Bride in a Gilded Cage (15 page)

Rafael moved closer, bringing Isobel flush against him, and through the thin silk of her dress she could feel his burgeoning arousal. Liquid heat invaded her veins and made her feel wobbly.

‘See? We can be good together.’

Isobel’s heart was thumping hard. She felt as though she was stepping over a fine line in the sand. One more step and she’d be committed to something untenable—a life half lived with a man who would never love her…and whose love she was beginning to crave with an awful, desperate hunger.

‘Maybe…’ was all she could say.

‘Maybe
nothing,’
he replied harshly, and in the next second Isobel was lifted into his arms and carried upstairs.

A month later Isobel was feeling dazed from the intensity of the lovemaking Rafael had subjected her to the previous night. She felt as if there was no space in between to grab her breath. Each time they slept together it was more intense than the last, taking another piece of her soul, her heart. Dragging her deep into a dark vortex of bittersweet pleasure mixed with emotional pain.

She was getting ready to greet the guests coming for dinner to the house that evening. Putting gold earrings in her ears, she couldn’t believe how much her perception of Rafael had changed; a huge part of his work was pure philanthropy, and the reason it wasn’t more well-known was because of his own innate humility. He simply didn’t want people to know, believing he got more out of clients and colleagues if his charitable work was done anonymously.

After a last cursory inspection, Isobel left the bedroom to join Rafael downstairs. She steeled herself, locking away her tender secret core in a bid to protect herself from the pain of Rafael’s emotional distance. Her heart clenched as she remembered a day just a couple of weeks ago, when he’d surprised her by encouraging her to take the vintage Bugatti out for a drive, despite her protestations.

She’d been terrified and exhilarated in equal measure, and when they’d arrived back at the house she’d been unable to keep the huge grin off her face, believing for a moment that perhaps Rafael was opening up to her. But it had been a mirage.

Within seconds she’d watched as Rafael had visibly closed up in the face of her joy. The afternoon had been ruined, and since then she’d been careful not to read too much into anything, no matter how intense their lovemaking might be. Clearly Rafael didn’t and would never feel anything more for her.

In a desperate effort to try and morph into the wife that
Rafael evidently wanted, Isobel had found herself accepting invitations to endless rounds of coffee mornings with her peers, and had been swept up into a whirlwind of shopping on the Avenida Alvear, and trite conversations centring mainly around gossip. She’d even succumbed to a manicure.

It had been a pathetic attempt to see if she could break Rafael out of his cold shell, gain a measure of the approval she’d felt that night they’d had dinner with Bob. She’d only lasted days before Rafael had found her weeping tears of frustration as she tried to get the hideous acrylic nails off with acetone.

He’d taken her raw and red hands to inspect them and she’d sniffed. ‘I can’t do it, Rafael. I tried, I really did, but I can’t do the society thing.’

In a curiously tender moment he’d bent his head and kissed the corners of her mouth reverently. ‘It’s okay. I don’t want you to be like those social vultures. Let’s find Juanita. I’m sure in her chequered past she has gained some knowledge of false nail removal.’

That small moment had made Isobel fall even more in love with Rafael, but afterwards it had been as if nothing had happened. He’d gone back to being cool and distant.

Except at night…Then there was no coolness or distance. Only intense heat followed by pain, when Isobel curled up next to his body and recalled that he’d lost his heart a long time ago and never intended losing it again.

Cursing herself for thinking of all this now, she descended the stairs.

Rafael was waiting for Isobel to come downstairs. She had been preparing all day with Juanita for their guests. He frowned minutely. Even Juanita had come under Isobel’s
spell, and the two were now staunch allies. He poured himself a measure of whisky and drank it back in one gulp, wincing only slightly as it burnt its way down his throat. His marriage was progressing exactly to plan. He had no reason to complain…
and yet it wasn’t enough.
Isobel didn’t fight him any more. She didn’t come at him the way she first had, like a raging tornado of quivering injustice about every little thing.

Now she looked at him warily, and spent most of her time working on plans for the dance studio. She’d retreated to somewhere he couldn’t reach. She’d once told him he would never really know her, and he now realised what she’d meant.

