The Thorn in His Side (9 page)

‘I inherited nothing from my grandfather.’

Libby, who could not let this pass unchallenged, gave a snort and waved an accusing arm around the big room. ‘Nothing except all this.’ Her scornful gaze settled back on his lean face. ‘You’re such a hypocrite!’ she charged contemptuously. ‘A pathetic hypocrite!’

A look of utter astonishment crossed his features that on another occasion might have made her laugh.

‘Madre di Dios …!’

‘What’s wrong?’ she taunted. ‘You can dish it out but you can’t take it?’

His eyes narrowed on her face. ‘Try me.’ He accompanied the invitation with a ‘bring it on’ gesture.

Libby, her eyes narrowed, obliged. ‘Where do you get off criticising my dad, looking down your nose at him
for inheriting his money, when compared to the silver spoon you were born with—’

‘I was not born with a silver spoon.’

The harsh rebuttal drew a laugh from Libby. ‘No, solid gold.’

‘It happens to be true. My grandfather did not choose to acknowledge my existence until two years ago.’

Libby’s blue eyes flew wide. ‘Why—what did you do?’

‘I was born.’ He arched a sardonic brow and studied the face turned up to him. ‘Not so colourful a sin as you were anticipating, I suspect.’

Libby gave an uncomfortable shrug and felt foolish as she heard him add heavily, ‘But one that in my grandfather’s eyes was unforgivable.’

She struggled to banish the lingering image of a lonely, rejected little boy from her head—empathy was the last thing she wanted to feel for this man … Well, maybe not the last, but it was right up there with blind, indiscriminate lust.

‘So you were—’

When she broke off, colouring uncomfortably, Rafael, looking amused, finished the sentence for her. ‘A bastard, yes, I am. I was the result of an affair my mother had with a married man when she was seventeen.’ Rafael had never felt the desire to seek out the man who had rejected him. He had not even known the man’s name until he went through his mother’s pitiably meagre personal effects after her death and found his birth certificate.

‘And my grandfather threw her out, he washed his hands of her. When he contacted me two years ago he didn’t even know she was dead—that is how interested he was.’

The casually delivered information horrified Libby.
‘She was only seventeen, his own daughter, how could he do that?’ Her bewilderment was genuine.

Rafael shook his head and looked amused. ‘You have a very romanticised view of families.’

‘I think I’ve just been lucky,’ she admitted.

The softness in her voice was mirrored in the blue eyes looking at him. With a sense of profound shock Rafael identified the emotion swimming in the cerulean depths.

‘Relying on luck appears to be a family failing.’

Having successfully doused the glow of sympathy in her eyes with the sly insert, he gave an almost imperceptible nod of satisfaction. Pity from anyone, least of all a beautiful woman, was not something that Rafael could stomach, even as he acknowledged, allowing his gaze to move over the soft contours of her face, she was beautiful.

Libby’s chin lifted in reaction to his mockery. ‘I think roots are important and family loyalty, but I wouldn’t expect you to understand that,’ she charged, injecting her voice with scorn.

The hard lines of his bronzed features tightened as he suggested contemptuously, ‘Being a bastard makes me incapable of appreciating such things …?’

Libby’s gaze did not drop. ‘Don’t put words in my mouth. And for the record if I ever call you a bastard I won’t be referring to the circumstances of your birth!’

Her angry retort drew his restless glowing gaze to her lips. This time Libby did look away from the predatory gleam in his incredible eyes, her heart pounding so hard she didn’t see how he couldn’t hear it. She watched the knuckles of her clenched fingers blench white as she struggled to regain a semblance of composure.

It was mortifying to be forced to acknowledge she was sexually attracted to a man she hated and despised, but then maybe all women felt forbidden cravings when they looked at Rafael …?

She was sure a lot looked.

‘I have been called worse, but not recently.’

Libby’s gaze lifted and she was perplexed by the amusement etched in his dark features. Why did this man never react the way she expected?

‘And for the record I have inherited little that was not already mine. When my grandfather died I was already the majority holder in his company and poised to launch a takeover.’ His broad shoulders lifted as his sensual lips curved into a cynical smile. ‘His dying simply saved me the trouble.’

