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  But then he was gone. Cursing through gritted teeth, he heaved himself away from her to brace trembling arms against the rough, centuries-old window casing bisecting the south wall. His head sank between his uplifted arms, and his back shook with his shuddering breaths.

  CHAPTER THREE

  DAZED, shaken and feeling horribly bereft, Sophia struggled to her feet. Her hands reached blindly for the ties of her robe, and she cinched them tight across her middle while an awful, yawning emptiness robbed her legs of their strength. She inched her way carefully toward Rafael, unsure of what to say. Of what to feel.

  It was clear from the rigidity of his body and the taut lines of his profile that he was still painfully aroused. Her fingers itched to touch him, her arms longed to wrap around his broad torso and her heart ached to hear that he’d missed her. That he hadn’t forgotten her just as she hadn’t forgotten him.

  His voice, rough and deep, stopped her before she drew too close. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll leave. Now. Before we both do something we’ll regret.”

  She flinched, nervousness and years of wanting what she could never have paralyzing her on the spot.

  After a few torturous minutes, Rafael regained his control. He straightened, slowly, and then turned to skewer her with a caustic, cold glare. “What are you doing here?”

  “I heard about Papa and—”

  “Why the hell didn’t you tell anybody you were coming?” he interrupted harshly.

  For a second, she simply stared at him, her thoughts too jumbled to form words.

  “Well?”

  “You’d have told me not to bother,” she blurted, suddenly feeling stripped of all her defenses. She felt raw. Exposed. And more vulnerable than she’d felt in a long, long time.

  “Yes, I would have,” he spat. “You’re not welcome here.”

  Sophia couldn’t stop herself from glancing at his mouth, at the swollen evidence of their mutual passion, and a fresh wave of heat curled low in her belly. “You have a strange way of showing it.”

  A flush darkened his cheeks and his fists clenched at his sides. “You caught me by surprise,” he said harshly. “I was half-asleep and I—” His throat worked with an audible swallow. “It doesn’t matter. It won’t happen again.”

  “Agreed.”

  “I suggest you leave. Now.”

  “No.” She licked her top lip and swallowed, refusing to be cowed. “I’m Papa’s only child. His daughter. I have every right to be here.”

  His black eyes turned to cold, brittle granite. “You lost that right seven years ago.”

  The threat of tears burned the back of her nose, but she reminded herself that he was hurting, too. That his grief surely eclipsed hers. “I understand this is a difficult time for you.” She paused, inhaling to calm her quaking nerves and to gather her resolve. She could be strong, no matter how cruel Rafael chose to be. “I understand that you’re still angry with me and that you don’t want me here. But whether you want it or not is immaterial. I am here. And I’m not leaving.”

  “You’ve had enough of London?” he sneered. “Enough of your independence and freedom?”

  Forcing a calmness she didn’t feel, Sophia kept her voice even. “Not at all. I love the life I have now. I’m only here for Papa’s funeral, and then I will be out of your life forever.” She cocked her jaw and braced her shoulders, holding her ground despite her wish to simply disappear. “Surely, you can cope with having me underfoot for twenty-four hours.”

  His nostrils flared at that, but his expression remained unyielding. “Your father wouldn’t have wanted you here. You should respect his wishes.”

  The observation only confirmed her fears, but she’d come too far to turn back now. “Yes. Well. I’ve never been one to honor Papa’s wishes.”

  His mouth hardened and he shot her a withering look. “I’ve noticed.”

  So harsh and angry, he undoubtedly didn’t realize how much he reminded her of the wounded, scarred boy he’d once been. “Raf,” she said softly, “I can’t change the past. Nor can I change how Papa chose to react to my decision to leave.”

  “But you can honor his reaction.”

  “Not if he was wrong. I didn’t betray him by leaving, no matter how he chose to interpret my actions. I simply grew up. Why is that such an unforgivable offense?”

  His jaw flexed as he growled, “He deserved your loyalty.”

