‘GRETCHEN?’
His PA lifted her head, saw her boss standing there and put the phone down with a rueful sigh. ‘All right, I admit it was a personal call.’
‘Cara?’
Gretchen nodded, encouraged by the relatively mellow response. ‘Yes, it was. She needs cheering up.’
‘She works at Me ltons, doesn’t she?’ His PA nodded. ‘Worked.’
‘I did wonder when I heard they were shedding that many jobs. So she’s job hunting … how’s it going?’ Rafael was not surprised when his secretary shrugged and said gloomily, ‘Not well, a trillion applications and so far nothing. If Cara with her qualifications can’t get a job what chance do other people have?’
‘Her expertise is IT, isn’t it?’
Gretchen nodded. ‘She graduated top of her class. She’s brilliant or, to put it in the words of the places she applied to, over-qualified. Talk about catch-22.’
‘We are expanding our IT division.’
‘Yeah, I know. I sent out the job ad to the dailies.’
‘Has Cara thought of applying? I’m not making any promises but—’
So astonished she knocked her neatly arranged row of ballpoint pens onto the floor, Gretchen cut across him. ‘You’re not sacking me, are you?’
Rafael angled an impatient look at her bent head. He knew better than to continue until she had rearranged her pens to her satisfaction. ‘No, I’m not sacking you.’
‘Just checking. So what about the no-romantic- involvements-in-the-workplace rule?’
‘It is possible that I might be relaxing that rule,’ Rafael conceded.
A slow smile spread across his PA’s face as she looked at him closely. ‘If I didn’t know better I’d say that was a blush.’
Rafael’s white grin flashed. ‘Do not push it, Gretchen,’ he growled.
Gretchen, one eye on the geometric precision of the pads on her desk, grinned. ‘I’ll pass on the message to Cara, though I do have one worry.’
Rafael arched a questioning brow.
‘As you know, Cara is a redhead and I’m a bit worried given your weakness—’
Rafael could hear her throaty chuckle as he walked down the corridor. He smiled all the way to the park where he knew that Libby ate her sandwich before he lost his nerve. Libby was not alone or eating, she was standing under the large horse-chestnut tree surrounded by her father and what he presumed was the rest of her family.
He moved off at a tangent, walking along the line of trees until he was in earshot.
It was Kate Marchant who was speaking.
‘So it’s true, then—you’re not trying to deny it. You are sleeping with Alejandro. You’re his mistress. When Rachel said she’d seen you going into his flat I felt as if—’
From where he stood Rafael saw Libby shake her head; he could not see her face or read her expression but he had no trouble hearing her response.
‘No, I’m not denying it, Mum. Please,’ she begged. ‘Don’t cry.’
‘Cry? What do you expect her to do? Cheer?’ her brother cried. ‘Libby, that man—how could you? After what happened to Meg. Have you lost your mind?’
‘What happened to Meg was not Rafael’s fault.’
‘So you’re saying it was my fault!’ her brother flared back.
Well aware that no matter what he said her brother blamed himself for allowing Meg to travel, Libby reached out to squeeze her brother’s arm. ‘I’m not saying it was anyone’s fault—’ Tears of hurt sprang to her eyes when Ed flinched away as though her touch were poison.
Her father shook his head. ‘How could you betray us this way with the man who ruined me?’
‘You’re not ruined. With the rescue package everyone keeps their jobs and you keep the house.’
‘And you expect me to be grateful.’
Libby looked at her father and thought, Yes, actually, I do.
‘We are allowed to stay in the house like tenants in our own home, reliant on the charity of that man!’
‘I know it’s tough, but—!’
‘You know nothing, Libby. This so-called rescue package—haven’t you realised that’s just a front?’
‘A front?’ Libby was mystified by the comment.
‘A smokescreen. This isn’t about charity. He jumped in with both feet wielding an axe. He can’t admit he was wrong so he comes up with this rescue package fooling gullible people like you into thinking he’s some sort of hero when in actual fact he doesn’t have a clue what he’s talking about.’
As she listened to the rant Libby felt growing anger. Did her father actually believe the stuff he was spouting?
‘A man like that doesn’t do anything unless there’s a profit in it.’
Libby bit her lip and struggled to stay calm. ‘Look, Dad, I don’t want to hurt any of you.’ Her heart sank as she searched their faces, recognising that her words were falling on deaf ears. It wouldn’t matter what she said; their minds were closed to anything she said.
This ambush was not about listening to her explanations. They wanted remorse, they wanted penitence, and Libby knew she could give neither.
A fortnight ago, a week even, her reaction might have been different, but not now.
Now she would not apologise, she would not allow anyone to turn what she had with Rafael into anything sordid and she would not be party to any character assassination. She had made Rafael the scapegoat, blamed him for everything, but now she knew differently.
‘Not want to hurt us?’ Kate Marchant echoed, looking at her daughter with a coldness that hurt Libby more than she had imagined possible. ‘Then you have a strange way of showing it!’
‘Mum, please …’
Rafael took a step forward; the anguish in her voice felt like a blade sliding between his ribs. She looked so alone standing there that the need to protect her was too strong to resist.
‘At least say you’re ashamed of your dirty secret. That you’re ashamed you betrayed your family.’
The words brought Rafael to a halt. Fists clenched at his sides, he waited for her reply.
‘Leave her, Ed, it’s not her fault. It is that man,’ Kate Marchant cut in. ‘He poisons everything he touches.’
‘Yes, I am ashamed.’
The blood drained from Rafael’s face. It was no more than he expected, he told himself. Why should it hurt? He had been rejected before and survived.