Libby’s wide gaze connected with his cold, implacable eyes and she gave a horrified shudder. ‘You deliberately set out to ruin your own grandfather.’

‘He would hardly have been penniless and destitute.’

‘Just humiliated?’

Not appearing even slightly discomposed by the suggestion, Rafael ran a hand down the hard curve of his smooth shaven jaw.

‘Let us say that on this occasion financial gain was not my sole motivation.’

A man who showed such ruthlessness when it came to his own family was not, she realised with a sinking heart, going to show her own family any pity.

‘Did he ever apologise?’

‘That would have been hard considering that he never laid eyes on me.’ And you are telling her all this, Rafael, why exactly?

‘You
never
met him?’

‘No.’

‘But you said he tried to contact you two years ago—’

Rafael swept a hand across his brow and clicked his tongue irritably. ‘He did, but not out of any desire to make up for the years of neglect. He suggested a financial merger.’ The offer had been laughable, hardly worth dignifying with a response.

But he had responded—through an intermediary.

‘I don’t know how anyone could do that.’

‘Sleep with a married man, princess?’

‘No,’ she snapped, annoyed at his interpretation. ‘Disown your own child. Did she and your father ever—?’ She stopped, embarrassed.

‘You wish to know if there was a happy ending, whether my parents were eventually happily united.’ He shook his head. ‘Outside the pages of fiction happy endings are rare,’ he observed cynically. ‘There was no happy ending. The man did not want to know—’

‘Your father, you mean.’

‘It takes more than impregnation to make a father,’ he retorted quietly. ‘My mother left Europe for South America with a lover.’

‘Your stepfather?’

‘While I realise that my family is a fascinating subject, it is not what we are here to discuss.’ The reminder was as much for his own benefit as hers.

‘Rafael.’ Libby paused—she had called him by his name for the first time. It felt …
strange,
she decided, resisting the silly impulse to say it again. ‘Give my father time to—’

‘I do not put sentiment ahead of good business practice or throw good money after bad.’

The hard inflection in his voice made Libby grit her
teeth as she fought despair. She squared her shoulders and tried another tack. ‘I’m not asking for charity, I’m asking—no, actually I’m
demanding
that you give us time.’

Unwilling admiration flickered in his eyes. ‘Some people would have begged, but you demand. Does that usually work for you?’ Without giving her an opportunity to respond, he added, ‘Time to what?’

‘Turn things around.’

He arched a brow. ‘We?’

‘My brother, me … I’ve got—’

‘No interest in business. Shall we talk bottom line? Your father inherited a successful business and he has run it into the ground simply because he is either unwilling or unable to adapt. When he got into trouble he did not seek advice, he did not alter his pleasant lifestyle or that of his family. There were no economies, instead he borrowed and then borrowed some more.’

When he put it like that it did sound pretty bad. ‘We can’t all be a financial genius.’

‘We can’t all be born with a silver spoon in our pretty mouths,’ he returned, his eyes on her lips. ‘This is the real world,
querida,
bad things happen to nice people and not so nice people also. Not to mention stupid people—yes, I do mean your father.’

‘What else would you call a man who relies on miracles instead of strategies? He made no effort whatever to control his overspending. Why do you want this business to survive? Your brother has no interest in it and you …’

‘Me?’

‘You are not involved, You apparently had no idea that your father was in financial difficulties?’

Libby’s chin went up a defensive inch at the underlying criticism she sensed in his question. ‘Of course not.’

‘But if you had you would have offered to help.’

‘Of course!’

‘And if I give you that chance now …?’

Confused, she frowned warily. ‘A chance to what?’ ‘A chance to work here, see how a business should be run, learn from experts …’

‘Me work for you!’ she exclaimed, waiting for the punchline.

When it did not come she shook her head. ‘I’m assuming that is your idea of a joke.’

He shrugged. ‘You wanted a chance and I am giving you one.’

‘So you said, but giving me a chance to
what?’

‘Prove there is more to you than a pretty face.’

Her lips tightened at the implication she was some decorative dummy. ‘I have nothing to prove. I graduated
… I have a job.’

