Bride in a Gilded Cage (11 page)

Bob, Rita’s husband, who sat opposite, engaged her in conversation, but Isobel found herself having to carefully enunciate everything she said. In truth she wasn’t able to keep track of much of the conversation around her, knowing that on some level she was blocking it out because she didn’t want to hear just how ruthless Rafael was. It wasn’t long
before she began to feel a little sick and knew she’d gone too far. She wasn’t even really aware any more of what she was saying.

Feeling a sudden urge to get some air, she moved to get up. A surge of dizziness made her sit straight back down. Immediately, Rafael’s arm was around her. She heard him murmur something about ‘getting home…long day…not long after honeymoon…’ and then he was supporting her out of the restaurant.

In the back of the car on the way home, the alcohol provided a nice safe distance from the waves of anger she could feel coming off Rafael. She started to giggle when she imagined it like a force field, protecting her from his wrath.

His filthy look in her direction made her giggle even harder—and then she was gone, tears streaming down her face, nearly bent double over her knees, unable to catch her breath.

It was only when Rafael reached in to pluck her out of the car that she realised that they were home. Rafael lifted her into his arms, and instantly Isobel’s giggles stopped and turned into hiccups. Her head spun ominously, but then cleared again.

His body felt taut and hard and his face was grim. Her hands went around his neck and the surprisingly silky strands of his hair brushed against her fingers. Instinctively, she moved them to feel more. She couldn’t take her eyes off his mouth.

Everything coherent disappeared from Isobel’s head. All she knew was that she was in Rafael’s arms, and any concerns and inhibitions were dissolving like snow on hot coals at the feel of his body so close to hers. It was amazingly unclear to her now why she’d insisted on resisting him.

The front door was open and he shouldered his way through. She could feel his chest muscles contract and move
against her. Isobel brought her hand round and pressed a finger against his mouth, a cord tightening in her belly. ‘You’ve got the most beautiful mouth—do you know that?’

She was aware on some level that the words in her head weren’t coming out as clearly as they should. They were flowing together in an incoherent slurred rush of words all joined up together.

Rafael twisted his head away and Isobel’s hand fell to his neck. She started to pull at his bow tie to get to the buttons of his shirt. Frowning in concentration, she was barely aware of Rafael climbing the main stairs she was so intent on her task.

When the bow tie proved impenetrable to her clumsy ministrations she gave up with a huff and started to undo the other buttons of his shirt, sighing happily when she could slide a hand in and touch the warm skin of his chest. His heart was beating heavily against her hand and she felt unbearably hot all over. Waves of heat were coming and going, gathering intensity.

Swaying dangerously, she was hardly aware of Rafael standing her on her feet, or his curse. She looked up and his head was too far away. She wanted him to kiss her,
right now,
but wasn’t even aware she’d articulated it with any success until he said caustically, ‘Isobel, I am not taking my drunk wife to bed. When we make love you’re going to be stone-cold sober and aware of every moment.’

She swayed again unsteadily, and then everything became a blur. All she knew was that she was lying down and Rafael’s arms were around her. But then he was pulling back, taking them away.

‘No!’ she said impulsively, and caught him back. She ran her hands through his hair and pulled his head down, sighing voluptuously. ‘Your hair feels like silk…kiss me, Rafael.’

She closed her eyes and pursed her lips, and heard Rafael say, ‘I swear you’ll be the death of me.’

She opened her eyes and tried to focus, but there were two Rafaels. ‘So die a little…please…just kiss me.’

But Rafael was gone, and Isobel suddenly felt very strange as the whole room started to spin alarmingly.

When Isobel woke the next morning everything hurt. Especially her head and her stomach. She groaned and put a hand to her head, massaging it delicately. And with slow and devastating thoroughness everything trickled back. The dinner, Rita and Bob, the wine…Rafael carrying her up the stairs. Her begging him to kiss her…and then, worst of all, her hunched over the toilet as the entire contents of her wine-laden belly came up. It was still blurry, but she definitely remembered a presence with her, holding her and handing her a wet cloth, making her brush her teeth.
Rafael.

