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One More Sleepless Night
Lucy King
It used to be Nicky Sinclair’s nightmares which kept her up all night; those 3 am silences were her worst enemy. So now she’s following doctor’s orders – rest, relaxation and plenty of therapeutic Spanish sunshine.Only she hasn’t counted on sharing her tranquil retreat with her best friend’s brother Rafael, whose presence is anything but peaceful! With his beguiling eyes and smouldering smile, he quickly becomes a very welcome distraction.After all, if she’s struggling to sleep, why not find something else to do with her time..?!


She’s going to take her life back…one sizzling night at a time!
It used to be Nicky Sinclair’s nightmares that kept her up all night; those 3:00 a.m. silences were her worst enemy. So now she’s following doctor’s orders—rest, relaxation and plenty of therapeutic Spanish sunshine.
Only she hasn’t counted on sharing her tranquil retreat with her best friend’s brother, Rafael, whose presence is anything but peaceful! With his beguiling eyes and smoldering smile, he quickly becomes a very welcome distraction. After all, if she’s struggling to sleep, why not find something else to do with her time…?
“So what plans do you have next?”
He asked the question ignoring the little voice inside his head demanding to know where he thought he was going with this, because she might not really be over it and she might need looking after, but he definitely wasn’t the sort of person who should be getting involved.
She lifted her eyebrows. “You mean beyond some more of that lovely, restorative sex?”
“Beyond that.”
She blinked and shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m not very good at living beyond the present.”
“Well, I’m at a loose end… You’re at a loose end… What would you say to tying our loose ends together for a while?”
She lifted her eyebrows then grinned. “I’d say does that line really work?”
Rafael frowned because oddly enough it hadn’t been a line. “I have no idea. You tell me.”
Dear Reader,
Ah, southern Spain… What is it about that part of the country that’s so enthralling? Is it the sultry strains of the Spanish guitar drifting through the breeze of a warm summer’s night? The gunfire tap of a flamenco dancer’s heels on the dusty floorboards of a dark, crowded bar? The desert-dry sherry and the mouthwatering tapas? Or is it the tall, dark, handsome men?
I’ve been living and working in the southwest corner of Andalusia since 2005 and I’ve come to think it’s all of that (and much, much more).
As, eventually, does Nicky Sinclair, the heroine of One More Sleepless Night. Okay, so in the beginning she’s in too much of a mess to appreciate all the charms of Andalusia, but as she begins to sort herself out she finds herself succumbing. And she might be in too much of a mess initially to appreciate the considerable charms of Rafael Montero (one of the aforementioned tall, dark and handsome Spaniards), but in the end she finds herself succumbing to those, as well!
I loved being able to draw on such local inspiration for the setting of this story and letting my imagination work with the wonderful smells, sights and sounds of the place I call home.
What’s even more exciting is that this is my first book for Harlequin KISS, a line so contemporary, fun and sassy I can’t wait to write more! I do hope you enjoy reading it.
x Lucy
One More
Sleepless Night
Lucy King

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ABOUT LUCY KING
Lucy King spent her formative years lost in the world of romance novels when she really ought to have been paying attention to her teachers. Up against sparkling heroines, gorgeous heroes and the magic of falling in love, trigonometry and ablative absolutes didn’t stand a chance.
But as she couldn’t live in a dream world forever, she eventually acquired a degree in languages and an eclectic collection of jobs. A stroll to the River Thames one Saturday morning led her to her very own hero. The minute she laid eyes on the hunky rower getting out of a boat, clad only in Lycra and carrying a three-meter oar as if it was a toothpick, she knew she’d met the man she was going to marry. Luckily the rower thought the same.
She will always be grateful to whatever it was that made her stop dithering and actually sit down to type Chapter One, because dreaming up her own sparkling heroines and gorgeous heroes is pretty much her idea of the perfect job.
Originally a Londoner, Lucy now lives in Spain, where she spends much of the time reading, failing to finish cryptic crosswords and trying to convince herself that lying on the beach really is the best way to work. Visit her at www.lucykingbooks.com (http://www.lucykingbooks.com).
This and other titles by Lucy King are available in ebook format—check out www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
For Emma
Contents
Chapter One (#ub8be73fc-e258-591c-bd8e-6595a1b272d3)
Chapter Two (#u37e41140-0012-5d47-a39f-331884911140)
Chapter Three (#u5e8132bb-ec09-578f-b130-5c2de121dc46)
Chapter Four (#u93ed4380-403e-53a5-ac92-3df7e2d74432)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Excerpt (#litres_trial_promo)
ONE (#ueaad1282-6885-5b47-b094-8ea4fdcc02b7)
There was someone in the house.
With the slam of the front door ringing in her ears, Nicky sat bolt upright in bed, her heart hammering like a pneumatic drill, alarm racing along her veins and her fingers gripping the edges of her book so tightly her knuckles were white.
A couple of seconds ago she’d been lying back against the pillows, happily lost in the romantic world of Don Quijote. She’d been trotting across the dry deserted plains of La Mancha in search of knight errantry and adventure, and vaguely contemplating the intoxicating notion that for the first time in weeks she might actually be beginning to relax.
Then the door had slammed and she’d hurtled back to reality. All thoughts of fighting off imaginary giants had shattered. Any hope of tilting at windmills had evaporated. The sense of relaxation had vanished, and now every instinct she had was alert and quivering and one hundred per cent focused on the fact that there was someone in the house.
And not someone she knew, she thought, her brain galloping through the facts as her blood chilled and a cold sweat broke out all over her skin.
Because as much as she’d like to believe otherwise, there was no way the heavy footsteps stamping over the rough flagstones of the hall and echoing off the walls could possibly belong to Ana, the pint-sized housekeeper. Or Maria, the laid-back cook. Or any of the other staff employed on the estate for that matter. Some of them might be big and burly enough to possess a tread like the one now heading up the stairs, but none of them would be in this part of the house at this time of night.
No one was, apart from her.
And, of course, whoever it was who’d reached the landing, dropped something that hit the floor with a thud and was now striding down the long wide corridor towards her room.
Nicky’s heart hammered even more fiercely and her blood roared in her ears as it struck her that the footsteps were getting louder. Closer. That any minute now they’d stop, he’d be at her door, the handle would turn and—
Images of what might happen then slammed into her head, vivid and terrifying, and as the alarm rushing around her turned to full-blown panic she started to shake. Her vision blurred, her breath stuck in her throat and she went dizzy, and her heart was now beating so hard and fast it felt as if it were about to burst from her chest.
She was a split second from passing out, she realised foggily, and then the panic exploded inside her because if she did pass out then she’d be toast.
And she really didn’t want to be toast. She didn’t want not to be able to find out whether she might actually be able to sort out the mess her life had become. She’d waited too long. Suffered too much. Tried too hard...
So no, she told herself, struggling through the haze in her head and battling back the panic. No way was she giving up now and no way was she fainting.
Dredging up strength from who knew where and taking a series of deep breaths, Nicky determinedly reined in her spiralling-out-of-control imagination and willed her heart rate to slow because she really had to calm down.
Now was not the time to lose it. Now was the time for cool assessment and a plan, because, regardless of what might lie in store for her, she was damned if she was going to let whoever it was get his grubby hands on her precious camera. Even if it had been sitting in a cupboard and gathering dust for the last few months.
Besides, she’d been in situations far more hazardous than this and had escaped at least physically unscathed so why should this be the one to get the better of her?
The most important question right now therefore was: what was she going to do? Simply lying here, frozen still and quivering with panic, wasn’t going to get her anywhere, was it? Nor was dithering. No, it was time for action.
Allowing the instincts that had served her so well for so long to take over Nicky raced through the options. Options that weren’t all that abundant, she had to admit, but never mind. She only needed one to work with and—aha!—now she had it. And in the nick of time, it seemed, because the footsteps had slowed right down and were a fraction of a second from stopping altogether.
