Rafael Read online

  Table of Contents

  Rafael (The Castillo Family, #1)

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  Rafael

  The Castillo Family: Follow Rafael, Matteo, Javier and their nephew Santos a billionaire family they made their fortune in the construction business. When it comes to building relationships all their money can't help them when it comes to women who want what money can't buy

  My twin brothers have never been little angels but this time they might have gone too far in crossing Rafael Castillo. Rafael wants them punished to the furthest extent of the law for trespassing and destroying his company's construction site. I can't defend what they did, but I also can't let them go into juvenile detention. All I'm asking for is another chance. But the arrogant, gorgeous billionaire refuses and cuts me down without listening. So I might have started yelling, their might have been bitter accusations on both sides, and I might have lost it and cried. Then somehow I was in his arms.

  The instant lust shocks us both. Yet while I'm more than willing to act on it, Rafael refuses. Until I lie and tell him all I want are the nights in my bedroom. No commitment, no strings, just sex. Only all too soon it's not enough but will we ever make it out of the bedroom or are we doomed to fail?

  ***This is a rewrite of Rafael's Woman. It has been changed from 3rd person to 1st person and there is an additional 12k words.

  Rafael’s Woman/ Rafael

  By Fiona Murphy

  Copyright © 2013 by Fiona Murphy

  All rights reserved

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Cover design by Cheeky Covers

  1

  Carrie

  My eyes are drawn to the antique grandfather clock in the corner of the room. Again. I fight the urge to scream when I calculate I’ve been left waiting for over two hours now. Rafael Castillo is an asshole. This is complete and utter bullshit. He’s doing this as a powerplay, no one has come out of or gone into his office since I sat down. There is no good fucking reason for him to leave me sitting out here. Has he forgotten about me? Is he even going to see me?

  I should just leave. As soon as I think it, I force a deep breath and close my eyes. Don’t think like that. This has to work. It’s too late now to leave. I refuse to let the last two hours be a complete waste of time. Even if I left right this minute and didn’t hit a single light, I wouldn’t make it to my second job waiting tables with enough time to get more than two maybe three table for the evening. Tuesday nights were always dead, if I managed to get five tables the whole evening and make forty dollars it was a miracle. It was the reason my boss hadn’t given me a hard time about coming in late, simply told me to do what I needed to do and come in when I could.

  And I need to do this. I’m not going anywhere until he sees me. I hadn’t been refused by the secretary even though she made it clear when I first sat down that I would have a long wait since I wasn’t scheduled. That’s all this is. Deep breath, thinking calming thoughts because I cannot go in there angry and further antagonize him.

  The secretary smiles as she catches my eye. Over the last hour the woman had gone from chilly toward me to almost polite, even offering coffee or tea almost a half hour ago. I had declined, not wanting to put the woman to any bother. I hate to admit I’m already overwhelmed by the elegant office and middle-aged well-dressed secretary who appeared to be wearing designer clothes. Looking down at the black pants bought for the stretchy give to them in case I went back up in weight, I try to push down my discomfort. The pants had been bought with only cost and comfort for now and maybe gaining back weight I had lost, as I so often have in the past.

  Lately, it’s how I thought when I bought all my clothes at the thrift stores. While I had managed to lose quite a bit of weight in the last few months, there’s always a part of me worried I’ll gain it back—as I have so often in the past. The button-down white blouse is old and soft and a size too big. It’s basically the uniform I wore to waitress, since it’s easy to bleach to keep clean and if it got ruined I wouldn’t cry over the three dollar cost of throwing it away.

  It’s not the best outfit to go into a meeting with a man who owned the fifty-five-story building I’m in. Only I hadn’t known he owned it when I came to talk to him. Finding the building had been easy, Castillo Construction had been on the outside of the building. It wasn’t until I was inside being vetted by the security desk that I found out the whole building was owned by the company.