She groaned even louder and buried her face in her pillow. How could she ever hope to beg for more space after her wanton theatrics last night? After a long moment she sat up carefully, only noticing then that she was in her bra and pants. With another groan she threw back the cover and went to stand up, but just then her door opened and Rafael stood on the threshold, tall and glorious and stern. Isobel scrambled for the sheet to cover herself.

‘Do you mind?’ Her voice felt unbearably rusty.

He arched an incredulous brow. ‘Believe me,
querida,
you really don’t have the right to act outraged when you tried to strip me last night. I barely got out of here with my dignity intact.’

Isobel tucked the sheet around her, face flaming. ‘So I got a little merry…’

He came closer, and Isobel had to look up and her head hurt.

‘
A little merry?
You were drunk, and after only two glasses of wine. I’ve never seen anything like it.’

‘I told you I don’t have a head for alcohol.’

‘And yet you ignored me when I told you to go easy. You can get as drunk as you like at home, Isobel, but not out in public as my wife. I had to practically carry you out of that restaurant in front of an important business associate and his wife.’

She winced again, but not even hearing him mention his business contact could eclipse the nausea she already felt.

‘And, much as I appreciate your crude effort at seduction, like I said last night, when we make love you’re going to be stone-cold sober and you will remember every moment.’ He started to back away and then stopped. ‘I’m going to be working late tonight, but we’ve been invited to a polo tournament tomorrow. I hope that you’ll be more in control of yourself by then.’

Isobel nodded curtly as waves of mortification threatened to drown her. Rafael just shook his head and gave her a look that said he was satisfied he’d brought his wife back into line, then strode out of the room. As soon as he was gone, Isobel collapsed back on the bed and looked at the ceiling.

An unsavoury thought occurred to her: had she subconsciously sabotaged last night not just out of disgust for his business ethics, or fear of her uncontrollable response to her husband, but because of the inevitable comparison Rafael would make between her, Isobel, and the sultry Ana Perez?

Isobel sat up. A novice like her could never match up to a practised seductress like Ana. Once Rafael had slept with her and found her wanting he’d realise what a mistake he’d made. There was no way a man as virile as him would want to tie himself to a wife he didn’t want to sleep with…especially not after running into the love of his life.

With an awful sense of inevitability washing over her, and feeling somehow rudderless, Isobel got up wearily and had a hot shower. The truth was that thought didn’t comfort her, and thinking about Rafael finding out what a let-down in bed she was was making her feel hollow inside.

Last night had given her a taste of the corporate life Rafael lived, and Isobel felt a surge of determination to take control of things herself. She wanted to prove that, whatever else happened, she was not going to be like her husband in business matters. She was in this situation and she had to make the best of things. What had Rafael said the other day? Something about the world being her oyster, and that she could do what she wanted…? Even as she thought of that, a kernel of an idea sprang to life in her head and, feeling enthusiastic for the first time in a long time, Isobel dried herself off and got dressed.

That evening, feeling tired but happy, Isobel waited in the lounge for Rafael to come home for dinner. Lots of property brochures were spread out before her. She heard a familiar heavy footfall and looked up to see Rafael filling the door frame. A shiver of foreboding slithered down her spine. He looked furious.

He strode into the room and threw down a paper onto the table in front of her. ‘Want to tell me what the hell you’ve been up to?’

Isobel’s mouth dropped open. She genuinely had no idea what Rafael was talking about. She looked down to see that the paper was an evening edition, and there on the front page was a grainy picture of her shaking a man’s hand outside a decrepit building in La Boca, one of Buenos Aires’s oldest districts. It must have been taken that morning.

There was a headline:
Does Romero know what his new wife is up to when he’s not looking?

Isobel looked up to see Rafael glowering, hands on hips. Bristling. She stood, too, because she felt so intimidated. ‘I can explain, Rafael.’

‘Please do. I’m just dying to know why you were doing deals with dubious-looking strangers in broad daylight. Don’t tell me you have a drug habit you’ve been keeping a secret?’

Now Isobel bristled. Her hands clenched to fists at her sides. ‘I thought you told me to occupy my time, Rafael—that I wasn’t a prisoner and that I could do what I wanted with my newfound fortune?’

