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in hers.
                 Only
she’d been a comeback queen. It had been grueling to step back in front of the
camera after her recovery and she’d been determined to succeed.
                 Rafael
had been her savior then. He’d taken her away from the madness and the
pressures of the modeling world. He’d become the barrier that her controlling
mother could never break down.
                 He’d
let Leila make her own decisions regarding her career and she had become
strong. She owed him everything—including the truth that burned in her soul.
                 “Rafael
da Souza is without a doubt the most handsome man here,” a ravishing starlet
said, a champagne flute dangling from her jeweled fingers and lust glittering
in her blue eyes that were fixed on him.
                 “I
agree,” Leila managed to say in a controlled tone, her Brazilian blood bitten
with jealousy that this young woman would openly flaunt her desire for Rafael
in front of her! “But then, I’ve always thought he was the most handsome man I’ve
ever met.”
                 “You
know him?” she asked, looking at Leila then.
                 Leila
forced a smile, knowing the second when the actress recognized her. “I’m his
wife.”
                 And
after delivering that statement, Leila walked straight toward her husband. She
lifted a flute of champagne off a tray as Rafael turned to talk to a beautiful
woman who’d just approached him.
                 A
woman whom he seemed glad to see!
                 Leila
downed the fine wine so fast that her head took a dizzying spin. She refused to
rationalize that women threw themselves at Rafael often, for his finely
chiseled features and intense dark eyes were too magnetic for any woman to
resist, including herself. But he was her husband!
                 Her
sting of jealousy was warranted. Wasn’t it?
                 She
wouldn’t sit on the sidelines tonight and watch others flirt with him! God
forbid if he welcomed their attention, as he seemed to be doing now with this
green-eyed beauty at his side.
                 “There
you are,” Leila said in an affected purr as she slipped her arms around his
muscled one, bringing his startled gaze snapping to hers. “I’ve missed you.”
                 His
brows slammed together, then smoothed one trebling pulse later. “Have you now?”
                 “I
thought perhaps you’d give me a tour of the yacht.”
                 “Later,”
he said, and flicked an apologetic look at the other woman.
                 Before
Leila could protest, the woman who’d garnered Rafael’s attention spoke directly
to her. “I’ve admired your work for years. You make modeling look effortless
when I know it is very hard work.”
                 Again
she trotted forth her patent smile when she felt anything but pleasant. Her
head was still in the clouds from drinking two glasses of champagne on a nearly
empty stomach.
                 “Are
you a model?” Leila asked the woman who was as tall as she, enviably lithe and
naturally beautiful with a crown of soft brown curls and arresting jade-green
eyes.
                 “Katie
is a costume designer,” came a deep voice behind her, a voice laced with a
distinct English accent. “An excellent one, I may add.”
                 Leila
whipped around and stared up at the intruder. The bottom fell out of her queasy
stomach as a pair of royal-blue eyes locked on hers.
                 “Nathaniel,”
Leila said, noting that the film star was as tall and broad shouldered as
Rafael. That their family resemblance was further established with features
that were just as finely chiseled.
                 The
look of love Nathaniel and Katie exchanged caught her by surprise. The
celebrated star