opened smoothly. As they came up the drive Isobel could see that her parents were standing at the door, flanked by the staff on either side. All up and dressed, as if it wasn’t ungodly early.
Isobel felt a sense of resignation…and with a heavy heart she knew that she was doing the right thing. Losing everything would have destroyed her parents. As much as they might not be close, they were still her parents, and she loved them. The realisation made her feel very vulnerable as Rafael came around and opened her door.
The next few minutes were a blur, but a few things stood out: how possessive Rafael’s arm felt clasped around her waist and how it made a churning mix of emotions run through her; her father’s relieved and grateful expression; her mother’s insincere tears of joy at having her prodigal daughter returned.
And then Rafael was gone, his car disappearing back down the drive. Isobel actually felt bereft for a moment, as if some kind of anchor was being taken away—which was crazy. But then she was being hustled into the house and the door was shut firmly behind her. If she closed her eyes for a brief moment it was almost as if the last three years hadn’t happened…
The next couple of weeks passed in a whirlwind. Isobel felt like Dorothy in Oz, caught up in a tornado of escalating ferocity. As she stood looking out of her bedroom window something glinted in the reflection, catching her attention, and she looked down at the engagement ring on her finger.
That first night she’d come home Rafael had returned for dinner, as he’d promised, with a small box. In front of her parents he’d presented her with the ring, and to Isobel’s surprise it had been nothing like she’d expected. It was small and delicate, a rare pink diamond, almost deep purple in colour, surrounded by white diamonds in a circular art deco setting.
And again to her surprise, it had fitted like a glove, needing no adjustment. Rafael had all but smirked when it had fitted snugly on her finger, and his hand had remained on hers for an uncomfortably long time.
Since then she’d seen him only a handful of times, always surrounded by people, and in the past few days not at all—he’d had to fly to the States on business.
The papers had been full of their marriage, and Isobel pored over the articles with a sick fascination. Her blood had run cold, though, when she’d read about the deal he was currently involved in; he’d gone to America to bail out a failing company whose employees were mainly illegal Argentinian immigrants. They had gone there as skilled workers who hadn’t been able to find work at home due to the economic downturn.
The papers were full of speculation that Rafael would be helping deport those immigrants and building up the company again with legitimate US employees. While Isobel couldn’t condone immigrants working illegally, she felt sick to her core that Rafael would just send people back to the place they’d struggled so hard to leave.
He’d phoned every day, though, and predictably Isobel’s thoughts were scrambled as soon as she heard his voice. How could she be so affected by someone so amoral and ruthless?
‘I’m looking forward to seeing you walk down the aisle to me, Isobel,’ he’d said once.
She’d gripped the phone tight, panic a familiar sensation. ‘You mean you’re looking forward to seeing your bride of convenience walking down the aisle.’
Before he could say anything Isobel had said, ‘You might find yourself begging to divorce me in six months’ time, and that’s not going to look good for your business, either.’
His voice had turned to steel. ‘We won’t be divorcing ever. There is no room for failure in this.’
