Illegitimate Tycoon, page 4
part #6 of Bad Blood Series
“I agree,” Leila managed to say in a controlled tone, her Brazilian blood bitten with jealousy that this young woman would openly flaunt her desire for Rafael in front of her! “But then, I’ve always thought he was the most handsome man I’ve ever met.”
“You know him?” she asked, looking at Leila then.
Leila forced a smile, knowing the second when the actress recognized her. “I’m his wife.”
And after delivering that statement, Leila walked straight toward her husband. She lifted a flute of champagne off a tray as Rafael turned to talk to a beautiful woman who’d just approached him.
A woman whom he seemed glad to see!
Leila downed the fine wine so fast that her head took a dizzying spin. She refused to rationalize that women threw themselves at Rafael often, for his finely chiseled features and intense dark eyes were too magnetic for any woman to resist, including herself. But he was her husband!
Her sting of jealousy was warranted. Wasn’t it?
She wouldn’t sit on the sidelines tonight and watch others flirt with him! God forbid if he welcomed their attention, as he seemed to be doing now with this green-eyed beauty at his side.
“There you are,” Leila said in an affected purr as she slipped her arms around his muscled one, bringing his startled gaze snapping to hers. “I’ve missed you.”
His brows slammed together, then smoothed one trebling pulse later. “Have you now?”
“I thought perhaps you’d give me a tour of the yacht.”
“Later,” he said, and flicked an apologetic look at the other woman.
Before Leila could protest, the woman who’d garnered Rafael’s attention spoke directly to her. “I’ve admired your work for years. You make modeling look effortless when I know it is very hard work.”
Again she trotted forth her patent smile when she felt anything but pleasant. Her head was still in the clouds from drinking two glasses of champagne on a nearly empty stomach.
“Are you a model?” Leila asked the woman who was as tall as she, enviably lithe and naturally beautiful with a crown of soft brown curls and arresting jade-green eyes.
“Katie is a costume designer,” came a deep voice behind her, a voice laced with a distinct English accent. “An excellent one, I may add.”
Leila whipped around and stared up at the intruder. The bottom fell out of her queasy stomach as a pair of royal-blue eyes locked on hers.
“Nathaniel,” Leila said, noting that the film star was as tall and broad shouldered as Rafael. That their family resemblance was further established with features that were just as finely chiseled.
The look of love Nathaniel and Katie exchanged caught her by surprise. The celebrated star wasn’t acting now. This was genuine affection.
“Katie and I were sorry you couldn’t make the wedding,” Nathaniel said, moving to his wife now and slipping an arm around her shoulders.
“As was I,” she replied, her apologetic smile flicking from him to Rafael.
The accusatory glint in her husband’s intense eyes scorched through her. He didn’t add that she would have known who Katie was if she had accompanied him to his brother’s wedding. He didn’t have to, for his eyes said it all.
The yacht took a sudden dip and her stomach heaved along with it. Terrified she’d become ill in front of the world, she muttered an apology and fled toward the lower deck and the toilets.
She kept the contents of her queasy stomach, only to find that Rafael had stayed on her heels and was waiting for her to exit.
“Are you ill?” he asked.
She shook her head, for how did one explain one was sick at heart?
“Absolutely not,” she said. “I drank too much champagne on an empty stomach. The movement of the boat made me woozy. Being on the water always does that.”
His brow narrowed, as if considering her words. “That is a convenient answer.”
“It’s the truth. I find these parties cloying,” she said. “Maybe I’ve just been on too hectic of a schedule of late to appreciate the party crowd, but right now I’d kill for some quiet time where I could just relax.”
He gave a curt nod. “Then let’s leave.”
She pressed a hand against the muscled wall of his chest and shivered at the heat and power beneath her palm. “Stay and enjoy your party.”
He closed his hand over hers, but his dark gaze gave nothing away of what he felt. “I wouldn’t dream of it. If we part company on the first night, the paparazzi will have a field day with speculation.”
All for show.
Nobody understood the need for publicity stunts more than she. She’d lend Rafael her support, and he’d do the same for her at the premier of Bare Souls. She never doubted he’d be there for her.
But would he once he’d learned what she’d kept from him?
“Besides,” he continued, “I’ve thought of nothing except getting you alone.”
“Very well,” she said. “Get me out of here.”
Rafael kept his thoughts secreted on the short boat ride from the yacht to the dock. He’d said nothing when the boat had picked up speed and Leila had taken his hand in a death grip.
The tremors rocketing through her told him everything he needed to know then. She wasn’t fine by any stretch of the imagination. She was putting on a brave front, and if there was one thing he understood, it was how to stand tall in the face of adversity.
His troubled childhood had taught him that bitter lesson!
That’s when he’d buried his own pain of being William Wolfe’s unwanted bastard into learning the intricacies of computers, discovering what made them work, and what to do to make them work better.
He suspected Leila did the same with her modeling. That was her escape, or perhaps her triumph and celebration, over her bout with anorexia.
