A process made worse by both his stubborn refusal to heed simple instructions and his need to test physical boundaries. Especially hers.
‘Are you okay?’ she asked. Because it was her job to make sure he was okay. Nothing else.
He drew himself up to his full height and tugged his bespoke hand-stitched suit into place. He slid slim fingers through longer-than-conventional hair until the sleek jet-black tresses were raked back from his high forehead. With the same insufferable indolence with which he approached everything in life, he scrutinised her face, lingered for an obscenely long moment on her mouth before stabbing her gaze with his.
‘Are you asking as my physiotherapist or as the woman who continues to scorn my attentions?’
Her mouth tightened. ‘As your physio, of course. I have no interest in the...in being—’
‘Becoming my lover would make so many of our problems go away, Raven, don’t you think? Certainly, this sexual tension you’re almost choking on would be so much easier to bear if you would just let me f—’
‘Are you okay to walk, Rafael?’ she interjected forcefully, hating the way her blood heated and her heart raced at his words.
‘Of course, querida. Thanks to your stalwart efforts this past month, I’m no longer wheelchair-bound and I have the very essence of life running through my veins. But feel free to let your fingers keep caressing my backside the way they’re doing now. It’s been such a long time since I felt this surge of essence to a particular part of my anatomy, I was beginning to fear it’d died.’
With a muted curse and even redder cheeks, she dropped her hand. The professional in her made her stay put until Rafael was fully upright and able to support himself. The female part that hated herself for this insane fever of attraction wanted to run a mile. She compromised by moving a couple of feet away, her face turned from his.
For the second time in as many minutes, his laugh mocked her. ‘Spoilsport.’
She fought the need to clench her hands into agitated fists and faced him when she had herself under sufficient control. ‘How long are you going to keep this up? Surely you can find something else to amuse yourself with besides this need to push my buttons?’
Just like that, his dazzling smile dropped, his eyes gleaming with a hard, cynical edge that made her shiver. ‘Maybe that’s what keeps me going, guapa. Maybe I intend to push your buttons for as long as it amuses me to do so.’
She swallowed hard and considered staring him down. But she knew how good he was at that game. Heck, Rafael was a maestro at most games. He would only welcome the challenge.
Reaching behind him to slam the car door, she started to move with him towards the entrance of the church where baby Jack’s ceremony was being held. ‘If you’re trying to get me to resign by being intolerable, I won’t,’ she stated in as firm a tone as possible, hoping he’d get the hint. Aside from the need to make amends, she needed this job. Her severance package from Team Espíritu when Marco de Cervantes had sold the racing team had been more than generous, but it was fast running out in light of her mother’s huge treatment bills. It would take a lot more than Rafael’s sexual taunts to make her walk away.
He shrugged and fell into step beside her. ‘Good. As long as you’re here tormenting yourself with your guilt, I feel better.’
Acute discomfort lodged in her chest. ‘I thought we weren’t going to speak about that?’
‘You should know by now, rules mean nothing to me. Unspoken rules mean even less. How’s the guilt today, by the way?’
‘Receding by the second, thanks to your insufferable tongue.’
‘I must be slacking.’ He took a step forward, gave a visible wince, and Raven’s heart stopped, along with her feet. He raised a brow at her, the hard smile back on his face. ‘Ah, there it is. Good to know I haven’t lost my touch after all.’
Ice danced down her spine at his chilled tone. Before she could answer, the large bell pealed nearby. Pigeons flew out of the turrets of the tiny whitewashed church that had been on the de Cervantes’s Northern Spanish estate for several hundred years.
Raven glanced around them, past the church poised at the summit of the small hill that overlooked miles of prime de Cervantes vineyards, to the graveyard beyond where Rafael’s ancestors lay interred.
‘Are we going to stand here all day admiring the landscape or do we actually need to go inside the church for this gig?’ A quick glance at him showed his face studiously averted from the prominent headstones, his jaw set in steel.
She drew in a deep breath and moved towards the arched entrance to the church. ‘It’s not a gig; it’s your nephew’s christening. In a church. With other guests. So act accordingly.’
Another dark chuckle. ‘Or what, you’ll put me over your knee? Or will you just pray that I be struck down by lightning if I blaspheme?’
‘I’m not rising to your baits, Rafael.’ Mostly because she had an inkling of how hard this morning would be for him. According to Rafael’s housekeeper, it was the first time he’d interacted with his family since his return to León from his private hospital in Barcelona. ‘You can try to rile me all you want. I’m not going anywhere.’
‘A martyr to the last?’
‘A physiotherapist who knows how grumpy patients can be when they don’t get their way.’
‘What makes you think I’m not getting exactly what I want?’ he rasped lazily.
‘I overheard your phone call to Marco this morning...twice...to try and get out of your godfather duties. Since you’re here now, I’m guessing he refused to let you?’
A tic in his jaw and a raised brow was her only answer.
‘Like I said, I know a grumpy patient when I see one.’ She hurried forward and opened the large heavy door.
To her relief, he didn’t answer back. She hoped it was because they were within the hallowed walls of his family’s chapel because she was close enough to feel his tension increase the closer they got to the altar.
De Cervantes family members and the few close friends who’d managed to gain an invitation to the christening of Sasha and Marco de Cervantes’s firstborn turned to watch their slow progress up the aisle.
‘Shame you’re not wearing a white gown,’ Rafael quipped from the side of his mouth, taking her elbow even as he smiled and winked at a well-known Spanish supermodel. But, this close, Raven could see the stress lines that faintly bracketed his mouth and the pulse throbbing at his temple. Rafael really did not want to be here.
‘White gown?’
‘Think how frenzied their imagination would be running right about now. It would almost warrant a two-page spread in X1 Magazine.’
‘Even if I were dressed in bridal white with a crown on my head and stars in my eyes, no one would believe you would actually go through with anything as anathema to you as a wedding, Rafael. These poor people would probably drop dead at the very thought of linking you with the word commitment.’
His grip tightened for a minuscule moment before that lazy smile returned. ‘For once, you’re right. Weddings bore me rigid and the word marriage should have a picture of a noose next to it in the dictionary.’
They were a few steps away from the front pew, where his brother and sister-in-law sat gazing down adoringly at their infant son. The sight of their utter devotion and contentment made her insides tighten another notch.
‘I