His Ultimate Prize

The ceremony was conducted in Spanish with English translations printed out on embossed gold-edged paper.

As the minutes ticked by, she noted Rafael’s profile growing even tenser. Glancing down at the sheet, she realised the moment was approaching for him to take his godson for the anointing. Despite her caution to remain unmoved, her heart softened at his obvious discomfort.

‘Relax. Babies are more resilient than we give them credit for. Trust me, it takes a complete idiot to drop a baby.’

She was unprepared for the icy blue eyes that sliced into her. ‘Your flattery is touching but the last thing I’m thinking of is dropping my nephew.’

‘You don’t need to hide it, Rafael. Your tension is so thick it’s suffocating.’

His eyes grew colder. ‘Remember when I said weddings bore me?’

She nodded warily.

‘Christenings bore me even more. Besides, I’ve never been good in churches. All that piety.’ He gave a mock shudder. ‘My abuela used to smack my hand because I could never sit still.’

‘Well, I’m not your grandmother so you’re spared the smacking. Besides, you’re a grown man now so act like one and suck it up.’

Too late, she remembered certain words were like a naked invitation to Rafael. She was completely stunned when he didn’t make the obvious remark. Or maybe it was a testament to just how deeply the whole ceremony was affecting him.

‘I just want this to be over and done with so I can resume more interesting subjects.’ Without due warning, his gaze dropped to the cleavage of her simple, sleeveless orange knee-length chiffon dress. The bold, heated caress resonated through her body, leaving a trail of fire that singed in delicate places. ‘Like how delicious you look in that dress. Or how you’ll look out of it.’

Heat suffused her face. It was no use pointing out how inappropriate this conversation was. Rafael knew very well what he was doing. And the unrepentant gleam in his eyes told her so.

‘Rafa...’ Marco de Cervantes’s deep voice interrupted them.

Raven glanced up and her eyes collided with steel-grey ones which softened a touch when they lit on his brother.

Like most people who’d worked the X1 Premier circuit, she knew all about the de Cervantes brothers. Gorgeous beyond words and successful in their individual rights, they’d made scores of female hearts flutter, both on and off of the racing circuit.

Marco had been the dynamic ex-racer team boss and race car designer. And Rafael, also insanely gifted behind the wheel, had at the age of twenty-eight founded and established himself as CEO of X1 Premier Management, the multi-billion euro conglomerate that nurtured, trained and looked after racing drivers. Between them they’d won more medals and championships than any other team in the history of the sport.

The last year had changed everything for them, though. Marco had sold the team and married Sasha Fleming, the racing driver who’d won him his last Constructors’ Championship and stolen his heart in the process; and Rafael had spectacularly crashed his car, nearly lost his life and stalled his racing career.

The icy jet of guilt that shot through Raven every time she thought of his accident, and her part in it, threatened to overwhelm her. Her breath caught as she desperately tried to put the incident out of her head. This was neither the time nor the place.

But then, when had timing been her strong suit?

Over and over, she’d proven that when it came to being in the wrong place at the wrong time, she took first prize every single time. At sixteen, it was what had earned her the unwanted attention that had scarred what remained of her already battered childhood.

As a grown woman of twenty-three, foolishly believing she’d put the past behind her, she’d been proved brutally wrong again when she’d met Rafael de Cervantes.

Rafael’s mouth very close to her ear ripped her from her painful thoughts. ‘Right, I’m up, I believe. Which means, so are you.’

Her heart leapt into her throat. ‘Excuse me?’

‘I can barely stand up straight, peque?a. It’s time to do your duty and support me just in case it all gets too much and I keel over.’

‘But you’re perfectly capable—’

‘Rafa...’ Marco’s voice held a touch of impatience.

Rafael’s brow cocked and he held out his arm. With no choice but to comply or risk causing a scene, Raven stood and helped him up. As before, his arm came around her in an all-encompassing hold. And again, she felt the bounds of professionalism slip as she struggled not to feel the effortless, decidedly erotic sensations Rafael commanded so very easily in her. Sensations she’d tried her damnedest to stem and, failing that, ignore since the first moment she’d clapped eyes on the legendary racing driver last year.

What had she said to him—suck it up? She took a breath and fought to take her own advice.

They made their way to the font and Raven managed to summon a smile in answer to Sasha’s open and friendly one. But all through the remainder of the ceremony, Raven was drenched with the feeling that maybe, just maybe, in her haste to assuage her guilt and make amends, she’d made a mistake. Had she, by pushing Rafael to take her on as his personal physiotherapist, jumped from the frying fan into the proverbial fire?

* * *

Rafael repeated the words that bound the small person sleeping peacefully in the elegant but frilly Moses basket to him. He firmed lips that wanted to curl in self-derision.

Who was he to become godfather to another human being?

Everything he touched turned to dust eventually. Sooner or later he ruined everything good in his life. He’d tried to tell his brother over and over since he’d dropped the bombshell on him a month ago. Hell, as late as this morning he’d tried to get Marco to see sense and change his mind about making him godfather.

But Marco, snug in his newfound love-cocoon, had blithely ignored his request to appoint someone else his son’s godfather. Apparently, reality hath no blind spots like a man in love.

Was that a saying? If not, it needed to be.

He was no one’s hero. He was the last person any father should entrust with his child.

He gazed down into his nephew’s sweet, innocent face. How long before Jack de Cervantes recognised him for what he was? An empty shell. A heartless bastard who’d only succeeded at two things—driving fast cars and seducing fast women.

He shifted on his feet. Pain ricocheted through his hip and pelvis. Ignoring it, he gave a mental shrug, limped forward and took the ladle the priest passed him. Scooping water out of the large bowl, he poised it over his nephew’s head.

At the priest’s nod, he tipped the ladle.

The scream of protest sent a tiny wave of satisfaction through him. Hopefully his innocent nephew would take a look at him and run screaming every time he saw him. Because Rafael knew that if he had anything at all to do with his brother’s child, the poor boy’s life too would be ruined.

As well-wishers gathered around to soothe the wailing child, he dropped the ladle back into the bowl, stepped back and forced his gaze away from his nephew’s adorable curls and plump cheeks.

Beside him, he heard Raven’s long indrawn breath and, grabbing the very welcome distraction, he let his gaze drift to her.

Magnet-like, her hazel eyes sought and found his. Her throat moved in a visible swallow that made his fingers itch to slide over that smooth column of flesh. Follow it down to that delectable, infinitely tempting valley between her plump breasts.

Not here, not now, he thought regrettably. What was between the two of them would not be played out here in this place where dark memories—both living and dead—lingered everywhere he looked, ready to pounce on him should he even begin to let them...

He tensed at the whirr of an electronic wheelchair, kept his gaze fixed on Raven even as his spine stiffened almost painfully. Thankfully the wheelchair stopped several feet behind him and he heard the familiar voice exchange greetings with other family members. With every pulse of icy blood through his veins, Rafael wished himself elsewhere...anywhere but here, where the thick candles and fragrant flowers above the nave reminded him of other candles and flowers placed in a shrine not very far away from where he stood—a constant reminder of what he’d done. A reminder that because of him, because of callous destruction, this was his mother’s final resting place.

His beloved Mamа...

His breath caught as Sasha, his sister-in-law, came towards him, her now quietened son in her arm.

Sasha...something else he’d ruined.

Dios...

‘He’s got a set of lungs on him, hasn’t he?’ she laughed, her face radiant in the light slanting through the church windows. ‘He almost raised the roof with all that wailing.’