His gaze lifted to La Croisette and the cluster of fans, paparazzi and celebrities moving about. The tents crowding the beach were the same, though the lights were more subdued. More intimate.
At one time they’d have enjoyed the nightlife. Now he selfishly wanted Leila to himself. The question remained if she was still eager to be alone with him.
“Would you like to take in the sights before turning in?” he asked, stopping well before the flood of lights spilling from the Palais du Cinéma.
She looked at the active scene they’d soon walk into and shivered. “No. I’ve no interest in becoming one of the hundreds in the nightclubs.”
He released a sigh of relief. “What about the secluded beach? Just us walking, like we used to do.”
Music danced on the balmy night air, but he felt the shift in her mood from tense to relieved.
“I’d enjoy that, as long as it takes me away from the spotlight.”
He couldn’t agree more, and was relieved she felt the same. There was a change in Leila that he’d never seen before, and wasn’t quite sure how to deal with. But part of her seemed closed off even to him. Distant. What had happened this past year while they had been embroiled in their careers to put those shadows in her vibrant eyes?
Rafael certainly intended to find out once they were alone. He eased them past the barriers that served to keep the onlookers out and took a trail that wound to a secluded stretch of sand. It wasn’t wide and it wasn’t pretty, but it was quiet.
“I applaud you for avoiding the paparazzi and the guards,” she said, pausing to slip off her heels before they started down the warm sandy coast.
“I was lucky.” Just like he’d been all the times he’d sneaked into Wolfe Manor so he could play with his half brothers and sister, defying his father’s edict.
He shook off those old painful memories and held on to the good ones. He’d made a solid connection with his siblings over the years, though he didn’t keep in touch with all of them. But then his family had remained fractured, with each of his half siblings emotionally or physically scarred by their father.
Rafael had worried that he would not be able to love another person up until the day he’d met Leila. Even during that first year of marriage he’d wondered if what he felt was real. If he’d awaken to discover it had all been a dream.
He glanced down at Leila now, whose features seemed suddenly lighter, freer. He surrendered to his own smile, for there was something about defying the norm that made his own adrenaline surge.
“Feeling better?” he asked, twining his fingers with hers as they struck off down the beach.
“Much. The air is so refreshing.”
He made a sound of agreement, though every breath he took drew her sweet scent deeper into his soul. The tension of being the object of so much attention began easing, yet he sensed Leila hadn’t let go of it yet.
“I’ve missed this,” she said at last.
“The beach?”
“The peace and quiet with you.” The exact opposite of her lifestyle. Right now at this moment their separate worlds were miles apart. But if they didn’t put a stop to this madness they’d lived with for a year, their marriage would surely suffer. Perhaps it already had.
“Why push yourself so hard in your career now?”
“If I don’t fight to stay on top of it I could end up on the fringe of this business outside of a year.”
Rafael suddenly felt tension seep into his bones. Surely this would happen anyway once they started the family they’d agreed on? Or had that changed?
“It sounds as if you intend to keep working.”
“I do,” she said without hesitating. Was she serious?
He wanted a wife and the family he’d long to have. A home. A normal family that he’d always been denied.
He wanted Leila back in his life now, not off somewhere on a shoot dragging their children along. Leaving him behind. Lonely. Forgotten. Rejected.
“And what about children, Leila? I thought we’d agreed that when we started a family, you would be a full-time mother. You’d place our children above everything, and most certainly above your career. Are you telling me now that has changed? “
CHAPTER THREE
RAFAEL held on to his emotions as silence roared between them, obliterating the soothing sounds of the surf washing over the sands and the excited beat of music pulsing in the warm night air.
He’d asked a simple question, one they’d agreed upon before they’d gotten married. The answer should be instant, in keeping with her promise.
“Many mothers work as well as look after their children, Rafael,” she said, which sounded like she was building up to an admission that she’d had a change of heart.
He bit off a curse and jammed his hands into his trouser pockets when every cell in his body goaded him to shake sense into his wife. The last thing he needed to do was lose his temper. He had to remain calm. Rational. Or as rational as he could be when his dreams of a family were teetering on the edge.
“Most women with children hold down a job because they have to. You most certainly do not need to work.”
“I disagree with you,” she fired back. “Many women work because it gives them purpose.”
“You think being a mother won’t do that?”
He wished he could see her face, but the velvet night swallowed up the details. The tension he felt rocketing through her though was very real, and very telling.
“I can’t think of anything on earth that would be as soul-satisfying as having a child,” she said at last, her voice breaking a bit with genuine emotion. “But that doesn’t mean I couldn’t work in moderation. I love my career, Rafael. Through it, I’ve been able to help other young girls who suffer with eating disorders. I’ve made a difference in their lives.”
He was well aware of the clinic she’d established in Rio and he was proud of all she’d achieved. He was aware, too, that of late she’d suffered a financial setback there. A setback that he could have easily funded for her. But when he’d offered to secure her clinic under his business umbrella in March, she’d thanked him before she’d flatly refused his help.
