скачать книгу бесплатно
It had been so long since she’d drawn any male attention—these days she took care to avoid it. At last, against her will, resenting the effect he had on her, she gave in to temptation and peered sideways, to see what those never-still eyes were looking at now, and her stomach plummeted into her practical black shoes.
He was gone.
Rafaelo had found his target.
Silently, unwaveringly, he made his way in the direction of the tall man with the distinguished wings of grey at his temples.
Phillip Saxon.
He stopped behind the older man and waited for what was clearly a memorial ceremony to end. He’d wanted to savour this meeting. He’d called Saxon, spoken to his PA, and without listening to her protests that Saxon wasn’t seeing people right now, had advised that he would be arriving to meet with the older man. He hadn’t revealed why he wanted to see Saxon—only that he was the owner of a Spanish vineyard of some reputation. But he hadn’t planned for this meeting to take place in public.
A movement behind him caught his eye. Rafaelo frowned impatiently as he watched the crowd part for the tall, slim strawberry blonde who had waylaid him minutes before.
He tightened his lips as she came closer. She was not beautiful—she lacked the self-awareness that beautiful women possessed. But she had something…
Then he met her startlingly pale blue eyes, read the determination in them.
He glanced dismissively away. She couldn’t stop what he’d come all the way to New Zealand to achieve. Nor would he allow himself to be distracted.
The crowd was shifting. A tall, black-haired man stood at the edge of the courtyard beside a vine and a rosebush that the raw earth beneath revealed had recently been planted.
“These have been planted in the memory of my brother, Roland. May he live in our hearts forever,” the black-haired man said.
All around Rafaelo women were reaching for handkerchiefs. But he barely heard the gut-wrenching sobs of sorrow. He only heard the words my brother, Roland. So Roland Saxon was dead. That would make the speaker either Joshua or Heath Saxon. An unfamiliar heavy heat coalesced in his chest.
He turned to gaze at Phillip Saxon and instantly the emotion became identifiable. Rage. Saxon moved forward, away from him. The ceremony had ended.
Now.
Rafaelo tapped him on the shoulder. “Disculpe.”
The older man spun round.
There was a long silence as Rafaelo stared into Phillip’s face. He examined the narrow nose. The dark hair that sprung back from a high forehead. He stared into the dark eyes—so like his own—and watched them widen.
“No.” The denial burst from Saxon.
Another beat of time passed. Rafaelo waited, letting the other man put it all together.
“It can’t be.” Saxon was shaking his head.
“Phillip?” The strawberry blonde stood there. “Is everything okay?”
Rafaelo resented his focus being taken from Saxon. But he did a double take at the unfriendly suspicion in the pale eyes that clashed with his. A frisson of a wholly unfamiliar sensation prickled the back of his neck. He did a startled double take.
Get rid of her. As a young man he’d survived countless bullfights by listening to his senses. He heeded the warning now.
“We would like some privacy, please,” he demanded, giving her the freezing glare that he usually reserved for the paparazzi.
Phillip looked horrified at his statement.
“Do you want me to go?” Her words were directed at Saxon, but she never took her eyes off him.
“No—stay.”
Rafaelo reassessed. She must be more important than he’d initially thought. Estupido! He could kick himself for dismissing her as a nonentity. Narrowing his eyes, he scrutinised her. He knew she wasn’t Megan Saxon—he’d met Megan once, briefly, at a wine show in France several years before. This woman was too tall and her colouring was all wrong. And she’d denied being part of the family earlier.
So who the devil was she? He examined her from head to toe, ignoring her indrawn breath. She lacked the polish of the circle the Saxons moved in, lacked the salon-set hair, the designer-label clothes. That meant she had to be an employee, he decided. A presumptuous one.
“You want her to stay? On your head may it rest,” Rafaelo addressed Saxon. “I didn’t think you’d want this conversation to be public knowledge. At least not until we’ve had an opportunity to negotiate.”
Saxon understood. His spine straightened and relief flashed in his eyes, coupled with contempt.
He thought he could buy off Rafaelo.
“Caitlyn, perhaps you should leave us.”
