The Forbidden Touch of Sanguardo

She nodded, lifting the cup to her lips to take a tiny sip of the hot liquid.

He let her be, contenting himself with looking at her. Her beauty, seen again after a space of days, was etching itself on his retinas. Tonight she was wearing a knee-length cocktail dress in eau de Nil, high cut at the neckline, with short cap sleeves. A jade necklace and earrings were her jewellery. Her hair was dressed differently, in a more complex style with braids and loops, but still worn up. An impulse went through him—a longing to see that incredible pale hair loosed from its confines, flowing like a silvery river over her naked alabaster shoulders...

He pulled his mind back from such impulses, focussing now on her features. Her perfect beauty was just the same as it had been when he’d seen her walking down the stairs at that charity event. A beauty that moved him so strangely—so strongly.

And so, too, did the other quality that had made him watch her then, as it did now.

That sense of aloneness—apartness. As if she moved in the world but was not fully part of it. As if it could not touch her.

What had she said about the stars? That they were very far away...

As she is.

His expression changed. But I will get close to her. With me she will not be alone, apart. I will draw her to me! Woo her and win her!

And he must make the most of this opportunity to begin his journey to that destination. She was here, beside him, and that, surely, was a start.

‘Tell me,’ he said, his voice holding in it nothing but quiet concern, ‘how is it that you were with Karl Reiner tonight if he is so repugnant to you? I know that you are the face of Blonde Visage, but—’

She lifted her face sharply. ‘How do you know that?’

He gave a half laugh. ‘I could say that your face is your giveaway,’ he said lightly, ‘but I have to confess that, since fashion magazines are not my usual reading matter, I found it out from your agency.’

Her face worked. ‘Why were you asking?’ she demanded. But there was no need to ask. She knew. Rafael Sanguardo had shown his interest in her—she had been naive to think that just because she had walked away from him the other evening it would not be possible for a man of his means to find out a great deal about her!

His expression was deliberately transparent. ‘I make no secret of the fact that I want to get to know you better, Celeste.’

It was strange to hear her name on his lips—a name she hadn’t told him. She would have preferred him never to know, so that she could slip back into the shadows of life where she dwelt. But it was too late for that. All she could do now was hold him at bay, make it clear to him that whatever he was hoping for could not be.

‘So why did you have to be in Reiner’s unpalatable company?’ Rafael pursued.

She made herself give a slight shrug. ‘I’m still under contract, so it’s unavoidable. Tonight he was a guest of one of the fashion magazines he places a great deal of advertising with—that was his excuse for me having to be here.’

‘Excuse?’

She gave another shrug, not meeting his eyes, focussing only on the cup in front of her. ‘You heard what he wants. He made it plain enough.’ A sudden thought struck her, and without realising it she lifted her face to look at him.

‘What you did—back there—will he make trouble for you?’ There was concern in her voice. ‘He could do you for assault—’

‘He can try,’ said Rafael.

And there was something about the way he said it that made Celeste realise that Karl—or anyone—would be very, very foolish to attempt to make trouble for Rafael Sanguardo. There was a toughness about him that was unmistakable.

But there was chivalry, too, she acknowledged. Even if his intervention had proved opportune for him, allowing him to do what he was doing now. Getting to know her—

But it’s no use—no use at all. Nothing can come of it—nothing!

That was all she had to remember. And she should act on it right now. She should get to her feet, thank him once again and then go home—home to her little flat in Notting Hill: the fruit of her years of modelling, her quiet haven, where she could be apart from the hectic round of her career. Apart and alone.

The way she had to be.

Because nothing else was possible...would ever be possible...

She was condemned to the solitary life she led.

But Rafael Sanguardo was speaking again, interrupting her troubled thoughts. ‘What about for you?’ he was asking, that note of concern still evident in his deep, accented voice. ‘Will it make things difficult?’

She gave another shrug. ‘I’ve only got a few weeks left to run on my contract, and there’s little he can do in real terms. I most definitely will not be resigning! Oh, there’ll probably be some gossip—I dare say some of the people I work with will hear about it. But he has a reputation already, so it will hardly be a surprise.’