Setting her jaw and clutching the book even tighter, she thanked God she’d picked an unabridged and illustrated copy of Don Quijote for her bedtime reading—which came in at a whopping thousand pages and weighed a ton—and silently slid from the bed.
* * *
What a week.
Striding down the corridor towards the sliver of light that shone from beneath the door at the end of it, Rafael rubbed a weary hand over his face and stifled a yawn.
He didn’t think he’d ever had one like it, and frankly he’d be happy never to experience one like it again, because he couldn’t remember a time when the muscles in his body hadn’t ached or when his nerves hadn’t been wound so tightly, let alone the last good night’s sleep he’d had.
The crippling exhaustion could be attributed fairly and squarely to the merger he’d been working on recently and which had finally gone through this morning. It was a deal that had required delicate negotiation, tactful management, endless patience and long, long days at the office. All of which, of course, he’d been happy to handle. He was used to it, and sorting out other people’s problems with their businesses was what he did best.
What he hadn’t been so happy to have to deal with, however, and what was causing the unbearable tension in his nerves, were the myriad demands that the women in his life had chosen to unleash on him over the last few days.
Firstly, Elisa, the woman he’d been dating but had finished with a fortnight ago, had pitched up at his office the day before yesterday apparently unable to accept they were over. Despite the fact that he’d repeatedly pointed out he’d never promised her anything more than a casual fling, she’d been convinced she could change his mind, and the set of her jaw and the look in her eye had told him that no matter what he did or said she wasn’t going to give up easily, as her subsequent battery of phone calls had proved.
Too busy and too knackered to deal with a full-on showdown right then and there, Rafael had sighed, muttered something about discussing it another time, and had eventually pacified her enough to bundle her out and send her on her way.
He’d barely got over that confrontation when his mother had been on the phone complaining about the fact that his father was once again holed up in his study and showed no signs of emerging. She’d demanded Rafael do something about it, although quite what she’d expected him to do he had no idea, because for one thing when his father retreated there was no shifting him, and for another he’d never paid his son any attention before so why would he start now?
When he’d eventually prised out the reason behind his father’s withdrawal—the flap his mother was getting in over the organisation of a charity ball months away—he’d told her he could quite understand why his father had locked himself in his study, and that if it were him he wouldn’t emerge until the night of the ball was long gone. At which point his mother had hung up on him in a fit of pique.
Then hot on the heels of that phone call, his eldest sister had invited him to a dinner party she was holding tomorrow night, which he suspected she’d engineered for the sole purpose of lining him up with one of her many single friends.
Rafael did not need help with his love-life, as Lola was well aware, but she’d inexplicably made it her life’s mission to see him hitched again. Which was a thoroughly futile exercise because he had no intention of ever remarrying, especially not to any of his sister’s friends, given the traumatic mess it had caused the last time he’d tried it. Once was quite enough, as he’d told her on countless occasions, but Lola had an infuriating habit of brushing him aside with a dismissive wave of her hand, and it was getting to the stage where if she didn’t back off he might well lose it.
By the time his youngest sister, Gabriela, had begun her relentless onslaught of phone calls and emails, in the interests of self-preservation Rafael had made the snap decision to ignore her and everyone else, and flee the madness that was temporarily defining his life.
Whatever Gaby wanted it could wait, he’d assured himself, jumping into his car and telling his driver to make for the airport via a quick detour to his flat for a suitcase, then hopping on his plane and heading south.
He’d done the right thing by escaping, he told himself now. He’d known it the second he’d got out of his car a couple of minutes ago and for a moment had just stood there in the inky velvet of the night, listening to the blessed silence, breathing in the scent of earth and jasmine as the dry heat wrapped itself around him, and feeling some of the excruciating tension gripping his muscles ease.
Quite apart from probably collapsing with exhaustion, if he’d stayed in Madrid the usually strong bonds of filial and fraternal affection might well have snapped, so he refused to feel even a pinprick of guilt at disappearing without a word. His mother and sisters would survive perfectly well without him for a week or two. And as for his father, well, over the years he’d proved eminently capable of looking after himself by burying himself in his beloved books whenever there was a sudden surge of emotion about the place, as was being demonstrated by his current study sit-in.
So no. No guilt, he told himself, stopping at the door, wrapping his hand round the handle and turning it. He deserved a break. He needed one. All he wanted was a week or two of peace and quiet at the vineyard he’d had no option but to neglect for the last few months. He wanted long early morning walks among the vines and endless lazy afternoons drinking wine by the pool. He wanted rest and relaxation. Fresh air and sun and, above all, solitude. Was that really too much to ask?
Rafael opened the door a fraction to reach in and flip the switch he presumed had been left on by mistake, and his last coherent thought as the door slammed back, as something struck him hard in the temple, as pain detonated in his head and everything went dark inside as well as out, was that evidently it was.
* * *
Yes!
With a heady mix of adrenalin and triumph racing through her, Nicky heard the intruder groan, watched him stagger back in the shadowy darkness, and blew out the breath she’d been holding for what felt like hours.
Hah. That would teach whoever it was that she was not to be messed with. That she might be in a bit of a state at the moment, that she might be out here miles from anywhere and practically all alone, but that she was far from defenceless.
Her attack-being-the-best-form-of-defence plan had been an excellent one, and with the element of surprise on her side he hadn’t stood a chance.
Still didn’t by the looks of things, she thought with a surge of satisfaction as he swayed to one side, hit the door frame and, with a torrent of angry Spanish, ricocheted off it.
Oh, he didn’t sound at all happy, but Nicky ignored the urge to wince and refused to feel guilty at the thought she might have done him some real damage because why should she when she was the potential victim here?
Not that she felt particularly victimish right now. In fact she’d never felt more victorious, which, after weeks of feeling nothing but listless, desperate and hopeless was very definitely something to be tucked away and analysed.
Although that analysis might have to wait until later, she thought, the satisfaction zapping through her slowly dissipating. Because with hindsight maybe her strategy hadn’t been quite as brilliant as she’d thought.
He was filling the doorway and therefore blocking her only means of escape, and now, judging by the way he was giving his head a quick shake and straightening, he was making an alarmingly speedy recovery.
Her stomach churned with renewed panic as her mind raced all over again. Oh, heavens. If she wanted to leg it and make it to safety she was going to have to administer a second blow. One that would this time fell him like a tree and incapacitate him for the few minutes she’d need to clamber over him and run.
With barely a thought for the consequences and focused solely on survival, Nicky channelled every drop of adrenalin, every ounce of aggression she possessed, and raised the book again.
But before she could slam it down, he hit the switch, lunged forwards and grabbed her. Stunned by the sudden brightness of the light and by the sheer force of the bulk that crashed into her, Nicky let out a shriek and lost her balance.
As if in slow motion she felt herself go down. Felt her assailant follow her. Felt a large hand clamp onto the back of her head and a strong arm snap round her back. She heard the thud of the book as it landed on the carpet and wondered vaguely what she was going to do for a weapon now.
After what seemed like hours but could only have been a second, she hit the floor. Her breath shot from her lungs. Her vision blurred, her head swam and her entire body went numb. For a few endless moments the only thing she could hear was the thundering of her heart and a weird kind of roaring in her ears.
And then the dizziness ebbed and the shock faded and as feeling returned she became aware of the warm ragged breath on her cheek. Of the hammering of a heart against her chest. And of the very considerable weight half lying on top of her, crushing the breath from her lungs, pressing her into the floor and showing no signs of shifting.
Or of anything for that matter, she realised dazedly, which meant that she had the advantage and she had to use it. Now.
Preparing to knee him where it would really hurt and hoping that that might succeed where Don Quijote had failed, Nicky glanced up to get a good look at the man she’d need to describe to the police.
And froze, her leg bent slightly at the knee and her hands flat against the hard muscles of his shoulders.
She stared up into the face hovering inches above hers, up at the dark-as-night hair, the thickly lashed, startlingly green eyes, the deep tan and that mouth, all so exquisitely put together, the face she’d seen countless times in the photos on Gaby’s mantelpiece—although admittedly never in its current furious state—and her breath shot from her lungs all over again. Only this time in one shuddery, horrified gasp.
