Forbidden to His Touch Page 6

  Turino’s pretty little princess of a daughter didn’t even flinch, her expression both innocent and curious.

  The stupid girl didn’t realize the danger she was in, her big, blue eyes unworried and unafraid. She’d visited him every day, peering around the edge of the door whenever he’d been left alone. No matter how he’d scowled at her and barked at her to leave him alone, she’d never once shown fear. Each time she grew bolder, inching a bit closer and talking soothing nonsense to him as if he were some stray dog she meant to tame. Compared to her angel face, white skin and golden hair, he’d felt like a wild animal. And knowing the comparison was accurate, he made a point of snarling and snapping at her, his only motive to scare her away.

  He didn’t like the way the girl made him feel. The scent and sound of her, soft and sweet and finer than anything he’d ever known, made his heart pound. Her nearness made it hard to breathe.

  “Why are you dressed?” she persisted in a sensible tone as she inched toward him. “You’ll get blood all over your clothes again.”

  “None of your business,” he growled. “Get out of here before the papão gets you.”

  Emboldened, she shook her head and moved ever closer. “You’re not leaving, are you?”

  “What’s it to you?”

  Twin lines appeared between her golden brows. “But you can’t leave. You’re hurt.”

  “I’m fine.”

  She leaned to press her pale hand to his forehead, the cool touch of her fingers making his insides seize up in response.

  Before he was even aware that he’d moved, he’d gripped her wrist and yanked her hand away with a grunt.

  Her eyes widened, but she didn’t try to pull free. Instead, she merely relaxed within his grip and stared at him with a calm, curious expression. “You don’t have to go, you know,” she told him. “Papa said you could live here for as long as you wanted.”

  Rafael knew he should release her, knew that touching her was wrong. She was delicate. Innocent. Too weak to withstand the devastation that knowing him would bring. But he couldn’t bring himself to let her go. Not yet.

  “He said a bad man hurt you.”

  He killed my brother.

  Her small pink mouth pursed in offense as her gaze tracked his bruised and battered face. “I hope you hurt him back.”

  I did.

  “What’s your name?” she asked, cocking her head as she lifted her eyes back to his.

  He knew he should remain silent, that he should send her away. But the urge to keep her with him, to draw out the sweetness of her company, overwhelmed his better judgment. “Rafael.”

  She smiled, and it was as if the sun had broken through a dark, angry cloud. “Nice to meet you, Raf. I’m Sophia.”

  Inwardly alarmed at the way her smile made his throat thicken, he dropped his eyes to his hand upon her tender flesh. Wincing at the tight half-moons of white his dark fingertips pressed into her skin, he forced his grip to loosen and shoved her arm away. “You shouldn’t be here,” he told her. “Turino told you to stay out of this room.”

  “Papa thinks I’m a baby,” she confided with a haughty huff of breath. “But I’m not. I’m practically grown. And I know you won’t hurt me.”

  You’re wrong.

  “Where do you go to school?” she asked, the shift in conversational topic setting him off-kilter.

  Mortified, he felt his face heat. He’d watched other boys come and go from school, dressed in their clean uniforms of navy and white. He’d hated those spoiled, pampered boys with their overprotective mothers and polished shoes. He’d hated them with a hot fierceness, with a violence that led him to throw rocks at the backs of their skinny, white legs. “I don’t go to school.”

  Her brows arched into perfect crescents of gold. “You don’t go to school?” she repeated. “But who teaches you?”

  Rafael swallowed back his embarrassment, suddenly angry at this stupid, silly girl who knew so little of the real world. “Nobody,” he mumbled sullenly.

  Her narrow hand lifted to his hot cheek. “I’ll teach you, then. We’ll have school every day until you’re well.”

  Her offer surprised him. It made his chest tighten and his eyes smart. Bewildered and disturbed, he swallowed back the bite of hope her words wrought. He wasn’t worth her time. He wasn’t worth teaching. He didn’t belong in her world, in the world of civilized, educated men.

  She hadn’t seemed to notice.