Rafael frowned. ‘If you had warning of his reputation, why did you take the contract?’

She gave yet another shrug. ‘He was involved with one of the other models under contract, so I thought he would leave me alone—which he did, by and large, until now. And the reason I wanted the contract in the first place was simple.’ She looked straight at him, giving him the courtesy of an honest answer, for surely he deserved no less after his rescue of her. ‘It paid well,’ she said.

She lifted up her cup, took a mouthful of tea, breaking her gaze. Then she set down her cup again, looked at him once more. She swallowed, then spoke.

‘Modelling is a crowded profession. Often poorly paid. Only a few make it to the very top. I won’t be one of them, I know, but I’ve not done badly—for which I’m grateful,’ she allowed. ‘Anyway, it’s the only way I know of to make money—’

She stopped, and for a moment—just a moment—there was an emptiness in her gaze. As if she had been scoured hollow.

Then it was gone.

Yet in its aftermath there seemed to Rafael to be the residue of something lingering. Unsettling. He wanted to banish it.

He took another mouthful of his brandy, feeling its warmth filling him. ‘It seems to me you know about astronomy,’ he said.

He’d lightened his tone deliberately. Yet his attempt to lighten the atmosphere seemed to have failed. Her throat tensed; a shadow occluded her eyes. Memory oozed within her of the way she had first gazed desperately up at the heavens, wanting only to be part of them. Incorporeal. Free from her body...

Then she forced the memory from her. He’d obviously only made the remark as a conversational gambit—she must treat it as such.

‘Hard to make a living at that,’ she answered. ‘And I am the rankest amateur!’ she added lightly.

Rafael smiled across at her. ‘Yet your name is ideally suited for a career in astronomy, no?’ She looked blank, and he enlightened her. ‘Celeste—celestial?’ he said.

His eyes rested on her, drinking her in.

And that is her aura, too—celestial. As if the impurities and imperfections of the world below the stars are nothing to do with her! As if she moves through this world apart from everyone else, everything else, untouched by anything that seeks to stain her...

In his head he heard Karl Reiner’s sordid accusation. If ever there was a woman who was an unlikely target for such foul names it was this one!

She was looking at him, a slight expression of surprise in her clear grey-blue eyes. ‘Do you know, that’s never struck me?’ she said. ‘Celeste and celestial...’

His own smile deepened. Absently she noticed how it curved the lines around his mouth, made his basalt-black eyes lighten. Noticed even more the way it seemed to make her breath catch. Made her want to do nothing more than go on sitting here, beside him, being with him—

No! She mustn’t! It was pointless—useless! Talking to him about anything—anything at all—had no purpose! She was calmer now, recovered from that horrible scene out in the lobby, and so she must go—leave—go home to the life she had. A life that had no place for Rafael Sanguardo in it. No place for any kind of relationship with anyone.

She nerved herself to take her leave. To terminate this conversation that could go nowhere—nowhere at all! But he was speaking to her yet again, clearly intent on keeping her in conversation.

‘So what first got you interested in astronomy?’ Rafael asked.

Deliberately he kept his question casual—nothing more than the kind of enquiry anyone might make in social conversation. A safe topic under whose aegis to do what he most wanted to do—set her at her ease. Stop her tensing all the time. Make her comfortable talking with him. Make the most of the opportunity this evening had presented so that he could move on to inviting her out to dinner, and then from there to where he wanted to be—making love to her.

Her arms around me, clinging to me, her mouth opening to mine, my hands curving around the bare column of her back, her hair loosened, streaming like a silver banner across the pillows, her body warm and yielding to desire...

He felt the power of his own imagination, his own desire, kick through him. Surely she must feel it, too? Surely she must? Wasn’t she starting to thaw to him, little by little? Slowly—oh, so slowly—but it was starting to happen, he was sure of it.

Then, as he finished his question, before his eyes he saw her face change. Closed.

Closed completely, as if a shutter had come down.

‘I don’t remember,’ she said. Her voice was quelling. This time there could be no allowances for his simply making conversation. This was a subject that she must terminate—now. Just as she must terminate this encounter. She must go home right now.