  “My loyalty?” she blurted with a baffled little laugh. “Don’t you mean my life?”

  “Interpret it however you wish,” he said with a scowl.

  “No.” She shook her head. “I didn’t owe Papa my life simply because he showered me with gifts whenever he happened to remember I was alive.”

  He stared at her in mutinous silence, his rebuttal more palpable than words.

  Suddenly tired of the argument she’d never be able to win, she exhaled in defeat. “Papa didn’t even know me, Raf, and you know it.”

  “He was your father.”

  “Then why didn’t he act like one? I was more than an unexpected side effect of a marriage that ended before it began.”

  “He loved you as best he could.”

  “He indulged me. He spoiled me, cosseted me and bought me everything a child who’d just lost her mother could possibly want. But he didn’t love me. I was an inconvenience and a bother, a distraction that he’d have preferred not to have. Why else do you think he put you in charge of entertaining and protecting me?”

  “He didn’t put me in charge.”

  She arched a brow. “Right. You volunteered to watch over a grieving adolescent girl because you had nothing better to do.”

  “You were Turino’s only child. His daughter.”

  “I was never anything beyond a pretty bauble, a possession he could show off to his friends when I wasn’t away at boarding school.”

  “You’re wrong.”

  “No. I’m not. He loved you, Raf. Not me. You were the son he always wanted, and I don’t begrudge you your standing in Papa’s affections. But it isn’t fair that you judge me for living my own life. It isn’t fair that you hate me for making choices that are different from yours.”

  “You hurt him. Unforgivably. And you never even tried to make amends.”

  “What?” she blurted. “I did try! It was Papa who refused my letters, my phone calls and all my requests for reconciliation!”

  Rafael glared at her without speaking, the knots in his jaw flexing with his denial.

  “I tried for seven years and he refused me every time.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “Why would I lie about such a thing?”

  “Because that’s what women do when they want something they can’t have.”

  Stunned by the unfounded accusation, it took several seconds before she could find the words to respond. “What could I possibly want besides closure with the father who rejected me?”

  “Don’t pull the innocent act with me, Sophia. You want your father’s money. But it’s too late. You’re not getting it. You’re not getting anything from him.”

  She gaped at him, unable to merge the boy she’d loved with the harsh, unforgiving man he’d become. “You don’t believe that for a minute. I know you don’t.”

  “Then you’re a fool.”

  “No. I couldn’t care less about the money or the land or whatever it is you men get all worked up about, and you know it. I never wanted anything from Papa except his love and acceptance. I never wanted anything from this place but you.”

  “We are not going to discuss that,” he intoned with a finality that made her bristle.

  Sophia felt as if she’d been slapped, and she jerked her chin up to its most defensive angle. “Of course we aren’t. God forbid we talk about the real reason I left, and the role you played in it. God forbid you feel guilty for driving me away.”

  “I won’t feel guilty for a choice you made. It was your choice to leave. Not mine.” He strode to the office door and
yanked it wide before gesturing for her exit. “And it’s too late to change your mind.”

  “Did you ever tell Papa about our final conversation?” she asked, stubbornly standing her ground. “Or how you kissed me the day I left?”

  “Why would I?” His low voice sounded like ground glass. “It meant nothing.”

  Her lungs tightened, but she didn’t allow him to see how his words affected her. “Right. And it meant nothing just now, when you kissed me as if you were damned and I was your only salvation.”

  His nostrils flared while his black eyes sparked with flame. “I told you. You surprised me. You could have been anyone and I—”

  “Stop hiding,” she interrupted with an angry swipe of her hand. “Tell the truth for once in your wretched life.”

  “I don’t hide,” he said, his nostrils flaring in offense. “From anything.”

  She barked out a bitter laugh. “You hide from everything, Raf. Me. Yourself. Life. Pleasure. At least have the courage to admit it.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Don’t I? You’re miserable. Anyone who’s half-observant can see it.”

