She brushed his comforting arm away. ‘Lots of people live busy lives and still find time for love. What I need is you, constant and unchanging, not holding back emotionally because you think you’re going to hurt me. Let me decide about that. We find it easy to laugh together, and challenge each other, why can’t we turn that into something deeper? I’m not made of rice paper. I won’t break if we go at it hammer and tongs. I’ll come back fighting. You know I will.’
Raffa inhaled and drew himself up. ‘I decided some time back that I would never have a family, because I don’t have the time a family deserves. I’m a busy man with global interests. No one benefits from being dragged from pillar to post across the world.’
‘You have your yacht,’ Rose pointed out with exasperation. ‘You can take your family and your home with you. Why can’t you adapt your life like everyone else? Haven’t you seen your brothers do that?’ Something flickered in Raffa’s eyes that drove Rose to press on. ‘Or are you just too damn selfish to compromise? I refuse to believe that. A man who cares so deeply for his siblings must, in some deep part of him, want to recreate that same sense of warmth and love.’
‘Children deserve parents who have time to lavish affection on them,’ he argued stiffly.
‘The same affection you lavish on your horses?’ Rose suggested. ‘Are you saying you can find time to do that, but you won’t be able to show your children that same level of attention?’
‘Aren’t you getting ahead of yourself, Rose?’
‘Maybe I am,’ she admitted. ‘And maybe I don’t care. You’ll marry someone one day—if only to hang on your arm at events. I care about you, Raffa. Can’t you see that?’
He shook his head slowly. ‘I have responsibilities towards the people who work for me. The families that depend on my companies for their livelihoods. What will they do if I’m distracted by a family of my own? How can I possibly—’
‘I don’t know,’ Rose flared, all out of patience. ‘Why don’t you ask your brothers? These excuses are weak. You’d find ways to make things work. Loveishard, and it can be cruel. It can hurt like nothing else, but when it’s right, it’s wonderful and transforming for those with sufficient courage to claim it.’
‘Are you calling me a coward again?’ Raffa said hotly.
‘Where romantic love is concerned? Yes.’ Maybe he wasn’t the man she thought he was. Maybe the infamous Raffa Acosta was just too selfish to spare any part of himself. ‘When I choose someone to spend the rest of my life with, it will be a man who shares everything with me, as I share everything with him—and on every level, not just sex. I don’t want some big spender who can put on a show, but who balks at the small things that really matter.’
‘Is that how you see me?’
He looked shocked. If Rose could have taken back her angry words, she would have done. Emotion so often prompted exaggeration, and right now she was drowning in the stuff. Heat flooded her face as she remembered the small, thoughtful packages Raffa had sent while they’d been apart, and then tonight, the wonderful birthday party. Maybe the fault wasn’t all with him. Maybe she was guilty too.
‘No,’ she admitted. ‘That’s not how I see you. You’re generous to a fault, and always thoughtful. I didn’t mean to sound ungrateful—’
‘I don’t want you to begrateful,’ he roared.‘I didn’t throw tonight’s party to impress you. I arranged it because I care about you.’
Raffa cared about her. Shouldn’t that be enough? What was wrong with her? Did she have to try and spoil everything? The last thing she wanted was a fight. Why was she constantly building obstacles between them as fast as Raffa dismantled them? Would it be such a terrible thing to work for himandsleep with him?
Yes. Worse. It would be a disaster. When Raffa married, as one day he would, Rose would be left pressing her nose against the glass, and that would be the end of her. She’d have to leave her job, and then what would become of her father?
Turning her face away so he couldn’t see her expression, she spoke in a false bright tone. ‘Well, I’d better be going. I don’t want to overstay my welcome. Don’t worry about me getting back. I’m a seasoned campaigner when it comes to taking small boats to shore.’
‘You’ll do no such thing,’ Raffa stated firmly. ‘It will be more time efficient to fly back on the helicopter.’
He sounded as if he were solving a minor transport hitch for one of his employees. She’d asked for that—begged for it, by mentioning romantic love, when Raffa couldn’t have made it clearer that that was the last thing he wanted.
She hugged herself close to hide the fact she was shivering as he called up the pilot, to warn him there’d be another flight tonight. Well done, Rose. She’d ruined a perfect evening. Perhaps Raffa was right to keep his feelings in check where she was concerned. Perhaps Rose should try doing the same thing herself. He was already scanning documents on his desk, so she couldn’t see his expression, but she didn’t need to see his face when the tension in his back told its own story. ‘I’ll say goodbye, then...’
Silence. ‘Thank you again for a wonderful evening,’ she tried again. ‘I’ll never forget it—’
‘I’ll never forget you. Rose—’
She almost jumped out of her skin when Raffa swung around. ‘Go,’ he prompted with a glance at the door. ‘You don’t want to be late for your lift.’
Moving restlessly on her cosy bed in her cosy room at the ranch, feeling anything but cosy, Rose knew she had no one to blame but herself. Thanks to Raffa, her birthday celebration had been perfect, and she had to go and spoil it, by trying too hard to unlock him, while selfishly holding back on her own feelings. She wouldn’t know the extent of the damage she’d caused until he returned to the ranch. Waiting only made things worse. Why hadn’t she thought to ask him when he’d be back?
The peal of the phone shook her out of her dismal thoughts, and in one of those rare cosmic moments, she knew who it was. ‘Raffa?’
‘I’ll be home tomorrow.’
Home?He made it sound as if they lived together in an altogether conventional way. How nice would that be?
‘Call a full meeting of grooms for tomorrow at midday in the stable block.’
She shot to attention immediately. ‘Yes—’ He didn’t give her time to ask if he needed anything else, before cutting the line.