Caitlyn? That would be Caitlyn Ross. Rafaelo did a double take. She didn’t look anything like what he’d anticipated of the acclaimed Saxon’s Folly winemaker. He’d thought she’d be older for starters. More sophisticated. This woman looked to be in her midtwenties, too young to have accomplished everything that his research had told him she had.
Caitlyn was shaking her head. “No way am I leaving you alone with him. What he—” she jabbed a slender finger in Rafaelo’s direction “—said sounded like a threat.” The pale eyes duelled with his. “I’m staying right here.”
Brave, too. Foolishly so. “You should stay out of things that do not concern you,” he told her, lowering his voice.
“So now you’re threatening me.” Colour flooded her translucent skin.
“Advising, not threatening. There is a difference,” Rafaelo pointed out with gentle irony. “This is family business….” He drew the phrase out mockingly. “It has nothing to do with you.” Then he turned his narrow-eyed attention back to Phillip Saxon.
“The family’s business has everything to do with me,” she said hotly.
“Caitlyn is like family,” Phillip spoke at the same time.
The look she gave Saxon was filled with gratitude—and annoyed Rafaelo immensely. He pushed his hands into the pockets of his suit pants and glared at both of them.
Saxon swallowed convulsively and Rafaelo watched mercilessly as the man sought the words that might make Rafaelo go away.
He wouldn’t find them.
For the first time since he’d learned the truth, Rafaelo felt his heart lighten. He started to enjoy himself. Saxon was in a tight spot and he wouldn’t get out. And this woman, who looked as innocuous as milk and honey, was proving to be a challenge that he had not foreseen.
“Caitlyn, dear, where did you arrange with the caterers for the canapés to be served?” Kay Saxon sounded harried as she joined them.
As Caitlyn opened her mouth to answer Saxon’s wife, Rafaelo stepped forward. “Introduce us,” he commanded.
Phillip Saxon blanched. He gave his wife an agonised look, and then his eyes darted back to Rafaelo.
“I…Kay, this is—” He broke off.
Rafaelo waited in stony silence.
“I’m sorry,” Phillip said at last, “I do not know your name.”
Rafaelo smiled. It was not a nice smile. He was too angry for that. “My name is Rafaelo Carreras.”
The wife gave him a polite smile and held out her hand. “How do you do, Mr. Carreras.”
So she thought him a business associate. She had absolutely no idea. Rafaelo’s smile widened and his anger sharpened. “Ah, a handshake is so English. And I know we will be getting to know each other extremely well.” He stepped forward and brushed her cheeks with his in the European way. Over her shoulder he saw the horror…the despair…in Phillip Saxon’s eyes. He had the look of a man tied to the railway tracks in the face of the rush of an oncoming express—his tortured expression revealed that he knew the crash was inevitable, that he could do nothing except wait for the approaching disaster.
Good, the man was afraid. Phillip Saxon had sensed that he, Rafaelo, could destroy his privileged world, everything he held dear.
Then a movement forced his attention to Caitlyn. Her hand was outstretched. “If you’re going to get to know the Saxons well, then we’d better introduce ourselves, too. I’m—”
He ignored the proffered hand, and her introduction trailed away into silence. Placing his hands on her shoulders, he leaned forward. She smelled of wildflowers, soft and subtle.
“Encantado de conocerte.” Very happy to meet you. His lips brushed one cheek, he heard her gasp. His head lifted. Deliberately he kissed her other cheek, no social brush, but a careful placing of his mouth against the pale, silken milk-and-honey skin. He paused for a moment before whispering in her ear, “The pleasure is all mine, Miss Ross.”
She pulled back, a startled expression on her face, a touch of fear in her eyes. “You know my name?”
She was too modest. Of course he knew her name. Rising star. Winner, two years ago, of a silver medal at the World Wine Challenge. And last year she and Saxon had secured a coveted gold medal. His mouth curved. “You’d be surprised by how much I know.”
He heard Phillip’s indrawn breath.
The fear subsided and her eyes sparkled with anger. “Perhaps you don’t know as much as you think, Mr. Carreras. It’s Ms. Ross.”
