His Ultimate Prize

He took in the perfect picture mother and child made and something caught in his chest. He’d denied his mother this—the chance to meet her grandchild.

‘Rafael?’

He focused and summoned a half-smile. ‘S?, my poor eardrums are still bleeding.’

She laughed again as her eyes rolled. ‘Oh, come on, my little champ’s not that bad. Besides, Marco tells me he takes after you, and I don’t find that hard to believe at all.’ She sobered, her gaze running over him before piercing blue eyes captured his in frank, no nonsense assessment. ‘So...how are you? And don’t give me a glib answer.’

‘Thoroughly bored of everyone asking me how I am.’ He raised his walking stick and gestured to his frame. ‘See for yourself, pique?a. My clever physiotherapist tells me I’m between phases two and three on the recovery scale. Dios knows what that means. All I know is that I’m still a broken, broken man.’ In more ways than he cared to count.

She gently rubbed her son’s back. ‘You’re far from broken. And we ask because we care about you.’

‘S?, I get that. But I prefer all this caring to be from afar. The up-close-and-personal kind gives me the...what do you English call it...the willies?’

Her eyes dimmed but her smile remained in place. ‘Too bad. We’re not going to stop because you bristle every time we come near.’ Her determined gaze shifted to Raven, who was chatting to another guest. ‘And I hope you’re not giving her a hard time. From what I hear, she’s the best physio there is.’

Despite telling himself it wasn’t the time or place, he couldn’t stop his gaze from tracing the perfect lines of Raven Blass’s body. And it was a perfect body, honed by hours and hours of gruelling physical exercise. She hadn’t been lying when she said she was solid muscle and bone. But Rafael knew, from being up close and personal, that there was soft femininity where there needed to be. Which, all in all, presented a more-than-pleasing package that had snagged his attention with shocking intensity the first time he’d laid eyes on her in his racing paddock almost eighteen months ago.

Of course, he’d been left in no uncertain terms that, despite all indications of a very mutual attraction, Raven had no intention of letting herself explore that attraction. Her reaction to it had been viscerally blunt.

She’d gone out of her way to hammer her rejection home...right at the time when he’d been in no state to be rejected...

His jaw tightened. ‘How I choose to treat my physiotherapist is really none of your business, Sasha.’

A hint of sadness flitted through her eyes before she looked down at her son. ‘Despite what you might think, I’m still your friend, so stop trying to push me away because, in case you need reminding, I push back.’ She glanced back at him with a look of steely determination.

He sighed. ‘I’d forgotten how stubborn you are.’

‘It’s okay. I’m happy to remind you when you need reminding. Your equally demanding godson demands your presence at the villa, so we’ll see you both there in half an hour. No excuses.’

‘If we must,’ Rafael responded in a bored drawl.

Sasha’s lips firmed. ‘You must. Or I’ll have to leave my guests and come and fetch you personally. And Marco wouldn’t like that at all.’

‘I stopped being terrified of my big brother long before I lost my baby teeth, pique?a.’

‘Yes, but I know you wouldn’t want to disappoint him. Also, don’t forget about Raven.’

He glanced over his shoulder at the woman in question, who now stood with her head bent as she spoke to one of the altar boys. Her namesake hair fell forward as she nodded in response to something the boy said. From the close contact necessitated by her profession, Rafael knew exactly how silky and luxuriant her hair felt against his skin. He’d long stopped resenting the kick in his groin when he looked at her. In fact he welcomed it. He’d lost a lot after his accident, not just a percentage of his physical mobility. With each groin kick, he ferociously celebrated the return of his libido.

‘What about Raven?’ he asked.

‘I’ve seen her in action during her training sessions. She’s been known to reduce grown men to tears. I bet I can convince her to hog-tie you to the SUV and deliver you to the villa if you carry on being difficult.’

Rafael loosened his grip on his walking stick and gave a grim smile. ‘Dios, did someone hack into my temporary Internet files and discover I have a thing for dominatrixes? Because you two seem bent on pushing that hot, sweet button.’

Sasha’s smile widened. ‘I see you haven’t lost your dirty sense of humour. That’s something to celebrate, at least. See you at the villa.’

Without waiting for an answer, she marched off towards Marco, who was shaking hands with the priest. His brother’s arm enfolded her immediately. Rafael gritted his teeth against the disconcerting pang and accompanying guilt that niggled him.

He’d robbed his family of so much...

‘So, which is it to be—compliance without question or physical restraints?’ Raven strolled towards him, her gaze cool and collected.