The triumph vanished. The satisfaction disappeared. The thundering adrenalin and mind- scrambling panic evaporated in a puff of smoke. And in their wake came a flood of red-hot mortification.
Because, oh, dear God...
As unlikely as it seemed, and despite the fact that she’d been assured he was in Madrid and would never show up at the estate he’d lately abandoned, she’d just brained her host.
TWO (#ueaad1282-6885-5b47-b094-8ea4fdcc02b7)
What the—?
With all the breath knocked from his lungs slowly returning, Rafael stared down at the figure sprawled beneath him barely able to believe his eyes.
This was the person responsible for the pain splintering his head apart and the juddering agony shooting up his arms from his wrists to his shoulders? This... This...woman?
Judging by the force of the blow he’d received he’d been expecting a six foot plus chunk of man, armed with a crowbar and sporting a balaclava at the very least, which was why he’d retaliated so vigorously and lunged.
He would never in a million years have guessed that his assailant would turn out to be a woman probably two-thirds his size. Or that she’d have the long dark wavy hair that was fanning out over his hand and the floor and the big blue-grey eyes that were widening with shock and alarm and horror. And he’d never have imagined that she’d be half naked.
Yet unless the thwack to his head was making him hallucinate, it appeared that, what with the long limbs entangled with his and the feel of her silky hair and soft skin beneath his hands, that was exactly the case.
Cross with himself for even noticing what she looked like and what she was—or wasn’t—wearing when it couldn’t have been less relevant, Rafael scowled, and since that made the pounding in his head worse he let out a rough curse. He felt as if someone were drilling a hole through his skull while repeatedly punching him in the stomach.
He hurt. Everywhere.
As must she, given that he was lying on top of her and probably crushing the life out of her, he thought, hearing her muffled groan.
She released his shoulders, let her knee drop and clapped one hand over her eyes, and he eased his arms away from underneath her, rolled off and lay back flat out on the floor. He closed his eyes and breathed in deeply in an effort to stifle the pain and try and make some kind of sense of the last couple of minutes, but it didn’t work because none of this made any sense at all.
‘Oh, my God,’ said his assailant, her voice sounding hoarse with appal and breathlessness, and very English. ‘I’m so so sorry. I had no idea... Are you OK?’
OK? Rafael wasn’t sure he’d ever be OK again. If anything, the pain in his head was getting worse. What on earth had she lamped him with? Surely not just a fist. If that was all it had taken he was in a worse state than he’d imagined.
‘Rafael?’ This time her voice was lower, softer, more concerned. Sexier, he thought, and got a bit sidetracked by the image of the two of them lying not on a cold hard stone floor but a soft warm bed, wearing considerably less clothing, with that voice whispering hot filthy things in his ear.
And then she gave him a decidedly unsexy little slap on the cheek.
Rafael flinched as the erotic vision vanished, and refocused. God, she’d just attacked him and he was fantasising about her? What was his problem?
And what was her problem? Wasn’t practically knocking him out enough? Had she really had to slap him too? What did she have lined up next? A methodical and thorough assault of his entire body?
Vaguely wondering what he’d ever done to womankind to deserve this torment on top of everything else he’d had to endure lately, he gingerly opened his eyes.
And saw stars all over again because she was on her knees, leaning over him, and he was getting an eyeful of creamy cleavage. So close he could make out a spatter of faint freckles on the skin of her upper chest. So close he could smell the delicate floral notes of her scent. So tantalisingly close all he’d have to do was lift his head a handful of centimetres and he’d be able to nuzzle her neck.
At the thought of that, his mouth watered, a wave of heat struck him square in the stomach and for the first time since she’d hit him he forgot about the pain throbbing away in his temple. The image of the two of them in that bed slammed back into his head, more vivid than before now that he had more detail to add, and he blinked at the intensity of it.
‘Thank God,’ she murmured, letting out a shaky breath, which made her chest jiggle and his pulse spike. ‘Are you all right?’
How he managed it he had no idea but Rafael made himself drag his gaze up and look into her eyes. Eyes that were filled with worry, set in a face that was pale and, he thought, letting his gaze roam over it, perhaps a bit thinner than it ought to be.
There was nothing thin about her mouth, however, he decided, staring at it and going momentarily dizzy as a fresh burst of heat shot through him. Her mouth was wide and generous and very very appealing, especially what with the way she’d caught the edge of her lower lip between her teeth and was nibbling at it.
‘Ow,’ he muttered, forcing himself to remember the faint sting of the slap because the alternative was yanking her down and giving in to the temptation to nibble on that lip himself, which was so insanely inappropriate given the circumstances that he wondered if the blow to his head might not have done him a serious injury.
‘I’m sorry—again—but I thought you’d passed out.’
‘I’m fine,’ he said, although actually nothing could be further from the truth, because now he was imagining that mouth moving over his, then pulling away and sliding over his skin, hot and wet and sizzling, and the throbbing in his head was breaking loose and rushing down his body with such speed and force that he had the horrible feeling that when it got to his groin he might do exactly as she’d feared and pass out.
He lifted his hand to his temple and touched it, as much to see if she’d drawn blood as to find out whether deliberately and brutally provoking pain might dampen the maddening heat.
‘Do you think you might be concussed? Should I get help?’
‘No, and no,’ he said irritably because while on the upside she hadn’t on the downside it didn’t.
‘Let me take a look.’
Before he could stop her she’d leaned down and reached across him and was now sifting her fingers through his hair. Her breasts brushed against his chest, then hovered perilously close to his mouth, and the heat churning through him exploded into an electrifying bolt of lust.
God, what the hell was this? he wondered, bewilderment ricocheting around his brain. Since when had he reacted so violently to a woman he’d barely met? And since when had he had to fight so hard to keep a grip on his supposedly rock-solid self-control?
‘Leave it,’ he snapped and wrapped his hand round her wrist to stop her going any further.
To his relief she went still, then frowned and, as he let her go, mercifully straightened and sat back. ‘Well, if you’re sure.’
Rafael hitched in a breath, briefly closed his eyes and ordered himself to get a grip before he embarrassed himself. ‘I’m sure.’
With what felt like superhuman effort he levered himself upright and set about engaging the self-control he’d never had such trouble with before. He drew his feet up to hide the very visible evidence of the effect she’d had on him, rested his elbows on his knees, and began to rub the kinks out of his neck with both hands. He let out a deep sigh. So much for peace, tranquillity and nice quiet solitude.
‘I really am sorry, you know,’ she said, her voice sounding rather small.
‘So you said.’
‘I thought you were a burglar.’
‘If I was, I wouldn’t be a very good one,’ he muttered, remembering the way he’d slammed the front door and thundered up the stairs in his haste to crash out and wipe the last week from his brain. ‘I wasn’t exactly subtle.’
‘Well, no,’ she admitted, ‘but at the time a cool, logical analysis of the situation wasn’t uppermost in my mind. I acted on instinct.’
And how he’d suffered for it. Her instincts were so dangerous they should come with a warning.
As should that body. Because she might have backed off but she was still far too close for his comfort. She was now kneeling beside him and sitting back on her heels and her smooth bare thighs were within stroking distance. At the thought of sliding his hands up her legs, his fingers itched and he dug them just that little bit harder into his neck.
‘The next time I come across a closed door,’ he said, setting his jaw and trying not to think about silky thighs and itching fingers, ‘I’ll knock.’
She nodded. ‘Probably a good idea.’
‘All I thought I was doing was simply switching off a light that had been left on by accident. Who knew helping the environment could be so lethal?’ He glanced at the book lying innocently on the floor behind her and frowned. ‘What the hell did you hit me with?’
‘Don Quijote,’ she said, wincing and going pink.
That would certainly account for the bruise he could feel swelling at his temple. ‘I always thought that book was utterly deadly,’ he said darkly, ‘but I never thought I’d ever mean literally.’
‘You were supposed to be in Madrid.’
