Bride in a Gilded Cage. ABBY GREEN
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that he danced like a professional. Her natural dance ability and instinct took over as she recognised his lead and followed him. She unconsciously let him take more of her weight. The steps became more complex. For the first time in her life, despite dancing with many partners, tango suddenly felt sexy, and she wished he wasn’t holding her so close. Her head was turned in the same direction as his, tucked perfectly just below his jaw. They fitted perfectly.
She was aware of Rafael’s steel band of support across her back, her right hand held high by his. She was aware of his arm under her shoulder, her hand spread across his back. She could feel the muscles bunch and move as he danced, and only the fact that she was such an experienced dancer stopped her from tripping over her own feet.
It was a long moment before Isobel realised that the music had stopped and they weren’t dancing any more. With a jerky move she pulled herself free of Rafael’s arms and stood apart, none too steady. She felt hot in the face. Her students were looking at her with slightly open-mouthed expressions that Isobel couldn’t and didn’t want to decipher.
She got caught up in a flurry of goodbyes and thank yous, was touched when some of her students presented her with small gifts, but through it all she felt as if she were on a tightrope of tension, acutely aware of the man who lounged nonchalantly just feet away, waiting for her.
Was it time? Had he come to bring her home? She was very much afraid she was about to find out.
Isobel walked back into the studio after changing in the tiny bathroom next door. Her heart kicked to see that Rafael was still there. He hadn’t been some bizarre hallucination. She felt self-conscious and shabby in an ancient knee-length sundress. It had been unbearably hot even by early morning that day, and she’d thrown on the coolest thing that came to hand. Next to the stunning perfection of Rafael she felt like a bag lady.
Her pulse sped up when she saw Rafael turn from where he’d been looking out of the window over the street below. His hands were in his pockets and his eyes looked her up and down, their expression shuttered.
He gestured towards where a couple of gift-wrapped boxes sat by her things. ‘Do your students know that it’s your birthday in two weeks?’
Isobel looked at Rafael, panic resounding through her in waves. He’d come for her.
‘It’s nearly three years to the day since we met, Isobel, do you remember?’
Her mouth felt numb. She’d gone icy cold. She deliberately ignored what he said. ‘They’re not birthday gifts. I’m shutting down for August as everyone in Paris goes on their holidays. Some students bring me small gifts to say thank you.’
Rafael just looked at her with that intent gaze. In a bid to put some space between them and turn her back to him, Isobel went over to her things and started to pack up her iPod and speakers, putting it all into a small backpack. Her brain had seized.
When everything was packed away she turned around and took a deep breath, steeling herself. Her belly went into a tight knot of apprehension. ‘Why are you here, Mr Romero?’
His dark eyes speared her to the spot. ‘You know very well why I’m here. And it’s not Mr Romero. It’s Rafael.’
Isobel’s hand clenched on her bag. Even now, when he’d confirmed why he’d come, she tried to deny it to herself—fool herself into thinking that she still had some sort of choice. ‘I’m not prepared to just—’
He cut her off. ‘We’re not going to discuss this here and now. I’ll have my car pick you up from your apartment at 7:00 p.m. and bring you to my hotel.’
Isobel nearly fainted to think that he was just snapping his fingers and expecting her to fall in behind him. Hysteria wasn’t far from her voice. ‘How do you know I don’t have plans? That I don’t have friends I’ve arranged to meet somewhere? If you think you can just come here and pluck me out of my life like this—’
Rafael stepped close, and Isobel fought strenuously not to move back a pace. His eyes roved over her face, making her skin prickle.
‘You’ve known very well this day was coming, and you can’t say I haven’t left you alone to enjoy your independence. I’ve booked a table for dinner this evening and you will join me.’
While Isobel was still absorbing her shock at his implacable arrogance, he’d somehow taken her bag off her shoulder and with a hand on her elbow was escorting her from the studio. He’d taken her keys and was locking up behind them, as if he did it all the time.
Once they stepped out into the street, the languorous city heat did little to break Isobel from her inertia. Rafael calmly handed her back her keys and bag and indicated a sleek car parked by the kerb. ‘I won’t offer you a lift, as I know you live just a block away from here, but my car will be waiting for you at seven.’
He reached out and trailed a finger down Isobel’s cheek to her jaw. It left a line of fire in its wake, making her breath hitch, shocking her out of the inertia holding her in its grip. He’d done exactly the same thing that night three years before.
‘Don’t try anything silly, Isobel, or I’ll just come for you myself.’
And then, speechless, Isobel just watched as Don Rafael Ortega Romero got into the back of the car and it pulled away and disappeared into the traffic.
Isobel was still in a state of shock three hours later. She looked at her reflection in the cracked mirror that lay against a wall in the tiny space the landlord euphemistically called a bedroom. She’d found the mirror one day in a nearby skip and carried it home.
She knew well the kind of man Rafael was. The world he came from was a place where people didn’t say no to him, so she knew his threat was not an empty one. He wouldn’t stand for being stood up. A disturbing frisson of something she didn’t want to name went through her belly and she quashed it. She hated the fact that she seemed to be caught up in wondering about what Rafael thought of her now.
In a moment of weakness about a year ago she’d done a Google search on him, to see where he was, what he was doing, and she’d seen a picture of him at a premiere in Los Angeles with a veritable glamazon of a woman on his arm. All long, luscious limbs and flowing red hair. The kind of woman Isobel didn’t think she could ever hope to imitate.
She looked at her hair critically; she’d had it cut when she’d come to Paris on an impulse. It had felt like something rebellious, something cathartic, to distract her from the fact that she couldn’t escape her fate. Sometimes now, though, she longed for length again—something to hide behind. She’d felt acutely exposed today under Rafael’s gaze.
She gave herself a last, dismissive look, collected her bag and went down to wait for the car. It was only in the car on the way to Rafael’s hotel that Isobel realised that not once since she’d seen Rafael again that afternoon had the thought occurred to her to try and run or escape.
Rafael sat in the lobby of the Plaza Athénée hotel and waited for Isobel. It was one of the grandest hotels in Paris, but Rafael didn’t notice the trappings of wealth around him, the expensive scents of the women there as they passed by with unconcealed looks of interest in his direction.
A coil of delicious tension snaked through his body—a sense of anticipation he hadn’t felt in a long, long time. He remembered the moment in that study three years before, when Isobel had stood up to him, taking him by surprise, and he recognised the same sense of anticipation.
He saw his car pull up outside the main door and stood, grimacing slightly when he felt that tight coil of tension move southwards. With ruthless control he called his body to heel. And then the minute he saw Isobel’s silhouette emerge from the car that control was blasted to smithereens.
She passed two men as she walked in the main entrance, and Rafael saw how they both turned to look. He was no better, with his eyes glued to the graceful curve of her body. She wore the unmistakable signs of her breeding unconsciously;