He felt unaccountably bleak, frozen inside. And he knew the only thing that alleviated that feeling would be when he held Isobel’s panting, naked and trembling body in his arms later that night. His body started to respond to that image, and with a growl of frustration and a clawing feeling of guilt Rafael poured himself another drink.

His mind went back to a few weeks ago, when he’d felt so lighthearted for the first time…
in a long time.
The day he’d encouraged Isobel to take the Bugatti out for a drive. It had only been when they’d got back to the house and she’d turned her shining face to him that he’d realised he’d never seen her so happy. The only other time he could remember a look resembling that had been after their exhilarating horse ride at the
estancia
that day, or when she’d got the keys to her dance studio.

He’d realised then that she must be happy because for a brief second she was the girl in Paris again, with no responsibility or commitment. Even as he’d been thinking that he’d seen the look of pure unmitigated joy slide from her face, and it had been like a cold finger touching his heart, confirming
his suspicion that for a moment she’d forgotten herself, but was now remembering that she was all but incarcerated in a marriage she didn’t want.

A sound came from the door, and Rafael turned to see the object of his thoughts standing there, looking hesitant. She wore a softly draped silk dress in a dark chocolate colour, exactly like her eyes. Gold hoop earrings drew the eye to that slender neck, and gold strappy sandals made her legs look even more lissom.
She was finally his.
And yet, mocked a voice, she wasn’t. That thought nearly felled him.

The breath stuck in Rafael’s throat, but he managed to get out, ‘You look stunning.’

Isobel made a self-deprecating face, but Rafael couldn’t fail to notice the slight shadows under her eyes, and more, in her eyes, making them look even more dark and mysterious. A red-hot skewer lacerated his insides.

Isobel was trying not to be floored by Rafael’s sheer gorgeousness in a black suit and white shirt. Trying to ignore the way her heart seemed always to respond to his presence by picking up a more urgent beat.

Her heart was already constricting at seeing him looking so cold and stern. But before she could say anything the first of the guests started to arrive, and Isobel found herself caught up in acting the hostess.

At one point during the evening, when she was making polite but meaningless conversation, she slid a glance to Rafael, who was similarly occupied. She had to reconcile herself to the fact that this was all he really wanted from her; she didn’t even have a reason to fight him any more. She’d been wrong about so many things…

The only other thing he would ask from her eventually would be to start a family. Isobel couldn’t doubt that. She
knew as well as he the importance of heirs. It would be one of the primary requirements of their marriage.

Her belly contracted at the thought of a family with Rafael—a tiny baby with dark, dark eyes and hair. She’d never really contemplated the reality of being a mother, but now she knew that she did not want to bring children into the sterile environment of their marriage. If she had children she wanted them to be surrounded by love and affection and two parents who loved each other. But not to the exclusion of everyone else, which she could see now had been the fatal flaw of her grandparents’ love, shutting out her mother and making her hard and cold as a result.

Rafael caught her eye then, and lifted a brow minutely, silently asking her if anything was wrong. Isobel shook her head and smiled a brittle smile, and went back to her conversation. But it was a lie, because everything was wrong, and it was for the very last reason Isobel would have expected. She had no problem living this life. She just couldn’t live it in isolation, without her husband’s love.

When the final guest had left, Isobel closed the door wearily and bade goodnight to Juanita.

Rafael surprised her by coming out to the hall, holding his car keys. He looked intense. ‘I’d like to take you somewhere—would you come with me?’

Isobel frowned. ‘You want to go out
now
?’

He nodded slightly. He’d taken off his tie, and just the small glimpse of his powerful chest made Isobel feel weak. Perhaps putting off the sensual torture to come wasn’t such a bad idea.

She shrugged nonchalantly. ‘Okay.’

Without talking, Rafael helped her into his Range Rover. Feeling more and more bemused, she watched as Buenos Aires went past them and he eventually drove into an area
between La Boca and San Telmo. They parked across the road from a crumbling building and Rafael got out, coming round to take Isobel’s hand.

