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Was that why his glamorous, high-maintenance wife had left him? Because his focus was all on dollars, cents and profit?
‘You care deeply, don’t you, Grace?’ He was watching her and she saw the now familiar cynical gleam return to his eyes. ‘I suggest we postpone this particular conversation until you’ve looked round the fazenda.’
They walked onwards past creeks and streams that had been dammed to preserve the water. Goats grazed, chickens ran loose and a group of young children were playing a riotous game in the dust outside.
As they walked towards some buildings, a man and a woman emerged to meet them. Their simple clothes were dusty from the soil and worn from years of hard use. Physical toil in the harsh Brazilian sunshine had weathered the skin on their faces and hands so that it was impossible to be sure of their age. Grace would have guessed them to be in their late sixties but they could have been younger.
Holding out both hands, the woman greeted Rafael with warmth and respect and he spoke in rapid Portuguese, his gaze occasionally sliding to Grace, leaving her in no doubt that she was the topic of conversation.
Conscious of her bedraggled appearance, Grace smoothed her hair away from her face and hoped they didn’t mind the fact that she was such a mess. But they didn’t seem to even notice her wet clothes. They didn’t seem interested.
Instead they listened to Rafael and cast anxious glances in her direction, their smiles of welcome apparently frozen by whatever it was he was saying.
Grace sighed. Whatever it was, if the words leaving his mouth related to her, then the one thing that she could guarantee was that it wouldn’t be anything flattering.
Although she didn’t fully understand his animosity towards her, she could hardly fail to be aware that he wasn’t exactly her biggest fan.
Except in the sex department, she reminded herself ruefully. On that level, at least, she’d apparently scored points with him.
As he talked, she sensed a change in the couple and they looked at her with a mixture of anxiety, trepidation and a touch of—anger?
Gaining the distinct impression that her unannounced arrival was less than welcome, Grace suddenly felt awkward and touched Rafael’s arm. ‘Does it put them out, me visiting like this? Because if it does we can just turn straight round and go home.’
‘Home?’ The mockery in his voice reminded her that, however beautiful his rainforest lodge, she had no claim on it.
She was an outsider.
And she’d never felt more alienated from others than she did at that moment.
‘I mean to your lodge, of course,’ she murmured, correcting her mistake swiftly and wondering why every verbal exchange between them felt like negotiating a minefield.
He studied her for a moment, his gaze direct and unsympathetic.
‘Your vi
sit doesn’t put them out. But naturally it’s distressing for them. And worrying.’
‘Why would it be distressing? Do they know that my business is in trouble?’
But Rafael ignored her question and instead switched back to Portuguese to continue his conversation with the couple. And although she couldn’t understand what he was saying, he appeared to be reassuring them about something. His reassurance appeared to have an effect because the woman reached for his hand and gave him a grateful look.
Mesmerised by the unexpected softening she saw in his dark eyes, Grace watched as his strong male fingers closed over the work-roughened hand of the old lady. Although hers wasn’t the hand being squeezed, she knew instinctively that there would be pressure from those long, strong fingers and she took comfort from that surprising fact.
So he wasn’t entirely incapable of emotional connection, then. Not entirely incapable of showing feeling. Not love, maybe, but something.
And not for some Hollywood ‘A’ list actress but for an old lady who lived in the forest. Someone whose means were quite obviously entirely different from his own.
And then he released the old lady’s hand and switched back to English with an ease and fluency that Grace could only envy. Pushing aside the sense of inferiority that other people’s effortless competence always induced in her, she stepped forward with a smile as he introduced them.
‘Carlos and Filomena,’ he said quietly. ‘They farm the land along with their extended family and a few workers who come in from the nearest town.’
Grace glanced towards the children playing with the water barrel. ‘Those are their children?’
‘Grandchildren. Their children are out on the farm working.’
‘A real family business, then.’ Grace sensed a sudden stiffness in the couple and then Filomena stepped forward and said something in Portuguese.
‘She says that they are pleased you’ve come here so that they have the opportunity to show you what they’re doing.’ There was something in his tone that made her faintly uneasy but she’d had enough of word games to last her the entire visit so she simply nodded and smiled to indicate that she was equally pleased.
