The Forbidden Touch of Sanguardo

CHAPTER ONE

CELESTE STOOD POISED at the head of the long curving flight of marble stairs that led down into the great hall below. It was already crowded with people in black tie and evening clothes, and servers were circulating with trays of champagne and canapés. Her fellow models for the evening were mingling in evening dress, prior to the charity fashion show that was about to start. She had arrived slightly late at the stately home in Oxfordshire that was the evening’s venue, but had seized the last-minute opportunity to be here tonight, well away from London—and from Karl Reiner.

Celeste’s expression tautened even just from her thinking about the man. She had known when she became the new face of Blonde Visage, one of the skincare ranges belonging to Reiner Visage—one for each complexion type—that Karl Reiner liked to have a more than professional relationship with the Reiner Visage models, but because he had been preoccupied with another ‘face’—Monique Silva—Celeste had felt it safe to allow herself to be tempted by the lucrative contract. Making good, regular money was, even after years in the fickle and intensely competitive modelling business, not something to turn down lightly.

A bleak expression lit the back of her eyes.

There was never, ever, any such thing as easy money—

She of all people should know that...

For now Karl had tired of Monique and was turning his attention to Celeste—and he assumed she would be as willing as Monique had been.

Celeste’s expression hardened. Karl Reiner could assume what he liked, but he would not get what he was after from her. Not even now he had flown in from New York this weekend specifically to pressure her to extend her contract—and pay the price he wanted her to pay for it.

Well, she would not be extending it. Yes, the money had been good, but these days making money was not the be all and end all of her preoccupations. A cold miasma seemed to touch at her skin. Not any more...

Her refusal was a message Karl Reiner didn’t want to hear, and he had demanded she make herself available to have dinner with him in London tonight. To evade him Celeste had been obliged to volunteer at a late hour for the charity fashion show that was shortly to take place in the grand salon.

Just thinking about Karl Reiner and what he wanted of her—what he thought she would provide—intensified the feeling of a cold miasma on her skin. It was penetrating into her like a toxic memory, fetid and foul...

With effort, she pushed it from her mind.

No! She would not think—would not remember.

She had dealt with those memories long ago! Paid the price for dealing with them—a price she was still paying, must always pay—and it was a price she paid because there was no alternative. Could never be.

All she could do was what she had done for years now—build her career, focus only on that. Be dedicated, hard-working.

On her own.

Always on her own.

For a last fleeting moment the bleakness showed in her eyes again. She knew far too well the price she was paying for those memories whose dank tendrils dragged across her flesh.

A stab of self-revulsion jabbed at her. Once she had lacerated herself with such stabs, but she gave herself a mental shake. She would not let anything drag her mind down such dark pathways. She was here tonight to do a job. One she had done a hundred times before.

Yet as she gathered her long skirts gracefully, preparing to descend into the thronged hall below, something stayed her for one last moment. She felt as if something were different tonight. As if she were poised on the edge of her familiar world. On the threshold of a new one.

Then, with a sharp, dismissive intake of breath, she took a step forward and started to move down the staircase. There was no new world awaiting her. There could not be.

She did not need the echo of that trailing miasma across her skin to tell her that...

* * *

Rafael Sanguardo stood, empty champagne glass loosely held in long fingers, and let his dark gaze rest on his opulently baroque surroundings, painted and gilded to profusion. It was an irony not lost on him that, as one of the sponsors of the charity, he should be a guest here—considering that it had been the exploited wealth of the Americas that had built this eighteenth-century splendour and that it had been the labour of his peon ancestors, albeit under Spanish colonial masters and not British ones, who had so signally contributed to this display of old-world wealth.

But now history had turned its wheel of fortune. In the global village of the twenty-first century it was the industrious entrepreneurship of former colonials who generated much of the world’s wealth—and Rafael Sanguardo knew he could count himself one of their number.

Thanks to his own intelligence, determination and drive, he had transformed himself in little more than a dozen years from an orphaned teenager living in one of the smallest of the string of countries stretching from Mexico to Colombia, via a philanthropic scholarship to a prestigious North American university, into a serial entrepreneur who had backed a succession of highly successful companies and who could now, had he so wished, have made his home in just such a palatial pile as the one he was tonight a guest in.

That was not his preference, however. He was footloose, preferring to rent apartments in London and New York and stay in hotels in whichever other countries he did business in. ‘Settling down’ was not on his agenda.

Not any more.

Madeline had seen to that.

Into his head stabbed the last words she had thrown at him. Mocking. Furious. Thwarted.

‘Why, Rafe, darling, what a puritan you are!’

But her taunting had masked anger, lashing out at him. Repelling him as much as what she had disclosed to him had repelled him.

