Spaniard's Seduction / Cole's Red-Hot Pursuit. Brenda Jackson

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      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.

      He raised an arched, black eyebrow. “It is impertinent to travel all the way to New Zealand to meet my father?”

      Phillip dropped his head forward into his hands and uttered a hoarse groan.

      “Your father?” Caitlyn looked bewildered. “What does that have to do with—”

      Rafaelo glared at her. “It has nothing to do with you—it is a family matter. But trust me, Phillip Saxon is my father.”

      Two

      Trust him?

      Never! Caitlyn drew a shaking breath but kept quiet. Lashing out at the arrogant Spaniard wouldn’t help the fact that she’d exposed Kay to a dreadful revelation.

      If she hadn’t pushed him, challenged him, the outcome might have been very different…

      “What did you say your name was?” Kay was asking Rafaelo, her face suddenly pale.

      “Rafaelo Carreras.”

      Slowly Kay started to shake her head. “I don’t know anyone by that name.”

      “He’s lying,” Caitlyn said fiercely, determined not to let Kay be upset. She had enough to contend with already.

      “Kay—”

      “Wait.” Kay warded off Phillip’s attempt to talk to her. “Carreras, it’s Spanish, isn’t it?”

      Caitlyn didn’t like the sudden gleam in Kay’s eyes. Nor, it appeared, did Phillip.

      “Kay, love, let’s go. There are people waiting to pay their respects.” Phillip curled an arm around his wife’s shoulders, the skin stretched thin across his cheekbones.

      But Kay didn’t budge.

      Rafaelo placed his hands on his hips, and thrust his shoulders forward. He looked ready for battle. “Madam, my full name is Rafaelo Lopez y Carreras.”

      “Lopez? There was a girl…a young woman…” Kay’s brow pleated as her voice trailed away. “I think her name was Maria Lopez. In fact, I’m sure of it. She was researching her family…I seem to remember that her father, or perhaps an uncle, had died in the Napier earthquake. Yes, that’s right. It’s coming back to me. Her name was Maria.”

      “My mother’s name is Maria,” Rafaelo said in a flat voice, his eyes shooting daggers at Phillip.

      Eyes widening, Kay put her hand over her mouth and, shrugging out from under his arm, turned to her husband. “Tell me this isn’t true.”

      Caitlyn’s stomach dropped like a stone at the expression in Kay’s eyes. She clenched her hands into fists. Surely, Kay couldn’t believe what Rafaelo claimed was true?

      Phillip took a large white handkerchief from his pocket and, without unfolding it, rubbed it across his brow.

      “You are not going to deny it, are you?” Kay’s face had drawn into tight lines. She turned her attention back to Rafaelo, studying him with critical eyes. “How old are you?”

      “Thirty-five.”

       Kay was not telling Rafaelo to get lost.

      “That’s the same age as Roland.” Kay paused and sucked in an audible breath. “When were you born?”

      Rafaelo told her.

      Hurt flickered across Kay’s face. “That makes you Phillip’s eldest son…even if Roland our—my—first child hadn’t died.”

      There was a world of reproach in the look that Kay gave Phillip.

      Hurriedly he reached for her. “Kay, I’m sorry. I never—” He broke off, shamefaced.

      “Never wanted me to know?”

      Phillip didn’t answer and Kay tugged her hand free and walked away. After a horrible silence, Phillip took off after her.

      Finding that her hands were shaking, Caitlyn balled them against her mouth. God. It had all happened so fast…

      And it appeared that Rafaelo wasn’t lying.

      A sideways glance revealed that Rafaelo’s face held no expression. No glee. No gloating. So why had he done it? Why had he come all the way across the world and dropped this devastating bombshell on the Saxons?

      He met her questioning gaze with a decided lack of expression and said, “So I am not a liar.”

      Then Rafaelo was walking away from her, too, his back ramrod-straight, his black head held at a proud, arrogant tilt. Caitlyn stared after him, her mouth hanging open. Finally she came to her senses.

      “What were you hoping to achieve by staging that little scene?” She hurled the words like pebbles at the space between his shoulders.

      He stopped, then turned.

      Caitlyn glanced around. A little way off a couple stared curiously in their direction. Farther away groups stood around talking. “It’s too public here for the conversation I have in mind. Come with me.”

      He didn’t look like the kind of man who followed orders. She half expected him not to follow as she crossed the lane that led past the winery to the house and wound her way along the shoulder of the hill, down the northern slope planted with Cabernet Franc vines. For once Caitlyn didn’t notice the pale green of the leaves, or how the land opened up to meadows where wildflowers had started to bloom in deep drifts along the fence line. She was too mad.

       His fault.

      Normally, she was even-tempered, easy to get along with—she never lost her temper and rarely even told off any of her cellar hands. But Rafaelo Carreras had managed to get under her skin with his intransigence, with his hard-ass, unbending attitude. She glanced back, he was following. Good.

      She quickened her pace.

      Caitlyn took him to the stable block. As they entered the yard in front of the L-shaped block, several horses stuck their heads over the half doors, ears pricked with interest. The familiar warm smell of horses and hay calmed her a little. At the end of the row, one stall was closed top and bottom and Caitlyn could hear the СКАЧАТЬ