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She was here to do her job. Which started and ended with helping Rafael heal properly and regain the utmost mobility. Once she achieved her aim and made peace with her part in his accident, she could walk away from the crazy, bone-deep, completely insane attraction she felt for the man who was in every shape and form the epitome of the man who’d fathered her.
The man whose playboy lifestyle had mattered to him on so deep a level he’d turned his back on his parental responsibilities until they’d been forced on him by the authorities. The same man who’d stood by and barely blinked while his friends had tried to put their hands on her.
Punch!
Her hand slipped. The bag continued its lethal trajectory towards her. Only her ingrained training made her sidestep the heavy-moving bag before it knocked her off her feet. Chest heaving, she tugged off the gloves and went to the climbing frame and chalked her hands.
Clamping her lids shut, she regulated her breathing and forced herself to focus.
Rafael would not derail her. She’d made a colossal mistake and vocalised her roiling disgust for his lifestyle at the most inappropriate moment. Whatever the papers had said, Raven knew deep down she was partly, if not wholly, responsible for putting Rafael in the dangerous frame of mind that had caused his accident. She also knew things could’ve turned out a million times worse than they had. This was her penance. She would help him get back on his feet. Then she would leave and get on with the rest of her life.
Reaching high, she grabbed the first handhold.
By the time she reached the top seven minutes later, her new course of action was clearly formulated.
* * *
‘I’ve laid out the itinerary for the next three months. If you cooperate, I’m confident I can get you back to full health and one hundred per cent mobility with little or no after-effects,’ she started crisply as she opened the door and entered Rafael’s study. She approached his desk, only to stop when she noticed his attention was caught on the papers strewn on his glass-topped desk.
‘I’m talking to you, Rafael.’
‘I heard you,’ he muttered, and held out his hand for the sheet without looking up. After a cursory glance, he started to shake his head. ‘This isn’t going to work.’ He slapped it down and picked up his own papers.
Raven waited a beat. When he didn’t look up, she fought a sharp retort. ‘May I ask why not?’
‘I have several events to host and meetings to attend between now and when the X1 season starts. Your itinerary requires that I stand still.’
She frowned. ‘No, it doesn’t.’
‘It might as well. You’ve upped the regime from two to three times a day with sports massages thrown in there that would require me to be stationary. And was that acupuncture I saw in there?’ His derisive tone made her hackles rise higher. ‘I’ll be travelling a lot in the next three months. You’re sorely mistaken if you think I intend to take time off to sit around being pricked and prodded.’
She watched the light glint off his damp hair. ‘What do you mean, you’ll be travelling a lot? You’re supposed to be recuperating.’
Steely blue eyes met hers and instantly Raven was reminded of the unwavering determination that had seen him win several racing championships since he’d turned professional at nineteen.
‘I have a multi-billion-dollar company to run, or have you forgotten?’
‘No, I haven’t. But wasn’t...isn’t Marco in charge for the time being? He told me he had everything in hand when we discussed my helping you—’
His eyes narrowed. ‘What else did you discuss with my brother?’
Mouth dry, she withstood his stare. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I expected an element of confidentiality when I hired you...’
‘What exactly are you accusing me of?’
‘You will not discuss details of my health with anyone else but me, is that clear?’
‘I didn’t—’
‘You’re glowing.’ His gaze raked her face down to her neck and back up again.
‘Excuse me?’
‘You look...flushed. If I weren’t painfully aware of the unlikelihood of it, I’d have said you had just tumbled from a horizontal marathon in a lover’s bed. Not quite tumbled to within an inch of your life, more like—’
‘Can we get back to this, please?’ She waved the sheet in his face then slammed it back in front of him.
He shrugged and sat back in his plush leather chair, the cool, calm businessman back in place. ‘Marco has his own company to run...and a new family to attend to. Besides, he’s taking a well-earned break, so I’m managing his company as well.’
