Secrets of Castillo del Arco Read Free

never be classically beautiful—her eyes were too large and wide, and the chin that she’d hiddenunder a hand for much of her early teenage years was too pointy. But it was
her
face and over the years she’d learned to accept it, if it had taken finishing school to give her the skills to emphasise her eyes and learn to like how she looked. ‘She grew up, Raoul. That skinny girl was a long, long time ago.’
    ‘It was,’ he agreed, and then he paused, as if remembering another time, other bleak days filled with funerals … ‘How have you been?’
    She shrugged. ‘Good. And sometimes not so good.’ She glanced at the open grave, felt the anguish of loss bite hard and bite deep. ‘But, even so, better now for seeing you.’ She paused, wondering how much she could say without revealing too much of herself, and then decided simply to be honest. ‘I’m so glad you’re here.’
    ‘And me.’ His dark eyes looked past her. ‘But you should not be alone now.’
    ‘Oh, I’m not. Not really. Consuelo—a friend—is here. He left … ‘ She looked around, pushing a loose tendril of hair from her face as she scanned the cemetery. ‘He left to take an urgent phone call.’
That seemed to be taking for ever
. ‘Probably for one of his foundations, I expect. He heads a charity for children with cancer and leukaemia. He’s always on the phone chasing contributions.’
    She was babbling, she knew, making excuses for him as she glanced at her watch before scanning the grounds again, wondering how he could let one of his donors keep him so long, today of all days. ‘We’re heading to the hotel shortly for the wake. Everyone’s already there.’
    She looked back up at him, suddenly fearful that this man was about to step out of her life as quickly as hehad stepped back into it, leaving her with no idea when she might ever see him again. The thought of going another ten-plus years was suddenly too awful to contemplate. ‘You will come, won’t you? I saw you in the chapel but you’d disappeared by the time I got outside, and I thought I’d missed you. There’s so much I want to talk to you about.’
    He lifted a hand and pushed that wayward coil of her hair from her cheek with just the pads of his fingers, the lightest touch that sent a rush of heat pulsing through her. ‘Of course I will come. It will be my pleasure.’
    Breath stalled in her lungs; his fingers lingered as he coiled the strands behind her ear, as he looked down at her with those dark, dark eyes …
    ‘Gabby!’
    She blinked, registering her name, but registering even more that Raoul had still not removed his hand. His fingers curved around her neck, gently stroking her skin, warm and evocative, even as she angled her head towards Consuelo’s approach. The touch of an old friend, she told herself, reaching out to someone over a shared loss; it was nothing more than that. It would be rude, an over reaction, to brush his hand away.
    ‘Are you coming?’ Consuelo asked, still metres away and frowning as his eyes shifted from one to the other, taking in the tableau. ‘We’re going to be late.’
    ‘Gabriella was waiting for you, as it happens,’ Raoul said, and she looked up at him, surprised. For, even if he had correctly assumed this was Consuelo, that would hardly explain the note of barely contained animosity in his words.
    Consuelo didn’t seem to notice. He seemed far more interested in staring at Raoul’s hand where it lingered at her throat, as if just the heat from his glare would make it disappear. For the first time she wondered if maybe it had been there too long. She put her hand to his and tugged it down, but wasn’t about to let him go completely, sandwiching it between her own instead. She noticed he made no move to withdraw from her completely.
    ‘Am I missing something?’ she asked, looking from one to the other, for the first time realising the similarities in the two men—and the differences. Both shared Spanish