He’d not brought the subject up again, but now he had to know. “What about your business manager? Doesn’t he oversee those issues for you?”
“Yes, but I have final say. Especially with the clinic. It’s important to me that I keep a close watch over it,” she said.
Leila had as much pride as he. She was also clearly set on having control over her career as well as her charity.
He understood that, for he was the same. But of late he suspected that her drive to make crucial decisions in her life had edged to the extreme. It wasn’t just the little things she needed to evaluate. She was micromanaging everything.
Their marriage and future family as well?
She couldn’t give up her career, and she wouldn’t put the management of her charity into anyone else’s hands. She insisted she could keep a finger in her work and still be a mother—which she was obviously again trying to put off starting.
He sucked in a breath, then another, but his nerves were still snapping like ribbons in the wind. He knew full well how part-time work could eventually suck up all the hours in a day. He knew, too, how devoted—no, driven—Leila was with her career.
Which made the thought of her being a working mother all the more troubling. A baby could easily be shuffled off while she was busy on a set, cared for by strangers.
Just like his youth? Passed from one neighbor to another while his mother cleaned houses for a meager living. And later, when he was left alone in their small flat when his mother couldn’t support them and her various causes with just one job.
Rafael ground his teeth in annoyance, for he’d vowed at an early age that no child of his would endure that type of life. His children would have a home and two parents to come home to every day. They would know they were loved. Wanted. Cherished.
He took her hand and lifted it to his mouth, placing a light kiss on her fingers. A shiver rocketed from her into him, telling him she wasn’t immune from him at least.
“Leila, I am tired of us being apart and waiting to start a family,” he said. “I want a wife who lives with me again. I want a home and children.”
He heard her clear her throat, felt another tremor skitter through her. “God knows I’ve missed you. But what you are asking me to give up right now is unreasonable.”
“No, I am speaking from experience,” he reasoned softly. “I lived with a mother who worked all her life, not one but two jobs. I know what it is like to be alone, and I will not put our child through the same.”
Before she could answer, a couple’s low laughter intruded on them, followed by a barbed comment from a man. He glanced at the sound, noting with irritation that two couples were coming their way, all close to being lost to drink, he’d guess.
“Let’s return to our suite,” he said, pulling Leila away from the approaching group. “Gladly.”
By the time they’d wended their way through the crowd and into their hotel in brittle silence, Rafael’s emotions were stretched to breaking point. At this rate any further conversation about children would likely end in an argument. Yet how could he rest until he knew what had changed Leila’s mind?
Dammit, they’d made these plans long ago. Had he simply deluded himself into thinking their marriage and their love was strong?
“It is clear to me that you need to decide what you want,” he said, his voice sounding suddenly cold. “A family with me. Or your career.”
“Perhaps it is fate’s choice to make and not mine.”
There was something in her tone that chilled him. Something heart-wrenching in the shadows lurking in her eyes.
Without another word, she slipped into the bedroom. Instead of following, he stood there alone, dreading that there was far more to her prophetic comment than he would like.
Leila jolted awake at the tinny ring of the alarm. She fumbled to turn it off, then sprawled in bed, staring at the ceiling.
The short hours of sleep had left her horribly disoriented. But events of the past day quickly came back in a tumble of bruised memories.
She turned her head and stared at the empty place beside her. The bedclothes were rumpled, the pillow still holding the indentation of his head.
Rafael had joined her in bed, but had stayed on his side. He’d deprived her of his comforting arms.
No, that wasn’t true. She had been keeping him at an emotional arm’s length for too long.
She heaved a sigh and levered herself from the pillow-top mattress. It was certainly the first time they’d shared a bed and not made love. The first time she could recall when they’d gone to bed with harsh words between them.
He’d given her an ultimatum she dreaded to make, for if she gave up her career to start a family, she could lose her baby again. The pressures she had faced in getting to the very top of her career would be nothing compared to that devastation. Yet she knew Rafael would not relent. That he’d push her to be the wife and mother she had once promised and hoped to be.
If only it were that simple.
“Sleep well?” he asked.
She jerked her gaze toward the overstuffed chair by the window. He sprawled in it like a feral cat lazing in the sun.
Her mouth went dry. His broad shoulders and taut ribbed belly were more impressive bare. His skin was tanned. The light sprinkling of black hair on his muscled chest was soft, she knew.
“I rested,” she replied, slowly lifting her gaze to his eyes that were wiped clean of the anger that had roiled in him last night. But she didn’t kid herself into thinking all was well between them. “When did you come to bed?”
He lifted one broad shoulder. “Close to four.”
And with so little sleep he still looked devastatingly handsome. Focused. In control.
She was certainly far from having power over her emotions now. Her eyes felt gritty. Her stomach was a jumble of nerves. And all the grief and guilt she’d suffered this past year seemed to have doubled overnight.
He had to know she’d already tried to be a mother and had failed. That the next try at having a child might not be successful either.
