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She felt her cheeks flush. Well, it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter either way. Because from now on she was going to avoid him totally until she could decently get away back to Oxford and the hotel room she’d booked. Staying well out of London and away from Karl Reiner for as long as possible.
But she didn’t want to think about the repulsive Karl Reiner. And she didn’t want to think about the man who had set her nerve-endings firing, elevated her heart-rate. A man who did not repel her.
Who attracted her—
No! A little twist of bitterness clenched inside her. What did it matter if, however inexplicably, he attracted her? It didn’t matter! It couldn’t matter.
It could never matter...
A dull, familiar stab jabbed at her.
I am what my past has made me and nothing can change that—nothing!
And men—all men—could be nothing of her present now.
Face set, she gained the dining room, forcing herself to take a breath—to assume the appearance, if nothing else, of calm. She made her way to one of the buffet tables around the edge, glad to see Zoe, a fellow model, there. They helped themselves to some undressed salad and a slice of chicken each.
‘So,’ said Zoe invitingly as they started to eat their meagre portions, ‘what are you going to do about the guy who couldn’t take his eyes off you? Has he made a move on you already?’
Celeste tensed. ‘No,’ she lied, trying to sound nonchalant.
‘Shame,’ said the other girl. ‘I’d go for him. Looks and dosh! Rafael Sanguardo. South American. He’s a zillionaire investor. Used to hang out with that glitzy redhead on the Top Ten Rich Women list—Madeline Walters. Hotshot and hot totty! She made a fortune for herself and headed for the States to make another pile of dough. Of course...’ she threw a sly glance at Celeste ‘...you’ve got Karl Reiner panting around after you, haven’t you? Now he’s through with Monique Silva. Mind you,’ she added, ‘I know which man I’d rather have in bed beside me! Señor Tall, Dark and Very Handsome Sanguardo! Creepy Karl wouldn’t get a look-in!’ She drew breath. ‘Well, I’d better network. Plenty of useful contacts out there—and loads of loaded guys! And standing here by all this food is torture. See you!’
She sauntered off, leaving Celeste to her supper and her thoughts.
Rafael Sanguardo...
The name glided through her head. She’d never heard of him, but from the way Zoe had talked about him it sounded as if he was on the ‘Mr Available and Rich’ list that a lot of models made it their business to know about. She speared a sliver of chicken with decided resolve. Rafael Sanguardo was none of her business, and he would stay that way.
‘May I help you to something more from the buffet?’
The deep, faintly accented voice addressing her was familiar.
And very unwelcome.
She turned. It was Rafael Sanguardo.
Celeste felt herself tense automatically. But not just because he was the one person here she wanted to avoid. For the first time she was seeing him in full light, rather than dim glimpses. And everything she’d glimpsed about him was overwhelmingly reinforced. He was, just as Zoe had flippantly called him, Mr Tall, Dark and Very Handsome! But it was not smooth, playboy-style looks that he possessed. His face was lean, with a tough-looking jawline, high cheekbones and a strong nose. But it wasn’t those features that held her. It was the eyes.
They were dark—incredibly dark—with a hawkish look to them, and they were resting on her with an expression in them that instantly made her breathless.
How? How is this happening? she thought with a hollowing of her stomach. It never happened! Men could look her over and she’d be immune to it! Immune the way she had to be. But this man—somehow—was having this extraordinary effect on her, and she didn’t know why.
All she knew, with a surge of intense self-preserving urgency, was that she had to stop it happening. Had to stop looking at him—stop looking at the way his long, lean body, darkly clad in what she knew must be a hand-tailored tuxedo, easily topped six feet, the way his DJ moulded his shoulders. His gleaming white dress shirt performed the same office for his torso, telling her that his physique was as honed as the planes of his face.
He was addressing her again, in that deep, accented voice that did things to her she did not want it to do! What had he just said? She had to reply—say something, anything—then walk away! Food—he asked you about food! Do you want any? That was it.
With effort, she found a brief reply. ‘Thank you, but this is enough,’ she managed to say.
An eyebrow quirked over the incredibly dark eyes that looked as if they were hewn from some ancient, volcanic rock. Basalt, she thought, or obsidian...darker than slate.