The mental picture that flashed into his mind made his heart beat just that little bit faster. Nerves which his doctors had advised him might never heal again stirred, as they’d been stirring for several days now. The very male satisfaction the sensation brought sent a shaft of fire through his veins. ‘You heard?’

‘It was difficult not to. You don’t revere your surroundings enough to keep your voice down when you air your...peccadilloes.’

The laughter that ripped from his throat felt surprisingly great. He’d had nothing to laugh about for far longer than he cared to remember. Several heads turned to watch him but he didn’t care. He was more intrigued by the blush that spread over Raven’s face. He leaned in close. ‘Do you think the angels are about to strike me down? Will you save me if they do?’ he asked sotto voce.

‘No, Rafael. I think, based on your debauched past and irreverent present, all the saints will agree by now you’re beyond redemption. No one can save you.’

Despite his bitter self-condemnation moments ago, hearing the words repeated so starkly caused Rafael’s chest to tighten. All traces of mirth were stripped from his soul as he recalled similar words, uttered by the same voice, this same woman eight months ago. And then, as now, he felt the black chasm of despair yawn before him, growing ever-wider, sucking at his empty soul until only darkness remained. Because knowingly or unknowingly, she’d struck a very large, very raw nerve.

‘Then tell me, Raven, if I’m beyond redemption, what the hell are you doing here?’

CHAPTER TWO

I’M NOT HERE to save you, if that’s what you think.

The words hovered like heat striations in Raven’s brain an hour later as she stood on the large sun-baked terrace of Marco and Sasha’s home. This time the rich surroundings of the architecturally stunning Casa Leоn failed to awe her as they usually did.

I’m not here to save you...

She snorted. What a load of bull. That was exactly why she’d begged Marco to let her visit Rafael in hospital once he’d woken from his coma all those months ago. It was why she’d flown to Leоn from London five weeks ago, after months of trying to contact Rafael and being stonily ignored by him; and why she’d begged him to let her treat him when she found out what an appalling job his carers were doing—not because they were incompetent, but because Rafael didn’t seem inclined in any way to want to get better, and they’d been too intimidated to go against his wishes. It was most definitely why she continued to suffer his inappropriate, irreverent taunts.

She wanted to make things right...wanted to take back every single word she’d said to him eight months ago, right before he’d climbed into the cockpit of his car and crashed it into a solid concrete wall minutes later.

Because it wasn’t Rafael’s fault that she hadn’t been able to curb her stupid, crazy delusional feelings until it was almost too late. It wasn’t his fault that, despite all signs that he was nothing but a carbon copy of her heartless playboy father, she hadn’t been able to stop herself from lusting after him—

No, scratch that. Not a carbon copy. Rafael was no one’s copy. He was a breed in his own right. With a smile that could slice a woman’s heart wide open, make a woman swoon with bliss even as she knew her heart was being slowly crushed. He possessed more charm in his little finger than most wannabe playboys, including her father, held in their entire bodies.

But she’d seen first-hand the devastation that charm could cause. Swarthy Spanish Lothario or a middle-aged English playboy, she knew the effect would be the same.

Her mother was broken, continued to suffer because of the very lethal thrall Raven’s father held over her.

And although she knew after five weeks in his company that Rafael’s attitude would never manifest in sexual malice, he was in no way less dangerous to her peace of mind. Truth be told, the more she suffered his blatant sexual taunts, the more certain she was that she wanted to see beneath his outwardly glossy fa?ade.

With every atom of her being, Raven wished she’d known this on his unfortunate race day. But, tormented by her mother’s suffering, her control when it came to Rafael had slipped badly. Instead of walking away with dignified indifference, she’d lashed out. Unforgivably—

‘So deep in thought. Dare I think those thoughts are about me?’ Warm air from warmer lips washed over her right lobe.

‘Why would you think that?’ she asked, sucking in a deep, sustaining breath before she faced the man who seemed to have set up residence in her thoughts.

‘Because I’ve studied you enough to recognise your frowns. Two lines mean you’re unhappy because I’m not listening to you drone on about how many squats or abdominal crunches you expect me to perform. Three lines mean your thoughts are of a personal nature, mostly likely you’re in turmoil about our last conversation before my accident.’ He held out a glass of champagne, his blue eyes thankfully no longer charged with the frosty fury they’d held at the chapel. ‘You’re wearing a three-line frown now.’

She took the proffered drink and glanced away, unable quite to meet his gaze. ‘You think I’m that easy to read?’

‘The fact that you’re not denying what I say tells me everything I need to know. Your guilt is eating you alive. Admit it,’ he said conversationally, before taking a sip of his drink. ‘And it kills you even more that I can’t remember the accident itself but can remember every single word you said to me only minutes before it happened, doesn’t it?’