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.
