A Fiery Baptism Read online

  Why had Rafael Alejandro come back?

  In the five years since her marriage ended, Sarah Alejandro has kept herself and her beloved twins out of the lime light and away from men like her husband. But now he’s walked back into her life with the same whirlwind of passion that he once ruthlessly used to seduce her.

  Rafael hasn’t changed, he’s still the thrillingly dangerous man she fell in love with. But Sarah won’t let the desire that still burns between them ignite—she can’t. Not if she is to keep her heart from going up in flames…again!

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  CHAPTER ONE

  ‘I’M REALLY not much of a party animal,’ Gordon warned in the lift on the way up to Karen’s apartment.

  ‘We don’t need to stay long,’ Sarah said quickly. ‘I just want to put in an appearance.’

  He smiled down at her, his shrewd grey eyes softening. ‘I wasn’t complaining. Far from it,’ he assured her. ‘I’m looking forward to meeting Karen. If she’s at all like you…’

  Sarah laughed. ‘She’s not. Karen and I are about as different as two women could be!’

  ‘Even so, you’ve been friends since you were at school together.’

  He was wrong in that assumption but Sarah didn’t bother to correct him. At school, Sarah and Karen had been poles apart. Popular and full of mischief, Karen had been the high-spirited centre of an admiring throng. Quiet and introverted, Sarah had been a loner, invariably on the outside of the girlish gossip sessions. Last winter she had run into Karen again quite by accident. Within ten minutes, Karen had been telling her that she had changed out of all recognition.

  ‘I used to think you were the most awful snobbish prig, who looked down on us all,’ Karen had confided bluntly some weeks after that first meeting. ‘But we were really just jealous little cats. You were quite disgustingly beautiful as well as being hatefully well behaved. You matured so much faster than the rest of us. I suppose that was the problem. We were pretty cruel sometimes, weren’t we?’

  Listening to her, Sarah had come ridiculously close to tears. Karen recalled their schooldays with amused affection. Sarah recalled them with sharp pain. Nobody had sensed the crushing insecurity and loneliness she was concealing. Nobody had ever guessed how fiercely she had longed to be one of the crowd. From earliest childhood, Sarah had been taught to hide her feelings from others.

  Her wealthy parents had adopted her as a baby. Her father was a merchant banker, her mother a lady of leisure who did nothing more strenuous than consult with her housekeeper about the seating arrangements for her dinner parties. Charles and Louise Southcott were very controlled people, physically undemonstrative and uncomfortable with any strong display of emotion. At Southcott Lodge, nobody had ever shouted or argued in Sarah’s hearing. Disapproval had been signified by chilling silence. By the time she was four years old, the sound of that silence had quelled Sarah more thoroughly than the coldest rebuke. But unhappily that silence had done a lot more emotional damage.

  Like any young child, Sarah had swiftly learnt how best to please her parents. She had conformed to their expectations of her. It had been unacceptable to get dirty or be untidy, even more unacceptable to fight, lose her temper or cry. In return for her obedient docility, Sarah had been rewarded with every material advantage and an inordinate amount of proud parental attention. Nothing she ever did or said had been too trivial for their notice. What age had she been before she realised that it was odd for her to have no friends in her own age-group?

  Friends had never been encouraged. Her birthday parties had been well attended because an invitation to her parents’ gracious country home had been prized as a sign of social acceptance in the neighbourhood. Sarah hadn’t been able to unbend with other children. The ability to join in rough and tumble games or relax into the chattering, secretive intimacy of other young girls had been stolen by her antiseptic upbringing. She had attended an exclusive boarding school as a day-girl, kept scrupulously close to home, cosseted and protected by two extremely possessive parents from every potentially harmful influence.

  She had grown up with an outer shell of poise that was inevitably mistaken for a maturity beyond her years. But deep down inside she had been as wound up as a spring in a dangerously tight coil. She could not have gone on indefinitely as she was…as much a free-thinking individual as a one-dimensional cardboard image. The perfect daughter, the perfect teenager, always immaculately groomed, smilingly polite and obedient. A shiver ran through her, disrupting her ruminations. She shrank from recalling the years between eighteen and twenty.