Rafael’s eyes narrowed minutely at her stony reaction. What had just happened? The change was total. He saw her reach for her teacup, lift it with a jerking movement and take a mouthful of the pale green fragrant liquid. Then she set the cup down with another jolt. Her eyes swivelled to his.

‘Thank you so much for the tea, Señor Sanguardo. And thank you for intervening back there. It was very good of you.’ She spoke rapidly, in clipped tones. Clipped, impersonal tones that went with the totally closed expression on her face.

He could see her total withdrawal happening in front of his eyes.

She’s gone away again—back into that separate space she lives in. The one she uses to keep the rest of the world at bay.

She was getting to her feet, slipping gracefully off the high bar stool.

‘Thank you so much,’ she said again, her tone formal. She picked up her clutch bag from the bar surface and bestowed a tight, perfunctory smile on him again.

Rafael got to his feet as she did. ‘I will see you home,’ he announced.

Again, that look of immediate wariness—more than wariness...alarm—flared in her eyes.

‘Purely and solely,’ he continued, ‘for the purposes of ensuring that you do not risk any further unwanted attention from the uncharming Mr Reiner. My car is outside, and it is no trouble, I assure you.’ He looked down at her. His eyes were steady, their message clear. ‘I will see you safely to your home and then leave you. Does that meet with your agreement?’

Celeste opened her mouth. She wanted to say, No, it can’t possibly meet with my agreement! I can’t want to spend the slightest further amount of time with you because there is no point—absolutely and totally no point! I am not going to let you get to know me better and I am not going to have anything more to do with you and that is all there is to it!

But she didn’t say it. A sudden vision of Karl Reiner waiting outside her flat assailed her. However reluctant she might be to allow this magnetic, disturbing man who had behaved so chivalrously to drive her home, it was preferable to encountering Karl Reiner again—drunken and angry and still trying to press his hateful attentions on her.

Then, without any answer from her at all, she felt Rafael Sanguardo’s strong hand cup lightly around her elbow and guide her out of the bar. It was only a light, courteous touch, but she was vividly aware of it. He dropped his hand the moment she seemed to be going the way he wanted her to—which was across the lobby and out onto the pavement. A hovering car glided to the kerb, and then a chauffeur was opening the passenger door for her and she was getting in.

‘Where to?’ Rafael asked her as he took his place beside her.

With a flurry of consternation Celeste realised she was going to have to tell him where she lived. Well, if he’d found out who she was, then he’d be perfectly capable of finding out where she lived as well. So she gave her address, and the car started to make its way westward out of Mayfair towards Park Lane.

It would take a good fifteen minutes at least to reach Notting Hill, Celeste knew, and in the meantime she had better make anodyne conversation to prevent Rafael Sanguardo getting any other ideas about how to pass the time in the back of his car...

‘What part of South America do you come from, Mr Sanguardo?’ she heard herself asking. Her tone was no more than politely interested.

He glanced at her. There was amusement in his eyes. ‘Am I to take it that you’ve been making enquiries about me in return?’ he asked.

Damn, she thought, I walked into that one!

‘One of my fellow models the other evening at the charity show mentioned it,’ she replied, making her voice as unconcerned as she could.

Did she, now? Rafael thought. And does that mean that you’d asked her? A ripple of satisfaction went through him. She was not as studiedly indifferent to him as she was trying to make out. How long, he wondered, before she finally admitted that? Before she finally started to lower her guard to him?

But whenever that happened—and it would happen; he had set his mind to it, and nothing in the intervening days since seeing her walk down that marble staircase, captivating him with her opalescent beauty, had changed his mind on that—it was not happening now.

Her guard was sky-high. A guard consisting of polite attentiveness and the kind of impersonal conversation she could have with anyone at all. Well, he reminded himself, it was better than her doing her disappearing act again, and he would make the most of it.

‘She was a little out,’ he answered. ‘My country of origin is Maragua, which is in Central America.’

He could see her give a little frown in the passing street lights as the car drew out into Park Lane.

‘I thought Managua was the capital of Nicaragua?’ she commented.