‘It doesn’t look enough for a sparrow,’ he murmured. The dark eyes glanced at her. ‘Fortunately you don’t appear to have the starved, size-zero look about you that so many models have.’
Celeste could hear condemnation of excessive thinness in his voice. ‘Models have to be thin!’ she was stung into retorting. She was not objecting to his criticism of size-zero models, but to the way his eyes had washed over her. The effect that slow wash had had on her...
‘It’s shamefully perverse for women in the developed world to ape those who go hungry from necessity, not fashion!’ he returned sharply.
She took a breath, making herself answer honestly. ‘You are right,’ she admitted.
For a moment she let her eyes meet his in acknowledgement of the truth of what he had just said. It was a mistake. For one endless moment she had the strangest sensation that she was drowning—drowning in a deep, fathomless ocean. Then, with an effort, she pulled her gaze away. Found that she was trembling with the effort.
‘I’m sorry—that was very blunt of me,’ she heard him respond. ‘Though it is a pity that you will not try some of these richer foods.’ He indicated the lavish spread in front of them.
Celeste glanced at them, and then back at the man who was so disturbing her. ‘They do look delicious,’ she allowed. ‘But I mustn’t.’
‘You won’t be tempted?’ he said.
There was a trace of humour now in his accented voice. A trace that did yet more disturbing things to her. As did the glint in his eyes that told her it was more than food he wanted her to be tempted by.
She gave a decisive shake of her head. Time to stop this—right now.
‘No,’ she replied. Her voice was polite, but firm. She put down her now empty plate. Looked back at him. Made herself look at him but not react to him. Made herself say in a polite, social voice, using just the sort of tone she might use to anyone at all, ‘Do please excuse me, but I have to circulate and show off this dress.’
She gave a smile—brief, polite, perfunctory. But this time she did not meet his eyes. Instead, she turned away, tall and graceful, and threaded her way into the throng.
Behind her, Rafael watched her disappear. Her second disappearing act of the evening.
Why? Why does she run from me?
That was the question uppermost in his mind—except for his overwhelming consciousness that in this second all too brief encounter his interest in her had not diminished, but intensified.
There is something about her that is drawing me to her—something powerful, irresistible, overwhelming.
Something that was sending a pulse through him. Something that was engendered by that extraordinary pale, pure beauty she possessed—the turn of her head, the flawless translucence of her alabaster skin, the perfect features of her face, delicate and exquisitely cut, the clear, luminous grey-blue of her eyes.
He knew with absolute certainty that he had felt something when she had turned that gaze on him, fully meeting his own—it was a gaze whose very brevity had told him that whatever the cause of her insistence on walking away from him, which she had now exhibited twice—it was not because she was irresponsive to him.
It is the same for her as it is for me! I know it. The stillness, the betraying dilation of her pupils, the sudden intake of breath, the collision of her eyes with mine—acknowledges, confirms her reaction to me—
It had told him all he needed to know...
Whatever had made her walk away, it was not because she was immune to him. So why had she? An unwelcome explanation intruded. Was it because she was already involved elsewhere? A burning urge to find out consumed him. Yet he did not even know her name.
He inhaled sharply, pulling himself together. It would be easy enough to find out everything he needed to know about her. She was a model, she worked for an agency, and that meant the information was out there. And if the answer was the one he realised he wanted it to be more with every passing moment, then he would set out to woo her—woo her and win her.
His imagination raced ahead, vivid and eager.
In his mind’s eye he saw himself gazing into her eyes, clasping her hand, drawing her towards him, taking her slender, pliant body into his arms and lowering his mouth to her tremulous, tender lips, tasting their sweetness, seeking the nectar within, feeling her respond to his embrace, her body contouring against his with soft sensuousness, glowing with honeyed desire as her breasts peaked against him...
But imagination was not enough! He wanted the reality.
The reality of her pale, pure beauty, which was calling to him with a subtly compelling, insistent power that was impossible to deny.
CHAPTER THREE
‘YOU WANT MORE money to renew your contract. That’s it, isn’t it?’ Karl Reiner’s voice grated.
Celeste kept her expression fixed. Karl Reiner had demanded her presence at a dinner in a West End hotel hosted by a fashion magazine keen on retaining its share of the lavish Reiner Visage advertising budget. Since she was still—just—under contract, it had been impossible for her to decline.
