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

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СКАЧАТЬ she glanced up, only to find Rafaelo looking down his haughty nose at her. At once Caitlyn realised that he’d misunderstood her.

      “I meant both of you are grieving. Perhaps you can offer comfort—”

      “I have no intention of offering him anything,” Rafaelo growled. “I owe him nothing. Nada.”

      Caitlyn’s cheeks grew hot at his stubborn intransigence. “He’s your father, and he’s just lost a son. Why don’t y—”

      The black eyebrows jerked together. Something violent flashed in the depths of his stormy eyes. “Phillip Saxon is not my real father. My father is dead. My father taught me to ride, to fish, to swim—and about wine. And that man is not Saxon.”

      “I’m sorry,” she muttered in a subdued tone, not knowing what else to say.

      He sighed then, a harsh, grating sound. “On his deathbed, the man who all my life I’d believed to be my father, informed me that he and my mother had lied to me, that I was not his son.”

      He’d felt betrayed. The sympathy Caitlyn felt for him grew. It had been wrong of his mother to keep the truth from him. But what choice would Maria have had? She’d probably wanted to forget Phillip existed. Now Rafaelo had arrived at Saxon’s Folly, betrayed, grieving…angry at the world.

      It was an explosive situation. “Kay doesn’t deserve—”

      “I concede that my timing is unfortunate.” The dark eyes lost a little of their angry fire. “But it was not my intention to deliberately set out to cause Kay Saxon pain.”

      “Only Phillip,” she retorted, and watched his head jerk back. “You want to hurt him. Why? Because he rejected you when you were a child? Or because you’re scared that he won’t accept you now?”

      A range of emotions flickered across his face, receding one by one, until only irritation remained. “I am not a child. I am a realist. I don’t even know this man who fathered me—”

      “But you want to get to know him?”

      “No! I don’t need to know him. I dislike him. I have no respect for hi—”

      “So you want to wound him, don’t you?” Caitlyn could feel herself getting hot and bothered as annoyance spread through her. “What do you plan to do to make up for the hurt he caused you?”

      “It’s not about me. I want the bastard to pay for what he did to my mother.” The words burst from him in a torrent.

      The silence that fell between them was deafening, broken only by the scrape of an iron shoe as a horse shifted.

      Rafaelo looked astonished.

      There was another emotion, too. Bewilderment? Confusion? Irritation? It passed too quickly for Caitlyn to read. Either way, it showed there was a chink in that impenetrable armour.

      Before she could respond, her cell phone rang. “Where are you?” Megan demanded. “We need you.”

      Oh, damn. She was supposed to be helping with the reception.

      “Be there shortly.” Caitlyn hit the button to end the call. Meeting his gaze, she said, “I have to go—and so should you. I think you’ve caused enough disruption today.”

      His eyes flashed. “I have every right—”

      “Not today,” Caitlyn said with certainty. “You need to calm down before you speak to your father.” She tensed, waiting for him to rail at her for calling Phillip that. But to her surprise he didn’t interrupt, so she continued, “Give the Saxons a chance to mourn, to remember Roland with dignity.”

      His eyes narrowed until all she could see were slits of onyx. “Tomorrow.”

      Caitlyn started to thank him. The compromise could not have been easy, but he steamrolled over her. “In the evening I am flying back to Spain. I do not have time to—how do you say?—twiddle my fingers.”

      “Twiddle your thumbs.” She started to smile, refusing to let his disgruntlement spoil her pleasure in his concession. “It will be for only one night.”

      Rafaelo stared at her. Caitlyn shifted uncomfortably.

      “You will have dinner with me tonight? At my hotel?”

      Suddenly his eyes held a lazy warmth that turned Caitlyn’s knees to liquid. The sensation was disturbing…and extremely unwelcome.

      “No, I will not have dinner with you.” She couldn’t. Dared not. Not even to try and talk him out of the hatred he held toward the Saxons. “But may I suggest—”

      “You are about to order me around again, no?”

      She drew a deep breath. “No. Not order. Make a suggestion that will benefit both you and Phillip—and your relationship in the future.”

      “I have told you, I have no relationship with him.” He was all disdain again, looking down that arrogant nose, the glimmer of interest that had warmed his eyes a moment ago well and truly doused.

      The Spanish grandee, Caitlyn thought with a brief pang of regret at the loss of his more approachable manner. Then she said, “I think you do want a relationship with your father, otherwise why else did you come all this way?”

      “Because—” He checked himself. “This is none of your concern.”

      Caitlyn suppressed the urge to roll her eyes skyward. “Oh, yes, because I’m not family, right?”

      He stared at her unblinkingly, until an uncomfortable prickle started beneath the loose hair at her nape and shivered down her spine.

      Hastily Caitlyn said, “I suggest that you spend the evening planning how best to cement the relationship with your father. I also think you should call tomorrow and let Phillip know that you’re coming and give him some idea what you wish to see him about.”

      The edge of his lips curled up. The smile—if it could be called that—was full of male superiority and mockery. And it set her teeth on edge. It was a smile that made it clear that he would not take advice. Not from her. Not from anyone. Rafaelo Carreras was his own man and he would do what the hell he wanted.

      Finally his lips moved. “It is not my way to let the opposition prepare.”

      Damn, but he was annoying with his formal diction, his immaculately tailored suit, and his give-not-one-inch manner…and that beautiful mouth that said such hateful, intransigent things.

      “He’s your father…not the opposition.” Caitlyn heard her voice rising.

      His face darkened and his lips parted.

      She struggled for calm. “Okay, okay. You don’t need to say it.”

      “Say what?”

      “That he’s not your father.”

      Rafaelo’s mouth snapped shut, but his expression remained black as СКАЧАТЬ