‘Beatriz… vete a hacer puñetas!’ Rafael suddenly snarled.
Georgie flinched back and gasped, taken by surprise.
His lashes flew up on dark, dark eyes with a wild febrile glitter. ‘What do you want?’ he slurred in another tone altogether, as he visibly struggled to focus on her.
‘What did you say to Beatriz to put her in such a tizzy?’ Georgie asked in a falsely bright voice, to conceal her rampant nervous tension.
A sardonic smile briefly curved his taut mouth. He didn’t reply.
‘Rafael?’ Georgie pressed worriedly.
‘Leave me…I am drank,’ ‘Rafael framed with obvious difficulty, and reached for the bottle again. ‘Se acabo?’
‘What does that mean?’
Rafael surveyed her and emitted a harsh laugh. No tengo nada…nada!’ he repeated savagely, raking her anxious face with embittered eyes which didn’t seem to be quite taking her in.
I have nothing—she understood that all right. What did he mean, he had nothing? On the brink of forcing herself to ask him if it was the threat of marrying her which had prompted him to hit the bottle—and frankly, if it was, she felt more like hitting him than proffering comfort—Georgie was silenced by her confusion.
‘What can I give you now?’ he muttered indistinctly, tipping his glass to compressed lips.
A glimmer of devastated comprehension assailed her. Her shocked gaze suddenly stabbed back to the bank statement she had replaced on the desk. Of course, that statement belonged to him, she reasoned. Who else could it possibly belong to? He was in debt to the tune of millions. No wonder he was getting drunk!
She took a deep breath. ‘Rafael… have you got business problems?’
‘Business problems?’ Now that did grab his full attention. His dark head fairly spun back to her, his glinting eyes narrowing intently.
‘I have nothing… what can I give you now?’ he had said. What else could he possibly be admitting to? She had been very slow on the uptake.
‘What makes you think I might have these problems?’ he contrived to enquire, looking a lot more acute and aware all of a sudden than he had a few minutes previously. He even raised himself up slightly from his slump in his seat to survey her better.
Georgie swallowed hard on the lump that had come out of nowhere into her throat. She didn’t want him to think that she had been prying, so she decided not to mention having accidentally seen that damning statement. Rafael was so proud. Failure of any kind was anathema to him. Naturally he would try to cover up. But, oh, the relief of learning that his condition had nothing whatsoever to do with her or their projected marriage!
‘You can be honest with me, Rafael,’ she whispered tightly. ‘I won’t breathe a word to anyone.’
He breathed in deeply, still studying her with slightly glazed eyes. ‘You think I have suffered—er—financial reverses?’
‘You just told me you had!’
‘I did?’ Rafael pushed decidedly unsteady fingers through his black hair and seemed to be sunk in thought. Then, with startling abruptness, he glanced up again. ‘Si,’ he muttered fiercely. ‘Naturally this worries you. You fear that I will not be able to supply this life of luxury you crave! And now you change your mind about marrying me, es verdad?’
‘Rafael… how could you even think I would feel like that?’ Georgie gasped, tears springing to her eyes, stricken for him, not for herself, because she could hardly begin to imagine what it must be like for someone like Rafael, fabulously rich all his life, suddenly to face a future deprived of the status and luxuries he no doubt took completely for granted.
‘You don’t think like that?’ he prompted weakly, his voice just sliding away.
Georgie read that strained voice as being evidence of the depth of his despair. And she couldn’t stand the distance between them any longer. Aching to offer him comfort and reassurance, she slid past the desk and threw herself on the carpet beside his chair so that she could wrap her arms round his lean waist, since she reckoned he was far too drunk to be capable of standing up. The slowness of his reactions certainly suggested that he was. As she made physical contact, he went absolutely rigid.
‘Please don’t push me away,’ Georgie pleaded vehemently. ‘Don’t let your pride come between us.’
‘My pride?’
‘You really are drunk, aren’t you?’ she sighed, burying her head on his lap in a sudden surge of helpless tenderness.
