Forbidden to His Touch Page 10

  No. She was stronger than this.

  Squaring her shoulders and lifting her chin, she exited the barrel room and looked up at the workers who’d arrived. Their workers. She donned a mantle of friendly professionalism and climbed toward the knot of men, determined to show Rafael that she was just as unruffled by what had transpired as he.

  Extending her hand, she smiled at the first man she’d seen enter the winery. He wasn’t much taller than she, was built like a wine cask and possessed a wide, white grin. “Hello,” she said. “I’m Dante’s daughter and Rafael’s new partner, Sophia.”

  He accepted her hand and his smile grew even wider. “Nice to meet you, Miss Turino. I’m Manuel, and my sons, they are Carlos, Jose and Rodrigo.”

  She felt Rafael’s hot gaze on her profile, but she ignored him as she shook each of their hands in turn. “I take it you and your sons are partially responsible for the success of Turino wines?”

  He bobbed his dark head. “Sí. We follow Mr. Chaves’s instructions, and the wines sell very well.”

  “So Rafael is a good boss, I take it?”

  “Sophia,” Rafael interrupted with a warning tone.

  “I want to hear about your managerial style,” she said brightly, turning to him with a wide smile. She looked up into his intense face, her face carefully devoid of any emotion that might lead him to believe his kiss had disturbed her.

  “You don’t need to hear about my management style,” he said with a dark frown. “That’s not your role here. Remember?”

  Sophia turned to find the workers listening to their exchange with undisguised interest. “Will you excuse us, please?” She looped a hand around Rafael’s hard bicep and smiled at their employees. “Rafael and I apparently still need to do a bit of negotiation regarding this partnership of ours.”

  Rafael’s arm flexed beneath her fingers, but his expression didn’t change. “Start with the five north rows,” he told them.

  When the men were out of earshot, he withdrew his arm with a yank and then turned to Sophia with a glower. “Need I remind you that this is not what we agreed to? You were to work on advertising and developing additional overseas markets while I continued the roles I’ve always fulfilled. You aren’t to pester the workers for details about me.”

  “Worried about what I’ll discover?”

  His scowl deepened. “Not at all.”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  “You’re overstepping.”

  “I’m making you uncomfortable, you mean.”

  “Call it whatever you want. You shouldn’t be here, distracting my men. You know how to craft a brand that will sell in Europe. So go do that and leave me to my work.

  Now.”

  “I wish it were that easy.”

  “You should be as busy as I am. Marketing and advertising were your jobs in London, and from what I’ve heard, you were quite good at it. You don’t get that way if you don’t work at it.”

  “What makes you think I’m not working right now?”

  He exhaled noisily. “Look. We agreed that I wouldn’t interfere with how you do your marketing job if you didn’t interfere with my wine production side of things.”

  “Did we? Odd, but I don’t remember it that way.”

  “Soph—”

  “How about you don’t try to box me in the way you promised not to do?”

  “I’m not boxing you in. I’m merely keeping you from jeopardizing everything your father worked so hard to build.”

  “You’re boxing me in.”

  “While you’re trying to involve yourself in things that don’t concern you.”

  “No. You’re not holding up your end of the bargain, when you promised you would,” she accused.

  “I said I’d give you whatever you needed to help open up the overseas markets to our brand. And I’ve done that.”

  “I can’t develop a marketing plan for our business in a vacuum. I have to know the business from the inside out.”

  “You already know its history and I gave you the past seven years’ worth of books to peruse. You can’t possibly need more than that.”

  “Of course I do! Our future consumers won’t care about the dry, boring numbers generated by the Turino Winery. They want an emotional connection. A story. And I can’t give it to them until I can articulate the human element of this company.”

  “Consumers won’t care about some glorified story you concoct.”

  “You’re absolutely right. If the story and the emotion are not authentic, the consumers will know and it’ll hurt our sales.”

  “They don’t need a story at all. The quality of Turino wines speaks for itself, just as it has for the past two hundred years.”

  “Do you want to expand our European market share or not?”

  A glare was his only response.

  “I can’t craft an updated brand for Turino wines that will impact our sales without knowing you first.”

  His nostrils flared with his inhale, and she could tell his hold on his patience was slipping. “That’s ridiculous. Did you know O’Toole from O’Toole Refrigeration before you drew up his plan?”

  “Yes. As a matter of fact, I did.” She crossed her arms and jutted her chin toward him. “I learned all about how Richard O’Toole grew up, how he struggled to support his ailing mother while going to school and working two jobs, how he met his lovely wife and how it was she who convinced him to open his own business when they were living on less than ten pounds a week.”

  Raf’s expression darkened even more with his scowl. “You don’t need all that to sell refrigeration.”

  “Now who’s telling whom how to do her job?” she shot back. “That’s part of what makes me so good at what I do. I make it personal. Consumers react to the stories. Even if I only hint at something personal, something intimate, it will attract them to the brand I’m creating.”

  His onyx eyes smoldered with a flame she couldn’t seem to stop herself from stoking. She wanted his guard to slip, she wanted to pry beneath his steel barriers until they finally cracked. If she had to use the excuse of business to do it, then so be it.