  ‘This has to be it,’ Gordon remarked, shooting her back to the present.

  Karen’s front door was wide open, feeding out mingled voices and music. What would Gordon make of Karen? Sarah wondered amusedly. Her friend was a successful photographer, extrovert and outspoken. Gordon was a banker, ultra-conservative in his tastes and inclined to take himself a little too seriously.

  Glimpsing the casually dressed crush in the hall, Gordon frowned and curved a protective arm to her slender spine. ‘We’ll be standing in a smoky corner all evening,’ he forecast. ‘I don’t think I’ve been to a party like this since I left adolescence behind.’

  Karen gave a frantic wave and waded towards them. A long-legged brunette, she wore a spectacularly short skirt and an antique lace top that exposed plenty of smooth, tanned flesh. ‘Where on earth have you been?’ she demanded.

  Sarah grinned. ‘My babysitter got lost in her studies at the library and forgot the time. Sorry!’

  ‘It’s all right. You’re forgiven. Better late than never.’ Karen was running an unapologetically curious scrutiny over Gordon from the crown of his well-brushed fair head down over his tailored dinner-jacket to his knife-creased trousers. ‘I suppose you already know how hard it is to prise Sarah away from her little monsters for an evening. She can’t bear to miss out on a single bathtime and Beatrix Potter session,’ she complained with mock severity.

  ‘I can understand Sarah’s concern. Single parents do carry double the responsibility.’ As he sprang needlessly to her defence, Gordon sounded irritatingly pompous.

  ‘Are you talking from personal experience?’ Karen enquired drily.

  Gordon stiffened. ‘No, actually I’m not, but—’

  ‘Gordon Frinton…Karen Chalmers,’ Sarah introduced hastily as Gordon’s fingers flexed with annoyance against her back. The fireworks of a personality clash were in the air.

  Karen cast Gordon a glowing smile. ‘Sarah has mentioned you, but when I saw you I wasn’t at all sure that you could be Gordon,’ she said, typically cryptic, as she rested a determined hand on his sleeve. ‘While you go and lock your cashmere in my closet, Sarah, Gordon and I will—’

  Gordon turned back to Sarah. ‘Let me take your coat.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Gordon,’ Karen interposed sweetly. ‘I have to show you where the drinks are stashed. You can’t be in two places at once.’

  Gordon was carted off whether he liked it or not. His innate good manners forbade further protest but the squared set of his shoulders spoke for him. The luminous amethyst eyes that dominated Sarah’s triangular face sparkled with humour. Poor Gordon. The more aloof he was, the more outrageous Karen would be. She had already told Karen that Gordon was no more than a casual friend but Karen wanted to check him out for herself.

  Having disposed of her coat, Sarah scanned the spacious lowlit lounge, relieved that the room wasn’t as crowded as the h
all crush had suggested. It was a very long time since she had been at a party. Indeed if it would not have been outright rudeness to refuse yet another of Karen’s invitations, Sarah would not have been here at all. She was more at ease with small groups of friends than she was amid a sea of strangers.

  There was a brief lull in the music and a throaty burst of male laughter splintered through the covering buzz of conversation. Sarah’s head jerked round on a chord of recognition too instinctive even to be questioned. In appalled stasis, she froze, her pupils dilated by shock.

  A tall, black-haired male with boldly cast sun-bronzed features stood in stark silhouette against the backdrop of floor-deep uncurtained windows. As he sank fluidly down on to the arm of a cream leather couch, he was the confident focus of a gathering crowd.

  A woman pushed past Sarah to gain entry to the room. ‘Good lord, isn’t that…?’

  The roaring in her eardrums drowned out the rest of the sentence. She could not believe at first, did not want to believe that he was real. But Rafael was breathtaking and unforgettable. Successfully blocking him from her every waking thought had not prevented his lithe dark image from regularly haunting her dreams.