  Nor, he found to his consternation, had Turino. Through some unspoken, tacit agreement, it was decided that playing teacher to the wounded stray was the perfect summer diversion for Sophia. And so Rafael found himself her reluctant pupil, subjected to her organized schedule of reading, math and history lessons.

  By the time summer ended, they’d worked their way through her entire supply of textbooks. He spent his mornings in the fields, earning his keep among the vineyard workers, and his afternoons in the study with Sophia. And when she left again for London, he devoted his days and nights to repaying his debt to Turino, to mastering everything he could learn about the wine-making business.

  And so their years had progressed. Until Sophia’s mother had died and Sophia had come to California to stay.

  Until she’d become a woman and everything had changed.

  Until she’d left for London a final time and his world had turned bleak and dark once again. He’d only survived it by seeking refuge in anger and hard work, by joining Turino in his rejection of the woman they’d both loved.

  Shaking himself out of his reverie, Rafael stared blindly at Turino’s headstone. He didn’t know how to navigate his world now, didn’t know how to bring Sophia back without jeopardizing everything. Keeping her in London was safer, but it would keep him from honoring his promise. It would keep him from honoring Turino.

  But if he brought her back.

  Oh, God, if he brought her back.

  His chest tightened painfully, while his ribs and lungs and throat knotted with trepidation. He wasn’t strong enough to go back to the way it had been before.

  From the very first time he’d seen her, he’d been lost. She’d never been frightened of him, despite his bruises, his fierce scowls, his unkempt hair and big, brutal body. With her wide blue eyes, angelic features and golden hair, she’d been the first beautiful thing in his pathetic life. She hadn’t been afraid. She’d accepted him. Teased him. Laughed with him.

  He sucked in a thready inhale, his hands trembling against his thighs.

  She’d loved him. And he wasn’t strong enough to refuse her a second time.

  He might have been. Once. He might have even convinced himself that Sophia didn’t matter, that he could relegate his earlier obsession with her to the annals of his past. She was just a woman, he’d reasoned, just one of a million beautiful faces who populated the world. Once, he might have thought he could keep her at arm’s length. Ignore her and feel nothing.

  He was wrong.

  Now, after tasting her, touching her, dreaming of her again, he knew he’d overestimated his immunity to her. He couldn’t go back.

  No matter what Turino mandated from the grave.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “MS. TURINO?” Trudy’s urgent whisper accompanied the soft scrape of the boardroom door against the plush maroon-and-cream carpet.

  Stifling her expression of surprise, Sophia smiled at her gathered clients, offered a quick apology for the interruption and then exited her chair to join the firm’s receptionist at the threshold. The fastidious matron looked atypically pink and flustered, enough to cause Sophia concern. “What is it?” she asked.

  Trudy’s fingers fluttered over her sternum while she visibly tried to calm herself.

  Worried, Sophia placed a hand on Trudy’s rounded shoulder. “Are you all right?” she asked, her voice pitched low. “Is something wrong?”

  “No.” Trudy dropped her gaze while her breath remained rapid and shallow. “It’s just that … someone is here to see you.” Her faint,
thready whisper was barely audible and her flushed cheeks betrayed an agitation Sophia had never seen before. “A man who claims to knows you.”

  Confused by the fact that the staid woman was behaving completely out of character, she asked, “You interrupted my meeting because a prospective client claims to have met me before?”

  “No. Yes. Oh, it’s not the same,” Trudy stammered in a flustered whisper. “He’s different.” She cast a furtive glance at Sophia’s gathered clients and whispered, “He’s … quite compelling.”

  Sophia arched one brow and straightened, surprised to realize that the practical, no-nonsense receptionist had noticed anything beyond the man’s business needs. “Then schedule an appointment with him.”

  Trudy shook her head. “It’s urgent. He needs to speak with you immediately.”

  Sophia held on to her patience with effort, reassuring her clients with a swift smile. “I’m sure he does. But we’re addressing urgent issues in here as well. Please inform him that I’ll be available at noon.”

