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Apart from the most important thing of all—how to win her. How to allay her reluctance and wariness and get her, little by precious little, to relax with him. To enjoy his company as he was enjoying having hers this evening.
He put aside such troubling thoughts, focussing instead on making this a pleasant, easy meal to share together, without stress or strain.
He nodded at her with a slight smile. ‘Sole OK?’ he checked as they began to eat.
‘Beautiful,’ she assured him.
‘And I can’t tempt you to a modest spoonful of hollandaise sauce?’ He indicated the silver jug containing the butter-rich sauce that went with his own salmon.
‘You can tempt me,’ she said lightly, ‘but I won’t succumb.’
Even as she spoke she realised it was a double entendre.
Long lashes dipped down over his obsidian eyes. ‘I shall live in hope,’ Rafael murmured, the now familiar humorous glint in his eyes.
She gave a resigned shake of her head even as her lips twitched with unconscious amusement. She was coming to appreciate that this uniquely disturbing man had a beguiling sense of humour that could tease gently—but not threateningly.
He might radiate the sense of powerful self-assurance that sat on many a wealthy man’s shoulders, and beneath the hand-tailored suit there might be an innate underlying toughness that came, she suspected, from the struggles he had faced in his life to make himself what he now was, but for all that—perhaps because of that!—there was a chivalry about him that could only warrant her respect and her appreciation. She felt warmed by it. His intervention in that horrible, ugly scene with Karl Reiner was proof of that—as was the open contempt he displayed towards the man.
No, she acknowledged, with wrenching self-awareness, Rafael Sanguardo posed one threat to her only: he attracted her—attracted her as no other man had ever done!
That is his threat to me! That! And that is why I cannot—must not!—let myself be beguiled by him! However much I want to be! I am not free to be beguiled by him! I am not free to want him as I do!
It was impossible. Always impossible. Which was why this evening could not be the start of anything—only the end.
And so I must make the most of it! Have it as a good memory for the future. The memory of what might have been but cannot be...
That was all she could have. All she could ever have.
She took a breath, made some polite, praising comment about the quality of the food they were eating, and the conversation moved on. It was easy and yet mentally stimulating, too, as well as pleasant and enjoyable—let alone that it quickened her pulse so powerfully, so beguilingly, to talk to Rafael Sanguardo, whatever the subject.
The single glass of crisp white wine she’d allowed herself helped, she knew, and she sipped it carefully as she ate. Quite what they talked about she wasn’t aware—only that they ranged over a variety of subjects. Rafael proved a skilful conversationalist, his wry comments infused with glinting humour, and yet when he was serious—as when they talked about his work and his country—she could see a clear sense of commitment and passion about him.
More and more Celeste found herself thinking well of him, even beyond the oh-so-potent physical attraction that so disturbed her senses. He is an enlightened, upright man, with sound principles and a sense of the responsibility that comes with the kind of wealth he has made for himself—and made for others, too.
A man she could respect. The little stab of anguish came again. And a man she could easily, so dangerously easily, start to feel much more for than respect.
But that reaction must be quashed. She must not give in to her silent urge to hold his eyes, to let her own eyes dwell on the strongly planed features of his face that drew her gaze so much, to let herself feel that shimmer of response to his effortlessly compelling masculinity. She must restrict and restrain herself to being cool and composed and letting no emotion well up from the core of her being.