She deeply wished she had. Wished she could just walk off the way she had when Rafael Sanguardo had made a move on her at the charity event the previous weekend.
Not, she found herself thinking, that anyone in their right mind would put Karl Reiner and Rafael Sanguardo in the same class. The difference was total. Karl’s stocky stature and slack belly were the complete opposite of Rafael Sanguardo’s tall, lean, honed physique—just as Karl’s pouched, close-set eyes were a million miles from the dark, hawkish eyes that had rested so disturbingly on her. And Karl’s receding dyed hair, swept back into a ponytail that he mistakenly seemed to think made him look creative and bohemian, had nothing of the feathered sable of the South American’s.
Yet again Celeste felt the disquieting quickening of her pulse as an image of Rafael Sanguardo took shape in her mind. It had been doing so repeatedly ever since the weekend. She had tried desperately hard to put him out of her mind but it had been impossible—just impossible! She could bewail it all she liked, try as hard as she could, but it was no good. That encounter, however brief, had imprinted itself on her. Why, she did not know—could not understand. Could not understand why her habitual immunity to men was failing her so pitiably when it came to Rafael Sanguardo.
But if she couldn’t understand it at least she could do her determined best to ignore it. Suppress it and crush it out of her consciousness—out of her life. There was no point—none whatsoever!—in thinking about him.
What Rafael Sanguardo wanted was not what she was free to want...
An old, familiar ripple of revulsion went through her. Those slimy trails across her skin—fetid memory made tangible.
And with Karl Reiner pressingly at her side tonight, making her skin crawl, revulsion came afresh. Recrimination came in its wake. Why, oh, why had she ever got involved with Reiner Visage?
But she knew the reason now—just as she had long ago.
Rejection seared within her.
This is different! Entirely different! Karl Reiner can assume what he likes. I will never go along with it!
Nor was there anything he could say that would make her sign a new contract. She would simply go on stonewalling him, staying as composed and as civil as she could, until she was free in a few weeks’ time.
But his persistent unwanted attentions were becoming even harder than ever to endure. He was badgering her repeatedly to renew her contract, and this evening he had drunk freely, and she could see his temper mounting at her continued refusal. Now, dinner over and guests dispersing, he’d renewed the subject in the middle of the hotel lobby.
‘No,’ she said carefully, ‘it’s nothing to do with more money. I simply don’t wish to extend my contract any further. I’ve been very appreciative of it, naturally—’
‘That’s not the message you’re giving out.’ Karl cut across her brusquely.
Tight-lipped, Celeste refused to react. She knew very well that the cause of his pique was nothing to do with her not renewing her contract—it was because she wasn’t going to do what Monique Silva had done: show her ‘appreciation’ in bed.
Anger flashed across Karl’s face. ‘Who the hell do you think you are?’ he demanded. ‘Models are ten cents a dozen!’
‘As I say,’ she repeated tightly, ‘I’ve been very appreciative of the opportunity to represent the Blonde range of Reiner Visage, but—’
‘But nothing!’ He cut across her again. His face was set petulantly. ‘I’ve done you favours! Now it’s payback time! You damn well know what I want!’
He grabbed at her arm, closing his fingers around it. She halted, turning an icy gaze on him.
‘Take your hand off me,’ she bit out, jaw clenched. When he made no move to do so, she simply lifted his hand off her and stepped away. ‘Goodnight, Mr Rainer,’ she said decisively, and turned to go.
Infuriated, and despite the presence of other people in the lobby, he lurched at her, grabbing at her wrist again, yanking her round forcibly. His face was contorted in fury.
‘Don’t walk off, you stuck-up little bitch! Who the hell do you think you are? Behaving like a goddamn nun!’ he snarled at her.
The alcoholic fumes of his breath reached her. His voice was loud and carrying.
‘I can pick and choose any model I want—you hear me? And they’ll be grateful! Girls like you put out for anyone who’ll hire you! And since I’ve hired you you’ll damn well put out for me! You’re no different! You’re just a two-bit whore like every other model!’
Celeste gasped in shock. For a second she could not move. Then, behind her, a voice cut through.
