Bride in a Gilded Cage Read Free Page B

head felt like a prison sentence.
    She shook her head, felt the slip and slide of her hair over the sensitised skin of her shoulders. ‘No. I’ mgoing to leave. Get away from here. I won’t marry you. I won’t. I’d prefer to die.’
    A cynical look crossed his face. ‘No need to be so dramatic, Isobel. When we marry we’ll simply be joining the thousands of others before us who’ve had to marry for convenience and inheritance.’ His eyes flicked down and back up. ‘With a little time you will mature into a woman I can take into my bed as my wife…’
    Sheer hurt winded Isobel. She still hadn’t fully processed the effect of that kiss, but Rafael had proved his sensual dominance over her with effortless ease. And her very obvious lack of effect on him.
    The sheer threat of what Rafael said made Isobel forget everything rational, all the reasons why she didn’t have much choice in this matter. ‘I’m not scared of a legal agreement. It’snot my fault that my grandfather was forced to sell the estancia to your family. I won’t pay for his choices with a marriage of convenience to someone I despise.’
    Her fists were clenched, nails scoring grooves in her palms.
    Rafael stepped back, dropping his hands, and conversely that made her feel slightly bereft.
    He smiled minutely, and that seemed to make the floor tilt underneath her. ‘Despise is a strong word when you barely know me, little one. Run away all you want, but I’ll know exactly where you are and what you’re doing—every single moment. You’re a Buenos Aires princess, Isobel. Your life is here. You wouldn’t survive for two minutes outside your protected environment in the real world. And I really wouldn’t advise you to do anything rash like elope—either to escape your fate or for love…’
    His voice turned bitter. ‘I’ll save you the heartache now. It wouldn’t work out, and my team of lawyers would see to it that your family never sees the money they’re due if you pull a stunt like that. It’s a considerable amount of money, and I can guarantee you that your family’s very survival in this society revolves around getting it—especially if their finances continue on the downward spiral they appear to be on.’
    ‘I hate you,’ Isobel said shakily. ‘I hope I never lay eyes on you again.’
    Rafael reached out and trailed a finger down Isobel’s cheek. ‘Oh, but you will, Isobel, you can count on that. We’re going to have a long and happy life together in the not too distant future.’

CHAPTER TWO
    Nearly three years later
    T HAT KISS … Rafael had given up trying to figure out why the kiss he’d shared with Isobel Miller that night had impacted upon him far more than he’d let on at the time. It still had an uncomfortable habit of sneaking into his thoughts with annoying and vivid frequency.
    He could remember going back out to his car, where his mistress had been waiting, and dropping her home with some pathetic excuse—an unprecedented situation. But it hadn’t just been the kiss that had turned his head, made him stop to think about the marriage in a new light. It had been the way she’d stood up to him—something no one before or since had done. It had made him believe that the prospect of their arranged marriage might not be the prison sentence he’d always anticipated it to be. He’d hidden his reaction that night, but the heat between them had been fierce and elemental—to the point that in the last six months not one woman had made it into his bed. The memory of his future wife and the reality of her rapidly approaching twenty-first birthday had rendered him all but impotent.
    With irritation mounting at this acknowledgement of thepower she seemed to hold over him so effortlessly, Rafael studied the photograph on the desk before him. It was of Isobel, running across a busy street in Paris, arm in arm with a handsome young man. Even though Rafael knew already that the man in question was her dance partner,