He angled a sardonic ebony brow. ‘A job that pays well enough for you to fly to New York and back business class? Impressive,’ he drawled.

Libby’s lips compressed as her glance slid from his. ‘The flight was a gift from my parents.’

‘And this job—was that too a present from Mummy and Daddy, by any chance?’

Her indignant gaze jerked upwards. ‘No!’

‘So you went through the interview process …’ A mortified wave of colour washed over her fair skin but she refused to drop her gaze this time. ‘The editor of the paper I work for—’

‘I had no idea I was talking to a journalist.’

She bit her lip—he was taunting her. ‘It’s a local
free sheet,’ she said, honesty compelling her to add, ‘I cover small stuff, fêtes, school plays, football matches. My grandfather started the paper—he wanted to give something back to the community.’

‘So given your history your fellow applicants could be excused for thinking you had an advantage—’

‘All right, there were no other applicants and I didn’t interview. Mike has known me since I was a kid. I’ve got a degree in English Lit—he knew I could do the job with my eyes closed.’

‘Of course he did,’ Rafael drawled. ‘And let me guess, he plays golf with your father?’

Libby’s jaw dropped. ‘How did you know that?’

Rafael laughed outright at her astonishment. ‘Call it a wild guess. Have you ever stretched yourself, actually attempted anything outside your comfort zone?’

Stung by the look of contemptuous amusement he sent her way, Libby flared back, ‘Plenty of times!’

‘Like the job you can do with your eyes closed …?’

Libby gritted her teeth as she suffered the humiliation of having her own words used to condemn her. ‘I wasn’t being literal.’

‘Don’t you ever get bored?’

The colour in her cheeks deepened at the scorn in his voice. ‘So I live at home,’ she yelled. ‘And, yes, I
don’t
have some high-powered job. But there’s more to life than making money and the last time I checked it’s not a criminal offence not to be particularly ambitious.’

‘You’ve never had to work for anything in your life, have you? It’s all been handed you on a plate by parents who—’

Eyes flashing fire, she cut across him. ‘You can poke fun at me if you like but leave my parents out of this. Of course they’re protective—who wouldn’t be if they’d had
a kid who spent more time in hospital than at home?’ She stopped abruptly and thought, Too much information, Libby.

‘You were ill as a child?’

Libby summed up the frequent journeys in ambulances, several admissions to the paediatric intensive care unit and innumerable stays on the ward where everyone knew her name in a brief sentence.

‘I had asthma—it was difficult to control.’ She threw him a guarded look. ‘I grew out of it.’

To her surprise he let the subject drop beyond a brief comment of, ‘I believe this sometimes happens.

‘You show any potential, convince me in the next month that you are capable and I will finance this recovery.’

Libby was astonished by the offer. ‘But why?’

He shrugged. ‘I am feeling generous.’

She viewed him through suspicious narrowed eyes. ‘Because you’re
such
a philanthropist.’

‘So you think I have an angle?’

She would not, he conceded, be far wrong. His motives were at best mixed.

It was true that she had managed to tweak his conscience, but not to the extent that he considered his
decision had been wrong. It was entirely possible, had he not spent the time she had been sleeping wondering how he was going to get her into bed, he might have ignored that tweak totally.

That he was going to get her into his bed was not a question he had wasted any energy over, it was a given and had been from the moment he had looked at her and experienced the most primal reaction he had ever had for a woman.

‘I think you wouldn’t recognise a straight line if
it was drawn across your forehead.’ Too much truth, Libby! Fully anticipating her jibe would elicit an offended counter-attack, she was startled when he loosed a low growl of laughter.

She stared at him, trying hard not to notice how warm and inviting his eyes looked when they were filled with genuine humour.

‘H
AVE
I got this right—you’re offering me a job?’

Libby struggled to get her head around it. When she had stormed her way into his office her aims had not gone beyond the desire to experience the extreme satisfaction of telling Rafael Alejandro
exactly
what she thought of him with the outside possibility she might awake whatever he had that passed for a conscience.

She hadn’t expected a U-turn or for him to lie awake nights filled with remorse, and equally she definitely hadn’t expected this!