‘It is. Which is why my country, Maragua, is so often overlooked. It’s very small—hardly larger than El Salvador—and similarly has only a Pacific coastline.’

‘I don’t think I’ve really ever heard of it,’ Celeste said apologetically.

‘De nada—not many Europeans have,’ he said. ‘Which, overall, is probably a good thing.’ His voice was edged. ‘After all, the reason most developing countries are known about in the Western world is their wars and disasters! Fortunately we have few—though like all Pacific Rim countries we are subject to earthquakes.’

‘Because the Pacific Ocean’s floor is moving under the continental plates,’ she acknowledged. ‘Does that mean you have volcanoes, too?’

He nodded his head. ‘One or two—fortunately inactive.’ He paused. ‘Your geology is as good as your astronomy, it seems.’

His eyes rested on her expectantly. He felt another ripple of satisfaction. Beauty, even so notable as hers, was one thing, but it was inadequate on its own. Her stargazing had told him that she was informed and intelligent, and here was further proof.

‘I like plate tectonics,’ she answered. ‘It makes sense of so much.’

‘The whole planet earth is a living jigsaw—endlessly changing, endlessly renewing itself.’ Rafael paused. ‘I find that quite encouraging. If even the ground beneath our feet can change, then so can we. We can make ourselves anew.’

She looked at him. Her eyes flickered. His words echoed in her head. We can make ourselves anew.

For just a second she could feel something flare inside her—then it died. Crushed by the weight of the past. The past that was always her present. And her future...the only future possible for her.

Feeling a stone suddenly in her chest, she turned her head to look out of the car window. They had reached Hyde Park Corner and were turning into the park now.

Rafael indicated with his hand. ‘What is that enormous house there, do you know?’ he asked. He wanted her to keep talking to him—not slip away into that separate world she inhabited, shutting him out.

But she answered readily enough. ‘Oh, that’s Apsley House,’ she said. ‘It’s the London home of the Duke of Wellington—you know, the Battle of Waterloo. Well, his descendants anyway. It’s always known as Number One, London. I suppose it’s because it’s the premier private residence in London.’

If she was gabbling, she didn’t care. This kind of innocuous exchange was all she could cope with. It blocked those tormenting words he’d said—We can make ourselves anew. Anguish gripped her. But I can’t—I can’t make myself anew! It’s impossible—impossible!

His voice relieved her. ‘Is that the Serpentine?’ he asked, glimpsing a dark mass of water to one side of the car as they cut across the park.

‘Yes,’ she answered. The stone was back in her chest. She launched into relating everything she knew about the Serpentine, then moved on to Rotten Row as they crossed it.

‘It’s still a bridle path,’ she said. ‘In the nineteenth century it was very fashionable for the upper classes to ride their horses there.’

Somehow she managed to make the subject of Victorian high society last till they reached her flat, and as the car pulled up along the quiet kerbside she turned to Rafael.

‘Thank you so much,’ she said brightly. ‘It really is very kind of you.’

The chauffeur was holding the door open for her and she climbed out gracefully. The night air seemed cool after the interior of the car. Or perhaps it was just because she felt heated in her blood.

‘Please don’t get out,’ she told Rafael.

‘Which is your flat?’ he asked, ignoring her and stepping out onto the pavement.

‘Um...second floor,’ she said. She was fumbling for her keys in her clutch.

She’d coped with the car ride, sounding like a tour guide to London, but her nerves were at breaking point. She had to get in. Get away from him.

‘I’ll wait until I see your light come on,’ said Rafael.

Relief flooded through her. ‘Thank you,’ she said. She hurried up the steps to the front door, opening it with her key. She turned. He was still standing there. ‘Goodnight, Mr Sanguardo,’ she said, her smile flickering uncertainly.

For a moment she just went on standing there, looking at him. Letting the impact he made on her retinas be absorbed into her.

‘Goodnight, Celeste,’ he answered. He gave her a brief nod of farewell and got back into the car. The chauffeur slammed the door and went to the driver’s seat.

Celeste went indoors, walking swiftly up to her flat. As she turned the light on and went to the living room windows to see the car pulling away she could feel her heart’s hectic beating.