  Trudy licked her lips and blushed anew, her hands twisting at her waist. “He’ll be upset that I didn’t fetch you.”

  Incredulous, Sophia stared at the receptionist. Trudy was known for her stoic adherence to protocol, and she was always immune to the efforts of cocky, flirtatious clients intent on bending the rules. The fact that this stranger had managed to turn Trudy into a nervous bird of fluttering agitation both amazed and intrigued Sophia. “Then blame the delay on me. Tell the gentleman that we value each of my clients equally and that he will simply have to wait until I am free. As he’s a businessman himself, I’m sure he will appreciate the sentiment.”

  The tidy brunette’s face settled into a pained grimace and she cleared her throat noisily as she shifted from one sensible heel to the other. “Yes, Ms. Turino. I apologize. It’s just that—”

  “Now.”

  Trudy’s mouth pursed into a distressed knot, but she bobbed her head once and backed out of the room.

  When the door clicked closed, Sophia returned to her clients and offered a blinding smile. “Now where were we?”

  Forty minutes later, she concluded her meeting with a lucrative agreement that would benefit all involved, dismissed her clients and gathered the marketing materials they’d selected. “Trudy,” she called as she exited the boardroom. “I’m in the mood for sushi. Would you call in an order for me?”

  “Trudy’s gone. I sent her out for an early lunch.”

  “You sent—?” The familiar masculine voice registered a beat too late, sending a ripple of recognition down Sophia’s spine. Disbelieving, she turned to find Rafael standing in the center of the firm’s posh cream-and-burgundy waiting area. He held a thick manila envelope in his right hand and wore an expression more intense than any she’d seen. “Raf,” she breathed, her muscles suddenly weak. “What are you doing here?”

  He seemed to fill the entire space with his formidable presence. “You left before the reading of your father’s will.”

  Sophia gaped at him in silence, stunned that he’d come all this way to reiterate something she already knew.

  “You should have been there,” he said, his dark, foreboding expression reminding her of all the things she’d left behind. Of all the things she didn’t wish to remember.

  A disbelieving laugh knotted in her chest. “As you so ruthlessly pointed out,” she said, recovering her voice even though her pulse refused to settle. “Papa no longer thought of me as his daughter, nor did he wish for me to return for his funeral. Why on earth would I remain to hear a will that excluded me?”

  A flash of irritation darkened his black eyes. “Because it didn’t.”

  “What?”

  “Your father left you everything. The land, his half of the winery, the estate, all of it.”

  “All of …” Shock flooded her legs, making her limbs feel numb and somehow separate from her senses. She felt herself swaying, the floor tilting dangerously as the edges of her vision darkened.

  He caught her before she crumpled to the floor, his big, square hand steadying her balance while her thoughts continued to spin.

  She slapped his hand aside, backing away from him until her spine bumped up against Trudy’s cream receptionist counter. “You’re wrong,” she insisted as she reached to grip its rounded edge. “Papa would have never—”

  He scowled, obviously agreeing with her pronouncement. “Yet he did.”

  “But that would mean,” she said faintly, “he wanted me to …” Her voice trailed off while options she’d never, ever considered circled wildly.

  “Yes.”

  She shook her head, too stunned to think clearly. “But he hated me.”

  “He wanted you to come home. To take your place as his heir and as head of the Turino winery.”

  “Me? Head of the winery?” she gasped, taking a sideways step away from him. “No. This has to be some sort of cruel joke.” A bubble of hysterical laughter crowded the back of her throat. “Or a clerical error of some kind.”

  His stony glare defied her claim. “I assure you. It’s not.”

  “You’re wrong,” she insisted desperately. “You have to be.”

  “Turino—”

  “No—” She held up a hand to ward off further explanation “—Papa just never got around to making a new will after I left. You know how he was. He lived as if he’d never die.” She fluttered her fingers toward Rafael, toward the perfect surrogate son who’d never disappointed the estimable Dante Turino. “Had he taken the time to do so, he’d have named you as sole beneficiary. I’m sure of it. You’re supposed to have everything. Not me. Not after the way he cut me off.”