At the faint accusatory tone of her voice his eyebrows shot up. ‘Are you suggesting that this,’ he said, breaking off from massaging his neck to indicate his head, ‘is somehow my fault?’
She frowned. ‘Well, no,’ she said, sounding a bit more contrite and biting on that damn lip again. ‘But if you’d been expected I imagine Ana would have warned me and then I’d have been listening out for you instead of attacking you.’ And then she lifted her chin and pulled her shoulders up and back, which did nothing to help his resolution to keep his eyes off her chest. ‘Were you expected?’
No, his decision to come down here had been uncharacteristically on the spur of the moment, and with hindsight that might have been a mistake, but that wasn’t the point. Rafael arched an eyebrow and threw her a look that had quelled many a thick-headed CEO. ‘I wasn’t aware I needed to be.’
‘No, of course you don’t,’ she said, flushing a bit deeper. ‘It’s your house. Sorry.’
And that was the third time tonight she appeared to be one step ahead of him, he thought with a stab of annoyance. In addition to taking him by surprise earlier, she apparently knew his name and that this was his house. Whereas he knew nothing about her apart from the fact that she was probably British, looked incredibly hot in her skimpy T-shirt and knickers and had skin and hair that felt like silk beneath his hands. The latter two of which, he reminded himself for the dozenth time, weren’t in the slightest bit relevant.
Giving himself a mental slap, Rafael pulled himself together. He’d had quite enough of being on the back foot for one evening. Quite enough of having his nice ordered life being thrown into increasing disarray. It was high time he asserted some kind of control over this particular situation at the very least, and focused on what was important.
‘You’re right,’ he said coolly as he fixed her with his most penetrating stare. ‘So perhaps you wouldn’t mind telling me who you are and what you’re doing here.’
She blinked at him for a moment or two, then gave him a tentative smile. ‘Well, I’m Nicky.’
She said it as if it should have been obvious, and Rafael frowned. ‘Nicky?’
‘Sinclair.’
He racked his brains for a spark of recognition but came up with nothing. ‘Is that supposed to mean something?’
‘I was rather hoping so.’
‘It doesn’t.’ He was pretty sure he didn’t know any Nickys, Sinclair or otherwise, and equally sure he didn’t want to if they were anything like this one.
‘Oh.’
Her smile faded and something tugged at his chest. Rafael ignored it and concentrated on his original line of questioning. ‘And what are you doing in my house?’
‘I’m here on holiday.’
His eyebrows shot up. Since when had the cortijo been open to visitors other than his family? ‘On holiday?’
‘That’s right.’
‘How long have you been here?’
‘Two days.’
‘And how long were you planning to stay?’
She shrugged then looked uneasy. ‘Well, I don’t know. I hadn’t really thought.’
Hmm. He really ought to have made more of an effort to come down here over the last few months, tricky merger or no tricky merger. In the five years he’d had the place he’d generally managed to make it down once a month, but lately he’d been so tied up with work he’d had no option but to stay in Madrid. He’d received the usual weekly reports about the vineyard, of course, but heaven knew what had really been going on in his absence.
‘Are there any more of you?’
She looked at him warily. ‘No, just me.’
That was something to be grateful for, he supposed, shoving his hands through his hair before he remembered the bruise, and grimacing as a fresh arrow of pain scythed through him.
It shouldn’t be too hard to get rid of her. His plane was sitting at the airport a mere half an hour away and could take her anywhere she wanted to go at a moment’s notice. Within the hour he could be enjoying the solitude he’d been hankering after.
There was no question of her continuing her holiday, of course, because quite apart from the fact that the house wasn’t open to visitors—of either the paying or non-paying variety—none of his fantasies about escaping everything for a few days had featured a hot house guest with a penchant for violence.
Besides, he’d finally reached the end of his usually fairly long tether, and he’d had enough. Of everything. So he’d send Nicky on her way, wipe the bizarrely traumatic events of this evening from his memory, and set about relaxing.
But not while they were both still on the floor, he decided, getting painfully to his feet then holding out his hand to help her up.
‘You have absolutely no idea about any of this, do you?’ she said a little wistfully as she put her hand in his and stood up.
‘No,’ he muttered, so disconcerted by the sizzle that shot through his blood at the contact that for a second he had no idea about anything.
‘I knew it would turn out too good to be true.’
She sighed, slid her hand from his and Rafael ignored the odd dart of regret to focus instead on the way her shoulders were slumping. ‘What would?’ he asked, detecting an air of defeat about her and for some reason not liking it.
‘Coming to stay. Gaby said it would be fine.’
That captured his attention. ‘You know Gaby?’
She nodded and gave him another wobbly little smile. ‘I do. And she said she’d clear it with you, but she didn’t, did she?’
That would teach him to issue an open invitation to his sisters to use the place whenever they felt like it. Rafael thought of the barrage of phone calls and emails that his sister had bombarded him with and which he’d disregarded, and frowned at the niggling stab of guilt. ‘No.’
‘I thought not.’ She sighed again and seemed to deflate just that little bit more.
He watched it happen and to his intense irritation his chest tightened. There was a vulnerability about Nicky that plucked at the highly inconvenient and usually extremely well-hidden protective streak he possessed. Which was nuts, of course, because presumably the kind of woman to wallop him over the head as she had wasn’t in the least bit vulnerable. Or in need of protection.
Nevertheless, right now she looked crushed, as if she had the weight of the world on her shoulders, and Rafael found he couldn’t get the words out to tell her to leave, however much he wanted to. Besides, if she was a friend of his sister’s and he threw her out, he’d never hear the end of it.
He sighed and inwardly cursed. ‘Look, it’s late,’ he said, deciding that he was way too tired for this kind of mental gymnastics and as it was pushing midnight he could hardly turf her out now anyway. ‘Let’s discuss this in the morning.’
‘OK,’ she said, with a weariness that made him want to do something insane like haul her into his arms and tell her everything was going to be all right. ‘Thanks... And goodnight.’
‘Goodnight,’ he muttered, then turned on his heel and strode off down the corridor, thinking with each step that the night had been anything but good so far, and what with the traces of arousal and heat still whipping around inside him and the apparent disintegration of his brain it didn’t look as if it were going to get any better.
* * *
Well, this was all just typical of the crappy way her life had been going lately, wasn’t it? thought Nicky glumly, watching Rafael stop to pick up the suitcase he must have dumped at the top of the stairs earlier and then disappear round the corner.
Why would her stay at the cortijo be turning out as she’d hoped when nothing had done recently?
Feeling utterly drained by the events of the last half an hour on top of those of the past six months, she shut the door, retrieved Don Quijote from the floor and padded over to the bed. Setting the book on the bedside table, she slipped beneath the sheets and switched off the light.
How had things gone so badly wrong? she wondered for the billionth time as she stared into the darkness and felt the relentless heaviness descend.
Six months ago she’d been unstoppable. So full of energy and verve and enthusiasm, and fiercely determined not to let what had happened in the Middle East defeat her. She’d snapped up every assignment she’d been offered and had thrown herself into each one as if it were her last. She’d travelled and worked every minute she had, pausing only to hook up with the scorchingly hot journalist with whom she’d been having a sizzling fling.
Everything had been going marvellously, exactly as she’d planned, and she’d enjoyed every minute of it. She’d taken some of the finest photographs of her career and had some of the best sex of her life, and she’d congratulated herself on beating any potential demons she could so easily have had.
See, she’d told herself on an all-time high as she collected an award for one of her pictures and smiled down at the man she was sleeping with. All those colleagues who’d muttered things about PTSD had been wrong. Apart from the occasional nightmare and a slight problem with crowds, she hadn’t had any other symptoms. And besides, she wasn’t an idiot, so as a precaution she’d embarked on a course of counselling and therapy, which had encouraged her to make sense of what had happened, and get over it. As indeed she had, and the full-to-the-brim life she’d been leading, the work she’d been doing and the award she’d won, were all proof of it.
For months she’d told herself that she was absolutely fine, and for months she’d blithely believed it.