A muscle clenched in Rafael’s jaw. ‘You can. But not when you lose your security detail and wander into seedy areas.’

Isobel gasped. ‘Since when do I have a security detail?’

Rafael slashed an impatient hand through the air. ‘Of course you have a security detail. You’re a target, Isobel, and today you’ve proved that you’re a ridiculously easy one.’

Isobel was livid now. ‘Well, if you’d informed me that I
was
a virtual prisoner then I might have been able to keep my gaolers informed as to my movements. If you recall I did try and phone you this morning to tell you what I was doing, but you refused to take my call.’

Rafael’s anger abated for one second. Isobel
had
tried to call, but he’d been wrapped up in a series of intense meetings and even knowing that she’d called had distracted him unnecessarily. By the time he’d been free there had been a message from her to say it hadn’t been important. And something weak had kept him from calling her anyway…

Stiffly, he said now, ‘I’m sorry about that, but you rang at a busy time.’

Now Isobel waved a hand, the colour in her cheeks high, disgust making her gut clench. ‘Yes, I can well imagine that you were extremely busy figuring out just how you and your
nice American partner are going to get rid of the unsightly problem of hundreds of illegal immigrants in the complex you’re negotiating to buy out.’

Rafael went ominously still. His voice dripped with ice. ‘I see you’ve been following reports in the newspapers. You’re a little out of date, though.’

Isobel flushed guiltily, and cursed herself for saying that. ‘Whatever, Rafael. I know what your priorities are. Business first and convenient trophy wife second.’ She stopped for a moment and struggled with her breath, trying to calm down. He’d never listen to her like this. She bit her lip, looking at the paper again and then at Rafael. ‘I want to set up my own business venture.’

‘What are you talking about?’

Isobel took a deep breath. ‘I want to open up a dance studio. A tango dance studio. I know there’s a million of them in Buenos Aires, but I want to teach children as well as adults. Offer all different kinds of dance classes in a non-exclusive way.’

Isobel could feel a little of her enthusiasm coming back. ‘And I’ve also been thinking about dance therapy—for disadvantaged kids, or kids who have learning disabilities. A psychotherapist friend in Paris has been working with kids through dance and the results can be really amazing…’ Isobel trailed off and looked at Rafael warily. He still hadn’t spoken.

She gestured with a hand to the property brochures on the table. ‘That’s what I was doing today. I wanted to see what kind of places were for sale or rent…and I’ve always liked La Boca so I thought it might be a good place to start…’

Rafael just looked at Isobel for a long moment. He struggled against waves of affront and anger to know that she’d judged him so arbitrarily on the basis of a newspaper report. He hated that he cared that she thought so little of him.

She was still dressed in the plain jeans and long-sleeved T-shirt she’d been photographed in earlier. She looked all at once sexy as hell and vulnerable. And coming home to him now was the realisation that he still hadn’t bedded his own wife. When his head of security had called him earlier to inform him that she’d gone out and they’d lost her, the rush of panic to his gut had been nothing short of cataclysmic.

The remembered panic and that lingering anger galvanised him now. ‘I will not have my wife setting up a dance studio to teach tango on the streets alongside people who perform for a few pesos.’

Isobel gasped; her eyes flashed. ‘It would
not
be on the streets alongside street performers, and you know it. I’m talking about setting up a proper studio, bringing money into a disadvantaged area and helping children and adults from all parts of society. Not just the rich kids. I’d also be offering job opportunities.’

Isobel watched as Rafael stepped back a pace and put his hands in his pockets.

‘You will not embarrass me like this, Isobel—wandering around talking to anyone and everyone. Whether you like it or not, you are from a certain part of society, and you would do well to remember that you have a responsibility to me as well as yourself. Your image will be scrutinised by everyone in our social circle, your every movement analysed. And mine by proxy. I’m involved in a delicate business negotiation. I can’t afford to have a loose cannon for a wife.’

Rafael heard the words coming out of his mouth and a part of him winced inwardly. He sounded like a pompous snob, but he couldn’t stop himself. His inarticulate need to control Isobel was too strong. Her behaviour today had brought up far too many conflicting emotions for him to deal with. And he couldn’t think straight when she was in front of him like this.