  Trying to be blasé, I undo the ponytail I kept my hair in most days. My long blonde hair is one of my best features. Even though it hasn’t been professionally cut in almost a year, I still frequently get compliments on it. I need as much help as I can get to feel a little better about myself. Trust my brothers to fuck up against a company of this scale.

  Not for the first time I want to strangle the twins. I love them, I do. It doesn’t stop me from wishing they weren’t out of control, smartass heathens who had become a constant drain on my patience, money, and sanity in the last two years. I don’t know if it’s that they’re now teenagers or what the move from Austin to Fort Worth but I’m slowly feeling like I’m losing them. It’s gotten to the point I had our neighbor come over to babysit them for the evening. Even though they are fourteen years old and shouldn’t need one; I no longer trust them anymore to be left to their own anymore.

  “Ms. Whitney, Mr. Castillo will see you now. Just go in.” The husky voiced secretary says with a smile. Giving the woman a weak smile of thanks, I stand and cross the room.

  Opening the door, it moves without a sound. The man behind the desk is on the phone with his attention on one of two computer monitors. He is speaking Spanish. It’s rapid fire yet almost melodic, the sound of it sends the hair on the back of my neck up. He has the sexiest voice I’ve ever heard. Deep and smooth with a hint of smoke, it rumbles out of him. I wonder what it would be like to have him whisper in my ear. Shock hits me, where the heck had that thought come from?

  Desperately, I try to banish the thought by focusing on the man rather than the voice but that only makes it worse. Because Holy shit, he is gorgeous. His eyes meet mine and the ground shifts beneath my feet. My chest clenches tight as my stomach drops. Every cell awakens, vibrating with electricity in reaction, in expectation...of what I don’t know.

  He blinks, breaking the connection. I shiver from the loss even as I’m desperately trying to figure out what just happened, what is still happening as I fight take in air to lungs I only just now realize are starving for it. With his attention back on the computer monitor it gives me free reign to take all of him in.

  A sigh escapes me...it’s all his fault. The man is stunning, gorgeous. If I saw a picture of him, I wouldn’t have believed it was real. I would have bet money he was airbrushed. No way could a man be as beautiful as he is in real life. His skin is a light caramel stretched tight over a stern brow deep with lines. A hawkish nose and cheekbones sharp enough to cut diamonds fit the strong jaw covered in a beard I resent for covering up his face. Yet the beard and mustache perfectly frame his mouth. It makes sense his mouth is as sexy as his voice, thick molded lips, with a bottom lip I long to suck deep on...okay, what the fuck is the matter with me? I’ve never sucked any man’s lip before so why the hell do I want to do that to him?

  He tilts his head as he speaks and the silver at his temples catches the light. Thick, in
ky black hair glows with silver at his temples. How fitting it’s silver because gray is far too boring for him. I wonder how old he is. Although the frown lines are deep they don’t detract from his appeal in the slightest. And why aren’t his laugh lines deep? Is he one of those eternally grumpy people?

  I tighten my purse across the front of me as if in protection. I don’t dare take the seat in front of his desk until he tells me to. Pulling my eyes from him is harder than I want it to be. How freaking embarrassing, this was so not the time for my long-forgotten libido to come surging to life. Besides, a man who looked like him wouldn’t be interested in me. At the sound of the phone crashing into the base, my head goes up.

  “Mrs. Whitney, please have a seat.” His accent is so faint it’s startling after the flood of Spanish he had spoken.

  “Thank you and it’s Ms., Mr. Castillo.” It’s obvious he doesn’t like the correction. Crap, I don’t want to annoy him. Sitting, I force a weak smile. “I want to thank you for taking the time to meet with me today. I understand you’re busy. I’m here about Riley and Elliott Turner. I want to apologize about what they did. We will pay for the damage done. I’m pleading with you to drop the charges.”

  His frown has my stomach flipping a dozen times.