He led her across the road and she asked, ‘Where are we going?’

The last time Rafael had been spontaneous had been the day he’d let her drive the Bugatti, and the memory of that was bittersweet.

He gestured to the doorway in front of them, partially obscured with thick, heavy, velvet curtains. ‘In here.’

As they walked in, Isobel felt the heat of many bodies rush to meet them, and then heard the strains of tango music. It was a
milonga.
They emerged into a huge, brightly lit and ornately decorated room, where what seemed like hundreds of couples were dancing around the dance floor, engrossed in their own little worlds. Her heart clenched hard.

Rafael led Isobel over to a quiet seat at one corner of the dance floor and ordered some drinks. It was only then that he said, ‘This
milonga
is where I learnt to tango. It’s where my grandmother used to bring us.’

Isobel looked at him. ‘You mean you and your brother?’

He nodded, his eyes following the dancers. ‘My grandmother knew what was happening…the beatings…so I think it was as much an effort on her part to try and protect us as anything else…’

Isobel’s heart literally ached in her chest at being reminded of what had happened to him. She put a hand over his in an unconscious effort to sympathise, knowing words would be superfluous. He looked directly into her eyes, and the intensity of his gaze made Isobel feel dizzy. For a second she could almost imagine—

Mentally she shook her head and broke their gaze, looking out to the dance floor. She
had
to stop this awful yearning.

She took her hand away from his and focused on the dancing couples. There were hundreds of similar halls all around Buenos Aires, filled with anonymous couples who would dance far into the early hours of the morning.

It was a place of respected codes. If a man wanted to dance with a woman he would signal from across the room with his eyes and she would decline or accept as she wished. They would then dance three dances, or more if they were an exclusive couple. This place wasn’t for the fainthearted or the beginner. It was for Buenos Aires natives and tango lovers, who came to lose themselves for a few hours in the music of melancholy and a dance of great beauty and sensuality.

So when Rafael stood and held out his hand Isobel was powerless but to accept. She stood and went into his arms, ducking her head, terrified that he might see something of her heart in her eyes.

Going into his arms felt all at once like coming home and being sent to Siberia.

Slowly they started to move. Songs merged into one another. They didn’t break apart once. Another song came on, and Isobel lost count of how many tangos they danced. She just knew that she could have stayed like this for ever, with her head tucked into Rafael’s jaw, eyes shut, and their bodies so close that she couldn’t tell which was her heartbeat and which was his.

It was only after a few moments that Isobel realised that the song playing now was ‘Volver,’ sung by Carlos Cardel. It was the same song she’d watched her grandparents dance to all those years before, and with each step and each achingly sung word of the song Isobel’s composure started to unravel.

Tango was passionate and erotic, but it also encapsulated the depth of human sorrow and loss and pain. The evocative lyrics about returning to a first love finally tore Isobel’s heart in two. She stopped dead and pulled herself out of Rafael’s arm, tears streaming down her face. She hadn’t even realised she’d started crying. He frowned and held out his hand, but Isobel backed away jerkily, away from the dance floor and the other couples still dancing.

‘No.’
She shook her head. ‘No, Rafael. I’m sorry. I can’t do this with you.
I can’t do this.’

She turned and all but ran from the hall, out to the empty and quiet street. She started walking towards the main thoroughfare, not even sure where she wanted to go.

She heard steps behind her and felt her arm being grabbed. She was pulled around.

Rafael looked down into her face. ‘What is it?’

Isobel dashed tears away with the backs of her hands. They wouldn’t stop coming. ‘Just what I said, Rafael. I can’t do this with you. I’m really sorry. I know how you’ve come to terms with this marriage of convenience, how you need it for your business, but I never have…I can’t.’

Rafael had his hands on her arms now. His voice sounded rough. ‘I never wanted to make you this unhappy. But you are, aren’t you?’

Isobel nodded dumbly, wishing she had a tissue to wipe her nose. She looked up. Rafael was blurry, but still so gorgeous that her belly tightened even now. She pulled herself free of Rafael, who just let his arms drop.