‘Let her go,’ it said. It was arctic. ‘Let her go and get out of here before I throw you out onto the pavement.’
Karl’s head swivelled. ‘Who the hell are you?’ he snarled slurringly.
Rafael did not answer him. He simply yanked Karl’s hand away, then took his shoulder and elbow in a punishing grip and frogmarched him to the door, ejecting him onto the pavement.
‘If you try and come back in,’ he said pleasantly, ‘I will pulverise you. Do you understand me?’
He didn’t bother to wait for a reply, just went back into the lobby. His eyes went immediately to the frozen figure standing there, her ashen pallor registering her shock. He went up to her.
‘Brandy,’ he said. ‘Don’t argue. Then I’ll see you home—and don’t argue about that either. That charmless jerk is out on the pavement.’
She couldn’t respond. Couldn’t do anything except stand there, the vile echo of Karl’s accusation slicing through her head.
‘You’re just a two-bit whore like every other model!’
Her face contorted and she felt nausea rise in her throat, foul and choking. Then, from nowhere, her elbow was being taken—not tightly, but firmly—and she was being guided across the lobby and into the hotel bar. Her steps were halting, but she went all the same. Numbness filled her.
Then, as she was helped up onto a bar stool, the numbness was suddenly pierced. Karl Reiner and his vile words disappeared from her consciousness. Replaced, totally, by the realisation of just who it was that was at her side now.
Her eyes flew to the man, tall and lean in a charcoal tailored lounge suit that only emphasised his naturally tanned complexion, who was taking his seat beside her.
Dear God—it was Rafael Sanguardo!
Shock ravined through her. Shock and something much more. Instant awareness, instant consciousness of everything about him that she had sought to suppress these past few days. To force down out of her memory.
Yet he was here now, in all his overwhelming, potent physical presence. Sitting beside her and looking at her with an expression of concern on his face, his dark eyes resting on her.
She hauled her gaze away. She could not cope with this—not now. Not after Karl Reiner’s vile outburst. She could feel herself start to shake.
Immediately she heard Rafael Sanguardo speak. ‘It’s all right. He’s gone. And he won’t be coming back.’
He spoke with certainty, and an underlying grimness. Her eyes lifted to him again.
But he was not looking at her. He had turned his head to address the barman. ‘Two brandies, please.’
As he gave his order he made a notable effort to control his emotions. They were surging strongly. One was an impulse to stride right out onto the pavement, seize hold of the jerk who had said what he had to the ashen-faced, shaken figure beside him and slam his fist into his foul-mouthed face. It took him aback, just how strong that urge was. A wave of protectiveness swept over him.
No one’s going to hurl that kind of abuse at her!
The protectiveness he was feeling was almost overpowering... But him slamming his fist into her abuser was not what she needed right now! What she needed was to stop shaking, to pull out of the shocked state she was clearly in after that vicious little scene back there with Karl Reiner.
He knew who the man was, all right. Just as he now knew the name of the woman who had been dominating his thoughts ever since he’d laid eyes on her.
Celeste Philips—that was her name. It had taken little effort to discover it, courtesy of the organisers of the charity fashion show, simply by describing her. After that her professional bio had been easy to find via her agency. She was currently contracted to Reiner Visage—of which cosmetics company the unlovely Karl Reiner was President. Nor had it taken much digging to uncover Karl Reiner’s even more unlovely reputation for pursuing the models he contracted.
A reputation that the ugly incident just now more than amply confirmed.
The two glasses of brandy were placed in front of him and he slid one towards Celeste.
‘Drink it down,’ he instructed. ‘You’re in shock.’
But Celeste gave a quick, jerky shake of her head. ‘No—no brandy.’ Her voice was slightly high-pitched. In her head she could hear Karl’s foul words snarling at her again. Hear his vile accusation...
She fought to stay calm, at least on the surface. Inside was different...
‘Coffee, then—you need something. You’re white as a sheet.’
She lifted her face, made herself look at the man who had rescued her. The man she couldn’t get out of her head. Who was now here, beside her, dominating her consciousness. ‘I’m fine. It was just—’ She stopped. Swallowed painfully.
‘Damn,’ said Rafael feelingly. ‘I should have hit him. Trouble is...’ his voice was deadpan ‘...I might have spoilt his looks.’