Until one day a few weeks ago when she turned out to be not so fine. That horrible morning she’d woken up feeling as if she were being crushed by some invisible weight. Despite the bright Parisian sunshine pouring in through the slats in the blind and the thousand and one things she had to do, she just hadn’t been able to get herself out of bed.
She’d assured herself at the time that she was simply having a bad day, but since then things had got steadily worse. The bad days had begun to occur more frequently, gradually outnumbering the good until pretty much every day was a bad day. The energy and verve and the self-confidence she’d always taken for granted had drained away, leaving her feeling increasingly anxious, and to her distress she’d found herself refusing work she’d previously have jumped at.
Bewildered by that, she’d stopped picking up her phone and had started ignoring emails. And not just those from colleagues and employers. When staying in touch with friends and family had begun to require too much energy she’d stopped doing that too.
She’d given up eating properly and had started sleeping terribly. When she did eventually manage to drop off the nightmares had come back, but now with far greater frequency than before, leaving her wide awake in the middle of the night, weak and sweating and shaking.
Her previously very healthy libido had faltered, withered and then died out altogether, as, inevitably, had the fling.
Barely going out, hardly speaking to anyone, and with so much time on her hands to sit and dwell, Nicky had ended up questioning practically every decision she’d ever made over the years. She’d begun to doubt her abilities, her ideals and her motivation, and as a result cynicism and a bone-deep weariness had invaded her.
Down and down she’d spiralled until she’d been riddled with nerve-snapping tension, utter desolation, crippling frustration, and the dizzyingly frightening feeling that she might never be able to haul herself out of the slump she tumbled into.
Burnout, Gaby had diagnosed over a bottle of wine a week ago when Nicky had finally hit rock bottom, although what made her such an expert she had no idea. Gaby, who was currently feng shui-ing the mansion of a businessman in Bahrain, was an on-and-off interior designer—more off than on—and wouldn’t know burnout if it came up and slapped her in the face.
Nevertheless, as she’d sliced through Nicky’s symptoms, and then relentlessly gone on about the importance of balance and rest and looking at things piece by tiny piece, Nicky had decided that perhaps Gaby might have had a point, which was why when her friend had come up with a plan she’d so readily and gratefully agreed.
Go to Spain, Gaby had said. Get away from it all. Take some time out and restore your equilibrium. Rest. Sunbathe. Get a tan. You can recuperate at my brother’s house. He’s never there so you can stay as long as you need. Don’t worry about a thing. I’ll sort it all out.
At the time Gaby had made it sound so easy, and, as she hadn’t exactly had any ideas of her own, she’d booked a flight the following morning, buoyed up both by the thought of having something to focus on other than her own misery and at the heady feeling that finally she might be about to see the blurry flickering light at the end of a very long, very dark tunnel.
And OK, in the two days she’d been here she hadn’t noticed much of a difference to her emotional state, but she knew she needed time at the very least.
Time it looked as if she wasn’t going to get, she thought now, her heart sinking once again as she sighed and punched her pillow into a more comfortable shape, because it was blindingly obvious that Gaby hadn’t managed to sort anything out, and it was equally blindingly obvious that, despite her friend’s breezy assurances to the contrary, she wasn’t welcome here.
Nicky closed her eyes and inwardly cringed as the image of Rafael’s handsome scowling face drifted into her head. Quite apart from the initial burglar/assault misunderstanding, throughout the whole subsequent conversation they’d had he’d been tense and on edge, and had looked so mightily hacked off that she’d got the impression that he really resented her being there. Which meant there was no way she could stay.
If she did—and that was assuming he didn’t chuck her out in the morning—she’d feel like the intruder, and she had quite enough on her plate already without adding guilt to her ever-increasing pile of problems.
So who knew whether the peace and tranquillity of the cortijo might have eventually worked their magic? Whether a couple of weeks of enforced rest and relaxation might not have been just what she needed? She wasn’t going to get the chance to find out because one thing she’d learned from years of working in hostile environments was never to hang around where you weren’t welcome.
Therefore no matter how depressing she found the idea, first thing in the morning she, her suitcase and her nifty little hire car would be off.
THREE (#ueaad1282-6885-5b47-b094-8ea4fdcc02b7)
Despite his misgivings about any improvement to his night, he’d actually slept remarkably well, thought Rafael, smothering a yawn and setting the coffee pot on the stove.
When he’d eventually made it to his room after leaving Nicky, he’d downed a couple of painkillers and then taken an ice cold shower, which had respectively obliterated the pain throbbing in his head and the heat racing through his veins. He’d crashed into bed and had been asleep barely before his considerably less painful head had hit the pillow. Consequently he’d woken up in a much better mood.
Back in full possession of his self-control and all his faculties, he’d had ample opportunity to assess the events of the previous night and had come to the conclusion that he’d overreacted. Big time. He’d been tired and overwrought. In pain and on the defensive. All entirely unsurprising of course given the circumstances, but nevertheless he had overreacted.
For one thing, he told himself, lighting the gas ring beneath the pot and straightening, he doubted that Nicky, with her big blue eyes, tumbling dark curls and long slender semi-naked limbs, could be nearly as distracting as he’d imagined last night, and the cold light of day would soon prove it.
His reaction to her last night might have been startling, but it was nothing to get worked up about. Any red-blooded heterosexual man would have responded like that to a gorgeous near-naked woman practically draped over him. It would have been unusual if he hadn’t.
Nor were the oddly erotic images that had peppered his dreams anything to worry about either, because that was just his subconscious processing what had been an unexpected and surprisingly traumatic half an hour.
For another thing, last night he’d somehow managed to see Nicky as some kind of threat to his peace of mind, which was a sign of just how tired and at the end of his tether with women he’d become because the very idea was ridiculous. Since his divorce he’d made sure that no woman—apart from family members, and he couldn’t unfortunately do much about them—had ever had such an effect on him, and a woman he barely knew certainly posed no risk.
The second conclusion he’d come to was that there was no earthly reason Nicky couldn’t stay. Why they both couldn’t. The place was big enough, and however exhausted and fed up he was it wasn’t Nicky’s fault. Nor was it her fault that he’d ignored Gaby’s phone calls and emails and was therefore unprepared for a guest. And yes, she’d lamped him so hard it would have made a saint curse the heavens, but perhaps that was understandable in the circumstances.
Besides, he couldn’t get the image of her standing there enveloped by that air of defeat and desolation out of his head, and it had been niggling away at his brain all morning. For someone supposedly on holiday Nicky didn’t look very happy. And who holidayed by themselves anyway? Not even he did, and he valued his solitude highly.
Rafael poured some milk into a jug and stuck it in the microwave, then leaned back against the rough wood worktop and rubbed a hand along his jaw as he contemplated the contradiction.
He supposed Gaby might have been able to shed some light on the situation if he’d been able to get hold of her, but her phone had been off all three times he’d tried. And the emails and messages he’d eventually got round to checking had said nothing more than ‘call me’ with varying degrees of urgency.
But that didn’t matter. He didn’t need to speak to his sister to recognise that there was more to Nicky and her ‘holiday’ than met the eye. In fact, he’d repeatedly gone over the way she’d deflated right there in front of him and got the feeling that she was in some kind of trouble. And if that was the case, then despite the fact he had no interest in—and even less intention of finding out—what kind of trouble she might be in, he’d never forgive himself if he sent her on her way and something subsequently happened to her.
So she was going to have to stay.
Which was absolutely fine, he assured himself, hearing a strange rumbling making its way across the floor above and abandoning the coffee to go and investigate. He had plenty of things to be getting on with, and staying out of Nicky’s way while she got on with whatever she was planning to do would be simple enough.
And if he did still feel a lingering attraction towards her, well, he’d easily be able to handle that too. After what he’d had to contend with lately, suppressing tiny pangs of inconvenient desire would be a walk in the park. Especially now that he was well rested, firing on all cylinders, and most importantly, firmly back in control.