  “I’m not going to lie to you and tell you they are good boys and don’t deserve to pay for what they did. Obviously, if they were good they wouldn’t have broken into your worksite and vandalized and damaged it. They know perfectly well it was wrong and did it anyway. They’re bored and unchallenged young boys. I’m willing to admit they are hovering on the wrong path but if they go to juvenile detention I’ve heard it will send them down that path and I won’t get them back.”

  I work to take a deep breath as his frown deepens. Those hazel eyes are hard, unfeeling. His jaw tightens and I long to find out how it would feel beneath my fingertips. Oh god, knock it off and focus. Dropping my eyes to his chest doesn’t help. His chest is so wide, despite the cut to fit silk suit his muscles are easily discernable as with every breath he takes they ripple impressively. Normally, muscular men scare me. Yet an ache is building low within me at the idea of finding out what his muscles feel like beneath my hands. Stop it, damn it. Get it together.

  Unease at his lack of response spurs me on. “This is my fault, I had to move them from Austin to Fort Worth when I lost my job. They were in advanced classes and kept busy there. Since we moved here, I haven’t been able to get them enrolled into a good school. They haven’t been challenged and are bored and looking for trouble. Over the summer I used to enroll them in math and science camps. This year I didn’t have the money. I’ll make sure they are punished. Please don’t press charges.”

  Leaning back, he studies me intently. I’m hoping he doesn’t see the way my body is responding. Those eyes are as heavy as a touch. A touch my body likes, my breasts are swelling and my nipples tightening with need. I fight not blush as wet heat builds at the apex of my thighs. This is so unfair because he appears completely unaffected.

  “Ms. Whitney, your children are ill-behaved savages. How exactly are you going to pay for over three hundred thousand dollars in damages if you can’t afford to send them to a camp to keep them busy?”

  “Thr—three hundred thousand dollars?” The words stutter out of me.

  Dark eyebrows go up. “Did you really not know? For once since you started speaking you seem sincere. They damaged one of the CATs on site and trashed the construction trailer. It was not simply vandalization, they destroyed. I think juvenile detention is the best place for them, lest they get bored again and go after something else or heaven forbid someone else.”

  Still reeling from the amount of money he’s talking about and the insults he’s throwing at me, I fight to keep from exploding in anger. “They are not my children. Elliott and Riley are my little brothers. I’m doing the best I can on my own. I had no idea the damage was that high. I am very sincere in taking blame for what they have done. I wouldn’t be here if I weren’t.”

  The louder I get the more still he becomes. His words are scarily quiet and cold, without inflection, almost robotic. “You are here to keep them from facing the consequences of their actions and looking bad as they are in your care. Maybe they should be with their mother and father instead. They would have a better ability than one as young as yourself to handle them. You have fallen short of what they need.”

  The words are a slap across my face. I close my eyes at the pain those words cause. He’s right. He is saying what I have been thinking for months. I’m failing them, my best wasn’t good enough. The platitudes of love being all that mattered were meaningless when it came to raising two young teens too smart for their own good. They were going to end up in jail or worse, just like their father.

  I want to cry and scream the room down, this wasn’t fair. Only it wouldn’t matter, life wasn’t fair, I learned that lesson long ago. “Our mother is dead. Their father is in prison for killing her. The twins were there when it happened, only six years old they knew enough to call the police because he’d beaten her badly a few times before. The two of them got to sit there with her while she bled to death.”

  The words are ripped from my throat. I fight to blink back tears. I don’t want him to see me cry. I know he’ll see it as an attempt to manipulate or even worse, a weakness. This was a mistake, a waste of time. I need to get out of here, before I completely lose it. “I’m sorry to have bothered you.”

  Turning away, blind from tears. I go right into a wall of muscle covered in soft silk.

  “It’s okay, it’s going to be okay. I’m sorry, so sorry.” His voice is low, close to my ear. I shiver as his hot breath slides down my neck

  His hard body against mine sends electricity coursing through every cell inside me. The current is so strong it’s almost painful. And yet everything inside me is begging for more, for this to never end. This isn’t me. I don’t ask for help. I don’t cry. All I want to do is cling to him and let him shelter me from the world outside. The thought shocks me so much I struggle in his arms, afraid to give into the weakness.