  A dark and dangerous flash of fury, so fleeting she almost didn’t catch it, flared deep within his black eyes. “Turino did rewrite his will. Twice. Once after you left for London and then once again, two days after his heart attack.”

  Sophia’s chest tightened, making it hard to draw breath, the implications of his words cutting through the beliefs she’d always held regarding her father. The rejection she’d lived with for years. “Two days after his. But that can’t be. You must be mistaken.” Her grip upon the counter tightened while a tremor gained ground within her stomach. “After seven years of nothing—no contact, no word, no breath of forgiveness—there’s no way Papa would leave everything to me. It doesn’t make any sense.”

  He extended the manila envelope, his face an inscrutable mask of coldness. “I have the paperwork here, if you don’t believe me.”

  She refused to even look it, at the evidence of her father’s untenable whimsy, and shook her head. “No. I don’t want it. It’s too late. I don’t want anything from him.”

  “What you want is irrelevant.”

  “No. It’s not,” she blurted. “Don’t you dare say that. Not now.” She felt her anger build, and it lent strength to her trembling legs. “What I wanted was a father. Someone who loved me and knew me and allowed me to make my own choices. Not this—” she jabbed a pointed finger toward the envelope “—this token inheritance after he’s already gone. I wanted a father who accepted the fact that I’d grown up, a father who respected me and wanted a relationship with me.” She blinked, appalled that a sting of tears was making her vision blur. “I never wanted his land or his money or his things. I wanted him.”

  “Too bad, Princess. Because this is what you’ve got.”

  She flung a hand up between them. “No. You’ve dedicated your life to him—it should be yours. You’re his partner, for God’s sake. So take it already. Take it and leave me to live my life.”

  A muscle flexed in his jaw and his black gaze bored into hers. “No.”

  “No?”

  “Turino wanted you to have it.”

  Lifting her chin, she growled, “Well, Papa doesn’t always get what he wants, does he?”

  “He does if I have any say about it.”

  “Right,” she concurred with an impatient huff. “I almost forgot. You live to serve
my father, the perfect Saint Turino who can do no wrong. You’ll follow his will no matter whose life it disrupts, whether you agree with it or not.”

  “Yes,” he admitted while black fire flickered deep within his eyes. “I made him a promise and I intend to keep it.”

  “You can’t promise him that I will do his bidding. It doesn’t work that way.”

  “You’re his daughter. The least you can do is honor his final wish, now that he’s gone.”

  “Don’t you dare lecture me, Raf. I always wanted to honor Papa’s wishes and to be the daughter I could never be. I tried for years to make him see me. To know me. But he never did. I refuse to feel guilty for that anymore.”

  “Your guilt is not my problem. Nor is your allegiance. Because mine is to Turino, and I intend to see his will carried out.”

  “You can’t force me to return home if I don’t wish to go.”

  Torn between his conflicting desires to draw her close and to force her far, far away, Rafael stared at the defiant tilt of her small face and debated his next words. For Turino’s sake, he had to convince her to come home. But he knew he’d never survive her proximity unless she hated him. She had to hate him. It was the only way to keep her safe from his destructive influence. So he stepped closer, and the air between them crackled with tension. “Try me,” he threatened.

  “You can’t be serious,” she blurted as she arched away from his looming presence. “I’m not a teenager, all doeeyed and in love with you anymore. I won’t jump to do your bidding just because you happen to crook your finger in my direction.”

  He didn’t flicker so much as an eyelash, though his body clamored to convince her with hands and mouth and tongue. “You’ll do as I say or else suffer the consequences.”

  “What consequences?” she scoffed. “You can’t touch me here.”

  “Can’t I?” He arched a brow. “I wonder how long this company will retain your services if you refuse to service my account.”

  “But you don’t even have an account!”

  “Not yet, I don’t. But I’ll have one within the hour if you don’t agree to come home.”