* * *
Leaving might be the right thing to do, thought Nicky as she trudged along the corridor hauling her suitcase behind her, but it didn’t make it any easier, because what was she going to do when she got back to Paris?
Moping around her flat didn’t particularly appeal. Neither did booking another holiday and having to go through the whole packing/airport/people thing again. And she supposed she could track down her parents and see if they needed any help, but right now their relentless cheerfulness might be more than she could stand.
Oh, if only Rafael hadn’t chosen this of all weekends to visit... If only Gaby had managed to get in touch with him... If only she hadn’t bashed him over the head...
If only...
Her spirits sank even further. There’d been so many ‘if only’s in her life lately. She’d never used to believe in regrets, and she’d never used to wish for the impossible. However since her meltdown it seemed she’d done nothing but, and she was becoming thoroughly sick of it.
Nicky gritted her teeth and yanked her suitcase over the edge of the rug that the wheels were rucking up. She had to stop all this before she lost what was left of her sanity. She really did. Regrets and impossible wishes and ‘if only’s were pointless, especially now, because there was nothing to be gained from wishing she could stay, and even less from dwelling on what might have been. However hard she might find it, she had to drag herself out of the past and start thinking about the future.
‘Good morning.’
At the sound of the deep voice rumbling through her gloomy ruminations, Nicky came to an abrupt halt and stared down. Rafael was standing in the doorway to the kitchen, barefoot and rumple-haired, wearing khaki shorts, a black polo shirt and the kind of lethal smile that had undoubtedly brought about many a swoon but left her depressingly unmoved.
‘Good morning,’ she replied, despite thinking there wasn’t much that was good about this one.
‘Did you sleep well?’
Not particularly, but at least she hadn’t had that hideous recurring nightmare. ‘Like a log,’ she said, mustering up what she hoped might pass for a smile and feeling faintly glad there were no small children around to scare. ‘You?’
‘Beautifully.’
‘How’s the head?’
‘Much better.’
That was one less thing on her conscience at least. ‘Thank goodness for that.’
‘It had more to do with paracetamol than goodness, but it’s fine.’ His gaze shifted to her suitcase and he arched an eyebrow. ‘Going somewhere?’
Nicky bit back a sarcastic comment about his spectacular powers of observation because her frame of mind this morning was hardly his fault, and settled for the more boring but less offensive truth. ‘The airport.’
‘Oh?’ he said mildly. ‘Why?’
For a moment she just stared at him. Why? Why? Had a good night’s sleep somehow wiped the previous evening’s events from his memory? ‘Because I don’t fancy the long drive home,’ she said, this time unable to hold back the sarcasm.
Rafael merely shrugged and grinned. ‘Then stay.’
Nicky went still and blinked down at him, confusion stabbing at her brain. Maybe she’d misheard him or something. Or maybe she was hallucinating, conjuring up the words simply because she wanted to hear them. Whether she’d misheard or was imagining things, she definitely had the sensation that she’d woken up in some kind of parallel universe, because the Rafael who was leaning nonchalantly against the door frame, folding his arms over his chest and smiling up at her, bore little resemblance to the extremely grouchy man she’d met yesterday. That one had looked as if he just wanted her gone, so who was this one who was now suggesting she stay?
‘What?’ she said weakly, as a tiny ray of hope that she might not have to leave after all flickered through her bewilderment.
‘Stay.’
‘Really?’
He nodded. ‘Really.’
The hope surged for a second and then stopped, hovered, and, because such good fortune didn’t happen to her these days, the cynicism that was never far away swooped down and crushed it.
Nicky frowned and narrowed her eyes. Such a volte-face? Just like that? She didn’t think so. ‘Why?’
Rafael lifted his eyebrows. ‘What do you mean why?’
‘Last night I rather got the impression I wasn’t very welcome.’
‘No, but then you’d just hit me over the head. I wasn’t in a very hospitable mood.’
She tilted her head and shot him a sceptical look. ‘But this morning you are?’
‘Apparently so.’
‘Have you spoken to Gaby?’ If Gaby had told him why she was here, then maybe he’d changed his mind out of pity.
‘No. I tried, but her phone was off.’
‘I didn’t have any luck either,’ she said, mightily relieved that Rafael didn’t know the truth because the last thing she wanted was pity. ‘She seems to have gone AWOL.’
‘Probably sensible given the conversations I imagine she can expect.’
‘Probably.’
There was a pause, then he said, ‘So would you like to stay or not?’
Nicky bit her lip and scoured his face, but found nothing there to suggest he was anything other than one hundred per cent serious. She saw nothing but warmth in the depths of his eyes and in his smile, and felt a reciprocal stab of warmth in the pit of her stomach. Totally unexpected and alien, but so welcome it gave her the strength to push the cynicism aside for once.
Oh, what was the point of dithering any longer? Of course she was going to stay. There was trying to do the right thing and then there was being a stubborn idiot. Besides, she could stand there and try and figure out Rafael’s motivations for hours, but she doubted she’d ever succeed and frankly she didn’t have the energy for it.
And anyway, did it really matter why he’d changed his mind? No. All that mattered was that he was offering her the lifeline she hadn’t realised she so badly needed until it looked as if it had gone, and she’d be a fool not to grab it with both hands.
‘Are you sure I won’t be a bother?’
‘Quite sure.’
‘In that case,’ she said, feeling the beginnings of what she thought might be the first genuine smile to curve her mouth in months, ‘I’d be delighted.’
FOUR (#ueaad1282-6885-5b47-b094-8ea4fdcc02b7)
In his conviction that sharing his house with Nicky would present no problem he’d been one hundred per cent right, thought Rafael as he lit the barbecue later that evening. Handling his house guest and, more importantly, his response to her, was simply a question of remaining in control, and so far he’d been doing splendidly.
He could easily have let himself be swayed by the glorious sight of her on the landing this morning, but had he? No, he had not. He’d been ice cool. Unflappable. And as strong and steady as the Rock of Gibraltar that reared out of the sea a hundred kilometres to the south.
The flash of heat that had shot through him when he’d clapped eyes on her striding along and dragging her suitcase behind her, looking strangely and grimly determined, was merely down to the sky-high temperatures of Andalucia in August. Never mind that the sun had only been up for half an hour; the heat started early down here.
Throughout their subsequent conversation his grip on his self-control had only got firmer.
He’d barely noticed that her strapless dress was the exact colour of her eyes, clung to her curves and showed off inches of flawless skin. He’d paid no attention whatsoever to the way the sun pouring in through the window behind her rendered the skirt of her dress practically transparent and revealed the legs that had featured so prominently in his dreams.
When she’d slid her gaze to his temple and asked him how it was the sensation that he could somehow feel her fingers sifting through his hair again had been nothing more than a figment of his imagination. When he’d watched her nibble on that lip of hers and had felt a sharp twist of his stomach, it had had more to do with a hunger for breakfast than that of any other kind.
And if, when she’d agreed to stay and flashed him that sudden dazzling smile, he’d thought he’d gone momentarily blind, it was undoubtedly down to more of the eye-wateringly bright sunshine spilling in through the window.
Even now, with her sitting at the wrought iron table on the terrace, wearing a halter-neck dress that gave her a cleavage like the Desfiladero de los Gaitanes gorge he’d abseiled down last summer and the scent that had so intoxicated him last night, he was utterly unfazed. The tiny nick he’d given his finger when she’d tasted the wine and let out a soft little sigh of appreciation and the knife he’d been using to slice off a couple of steaks had slipped didn’t hurt in the slightest.
Yes, he’d done well indeed, he told himself again as he sprinkled salt onto each of the steaks and then added a grind of pepper. Spending much of his day out in the fields among the grape-laden vines—not in an effort to avoid her or anything, of course, but because he’d needed to catch up with his estate manager—had clearly done the trick. Whatever attraction he’d felt for Nicky last night, whatever mental wobble he’d suffered, he’d most definitely conquered it, and he was well and truly back on track.