And she knew exactly what had caused it.

Rafael Sanguardo...

His name echoed in her head. Not letting her go.

Later, as she lay in bed, she knew she should get to sleep. She had an early start tomorrow and looking haggard was not acceptable for a model—yet she lay sleepless all the same.

Memories from the evening circled in her mind. Not the stressful dinner with Karl Reiner, but the time she had spent with Rafael Sanguardo. It was his words that kept playing in her head.

We can make ourselves anew...

Her eyes stared out into the darkness of her bedroom.

Can we? Can we make ourselves anew?

But the question was hollow. Its flavour bitter. And into her head came more words. Karl Reiner’s...

Anguish gripped her.

CHAPTER FOUR

CELESTE WONDERED THE next day whether Rafael Sanguardo would try to get in touch, but there was nothing from him. She told herself she was glad—must be glad—for there could be no future for her with him in it.

So why, then, did she keep thinking about him, replaying her time with him? There was no point! Yet, berate herself as she might, she could not get him out of her head. Even when she was enduring the final photographic sessions under her Reiner Visage contract he was there, dominating her consciousness, her thoughts. Vivid and potent. And as disturbing as ever. As tormenting as ever.

His sculpted features, the mobile mouth, the sable hair, the dark obsidian eyes, the deep, accented voice...

And then she was back to the beginning again, trying to get those images out of her mind. Trying to move on beyond the completely pointless question of what it was about him that was getting to her.

Because it doesn’t matter why! It’s irrelevant—totally irrelevant! It changes nothing! Nothing at all! If he tries to get in touch with me again I’ll just say no, that’s all. The way I always do. Always... Because nothing else is possible. Nothing.

In her eyes a shadow passed. An old, familiar shadow... And with it came the clenching of her stomach, the crawling of her skin.

* * *

Rafael relaxed back in the first-class seat on the plane, a pleasant sense of satisfaction filling him. And anticipation. He’d been in Geneva, raising finance for his latest ventures; with his track record, banks were always eager to meet with him. But his thoughts were not on business now.

An image floated tantalisingly in his mind. Pale, beautiful...celestial...

He’d given Celeste time and space since delivering her to her flat, but now he was going to make his next move. Would she respond? he wondered. Or would she try and evade him? His mind flickered over the situation. She was not immune to him—he could tell that with every male molecule in his body—yet she was holding him at bay. Why, since she had admitted she was not involved with anyone else, he could not fathom. She gave no impression of trying to play him, and her evasiveness seemed totally genuine. But why be evasive in the first place?

His eyes narrowed as he thought it through. Maybe it was because of men like Karl Reiner. If he was the norm for men in the world of fashion and modelling she moved in, he could understand Celeste’s evasiveness. To be treated as that all-time prime jerk had treated her would make anyone cautious about accepting attentions from men.

Well, he was no Karl Reiner, and he would win her confidence and make her realise he was nothing like that! Soon—very soon now—he would convince her that all he wanted from her was what he knew with every instinct she wanted, too...

Time together—with him.

His pleasant sense of anticipation intensified.

* * *

Celeste’s phone was ringing. It was Sunday evening and she was ironing. She was keeping busy—deliberately so. Anything to keep Rafael Sanguardo out of her head! Her work with Reiner Visage had finally ended, to her relief, and since then she’d thrown herself into a round of activity while waiting for another modelling assignment to come up.

So far she’d given herself a whole set of beauty treatments and set a challenging exercise schedule—runs in Holland Park, yoga, Pilates and dance classes. And she had a full medical assessment booked for a few days’ time as well, with blood tests and body scans.

It was not just for the sake of her modelling career that she paid such attention to herself. A shadow dimmed her eyes. She needed not only to stay beautiful but to stay fit and healthy. She would not go the way of her poor, stricken mother...

A familiar sadness filled her, squeezing her heart. She had promised her mother she would not suffer the same terrible fate that had befallen her—forewarned was forearmed, and regular check-ups were routine for her.

Now, as she folded a pillowcase and reached for the next one to iron, she let the phone go to the answer machine. As the caller started speaking she froze.