  So when he stepped toward her, moving until he loomed over her with a menace she knew was all for show, she cocked her head back and dared, “Silence me with kisses all you want, I won’t stop asking until you answer my questions.”

  “I have no intention of kissing you again,” he growled.

  Knowing he lied and reading the frustrated desire in his expression, a shiver of anticipation shot through her veins. “I’m glad to hear it,” she goaded. “Because I have no intention of kissing you, either. It makes it very difficult to carry on a decent conversation.”

  His angry silence made it even more difficult.

  “So tell me, Raf,” she prodded, “what’s your story?”

  When he remained stubbornly, maddeningly quiet, she shrugged. “You do realize, don’t you, that I won’t give up. I’m much more resilient than I was seven years ago.”

  “Then you’ll spend a lot of time being frustrated,” he said roughly.

  “Fortunately, it’s a state I’ve grown quite accustomed to handling,” she mused with a wry smile.

  His gaze flicked to her mouth, her breasts, and then back to her eyes. “Somehow, I doubt it.”

  A blush heated her from her toes to her hairline, but she didn’t allow it to derail her. “At some point, you’ll accept the fact that you don’t always get what you want, Rafael. You’ll let down your guard and let me in. For the good of the business and what you owe my father, you’ll stop this ridiculous stonewalling and behave like a rational man.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  THEIR standoff lasted another two weeks, until Sophia realized she’d overestimated her resilience and underestimated Rafael’s ability to stand his ground. No matter what tactic she tried, Rafael remained stubbornly distant, harsh and unreachable. He hadn’t kissed her again, hadn’t talked to her, and the tension between them seemed more pronounc
ed than ever before. Her inability to chip beneath his defenses, his constant, unrelenting rejection and his coldness had eroded whatever confidence she’d gained in her seven years away from home.

  She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t pretend that his blatant dismissal of her didn’t hurt. Yes, she loved the Turino lands and its tribe of seasonal workers. Yes, she’d missed the daily communion with sun-drenched soil, cool morning breezes and ripening vines. But it wasn’t enough. Having wine-making in her blood, her father’s legacy to protect and the sun at her back wasn’t enough to counteract the daily rejection she faced with Rafael. It didn’t ease the aching turmoil in her heart.

  She’d wanted to connect with Rafael again, to touch some part of his guarded soul. And he’d refused her. Only this time, he’d refused more than just a childish protestation of love. He’d refused her.

  It hurt more than she cared to admit, and it reminded her of all the reasons she’d left in the first place. It reminded her of why London and Alex’s safe, dependable adoration were so much better.

  So it was with a heavy heart that she knocked on his door the following evening. “You win,” she told him the moment he opened his wide, hand-carved door. “I’m returning to London.”

  A flash of dark refusal lit his black eyes.

  “My flight leaves in the morning,” she said before he could forbid her to go.

  “You can’t leave.”

  “I’m not abandoning the Turino legacy, so you needn’t fret about your promise to Papa,” she assured him. “I told you that I wanted to set up a European office to coordinate our overseas sales, and I’m ready to do that now.”

  “But we don’t have enough European business to justify the expense yet.”

  “We will,” she assured him. “I’ve arranged a reception to host London’s premier restaurateurs, and I’m confident that the business I garner there will generate more than enough revenue to warrant my relocation.”

  “No,” he said roughly. “We aren’t ready.”

  “After the reception, we will be. And since we already have the capacity to increase production, and our distribution channels are in place, all that’s left is putting them into operation. It’ll take a week or two at the most.”

  “No.”

  “Yes, Raf. We’re partners. And it’s obvious I can’t be your partner here. You refuse to communicate with me and you sabotage my efforts to become involved in the day-to-day operation of the winery. It’s clear that my presence here is not needed, and staying in California when I’m so obviously irrelevant is not only a waste of my time, it’s bad for business.”

  “You can’t go. I won’t allow it.”

  “I wasn’t asking permission,” she told him while she straightened her spine and forced herself to meet his eyes without quailing. “I’m a full partner and I’ve decided to start acting like one.”

  Rafael followed her to London, which surprised her and set her nerves on edge. He’d bumped their flights up to first class, telling her she was not allowed to travel in coach. But just when she was foolish enough to think they’d be able to spend the transatlantic flight easing some of the tension between them, he’d pulled out his laptop and put that fantasy to rest.

  He’d worked the entire flight, taking only the occasional break to eat. Aside from the accidental brush of his forearm against hers, or the inadvertent bump of a stray knee, she may as well have been a piece of furniture.

  “I upgraded the reservations you made,” he later told her as their limousine pulled up to the Berkeley Hotel. “You’re in a corner suite on the top floor.”

  “You didn’t have to do that,” she said. “I’m perfectly content in a standard room.”

  He didn’t deign to comment, choosing instead to exit the limousine. He rounded its black trunk, spoke to the chauffeur and bellboy about their luggage and then materialized at her door before she’d had a chance to gather her things.

  “You didn’t change the conference room reservation, did you?” she asked as she exited the limousine and then straightened to her feet. “I’m pretty sure it’s impossible to upgrade those.”