  The sudden stiffness of his features told her the assessment had hit its mark. “I’ve just lost the man who saved my life, the man who gave me direction and purpose and a future. Forgive me for not being happy.”

  Remorse pricked at her conscience, but she wasn’t going to apologize for speaking the truth. “You were miserable long before Papa’s heart attack. You ignore your own desires and live your life based on what you believe he wanted.” Conscious of his dark glare, she wondered if he’d even heard her. If he could ever hear anything she said. “That’s no way to live.”

  “If I wanted life advice from a spoiled, selfish socialite with no sense of family loyalty,” he said in a voice full of suppressed wrath, “I would have asked.”

  She felt the color drain from her face. Her throat and the back of her nose burned. But she refused to let him make her cry. She’d wasted enough tears on Rafael already. “At least I know how to be happy. And how to forgive,” she said before stalking past him and out into the dark hall.

  Rafael had no memory of driving home, only that he somehow ended up in his big, empty master suite of black and brown. Muttering a guttural curse, he strode to his marble bathroom and cranked on the faucet. Filling both hands with icy water, he dipped his head and drenched his face with cold recriminations and arctic fury.

  How could he have been so stupid?

  Christ. He was paying the price for his sins, cast into a hell that had been exquisitely fashioned just for him.

  How else to explain the nebulous transition between reality and dream that had stripped him of his typical control and reserve? Sophia’s unexpected appearance, after seven years of absence, had caught him so off guard, he’d reacted as if she were a figment of his fevered imagination. By the time he’d come to himself, by the time he’d realized that the softness of her mouth, the small whimpering sounds within her arched throat and the curves of her breasts were real, it had been too late.

  He’d already revealed his weakness for her, a weakness he’d sworn never to feel again. Ever. The fact that mere seconds in her presence had completely eradicated his carefully crafted control terrified him. Infuriated him. Unleashed the beast he’d kept successfully hidden for years.

  So he’d lashed out at her in an effort to regain his equilibrium. He’d pushed her away with harsh words and angry accusations, refusing to show any signs of softness toward her. He needed her to hate him, to stay far, far away. He couldn’t allow otherwise. She’d wounded Turino and out of loyalty to the man who’d saved him, he’d never offer her forgiveness for it. He couldn’t.

  She was better off in London, he brutally reminded himself. Despite the attraction that still flared between them, nothing could ever come of it.

  Nothing would ever come of it.

  In the seven years since Sophia had been gone, he’d aligned himself with Turino’s efforts to cut her out of their lives. And even though he knew his mentor was overreacting, Rafael had welcomed the opportunity to eliminate Sophia from his thoughts, from his life, from his very soul. He’d convinced himself it was right to hate her, to reject her, to keep her away from her birthright. Because to do otherwise was unbearable.

  If he allowed himself to think for even one minute that Turino would have wanted her home, that she belonged in California, he’d be right back where he’d been before she left.

  He’d be wanting a woman he couldn’t have, a woman who deserved better than Rafael Chaves. Sophia, whether her father’s outcast or not, deserved better than a man possessed of a defective character, a man whose past didn’t bear scrutiny.

  No matter that she’d been the innocent victim of her father’s stubborn resistance, he couldn’t behave as if all was forgiven. He couldn’t allow her to believe returning was an option. He couldn’t have her close. Ever.

  Seeing her again, hearing her claims, and feeling her beneath his hands and mouth had touched something deep inside, something he had to resist. He couldn’t soften. Couldn’t welcome her back as if the past had never happened.

  The price of doing so was too high. She’d accused him of hiding. Of suppressing his own desires.

  What she didn’t understand was why.

  His own mother had mistreated him, had sold him and his baby brother into a virtual slavery too horrific to even revisit in memory. And even though he didn’t understand why the woman who’d borne him hadn’t loved him, he knew on some fundamental level that she’d been right to reject him. She’d seen him for the degraded monster that he was, and the violence of his past only proved her point. If Sophia were the woman she claimed to be, she deserved better than a brute, better than a man with blood on his hands.