Repelled him still...

He pulled his thoughts away. Madeline was history. Out of his life. And she should be out of his head, too. She was not worth even the memory...

There was only one thing Madeline was worth—had only ever been worth—and that was what was most precious to her.

Money.

Rafael’s mouth tightened. His eyes darkened. Well, now Madeline had all the money she craved—but money was all she had. Even though she had once craved more. Memory darkened his expression again. She had once craved him—craved everything that had once been between them.

Their affair had lit up like a torch between them. It had been a match that had seemed to be ideally cast. He the self-made, darkly handsome Latino multimillionaire, she the British flame-haired British beauty whose business abilities had made her as rich as him. They had been a wealthy, glamorous couple, cutting a swathe wherever they went.

Then it had ended.

Like an unwelcome replay, he saw the scene inside his head yet again.

Madeline was looking at him. Looking at him with her almond-shaped emerald eyes from where she lay on the bed, her fabulous auburn hair tumbling sensuously around her naked shoulders. Her lush, peaked breasts were on show for him. So was the rest of her curved, enticing body. She lay, lounging back on the pillows. Alluring. Seductive.

‘Now tell me you don’t want me, Rafe, darling,’ she purred.

She let her thighs slacken, easing her hand sensually along the divide between her legs.

He walked to the bedroom door. Turned to look at her. Still repelled.

‘Be gone by the time I get back,’ he told her.

Then he left.

He heard her laughter—that rich, mocking laughter—infused with what he knew was a jibing anger at him for his rejection of her, following him as he shut the front door of his apartment behind him.

It tried to follow him still, that mocking, jibing, angry laughter, as he knew she wanted it to.

But its power was gone.

Just as Madeline had gone. Out of his life—totally.

Now even the thought of Madeline repelled him. As did everything about her...her looks, her attitude, her ambition, her values. Everything.

A hovering waiter pulled him back to where he was, and with a slight smile of thanks Rafael placed his glass on the extended tray. As he turned back, something caught his eye.

Someone.

Walking down the sweeping staircase with an aura about her that made his gaze focus piercingly. Taking in everything about her.

Pale beauty. Hair caught in a chignon the colour of champagne at the nape of her swan-like neck. Her face was in profile. Perfect profile. As perfect as her tall, slender body, sheathed in a single-shouldered ecru gown that moulded slight breasts, draped slender hips and dropped down long, long legs to skim slim ankles, revealed by the draping of her skirts, around which snaked the clasp of her heeled evening shoes.

She must surely be one of the models, he realised. Her height, her slenderness, the way she held herself, the way she wore her clearly couture gown—all indicated that. As she reached the foot of the stairs she blended into the throng and was lost to his view. He craned his head a moment, seeking her, but could not see her.

A sense of frustration at her disappearance caught at him. Then he stilled, frowning for a quite different reason. A jolt of realisation.

This was the first woman who had caught his attention since he had severed all links with Madeline—

Oh, plenty of women had sought his attention—he was well used to that—but in the grim aftermath of Madeline none had been of any interest to him.

So what is it about this one?

Yet even as the question formed he knew it was redundant. He could answer it immediately.

She is nothing at all like Madeline!

Madeline’s richly hued flashy beauty and her egoistic temperament had demanded that everyone look at her. The pale girl descending the staircase had looked as cool as Madeline had been fiery.

But there was more to the difference than looks, he sensed. Madeline would have descended the grand staircase like a drama queen, wanting everyone to gaze at her. To admire and envy her. To desire her.

This pale blonde girl had slipped down the steps as quietly as a ghost—as if she were not quite part of this world, as if she wanted no eyes drawn to her. Odd, he mused, in someone who was a model. If, of course, she was one.

Well, he thought, impatient to see her again, if she were, he had better go and take his seat and find out.

One thing he knew with certainty: whoever the pale, elusive blonde was, he wanted to see her again. His dark eyes glinted. Finally he’d seen a woman to spark his interest—an interest he definitely wanted to pursue. Would that interest survive acquaintance with her? Or would getting to know her put him off, despite that incredible pale beauty of hers?

Will she prove as flawed as Madeline?

That was the question that haunted him.

CHAPTER TWO

THE MUSIC WAS starting up—glitteringly baroque Vivaldi to suit the era of the house—and in well-practised order the models issued out onto the runway constructed down the centre of the long salon.

The first gown was the same one the models had worn while mingling with the guests, and Celeste was glad of it. It was exactly the kind of gown she would have chosen for herself, had she been a guest. Flattering, but revealing nothing more than a bare shoulder, and in one of the pale colours that she liked. Another model had once told her she must like disappearing into the background. Celeste had only smiled slightly. But the girl had been right, for all that.

