Kept by the Spanish Billionaire(58)

‘Still right up there with the financial news, I see.’

‘And you had a tall brunette swaying on your arm.’

Elizabeth, Rafael thought, didn’t sway.

‘And so you just gave in to curiosity and poled up at my office to find out what was going on. Even though it’s none of your business.’

Amy tried and failed to find a reasonable answer to that.

‘Well, Elizabeth is…a glamorous, independent woman with a thriving career in law. An attorney, in fact, on course to become a judge before she’s forty.’

‘Oh.’ Suddenly the mountain she had set forth to climb seemed impossibly steep. ‘Not the sort, I guess, who watches reality TV and takes two weeks to work out her bank balance.’#p#分页标题#e#

‘Not that sort, no.’

‘How did you meet? Were you…going out with her when…when we…’

‘No.’ Rafael’s voice was sharp.

‘You must have had a surprise when you met me,’ Amy said with a wistful smile. ‘I guess Elizabeth doesn’t do much tree-climbing.’

‘Or getting lost because she’s trying to walk off an agitated frame of mind.’

‘No.’ She wondered how she could ever have thought that she could fight for this man! ‘Why did you break up with her?’

Rafael shrugged. He had a pretty valid argument for saying nothing because his relationship was none of her business, but, hell, it must have taken guts to come to his office when she would have known that his reaction would fall far short of welcoming. And to make it obvious that she wanted him back.

‘We needed a break from each other. We both lead high-octane lives and we’d got into the habit of seeing each other on the run. No way for a relationship to work.’

Amy wondered whether the time they had spent together, when he had abandoned his high-octane life and taken time out, had been instrumental in propelling him back to his ex. She thought that if she was a generous person she would have been pleased to have inadvertently brought two people back together. Instead she decided that she was pretty mean spirited after all because she just wished the wretched woman had remained where she was, safely out of the picture.

So what if she wasn’t Rafael’s lifetime soul mate? So what if the attorney who never got lost was more his cup of tea? She, Amy, would have just enjoyed what she had got and moved on when he decided that he wanted to go back where he belonged. When he had talked about ‘unfinished business’, instead of jumping up and down and clamouring on about being deceived, she should have realised that he had a point. But as always she had reacted without bothering to think things through.

‘I’m surprised she managed to take time out of the high-octane life,’ Amy said sourly. ‘Is she getting withdrawal symptoms?’

‘I’m making sure to ease them,’ Rafael said, feeling the thrill of the victor when her expression tightened.

‘Would that be by leaving her on her own while you have a drink with me?’

Rafael looked at the wild blonde hair, the cute, expressive face and marvelled at how she could make him feel so primitive. ‘Which reminds me. I have to go.’ He drained his glass and stood up. The gentleman in him fought to remember that he had a girlfriend waiting for him, an intelligent, decent woman who deserved to be treated with respect.

‘But first…’ He stuck his hands in his pockets and waited while she wriggled into her little cropped jacket. It was cold outside but she was still wearing a pair of jeans that sat a few indecent inches below her belly button and a long-sleeved top that refused to stay put and insisted on revealing her flat, smooth stomach. Rafael dragged his eyes away. ‘Tell me why you needed to find out about Elizabeth.’

‘Because I’ve spent too long…’ she pushed open the door and was rewarded with darkness outside so that he was unable to see the expression on her face ‘…way too long thinking about you. Okay, I admit you…hurt me.’ She looked up at him and was annoyed that the darkness also hid his expression. What if he was stifling a yawn? ‘Nobody likes to feel that they’ve been lied to and nobody likes to feel that someone else thinks that they’re a gold-digger.’

‘So what are you doing here?’ Rafael asked.

‘Oh, I came to try and win you back,’ Amy said casually. She stuck out her hand to hail a cab. ‘I realised that I could stick to my guns and be too proud to ever make contact with you again or else I could swallow my pride and give us a stab…but that was before…’#p#分页标题#e#