* * *
Rafael Montero really was the best looking man she’d seen in a long time, thought Nicky, lifting her glass to her mouth and watching him as he deftly flipped the steaks and seasoned the other side.
Last night and this morning she’d been on too much of an emotional roller coaster to appreciate his rugged good looks, and anyway, after grabbing a coffee he’d pretty much vanished until now so she hadn’t really thought about it. But after spending the day reading by the pool she felt more relaxed and more aware of her surroundings than she had in months, and now he was right there in front of her—and now she was looking—she could well see his appeal.
Taking a sip of wine and savouring the cool crisp flavours that rippled over her taste buds, she let her gaze drift over him with the detached appreciation of the photographer she was.
He had the kind of height and breadth that made her own five feet seven now rather gaunt frame feel unusually small, thick dark hair that was made for ruffling, and a pair of shoulders that looked strong enough to bear all manner of burdens. His back was broad and beneath the white T-shirt that stretched across it she could see his muscles flexing as he moved.
She leisurely lowered her gaze down over his waist, his very fine bottom and long tanned legs, and then let it wander back up again. There was an air of tightly controlled restraint about him, a latent strength and power, and she had a sudden memory of that body lying on top of hers, heavy and hard and strong...
Oh, what a crying shame her sex drive was all out of batteries, she thought dolefully as she watched him slowly turn round and give her a view of his front, because he really was magnificent.
If only she’d met him a year ago...
Nicky hadn’t exactly bed-hopped before she’d hit the doldrums but she’d always liked men. She’d loved the thrill of new attraction and the whole host of possibilities it opened up, in particular that of hot delicious sex with men she respected and admired but could leave without a twang of the heartstrings.
So if she’d met Rafael a year ago she’d have flirted like mad and after gauging his amenability to the idea would probably have set about seducing him into her bed.
Not so now, though, because as she completed her perusal of his spectacular body and found herself looking into that gorgeous face once again did she feel even a glimmer of a spark? A tingle of lust? A flicker of heat? No, she did not, which was depressing in the extreme because if a man like this didn’t do it for her, then who would?
Nicky stifled a sigh and lifted her glass to her lips again.
‘Have you quite finished?’
The dry tone of Rafael’s voice made her jump, and she coughed and spluttered as the wine went down the wrong way. And then she went bright red because, regardless of how she did or didn’t feel about him, it was still mortifying to have been caught ogling him.
‘Yes. Sorry,’ she gasped, clasping a fist to her chest and giving it a good thump.
‘Are you all right?’
‘Wine,’ she managed by way of explanation, and cleared her throat. ‘I’m fine.’
He picked up a bowl from the table beside the barbecue, brought it over and set it down in front of her. ‘Have a prawn.’
Nicky wasn’t sure having a prawn was all that advisable when she’d evidently lost control of her oesophagus, but took one anyway. ‘Thank you.’
She dipped it into the little pot of aioli, then sucked it into her mouth and opened her eyes wide in delight as the juicy taste of the sea and salt exploded on her tongue. ‘Wow, these are amazing.’
‘Local,’ Rafael muttered, his gaze on her mouth and his jaw tightening. ‘Expensive.’
She smiled. ‘But worth every céntimo.’
He didn’t say anything, just kind of growled and shrugged and continued to stare at her mouth.
A funny tense kind of silence stretched between them and Nicky was beginning to wonder whether she might have a blob of aioli on her lip or something, when Rafael suddenly frowned, gave himself a quick shake, then threw himself into the chair opposite her.
‘So how has your day been?’ he asked rather more curtly than she thought the question deserved.
‘Idyllic,’ she said, swiping a paper napkin from the box to wipe her fingers and dabbing her mouth just in case, and telling herself that she must have imagined the flash of tension and the curtness because as far as she could see there wasn’t anything to get tense or curt about. ‘Ghostly pale isn’t really me so I’ve decided to work on my tan. Me and my bikini barely moved from the pool all day.’
A muscle started hammering in his jaw and she thought she heard him grit his teeth. ‘Sounds great,’ he muttered.
‘It was,’ she said, briefly wondering if his obvious displeasure was down to her hogging of his pool. ‘Do you mind?’
‘About what?’
‘Me monopolising your pool.’
‘Not at all,’ he said, lifting his gaze back to hers and giving her a tight smile. ‘Make yourself at home.’
‘Thank you,’ she said, and, unable to fathom what the inscrutability of his demeanour was about, decided to continue with the small talk he’d initiated before any more of that weird uncomfortable tension had the chance to return. ‘And how has your day been?’
Rafael rubbed the back of his neck, let out what sounded like a deeply exasperated sigh and sat back. ‘Fruitful.’
‘In the literal or metaphorical sense?’
‘Both.’
‘How come?’
‘I spent the whole day with my estate manager discussing plans for an early harvest.’
‘I imagine you must have had a lot to catch up on.’
Rafael arched a quizzical eyebrow. ‘Why would you imagine that?’
‘Gaby said you haven’t been here for months.’
‘I haven’t.’
‘Why not?’ It seemed a shame when the place was a little slice of heaven on earth.
‘I’ve been busy with work.’
‘And now you’re less busy?’
‘For the moment.’
‘So you’re on holiday too?’
The minute the words were out of her mouth Nicky wished she hadn’t brought up the subject of holidays, because as Rafael fixed her with that startling green gaze of his and leaned forwards she had the feeling that she might be about to regret it.
‘I suppose I am,’ he said. ‘And talking of holidays...’ He paused and she automatically tensed because judging by the probingly intense way he was looking at her there was no ‘might’ about it. ‘Tell me more about yours.’
‘What about it?’ she asked and inwardly winced at her faintly prickly tone.
‘You’re here by yourself.’
‘Evidently.’
‘And indefinitely.’
‘Is that so surprising?’ Her fingers tightened around the stem of her wine glass as she wondered where he was planning to go with this.
He tilted his head and regarded her for a second. ‘I suppose not, but don’t you have work to get back to?’
She forced herself to relax before her defensive air piqued his evident interest in the reasons for her ‘holiday’ even more. ‘Not right now,’ she said, deliberately breezily. ‘I’m freelance.’
‘In what field?’
‘I’m a photojournalist.’
‘What do you specialise in?’
Not a lot at the moment, she thought darkly, and decided to focus on the Nicky of a year ago rather than the wreck she was at the moment. ‘Human interest stuff mainly. Droughts. Conflict. Public protests. That kind of thing.’
‘It sounds dangerous.’
Nicky shuddered as the incident that had sparked off the traumatic chain of events that had led her here flashed through her head. ‘It can be. On occasion.’
‘So why do you do it?’
Wasn’t that the million dollar question? ‘Because I love it,’ she said, channelling her old self and dredging up the motivation and beliefs she’d started out with. ‘I love the idea of capturing a split second in time for ever. The look on a face, the mood of a crowd...’ She stifled another shudder. ‘I know it’s a cliché but I really do believe that a picture is worth a thousand words. I also believe in the justice of it, in showing people the truth and the story behind the headlines.’
Or at least she had done. Now, though, she wasn’t sure what she loved about her work or what she believed in. ‘Plus I’m good at it,’ she added, because it was high time she started thinking positively.
‘I’m sure you are,’ he said, breaking eye contact to take a prawn of his own and toss it into his mouth. ‘How did you get into it?’
Released from that probing gaze, Nicky felt as if she’d been holding her breath and had just remembered to let it out. ‘I entered a picture in a competition when I was ten and won,’ she said, giving herself a quick shake to dispel the light-headedness.
‘Impressive.’
‘I was addicted. I entered a lot of photos to a lot of competitions.’
‘And what did you win?’
‘A then state-of-the-art SLR.’
‘And it all went from there?’
She nodded. ‘That camera became my most treasured possession.’ A snapshot of her young self with the camera inevitably hanging round her neck flashed into her head and a wave of nostalgia rose up inside her. ‘I took it everywhere with me. I’d spend hours just sitting and watching the light and even longer making pretty much everyone I came across pose for me. I must have irritated the hell out of them... Anyway,’ she said, dragging herself out of the past and back to the present, ‘eventually I went to journalism college, got a couple of assignments and things kind of took off after that.’