For a moment Celeste was on a knife-edge. Then the balance tipped, giving her a safety net, letting her pull herself together. The laconically uttered insult to the drunken, obnoxious Karl had retrieved her sufficiently for her to manage to find the darkly wry humour clearly intended in the remark.
She bit her lip. ‘That’s a low blow,’ she heard herself murmur.
‘The lower the better,’ Rafael agreed. ‘Low enough to...ah...quell his unwanted ardour.’
She gave a shaky smile, not quite meeting his eyes. She might be pulling out of the shock of what Karl had snarled at her, but that only meant she was now having to cope with this completely unanticipated encounter with Rafael Sanguardo. And cope she must—somehow.
And she must start with the most important priority. Gratitude.
She lifted her eyes again. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Thank you for what you did back there.’
For just a moment, as her eyes met his, she felt weak—as weak as a kitten. The blood seemed to be flooding back into her ashen cheeks, heating them. She could not drag her gaze away—his eyes were holding her...holding her as if there was a physical link between them...as if they were bound together...
She saw something shift at the back of his eyes—his dark, basalt-black eyes. Something that seemed to set every nerve-ending in her body jangling.
Then, with a quick movement of his head, he broke the moment. ‘De nada,’ he said lightly. His tone of voice changed. ‘So, coffee?’ he said enquiringly. ‘Or tea, maybe? Isn’t that what the English drink to settle their nerves?’
‘China tea would be lovely, thank you,’ she assented, grateful for something so normal. She needed to feel normal again—needed it badly.
As Rafael Sanguardo relayed her request to the barman she felt the backwash of what Karl had said to her start to fade. Her state of shock was ebbing, and so, too, finally, was the sense of incessant strain she’d been under all evening. But even as it ebbed a new emotion replaced it—the shimmering awareness of the man beside her.
Who had appeared out of nowhere to wrest Karl Reiner off her—
‘I don’t understand,’ she heard herself say. ‘How did you come to be here like this?’
There was bewilderment in her voice.
‘I’ve been meeting one of my UK CEOs for dinner,’ Rafael replied. ‘But I have to say...’ His tone of voice changed again, and his gaze rested on her. ‘I now understand the meaning of that English proverb that it is an ill wind that blows no one any good.’
He looked at her, but Celeste was blank. Rafael enlightened her.
‘Even though I would not wish Karl Reiner on anyone, at least he has given me the opportunity not only to be of some small service to you—he has also provided exactly the opportunity I have been wanting to take since the weekend.’ He paused deliberately, still looking at her. ‘To see you again,’ he said.
A troubled expression lit her face.
He saw it and said, his voice low, ‘Would that be so very unwelcome to you?’
She bit her lip. She wanted to find some way—a polite, considerate way, especially after his rescuing her from Karl—of telling him that what he wanted was impossible...just impossible!
Rafael saw her silence, needed to know if there was one reason that would be an immovable obstacle for him.
‘Is there someone else in your life right now?’
She swallowed, her expression still troubled. ‘No, but—’ She halted, not knowing what to say. How to say it.
Her hesitation was visible. A hideous thought speared Rafael’s head. His expression darkened. ‘Karl Reiner,’ he began, his voice harsh, ‘is he—?’
‘No! Dear God, no!’
Her rebuff was so instant, so vehement, that it could only be true. Relief flooded through Rafael. If for a moment he’d thought that that despicable piece of ordure had any kind of anything with her—
‘Gracias a Dios!’ he said feelingly.
‘How could you think—?’ She broke off, shuddering.
Of course she had nothing to do with Karl Reiner in that way! Someone like her would never, never think of such a liaison! Hadn’t she reacted strongly enough back there in the lobby to convince him of that? Her shock and disgust had been palpable.
He reached for his brandy, and as he took a mouthful an image formed in his mind. Madeline—Madeline being on the receiving end of what Karl Reiner had thrown at Celeste.
She’d have laughed. Laughed in his face, told him, ‘In your dreams!’ and walked off. Then she’d have regaled Rafael with it in bed. She’d have been totally unfazed by it, totally unaffected—she would have thought Reiner merely physically repellent, not repulsively offensive!