  “No.”

  “Good.” She’d dressed for the flight, in comfortable taupe linen and cotton, but she was wrinkled and horrifically tense from the close quarters with Rafael. She needed space to collect herself and time to freshen up before the party.

  “What time is the reception?” he asked as he escorted her into the lobby. The impersonal touch of his big hand at the base of her spine distracted her at the same time that it made her wonder if she’d simply imagined the kisses they’d shared less than a month ago. If she didn’t know better, she’d think the passion that had flared between them was a figment of her fevered imagination.

  “You don’t have to come tonight,” she assured him as she eased away from his touch and then rolled her luggage between them. She couldn’t think properly with him touching her as if it didn’t matter. As if she didn’t matter. “I know you hate these kinds of things.”

  “Yes. But I’ll be there anyway.”

  She didn’t want him at the reception. Being near him while he ignored her, or worse, treated her with polite detachment, made her feel nervous and distracted. If this night were to work, she needed to be focused. She needed to charm. Rafael’s brooding, foreboding presence would undoubtedly derail her from her plans for the evening. She didn’t have the emotional resources to shine publicly while worrying about his perceptions of her. “I’ve worked plenty of clients’ parties without incident,” she told him. “I promise, you don’t need to be there.”

  “I’m coming.”

  “You’ll hate it,” she warned him.

  “Did you invite Bennett?” he asked as he collected their keys and strode toward the elevator.

  For reasons she didn’t wish to explore, Sophia hadn’t even alerted Alexander to her presence in the city. “No. Tonight’s about business. I don’t want to be distracted.”

  Rafael escaped to his own room, his control teetering on the edge. He closed the door behind him, his hand gripping tight around the handle while he battled the urge to walk back to Sophia’s suite down the hall. The aching throb in his groin, brought about by the unexpected closeness of the elevator, by her intoxicating scent and the way it had filled the small space, whispered at him to relinquish the fight, to lose himself in the wonder that was Sophia.

  No.

  He knew, if he wanted, he could go to the hotel bar and pick up someone willing and ready. He could relieve his physical ache with some random blonde with blue eyes, white thighs and a come-hither smile. But experience had taught him that a few moments of mindless release with someone he didn’t care about wouldn’t solve his problem. His problem was Sophia. It had always been Sophia.

  Sophia, with her infuriating ability to get beneath his skin. To make him want what he could never have.

  You don’t always get what you want, she’d told him.

  Wasn’t that the truth?

  So why did you follow her to London? Why are you torturing yourself?

  It was a question he didn’t want to answer. Couldn’t answer. From the moment he’d awakened to find her in Turino’s office, her tumbled curls in disarray and her perfect breasts unbound beneath that thin white T-shirt, he’d been derailed. One touch of her sweet, pink mouth, and his ability to keep himself separate from her had vanished.

  Again.

  Rafael looked down at his hands, at the rough hands that were scarred from a life lived in the streets and on the field. He was a nobody. Capable of bringing only pain to those he cared about. So what was he doing here? Why had he come?

  When he’d kissed her in the cellar of his winery, he’d told himself it was to scare her, to remind her that she didn’t know him and couldn’t trust him. He’d kissed her to prove that he wasn’t the man for her. She’d believed him, too, scuttling back and staring at him as if he’d somehow tainted her with his touch.

  But then she’d rallied, dis
playing the strength and resilience she never lost, no matter how often he pushed her away. It had taken all his will to maintain his distance, to resist her persistent bid for closeness. And he told himself it was for the best.

  He had to keep his impulses in check, to keep her at arm’s length, no matter how it wounded her and made her wide blue eyes fill with hurt and self-doubt. Having her defenses up kept him from seducing soft moans from her arched throat, from skimming his lips over the tight, ruched tips of her breasts while she clutched at his shoulders and begged for more.

  He dropped his forehead against the door and closed his eyes, cursing his damned weakness. One look from her, and he couldn’t think beyond hauling her close, touching every soft inch of skin with his lips and tongue and hands, consuming the sweet scent from her neck and mouth.

  Though he doubted Turino had intended it, the terms of his will had crafted an unbearable hell for his valued protégé. By bringing Sophia back home, Rafael was caught in a purgatory from which there was no escape.

  And yet if she left, if he allowed her to remain in London permanently, he’d be confined to a hell he knew all too well. He was terrified of the man he would become once she left him again, even though having her close was killing him by slow degrees.

  It was killing them both, and he was a bastard for wanting to consign her to purgatory with him.

  But how could he let her go? How would he ever survive losing her again?

  He’d always been good at separating what he deserved from the things he couldn’t have. He knew his place in the world, and had convinced himself that it was enough. He was content. But with Sophia, he lost perspective. He wasn’t good enough for her, but he couldn’t move past his irrational obsession with her. He couldn’t escape the torture of her nearness. But he couldn’t tolerate the pain of having her gone, either.

  Hell, things could never work between them, and he was a fool to keep the fantasy alive. She was too refined, raised with the world at her feet, a princess who knew nothing of hunger or want. They came from such different places, his dark to her light, that any sort of communion between them was impossible.