  Rafael postponed sleep for as long as possible, retreating to his office and using his restless energy to process the last few weeks’ worth of business contracts and production costs. A little after 5:00 a.m. and exhausted from nearly a week with little to no rest, he finally sank into bed and claimed a fitful sleep.

  Dreams plagued him from the moment his eyes closed, torturing him with visions of Sophia in all her naked glory. Deep within his subconscious mind, he took all she offered, kissing her satiny flesh and pleasuring her as she writhed beneath him.

  He consumed her as she cried into his mouth and arched beneath his questing hands, tasting her as he’d always craved. She clung to him with welcoming arms, her slim, white thighs spread wide to accommodate every yearning, seeking inch of him as he thrust deeply within her heated core. Knowing that he’d crossed a line that should never, ever be crossed, Rafael jerked awake to find himself twisted in his solitary sheets … frustrated, tense and uncomfortably aroused.

  A frigid shower did little to bring relief, the heat of his desire for Sophia burning too close to the surface. As much as he wished otherwise, he knew he’d have to see her at Turino’s funeral this morning, to pretend he hadn’t kissed her, that he knew nothing of her breasts within his hands, her mouth beneath his, her soft, bare thighs cradling his. He’d have to shove aside the memory of her warmth, of the way her expression had transformed from stunned surprise to drugging desire to brittle, hurt resolve.

  Simmering with banked tension, he dressed with savage motions, jerking the bleached Egyptian cotton shirt and designer silk suit over his big body. As much as he’d prefer to avoid seeing Sophia again, Turino deserved to be honored by the man he’d treated as a son. So he’d get through the funeral. He’d tolerate the hell of being near Sophia, wanting her and not touching her.

  And God help him, he’d do it without betraying one atom of the turmoil beneath his skin.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  DESPITE Rafael’s early arrival, Sophia was already in the cathedral’s empty vestibule when he entered, standing with her profile to him and looking so beautiful it made his gut twist. At her side, a tall stranger with blond hair and narrow hands m
urmured to Dolores about their trip from London.

  “Turino’s passing came as such a shock,” he said in the cultured tones of an English aristocrat as he turned to exchange a mournful glance with Sophia. “But as soon as we heard, we knew we needed to come to California.”

  We? Who was this man to Sophia?

  “I’m glad you were able to accompany her,” said Dolores as she leaned to place a grateful hand on the man’s wrist. “Losing a father can be so difficult.”

  “Yes,” he said as he patted Dolores’s gnarled fingers and nodded solemnly. “But my Sophia is a strong woman. She’ll get through it.”

  His Sophia?

  Dolores must have sensed Rafael’s arrival, because she looked over her shoulder while a soft smile split her lined face. “Raf!” she called as she bustled forward to tug at his arm. “Look who’s come home!”

  Scowling, Rafael resisted her efforts to draw him into the loose triangle they’d formed. His glare bounced between Sophia and the interloper as they shifted their attention to him. He hated the way the two of them matched, the way the stranger’s tall, blond and blue-eyed handsomeness provided a perfect complement to Sophia’s golden beauty. “Why is he here?” he asked. “I invited him,” Sophia said.

  “This is hardly the time for entertaining,” he said harshly.

  Her blue eyes flashed with irritation. “Alexander is my friend and I want him here.” The tone of her voice told him she valued the stranger’s friendship far more than she valued Rafael’s opinion.

  “This isn’t about what you want,” he spat back. “It’s about Turino. About honoring the dead.”

  “Raf!” scolded Dolores.

  The stranger offered a conciliatory smile and strode forward with one long hand extended. “Alexander Bennett,” he offered. “You must be the Rafael I’ve heard so much about.”

  “Funny. I haven’t heard a thing about you,” he said with a dismissive glance at the proffered hand.