  Absorbed faces surrounded him. Lean golden hands sketched vivid word pictures in the air. His raw vibrance struck her like an electrical charge. Against that intensely physical aura of his, other men simply paled into the woodwork. Wherever Rafael went, women followed him with their eyes. They did it openly or covertly or even unconsciously. None of them was immune to the storm-force potency of his personality. Or that white lightning sexuality that could illuminate the darkest room…burning, blatant and blinding. God had beamed benevolently on Rafael’s birth but, even without that striking, hard-boned physical beauty, Rafael would have exerted a magnetic draw for her sex. He held court with the uninhibited ease of a natural extrovert.

  Without warning, his chiselled profile spun in her direction. His piercing eyes narrowed, homed in on her with laserbeam velocity. Eyes tawny…hypnotic…compelling. Before she swung away on a high of mindless panic, she registered the loss of animation that stilled his dark, strong face. On wobbly legs that threatened to buckle beneath her, she pushed a driven passage back through the hall and down to the sanctuary of Karen’s bedroom.

  Her stomach was heaving. She fled into the adjoining bathroom and retched painfully and miserably on an empty stomach. As she gasped for breath in the stricken aftermath, it occurred to her that she had to be the only woman alive capable of reacting to Rafael with nausea and recoil.

  Oh, you’re so brave, so brave, Sarah. If she had known he would be here, wild horses wouldn’t have dragged her out tonight. That wasn’t cowardice, she reasoned weakly. You didn’t forget that amount of pain, not if you lived to be a thousand, you didn’t. But in five years she had changed so much; she wasn’t the same person, she was a completely different woman. Are you? an inner voice gibed. He’s out there ringed by fascinated, lusting females and envious, admiring males…and you are hiding in a bathroom. Dear heaven, had nothing changed after all?

  A flush of shame covered her drawn cheeks. She returned to the bedroom. Backbone and pride had resurfaced, although neither was the equivalent of a burning Olympic flame. Dear lord, what was he doing here? But why shouldn’t he be here? Karen had countless friends and acquaintances. There was hardly anybody who was somebody on the social scene whom Karen didn’t know. However, Rafael didn’t live in London, he lived abroad. Like a lush, tropical plant of the jungle variety, he thrived only in hot, sunny climates.

  Her fingertips pressed to her throbbing temples. He would leave. He had seen her. Of course he would leave. Even Rafael would not have the insolent detachment to stay on. Had he been reminded that he had two children he had never seen? Never even tried to see? Trembling, she forced herself to check her appearance in the mirror. Amazingly, the sleek wings of her cornsilk hair were still smoothly looped to the back of her small head. Her strappy whisper-green dress skimmed slender curves as delicately drawn as a porcelain figurine’s. Her agonised vulnerabilty was etched in her eyes alone.

  A derisive echo from the past swam out of her subconscious. ‘You’re the pretty little doll, the fair princess they chose to elevate and create with their money. Dolls don’t live and breathe, querida. And neither do you.’

  She was torn afresh by the agony of that rejection. A doll in an elaborate costume kept sterile within plastic casing. Perfect to look at, lifeless to touch. When her life was smashed to smithereens by the man she loved, that was how Sarah had seen herself.

  The door opened, startling her.

  ‘So this is where you’ve got to. Here I am throwing the party of the year and you’re in hiding. Thank God,’ Karen pronounced in her off-beat style, shutting the door behind her. ‘I’ve dealt with Gordon for you. I stuck him behind the bar in the kitchen, pulled off his bow-tie in case someone takes him for an official barman, and I’ve advised him to have a few while he’s serving. He’s so nicely brought up that he’ll be there all night if you don’t decide to rescue him!’

  Sarah faced her friend, pale but composed. ‘I wouldn’t care to bet on that if I were you,’ she quipped.

  Karen peered at her. ‘Are you feeling OK? You’re as white as Gordon’s shirtfront.’

  ‘I had a bit of a headache. I took some tablets.’ As Sarah told the lie, she went pink.

  ‘Knowing your talent for understatement as per casual friends, you’ve probably got a migraine coming on. Lie down, for goodness’ sake,’ Karen commanded bossily, pulling up a chair and settling herself down. ‘I want to hear all about Gordon.’

  ‘Honestly, I’m fine.’ Sarah sat down on the foot of the bed. ‘Should you be leaving your party?’

