All the color had drained from Roberto’s face. “But—but it was for the company that I did it,” he protested. “I was only following orders.”
Rhys nodded sympathetically. “Of course. You can explain that to the government at your trial.” He rose to his feet and said to Elizabeth, “We’d better be starting back.”
“Wait a minute,” Roberto yelled. “You can’t walk out and leave me like this.”
Rhys said, “I think you’re confused. You’re the one who’s leaving.”
Tumas was mopping his brow again, his lips twitching uncontrollably. He walked over to the window and looked out. A heavy silence hung over the room. Finally, without turning, he said, “If I stay with the company—will I be protected?” “All the way,” Rhys assured him.
They were in the Mercedes, the thin dark chauffeur at the wheel, driving back to the city. “You blackmailed him,” Elizabeth declared.
Rhys nodded. “We couldn’t afford to lose him. He was going over to a competitor. He knows too much about our business. He would have sold us out.”
Elizabeth looked at Rhys and thought, I have so much to learn about him.
That evening they went to Mirander for dinner, and Rhys was charming and amusing and impersonal. Elizabeth felt as though he were hiding behind a facade of words, putting up a verbal smoke screen to conceal his feelings. When they finished dinner, it was after midnight. Elizabeth wanted to be alone with Rhys. She had hoped they would return to the hotel. Instead he said, “I’m going to show you some of the night life in Rio.”
They made the rounds of nightclubs, and everyone seemed to know Rhys. Wherever they went, he was the center of attenion, charming everyone. They were invited to join couples at other tables, and groups of people joined them at their table. Elizabeth and Rhys were never alone for a moment. It seemed to Elizabeth that it was intentional, that Rhys was deliberately putting a wall of people beween them. They had been friends before, and now they were—what? Elizabeth only knew that there was some unseen barrier between them. What was he afraid of and why?
At the fourth nightclub, where they had joined a table with half a dozen of Rhys’s friends, Elizabeth decided she had had enough. She broke into the conversation between Rhys and a lovely-looking Spanish girl. “I haven’t had a chance to dance with my husband. I’m sure you’ll excuse us.”
Rhys looked at her in quick surprise, then rose to his feet. “I’m afraid I’ve been neglecting my bride,” he said lightly to the others. He took Elizabeth’s arm and led her out to the dance floor. She was holding herself stiffly, and he looked at her face and said, “You’re angry.”
He was right, but it was an anger directed at herself. She had made the rules, and was upset now because Rhys would not break them. But it was more than that, of course. It was not knowing how Rhys felt. Was he sticking to their agreement because of a sense of honor, or because he was simply not interested in her? She had to know.
Rhys said, “Sorry about all these people, Liz, but they’re in the business, and in one way or another they can be helpful to us.”
So he was aware of her feelings. She could feel his arms around her, his body against hers. She thought, It feels right. Everything about Rhys was right for her. They belonged together. She knew it. But did he know how much she wanted him? Elizabeth’s pride would not let her tell him. And yet he must feel something. She closed her eyes and pressed closer to him. Time had stopped and there was nothing but the two of them and the soft music and the magic of this moment. She could have gone on dancing forever in Rhys’s arms. She relaxed and gave herself up to him completely and she began to feel his male hardness pressing against her thighs. She opened her eyes and looked up at him and there was something in his eyes she had never seen there before, an urgency, a wanting, that was a reflection of her own.