“Ah,” he said softly, eyes narrowing at her attempt to hold him at a distance with icy formality. “I should’ve known.” And he watched the fresh annoyance flare in those pale, clear eyes.
He preferred her anger to her fear. For a split second he wondered what she was afraid of—because she couldn’t know why he was here. Then Saxon shifted and he moved his attention back to the man he’d come across the world to find.
“Caitlyn, Kay, perhaps it is better that I speak to Mr. Carreras alone.” Saxon sounded anxious.
A frown pleated Kay’s forehead. “But why should that be necessary?”
“There may be things that your husband hasn’t told you, Mrs. Saxon.” The address held a certain irony that only Rafaelo was aware of.
She waved a dismissive hand. “My husband tells me everything.”
“Perhaps not.” Rafaelo’s mouth slashed upward.
“You’re impertinent.”
It was not Kay Saxon who spoke. Rafaelo turned his attention on the blonde. If anyone was impertinent, it was her. He was the Marques de Las Carreras. All his life the family name had commanded respect. Until now…
“Be careful,” he murmured.
“Or what?” Caitlyn challenged. “What are you threatening to do? This is Saxon property, there is security—” She gestured toward a burly man in a dark uniform.
“Caitlyn.” Phillip put a hand on her arm.
But with her protective instincts roused, she would not be stopped. “Call Pita. He can’t just walk into Saxon’s Folly and threaten you, Phillip.”
Rafaelo stared at her. “I am not threatening anyone. I will not be evicted. But I am certain that that he—” Rafaelo couldn’t bring himself to address the man directly “—would prefer to talk alone.”
Phillip released her. “Caitlyn, perhaps he is right.”
“I would like to hear what this man has to say, what he thinks you might not have told me.” Kay Saxon dug her Ferragamo-clad heels into the ground. “Caitlyn is right—he is impertinent.”
Anger ignited deep in Rafaelo’s heart. All the inconveniences of the past two days flamed high, and the pain and rage he’d been keeping under tight control for the past months burst into a blinding conflagration.
He raised an arched, black eyebrow. “It is impertinent to travel all the way to New Zealand to meet my father?”
Phillip dropped his head forward into his hands and uttered a hoarse groan.
“Your father?” Caitlyn looked bewildered. “What does that have to do with—”
Rafaelo glared at her. “It has nothing to do with you—it is a family matter. But trust me, Phillip Saxon is my father.”
Two
Trust him?
Never! Caitlyn drew a shaking breath but kept quiet. Lashing out at the arrogant Spaniard wouldn’t help the fact that she’d exposed Kay to a dreadful revelation.
If she hadn’t pushed him, challenged him, the outcome might have been very different…
“What did you say your name was?” Kay was asking Rafaelo, her face suddenly pale.
“Rafaelo Carreras.”
Slowly Kay started to shake her head. “I don’t know anyone by that name.”
“He’s lying,” Caitlyn said fiercely, determined not to let Kay be upset. She had enough to contend with already.
“Kay—”
“Wait.” Kay warded off Phillip’s attempt to talk to her. “Carreras, it’s Spanish, isn’t it?”
Caitlyn didn’t like the sudden gleam in Kay’s eyes. Nor, it appeared, did Phillip.
“Kay, love, let’s go. There are people waiting to pay their respects.” Phillip curled an arm around his wife’s shoulders, the skin stretched thin across his cheekbones.
But Kay didn’t budge.
Rafaelo placed his hands on his hips, and thrust his shoulders forward. He looked ready for battle. “Madam, my full name is Rafaelo Lopez y Carreras.”
“Lopez? There was a girl…a young woman…” Kay’s brow pleated as her voice trailed away. “I think her name was Maria Lopez. In fact, I’m sure of it. She was researching her family…I seem to remember that her father, or perhaps an uncle, had died in the Napier earthquake. Yes, that’s right. It’s coming back to me. Her name was Maria.”
“My mother’s name is Maria,” Rafaelo said in a flat voice, his eyes shooting daggers at Phillip.
Eyes widening, Kay put her hand over her mouth and, shrugging out from under his arm, turned to her husband. “Tell me this isn’t true.”