  ‘I’ve Gordon on the bar, big brother looking out for drunks and kid sister minding the music,’ Karen confided. ‘The food is all cold and laid out in the dining-room. As a hostess, I am superfluous.’

  ‘You’re certainly well organised.’

  ‘Gordon,’ Karen repeated impatiently. ‘You’ve been holding out on me. Who? Where? How? I would have had to pin him to the wall and throw knives to get the details out of him! Even then, it might just have been name, rank and number. Still, he looks exactly what protective Mummy and Daddy Southcott would prescribe for an unattached daughter.’

  Rafael would be gone when she returned to the party. Bolstered by the conviction, Sarah’s rigid spine relaxed slightly. ‘He’s a banker.’

  ‘I knew it!’ Karen carolled with exuberant satisfaction. ‘I said to him, you’re a broker, an accountant or a tax consultant. He didn’t look at all pleased, but he’s got a face like a bank vault! Without the magic combination, you stay out in the cold.’

  Karen’s madcap conversation was steadily easing Sarah’s tension. ‘We are just friends. He recently transferred here from New York. He’s a widower. His wife died of leukaemia last year,’ she related ruefully. ‘Understandably he’s not over that yet. It must have been harrowing for him.’

  Karen was aghast. ‘Oh, no!’ she groaned. ‘I’ll have to take him off the bar now! No wonder he looked so grim when I was reduced to my tinker, tailor rhyme and came up with undertaker.’ Her friend’s embarrassment ebbed fast and her generous mouth slowly upcurved again. ‘But on the other hand, I’d say that Gordon is coping with his tragic loss rather better than you suspect. The one time he didn’t look as locked up as a bank vault was when I was trailing him away from you. Gordon, my pet, is half in love with you already!’

  Sarah stared at her in astonishment. ‘Of course he isn’t. I hardly know him. He’s spent a couple of weekends with my parents. We’ve lunched once or twice, gone to the theatre…that’s all.’

  Karen shook her head in exasperation. ‘You’re dating him, Sarah. You just haven’t noticed yet.’

  ‘You don’t understand,’ Sarah protested uneasily.

  ‘Casual acquaintances aren’t as protective as guard dogs,’ Karen teased. ‘And you are far too beautiful to insp
ire purely platonic thoughts. Why should that be a problem?’

  ‘Gordon and I have been quite frank with each other, Karen.’ Sarah was maintaining her amused smile with difficulty. ‘Neither of us is interested in emotional involvement. I like him but that really is all there is to it.’

  ‘He’s handsome, successful and free and the best you can do is like the guy?’ Karen was quite appalled by the admission. ‘What am I going to do with you? Is this the female who knocked our entire school on its ear by eloping with an exceptionally ineligible foreigner in Upper Sixth? You went out in style, my pet. What happened to all that risk-taking passion and spontaneity?’

  Sarah’s facial muscles locked, what colour she had recovered evaporating. ‘I grew up,’ she muttered tightly.

  ‘No. You buried yourself,’ Karen argued. ‘Look, I’ve never pressed you…well, not seriously pressed, for a single gory detail about your marriage. I know it must have been very painful because if it hadn’t been you’d have been able to talk about it by now. But there’s more to life than motherhood, Sarah. Goodness knows, everyone’s allowed to make one mistake. First time round you obviously landed a prize bastard. So what? I don’t think I’d have done much better choosing a life partner at eighteen, but you don’t let one bad experience put you into permanent retirement!’

  ‘Lecture over?’ Sarah prompted. A drink or two and Karen became a crusader. Unfortunately Karen just didn’t know what she was talking about.

  Venting a rather rude word, Karen leapt up to renew her lipstick at the mirror. ‘You don’t know how lucky you are. Gordon’s cute. I fancied him the instant I laid eyes on him!’

  Sarah’s taut mouth twitched. ‘Feel free.’

  Karen sent her a wry glance. ‘I’d need a rope and tackle. He’s taken. And he’s tailor-made for you. At least give him a chance.’

  The idea that Gordon might actually want that chance disturbed Sarah. Could Karen be right? Her friend was surprisingly perceptive about people. Her snap judgements were often spot on. If Karen was right about Gordon, Sarah would have to stop seeing him.

 
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