frowned, trying to read her expression.
“What do you mean, again?”
She blinked fast as she looked away. “Nothing.”
“I don’t believe you.” He knew little about her past beyond what was spelled out on her résumé. She’d always deflected personal questions with cool, dignified reserve.
She turned to him sharply. “Paris,” she muttered. “I meant Paris.”
“You didn’t mean Paris.”
“What else?”
Another deflection. He narrowed his eyes. “There was another man before me,” he guessed.
“You know there wasn’t!”
“You were a virgin. That doesn’t mean there wasn’t another man.” The thought made his shoulders feel tighter still.
She set her jaw stubbornly. “You checked my references. You know all about me.”
Rafael didn’t know half what he wished he knew. He’d been so impressed by her at the interview that he’d done only the barest measure of due diligence above and beyond what the exclusive employment agency had provided. He never liked to rely totally on underlings. He’d spoken to the wife of her last employer, and the woman had raved up and down the moon about Louisa Grey, calling her “amazing” and a “treasure.” It seemed very unlikely that she would have spoken so highly about Louisa if she’d suspected her husband of having an affair with her.
It didn’t make sense.
“What are you hiding?” Rafael said, his eyes searching her face. “You never mention family or friends back home. Why? Why do you never want to go home?”
He saw her eyes widen, heard her intake of breath. Then she smoothed her oversize gray woolen skirt beneath her trembling hands. “It doesn’t matter.” She turned away. “If there will be nothing else, sir, I will leave you now—”
“No, damn it.” He crossed the room in two steps, blocking the doorway so she could not leave. “I won’t let you go. Not until you answer me. I…” I need you, he almost said, but the words caught in his throat as sharply as a razorblade. He hadn’t said them to anyone for years. He’d created his whole life to avoid saying them.
Through the open window, he could see the lights of Istanbul flickering in the dusk. Black silhouettes of minarets plunged like daggers into the dying red sunset. He could hear a muezzin’s broadcasted call to prayers echo across the sea.
His eyes locked with hers in the shadowy room. The tension between them changed. Electrified. Desire for her swept through him, negating all else.
“Get out of my way, Mr. Cruz,” she whispered.
He could hear the quickness of her breath, see the rise and fall of her chest. “No.”
“You can’t keep me here!”
Rafael almost shook with the force of his need for her.
“Can’t I?” he said softly.
He wanted to bury himself in her so deeply that he would forget everything—everything that threatened to break him apart. He heard the quick pant of her breath. He took a deep breath of her, smelling her fragrance, soap and clean cotton and freshly cut roses.
If he were smart, he would let her go. He would find a different woman to fill his bed. The pouting French starlet he’d been flirting with for the last few days. Her. Anyone.
Anyone but Louisa Grey.
His eyes fell to her mouth. Her beautiful bow-shaped lips were pink and bare of makeup. Something about Louisa intrigued him beyond his understanding. He wanted her in a way that almost felt against his will. He craved the mind-numbing pleasure he’d felt making love to her. The best sex of his life.
The pleasure of her body would help him forget his pain. She would be the drug to distract him from his grief and despair. He would ravish her in his bed, hard and fast, until the fire in his blood was sated. Until the pain in his heart was obliterated into ash. Then, and only then, would he let her go…
Rafael looked at her from beneath heavily lidded eyes. He saw the tremble of her body in the shadows.
She wanted to escape him—to deny them both what they both wanted.
But this inexperienced girl was no match for his will. She’d been a virgin when he’d first taken her in Paris. She would not be able to resist him now. He would possess her until he was utterly satiated, until he felt her writhe and shake beneath his body.
Slowly, implacably, Rafael pulled her into his arms.
She tried to resist, but he would not let her go. She trembled, tilting her head back to look up into his face. Tall as she was for a woman, he still towered over her. Her beautiful brown eyes glistened in the faint golden light.
“Please,” she said in a low voice. “Let me go.”
His hands tightened on her. “Are you so afraid?” he said quietly.
She drew a shuddering breath. “Yes.”
He cupped her face. “Of me?”
“No,” she said in a low voice. “If you kiss me again, if you take me to your bed, I’m afraid…”
“Afraid of what?”
She blinked fast, her full lashes black against her pale skin.
“Afraid I’ll die of wanting you,” she whispered.
He nearly gasped.
Reaching up, Louisa put her hand on his rough cheek. “I’ve missed you,” she said in a voice full of anguish. “I’ve missed you so…”
He shook beneath her touch. Taking her hand in his own, he fervently kissed the palm, then pulled her into his arms. Lowering his mouth to hers, he kissed her. Deeply. Hungrily.
He kissed her with all the repressed desire of the month they’d been apart—and of all the wasted years before that.
Louisa trembled.
Rafael’s touch burned her. It frightened her. Seduced her.
He kissed her, his powerful lips moving over hers. Guiding her. Giving her such explosive pleasure, causing electricity to sizzle down her limbs beneath her gray woolen suit until she thought she might die of this ache like fire.
Too many years of repressed desire could no longer be contained. It was all she could do not to blurt out the two devastating secrets that would destroy everything.
She was completely, irrevocably in love with a man who never wanted to be either husband or father. And she might be pregnant with his child…
Rafael’s hand on the back of her head, stroking through her hair and the bare skin of