Libby lifted her chin proudly. ‘I’m ashamed that I ever was ashamed. I’m ashamed that I asked Rafael to keep our affair a secret. I’m not ashamed now, I’m proud. He deserves a lot better, a lot better than me. None of those things that you think about him are true. He’s an incredible person, he’s overcome so many things and … the people who work for him—do you think it’s accidental that they’d do anything for him? Go see for yourselves. You won’t hear anyone say a bad word about him, not the ones that know him.’
‘Do you think it’s possible that they’re worried this saint might sack them?’ Ed asked drily. He gave a snort of disgust and shook his head.
Her family stared in varying degrees of horror as she maintained her defiant stance.
‘Look what he did to your father, Libby,’ Kate Marchant inserted. ‘You know what sort of man he is.’
‘Grow up, Libby,’ her brother advised harshly. ‘The man’s having sex with you, of course he won’t let you see his vicious side, but once he’s got tired of you just wait and see how nice he is then.’
He turned to their parents and pointed a finger towards Libby. ‘The man has brainwashed her.’
‘No, Ed, he’s not brainwashed me.’
‘This has got to stop now,’ her father said sternly. ‘You have to promise us that you never see this man again.’
‘Don’t ask me to choose between him and you, Dad,’ Libby pleaded.
Rafael watched. Taking a knife to the heart would have been easier than watching her pain.
Her family began to move away together, turning away from her, offering one another the support they had denied Libby. As much as he despised their actions today he knew that he would have to put personal feelings aside to make this thing right.
‘I brought lunch but I see you’ve already eaten.’
Libby stared at the tall figure who stepped out from the shadow of a tree, a lunch bag rather improbably swinging in his hand. Her immediate impulse was to walk straight into his arms. There were several flaws in this plan, not least the possibility they would not open wide to enfold her the way they did in the scene playing in her head, so she fought the impulse and stayed where she was.
‘Since when did you take alfresco lunches?’
‘I’m always open to new experiences, embrace them even.’ He glanced at the bag in his hand. ‘This represents quite a big new experience for me.’
Libby barely registered the odd inflection in his voice; she had to know. She jerked her head towards the now empty bench where sparrows were dive-bombing the remains of her own forgotten lunch.
‘You heard that, didn’t you?’ Rafael swallowed and nodded.
Libby loosed a mortified groan and dropped her chin into her chest. ‘You weren’t meant to,’ she mumbled miserably.
‘I can’t be the cause of a rift between you and your parents, Libby.’
She gave a teary smile but there was an air of finality to Libby’s response. ‘You can’t stop me, Rafael, unless you are saying you want this … us to stop.’
‘Families are important.’ She had something that he did not; he could not let her throw it away.
Libby looked at him, loving every line of his proud face. He was her family. Pity he didn’t know.
‘I know families are important. I love my family, Rafael, but they needed to know—’
‘Needed to know what?’
‘The truth,’ she said, talking to his tie now.
He ran a finger down the curve of her cheek and said softly, ‘Look at me, Libby.’
Libby lifted her gaze.
‘They were angry. They did not mean the things they said, you know. Your family loves you.’ If making them value what they had meant he had to force-feed them a few home truths, Rafael was more than prepared to perform this task.
Libby swallowed and thought, Why can’t you? She pushed away the wistful thought. She had to accept what she could not have and enjoy what she could.
God, it sounded so easy!
‘I know they do. And I love them.’ The difference was she wasn’t asking them to prove it.
‘If you are estranged from your family, eventually, not today perhaps or even next week, but the time will come when you will blame me.’
Libby shook her head in rejection of his theory. ‘That isn’t true!’ she insisted fiercely.
‘Go to them, say what they need to hear, take their side. I will be fine with it.’
‘Fine with us not …’ Libby, ghostly pale, struggled to keep the tremor from her voice as she said huskily, ‘So you’re saying that you don’t want us to …’
Rafael dragged a hand through his hair and stared at her as though she had lost her mind. ‘Madre di Dios, of course that is not what I’m saying.’
Libby, weak with relief, sighed. ‘Then what are you saying?’
‘Say what they want to hear, say you have seen the light and I am the Antichrist, and we can continue to be discreet.’
‘Lie, you mean. Hide in a corner and feel cheap, as though we’re doing something wrong, you mean?’ Her voice cracked as she asked miserably, ‘Is that what you want?’ If it was all she could get Libby was willing to take it, but not without trying for more first.
She took a step back in order to study his face her hands twisted in a white-knuckled knot on her chest.
Rafael swore and shook his head, not looking at her directly as he growled, ‘Of course it is not what I want.’ He wanted to shout from the rooftops that she was his. ‘But the situation requires compromise,’ he said, struggling to think past the need pounding in his skull.
Libby leaned back, pressing her head against the bark of the tree trunk as she laughed. ‘You, compromise? Since when?’ she jeered shakily.
His glowing eyes raked her face, his lips twisting into an ironic smile as he said bitterly, ‘Since I met you.’
Libby stilled, something in his face making her heart rate pick up.
‘I was never the one who wished to keep this affair secret, and that has not changed,’ Libby heard him say, and thought, I have.
‘Perhaps in time your parents will—’
‘In time you will have moved on to someone else!’ Her fear slipped out unchecked … She closed her eyes; could she sound more needy?
A look of utter amazement crossed his face. ‘That is not going to happen. How can you think that?’
‘How can I not think that? Because you are so renowned for your long-term relationships! Look,’ she added, struggling for some degree of composure. ‘I’m not complaining. You never pretended it was anything other th