Muted, understated, discreet—those were the fashion watchwords she adhered to. And one more, too.

Modest.

Not for her, in her own clothes, plunging necklines or thigh-skimming hemlines. Even on the beach she preferred a one-piece.

Now, as she swished along the runway, she felt the tension that had assailed her as she’d stood at the top of the stairs evaporate. Years of experience as a model made this kind of tightly choreographed display second nature to her, and she walked with assurance and poise until, at the foot of the runway, she paused to reverse her direction.

And froze.

Dark, long-lashed eyes, focussed on her. A shadowed face with lean cheeks, incised features. A mouth with deep lines around it. A sculpted jawline. Night-dark hair.

For a timeless moment the impression carved itself into her vision. Then, with a jolt, she knew she must start walking again. Jerkily, she paced back up to the head of the runway and was swept offstage into the melee of the changing area, to emerge minutes later in a vivid scarlet evening gown. All the way down the runway she was conscious of the man sitting at the far end. Wondering whether he’d be watching her.

Hectically, her thoughts tumbled inside her head. She’d been eyed up often enough in her time as a model—and even though she didn’t like it she never let it affect her.

So why had this man’s regard so affected her? Why had it impacted on her in the few seconds she’d had to register it? What was so different about it? About him...?

As she neared the end of the runway she steeled herself for that dark, penetrating gaze—which didn’t come. As she glanced briefly in his direction she saw that his attention was on his mobile phone. He was tapping in a text, long legs extended, completely ignoring her.

Immediately she felt her tension drop. She turned, skilfully manoeuvring her skirts, and plunged back up the runway. So much for that! she thought, with a wry dart of self-mockery.

Had she turned her head again, however, she might have felt differently.

Rafael’s eyes had lifted from his phone and were settled, instead, on her retreating form. They went on watching until she disappeared. Then, and only then, did he resume his tapping.

He found, however, that his mind was not on his emails.

* * *

The show was over, the applause was dying away and guests were heading off for the buffet supper awaiting them in the dining room across the entrance hall.

Rafael got to his feet. There was a sense of purpose about him. The models would be mingling with the guests again and he wanted to find her—stake his claim before anyone else could be as drawn to her pale, haunting beauty as he was.

But as his eyes searched the crowded dining room it came to him that she simply was not there. The other models were—but not the one he wanted to see. He frowned. So where was she? He crossed the hallway back into the salon, where the runway was being dismantled by workmen. Still no sign of her.

He saw that a glass door to the side was open, and slipped through on impulse. He found himself out on a terrace and walked down it to the end. Turning the corner, he saw gardens stretching out before him. Steps swept down to the level of the lawns.

A figure had paused at the edge. A female figure, her evening gown pale in the dim light, craning her neck upwards. But she wasn’t looking back at the mansion. She was looking up at the night sky.

Rafael’s dark eyes glinted in the starlight and he started to walk down the steps towards her.

* * *

Celeste was gazing upwards, rapt. It was a glorious starry night! In London stars were, at best, dim and hazy. But here in the countryside they were bright and vivid, the mighty sweep of the Milky Way clear in the heavens. So unimaginably distant...

Once she had wanted only to be taken up amongst them, leaving the earth far, far behind...

‘The ancient Chinese believed that the Milky Way was the source of the Yellow River.’

The voice came from behind her.

Celeste swirled round. There was little light, but she did not need light to tell her who this was. It was the man who had been looking at her as she’d walked along the runway. The man who had made her aware of him as no man ever had...

He was heading towards her. She could not see his features, only his height, his strolling elegance as he came to stand beside her. She heard the deep, accented timbre of his voice as he spoke again. Felt her nerve-endings start to send messages to her she did not want to feel!

‘They have a legend,’ he went on, ‘that says two lovers were cruelly parted by their parents and placed on either side of the Milky Way—the galactic river. We see them as stars, forever gazing at each other.’

He was looking at her as he spoke. Taking in her frozen stance, the sudden tension in her face. She looked, he thought, as if she was going to bolt—a reaction he found unusual in a woman. Long experience had taught him that women welcomed his attentions.

Madeline certainly had.

But she is not Madeline.

And that was what he wanted, he reminded himself. For her to be utterly different. So it was good that she was reacting as she was, wasn’t it? But whatever the reason for her radiating wariness on all frequencies he wanted to dispel it.

‘It’s incredible, isn’t it?’ he said, keeping his tone conversational. ‘To think of the vast distances of the heavens. Our galaxy is just one of billions, each with billions of stars.’ He frowned slightly. ‘Some of the stars we think of as stars are galaxies themselves. Andromeda is our closest, and