‘That simple?’
She shook her head. ‘No. Actually it took years and it was incredibly hard work.’
‘It sounds fascinating.’
She sat back and lifted her eyebrows. ‘Does it?’ For her the fascination had worn off a while ago.
‘To a mere businessman like me it does.’
Nicky’s eyes widened and her jaw dropped at the understatement. ‘A mere businessman? You?’
Rafael raised his eyebrows and lifted his glass of wine to his mouth. ‘What’s wrong with that?’
‘Nothing. But from what I’ve heard there’s nothing “mere” about you at all.’
He went still, his glass hovering an inch below his lips and his eyes fixed on her with a disconcerting intensity. ‘Why? What have you heard?’
Heavens, what hadn’t she heard? Beneath the full force of his unwavering gaze Nicky fought the urge to squirm—and where had that come from anyway?—and considered what she’d learned about him. Given that she and Gaby had been neighbours for two years, and close friends for the last one of those, she’d learned plenty.
She’d heard that Rafael was some kind of corporate troubleshooter and that he was brilliant at everything, whether it was business, languages or women. She’d learned that he was thirty-two, a control-freak workaholic who didn’t know when to stop, and that he’d had a brief but disastrous marriage. She’d also discovered that, despite his apparently innate talent for identifying and fixing problems, much to Gaby’s and her sisters’ frustration, he channelled this talent into his business, and steered well clear of entangling himself in any trouble that might involve his siblings.
Not that she’d be spilling all that out, of course. If anyone revealed that they knew so much about her she’d have had them arrested on the grounds of an invasion of privacy. ‘Oh, this and that,’ she said vaguely, aware that he was waiting for an answer.
‘So you and Gaby haven’t been discussing me?’
He looked so unexpectedly and endearingly put out by the idea that Nicky found herself in the unusual position of grinning. ‘Well, you may have come up once or twice in conversation.’
He grimaced. ‘I don’t know whether to be flattered or worried.’
‘You should be flattered.’
The grimace eased. ‘Why? What did she say?’
‘That you’re a corporate troubleshooter and you like solving problems,’ she said, deciding that if she condensed the facts it wouldn’t sound too stalkerish, and actually feeling relieved to be talking about him rather than herself. ‘That you’re very driven and that your successes are stellar, both with work and with women.’ She paused and then added, ‘Oh, and that you’re divorced.’
Rafael winced and she instantly wondered exactly what had gone wrong with his marriage. ‘So perhaps not quite so successful with women.’
Telling herself that she had no business wondering and even less asking when they barely knew each other, Nicky tilted her head and had to agree. ‘No, perhaps not.’
‘Gaby has been chatty,’ he said dryly, twisting the stem of his wine glass between long brown fingers.
‘She’s fond of you. And proud.’
Her heart squeezed in the same way it had done every time Gaby had either sung her brother’s praises or lamented his failings.
She really ought to be used to it by now because, while the envy she felt at Gaby and Rafael’s evident closeness had taken her by surprise at first, she’d lived with it for as long as she’d known her neighbour. If anything, though, instead of lessening the envy had grown and, the more she’d listened to Gaby, offering words of either awe or sympathy depending on the circumstances, the more she’d come to realise that she didn’t have anyone who knew her or whom she knew quite that well. And in the early hours of the mornings when she’d been unable to sleep she’d begun to wonder if she might not be in the state she was in if she too had had someone that close to turn to.
‘It must be nice to have siblings,’ she said a little wistfully as the image of a two-point-four family popped into her head.
‘Don’t you have any?’
‘Nope,’ she said, pulling herself together because there she went again, wishing for the impossible. ‘It’s just me and my parents.’
‘Lucky you,’ he muttered, then got up and headed to the barbecue.
As she watched him slap the steaks on the grill Nicky frowned. She’d always got the impression from Gaby that while there was frustration aplenty between the sisters and their brother there was also a lot of affection. ‘Really?’
She heard him sigh. ‘No, not really,’ he said, leaving the steaks to sizzle and spit on the grill and returning to the table. ‘They’re fine. Except when they’re hassling me.’
‘Do they do that often?’
‘More often than I’d like,’ he said, sitting back down and taking a mouthful of wine.
‘So what do you do about it?’
‘Well, the last time it happened I came down here.’
The tone of his voice made her insides cringe. ‘Which was when?’
He set his glass down and gave her a look. ‘Yesterday.’
Oh, dear. ‘Looking for a bit of peace and quiet?’
He nodded. ‘Only to be attacked with Don Quijote.’
Nicky felt her cheeks flush with mortification. ‘I really am sorry about that, you know.’
‘Don’t worry, it was infinitely less traumatic than the quadruple whammy of one mother, two sisters and an ex-girlfriend.’
As her blush receded Nicky resisted the urge to roll her eyes because if that was what he considered traumatic he should try what she’d been through in the last six months. She’d take a mother, two sisters and an ex over the ghastly effects of burnout any day. ‘Which was highly traumatic, I imagine,’ she said as sincerely as she could, which wasn’t very.
He raised an eyebrow at her arch tone. ‘It seemed so at the time. Especially on top of such a busy time at work.’
Nicky reined in her cynicism because everyone had their hangups and actually what made hers any worse than his? ‘Do they often gang up on you?’
‘My sisters?’
She nodded.
Rafael tensed a little and her curiosity rocketed. ‘Not since I was about eight.’
‘Why? What happened when you were eight?’
‘I chose not to let it bother me.’
The words were spoken casually enough but she caught the almost imperceptible tightening of his jaw and for some bizarre reason her heart squeezed again, only this time she didn’t think it was with envy. ‘Did it work?’
‘Beautifully,’ he said dryly, and gave her an easy smile that thankfully made the squeeze release its grip on her heart. ‘Trying to rile someone who won’t be provoked isn’t much fun. They very quickly lost interest and left me alone.’
‘Ingenious.’
He shrugged. ‘Not so much ingenuity as a need for self-preservation. Anyway it worked because we now get along pretty well.’
Fleetingly wondering if choosing not to let things bother him was a strategy he still employed to deal with difficult situations, but realising that there was no way she could ask such a personal question, Nicky decided it would be safer for her heart and its surrounding muscles to move on to more neutral ground. ‘So what does corporate troubleshooting involve?’ she asked, toying with her glass as the mouth-watering scent of sizzling steak drifted towards her.
‘I sort out companies in difficulties.’
‘What sort of difficulties?’
‘Anything really. A board might have a problem with staffing or be going through a tricky merger or there might be issues with the management. I go in wherever I’m needed and leave when I’m done.’
‘So you fix things.’
‘I do.’
‘Have you ever failed?’
‘Not so far.’
‘Do you fix people too?’ she asked as it suddenly occurred to her that he might be able to fix her. And then almost as quickly she dismissed the idea as ridiculous because, for one thing, why would he want to help her when he didn’t even get involved with his sisters’ problems? And for another she was pretty sure that no one could fix her but her.
He shuddered. ‘Absolutely not.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because it would inevitably get...emotional...and therefore messy.’
‘And you don’t do emotion or mess,’ she said with a nod because the way he’d hesitated, the way he’d just flinched, said it all.
‘Not if I can help it.’
As Nicky wasn’t particularly fond of either, emotional detachment when it came to personal relationships was something she could definitely identify with, but nevertheless... ‘Not even for your sisters?’
‘Especially not for them.’ He frowned. ‘I wouldn’t even offer them advice.’
‘Really?’ she asked, becoming increasingly intrigued by these insights into family life because as an only child she knew nothing about the dynamics of siblings, and with parents who championed independence she’d become so self-reliant she couldn’t remember a time she’d asked for advice about anything.
‘Absolutely. If the advice I hypothetically gave them was wrong I’d invariably end up being blamed and if it wasn’t taken then what would be the point of giving it in the first place? It would be a no-win situation, not to mention an insanely frustrating one.’

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