  Rafael’s arms tighten around me and god forgive me I melt into him. In his arms I’m safe. Everything will be okay, I believe him. Beneath my ear, I can hear his heart pounding steady and sure. His large hand slides up and down my back soothingly as he whispers something in Spanish. I attempt to apologize, feeling like I should say something. A sob comes out instead. Embarrassed, I bury my face in his chest.

  “It’s alright, cry. It’s okay, it all needs to come out.”

  ***

  Rafael

  Christ, it’s heaven and hell holding Carrie Whitney in my arms as she cries. I deserve every bit of the hell for making her cry. I truly had not meant to. My anger wasn’t because of her brothers and what they had done. The anger came because I resented the fuck out of her for making me hard the moment she walked through the door. It’s never happened to me before in my life, getting hard at the sight of a woman. At least not a woman who wasn’t mostly undressed.

  With one look my entire damn body ached and my cock raged to be inside her. Thank fuck I had been speaking Spanish, which she obviously hadn’t understood, with one of my construction site leaders. I had lost all train of thought and had to ask him to repeat himself, twice. Studying her, as I barely heard the man, second by second my entire body grew harder until I was in pain.

  The instant attraction makes no sense. I like my women tall, brunettes, and with a certain level of sophistication. Women who were polished and had experience in no strings relationships—the only kind of relationship I have—were the kind of women I usually was drawn to. Carrie is none of those things.

  Yet Carrie Whitney is beautiful, undeniably so. Her face is a classic oval with high, round cheekbones. A long thin nose is set above a wide, achingly soft mouth. Every feature on her face is without a single flaw but her eyes pulled the breath from me. Big and round they are the most captivating sapphire blue I’ve ever seen. They
are also startling expressive, lightening and darkening in a flash. The need to know how they would look at the moment I was inside her hit me hard.

  As beautiful as she is, her body alone would stir the cock of a saint and I’m no saint. Carrie’s body is pure sin. She is small, maybe five foot five, or five six with the curves of an old-fashioned pop bottle. High, round breasts that swayed with her deep, gasping breath tortured me. My hands are itching to strip her bare of the ugly, tired clothes she is wearing. Never have I experienced such a strong, instant attraction to any woman. And like the asshole I am, I resented and blamed her for it.

  Anger fired through me at the way her eyes went wide at the sight of me, she had been unable to hide her attraction to me. I was certain it was a way of trading on her sexy, lush body. Even as I wondered how much it would cost me and for how long I could enjoy her, irritation at the idea of her trading herself filled me. Until she blushed like a teenager, pink flooding round cheeks then washing all the way down her neck screamed she had no damn experience in trading her body for anything. Except maybe a fumbling moron who bought her dinner and whispered pretty words. I would do neither, it’s not who I am. Which made lusting after Carrie Whitney a bad idea and a waste of time. I don’t do bad ideas and I never waste time.

  My cock wouldn’t listen though, the bastard wanted her. My mouth watered at the idea of tasting her small, pouty mouth, my hands itched to learn the curves the hideous blouse did nothing to hide. Now that she’s in my arms, I’m damned all to hell because I don’t want to let her go. Holding her is even better than I imagined it would be. Her curves fit against me perfectly, and my cock is dripping to be inside her. All I want to do is strip her naked, drag her down to the carpet where we stand, and get lost in her body.

  Her tears should soften my dick, they don’t. And I hate myself for it. I should be ashamed for causing her tears, and fuck I am. I’m also grateful it allowed me to get her in my arms. Nothing else on this earth would have made this moment happen. I’ve made women cry before, it rarely affected me. Especially when I was sure it was simply an attempt to manipulate the situation. But with Carrie, it does something to me that I do not recognize. I may be asshole, however, I’m not cruel. I do not hit out at those who are weaker than me. Only today I had, and I hate myself for it.