‘I feel very drunk,’ Rafael confided unsteadily.
‘I’ll probably have to say all this again in the morning because you won’t remember it. Now, listen,’ she said, angling back her vibrant head with an air of stubborn determination. ‘Your money has never been important to me. I don’t care if you’re broke or up to your ears in debt—’
‘In debt?’ Rafael repeated in a deeply shaken undertone.
‘I suppose you don’t know at this stage just how bad it’s going to be, but what I’m telling you now is that it doesn’t matter to me.’
‘It doesn’t?’
She gazed up at him, blinking back tears, absorbing only a tithe of his shattered expression through that veil of moisture. ‘And I’m very hurt that you think that it could matter to me. Of course, I still want to marry you—I don’t need a life of luxury to be happy.’
‘You don’t?’
Georgie groaned. ‘I realise that you’re drunk… but could you please try to stop repeating everything I say?’
A lean hand lifted and his forefinger traced the wobbling curve of her full lower lip. Instinctively, Georgie pressed her cheek into his palm and simultaneously she felt the raw tension ebb from his long, lean length. There was a long silence, violet eyes meshing mesmerically with gold.
‘And do you think you could put the gun away now?’
‘What gun? Oh…that one,’ Rafael gathered abstractedly, with the utmost casualness. ‘I must lock it away. Father Tombs learnt that it was in the possession of one of my most hot-headed llaneros and persuaded him to give it up before he was tempted to use it on somebody.’
Georgie’s cheeks burned at the melodrama that had leapt right out of her own imagination. Rafael, still in the same uncharacteristic mood of complete relaxation, suddenly arrowed wondering dark eyes over her taut profile. ‘Querida mia... you surely did not think?’
‘Of course I didn’t.’
‘You crazy woman,’ he groaned, abruptly bending down and gathering her up into a heap in his arms.
‘You seem to be sobering up.’
‘Shock.’
She supposed he meant the shock of the bad news he had presumably had. ‘Do you want to talk about it?’
‘Not tonight, gatita.’
She rested her head against a powerful shoulder, delighted by the reception she was receiving from him. He had been shocked that she was prepared to stand by him through thick and thin, but he had cheered up marvellously, so she was prepared to forgive him for holding so low an opinion of her.
‘Your worries have been on your mind all day,’ she reflected out loud, thinking of his positively insouciant manner before breakfast when he had clearly been trying to put up a macho front, and then the staggering changes of mood he had exhibited later on.
‘Let us not even consider them now,’ Rafael said soothingly.
She frowned. While she was no keener than he to face a presumably ghastly, stressful and horribly complex financial crisis, which was evidently destined to leave them ultimately as poor as church mice, she did feel it was something that had to be dealt with immediately. Then, what did she know about such things? What possible advice could she offer? No doubt Rafael appreciated that too and, equally certainly, he had within reach all the professional assistance he could require.
‘I just wanted you to know that I’m here… to be supportive,’ she added tautly.
‘This I have noticed,’ Rafael commented with a slightly dazed inflection from above her downbent head. ‘After all, you are now showing some—some—er—affection for me for the very first time.’
Affection? What a milk-and-water translation of the ferociously strong feelings which were driving her! But then, she didn’t want to overdo it, did she? Rafael was very proud. Very probably affection was the most he was prepared to accept until he felt in control of events again. Although she had to admit he had already made the most remarkable recovery from his apparent stupor of intoxication.
‘I thought you might need it.’
‘And maybe you find—er—losers more appealing?
Her head flew up. ‘Rafael… you are not a loser,’ she protested emotionally. ‘Just about anybody can get into trouble with money—it doesn’t mean you’re a loser! You’ve got to allow yourself to make mistakes. Nobody’s perfect.’
‘I used to think I was,’ Rafael breathed with sudden austerity, his stunningly handsome features hardening as his mouth curled. ‘And I’m starting to realise that I got what I deserved.’
‘Please… It depresses me to death when you start getting all grim and self-critical.’
‘But I have not been sufficiently critical of my treatment of you.’