One Night in Madrid

And so she drew on all her strength, took a deep, calming breath, and bent down to lean in at the car door again.

‘We don’t have to leave it like this, do we? Would you like to come inside—for coffee?’

She knew the form of her words was a mistake even as they left her tongue but she only knew how bad an error she had made when she heard them fall into the silence of the night, sounding horribly light considering the impetus behind them. She felt even worse when she saw the way that Raul’s face changed, his eyes narrowing in his shadowed face, his mouth thinning out to just a hard, cold line.

‘Coffee?’ he said, making the word sound like a curse, as if the drink was a totally alien substance to him.

‘Well, you never got a drink in the hospital.’ she managed jerkily, seeing no change in that distant expression, no lightening of the darkness of his eyes.

He was going to refuse; she knew it in her heart. He was just a second away from lifting a hand to dismiss her, snapping an order at Carlos to drive on, before pulling the door shut right in her face. And if he did that then she had no way of getting in touch with him again. After all, that was why she had been waiting at the hospital in the first place.

‘Please …’ she said hastily. ‘It needn’t be for long. I just want to thank you.’

‘No thanks are necessary.’

But then just for a moment he hesitated, looked deep into her eyes. And the narrow-eyed assessment in his gaze made her flinch back away from it as if from some dangerous, poison-tipped arrow. Just what was going through that cold, calculating mind of his?

Then abruptly he leaned forward in his seat, directing some terse command in Spanish to the driver, who glanced at him once, briefly, then nodded.

‘What …?’ Alannah began then froze as she saw one strong, tanned hand move to unclip his seat belt and toss it aside.

‘Half an hour,’ he said curtly, flicking a glance at the slim gold watch on his wrist, and then away again. ‘Be here at nine,’ he told Carlos, the emphatic use of English deliberate, Alannah felt, to get the point home to her. ‘And don’t be late.’

Could he make it any plainer that he had little time to spare for her, and that he wanted to be away from here as quickly as possible? Alannah asked herself. But at least he was coming. Once they were alone in her flat, in privacy, she would tell him what she had to say as quickly as possible. At least then, with what she felt was her duty done, she would be able to relax.

And Raul would go out of her life again and leave her in peace.

Which was what she wanted most in all the world, she told herself, refusing to let her mind even acknowledge the way that the words suddenly had a disturbingly hollow ring inside her head.

For now, she had enough to cope with just considering what was ahead of her and the prospect of facing the apocalyptic storm that would erupt when Raul knew the truth.

If she could get through the next thirty minutes then her life would be her own again.

CHAPTER THREE

THIRTY minutes and he was out of here, Raul told himself as the lift that was taking them to Alannah’s flat sped upwards towards the fifth floor. Less than thirty. He had told Carlos to be back exactly thirty minutes after he had left the car and already more than a couple of those had passed.

Not enough in Raul’s opinion. The sooner he got this—whatever this was—over and done with and was on his way again, the better.

The truth was that he didn’t know what the hell he was doing here at all. If he had any sense he would have stayed in the car and ignored Alannah’s invitation but tonight it seemed that all sense had deserted him, left behind in the headlong rush from Spain after the first phone call alerting him to the news of the accident.

At first he’d thought that the car had come to a halt just in time to stop him from doing something very stupid. The temptation to kiss Alannah, to feel the softness of her lips, taste the intimate flavour of her mouth, had almost overcome him. Another couple of seconds and he would have been lost in the sensual temptation of that upturned face, the soft swell of her lips, the sweet scent of her skin so close to him in the back of the car. So the feel of the vehicle drawing to a halt and Carlos’s announcement that they had arrived had come at just the right moment.

But then she’d turned on her way out of the car and looked back inside. Already the steady downpour of the rain had soaked into her hair, making it hang around her face in dripping strands, and drawing attention once more to how pale she was, how huge and dark her eyes appeared above the almost colourless cheeks. He remembered how slender she’d felt in his arms, how fragile, and when she’d suddenly offered him coffee he had found that the instant refusal that had risen to his lips had shrivelled there, unspoken, in the face of the look in those big green eyes.

In that moment he’d thought he understood just why she had asked him to come in with her. He felt he knew just what was in her mind because the same dark feeling, the same dread of being alone with his thoughts was the one that shadowed his own existence.

Because what was waiting for him when he got to the hotel? An empty, soulless room. A mini-bar that in the mood he was in would be far too tempting—but raiding it would not be in the least bit sensible. And he still wasn’t sure that he should leave Alannah on her own. She had calmed down since that emotional breakdown back at the hospital, but she was still barely holding herself together. He could see it in her eyes, hear it in the tremor of her voice. And knowing the dark, dragging ache of loss that was always there, he could imagine how she was feeling in spite of her obvious efforts to cover it up.

And so he had gone with her, determined to see her to her flat, to drink that damn cup of coffee. He would delay—for her and for himself—the moment of being alone, the time when the darkness closed around him all over again, hold it back for just thirty minutes, and then leave again. It would still be waiting for him when he came out. Nothing in the world could change that.

‘You still live in the same apartment?’

Courtesy insisted that he say something. It was either that or stare at her in stony silence all the way up to her flat.

‘The same building.’ Alannah was clearly making as much effort as him to make conversation. ‘The same floor, in fact. But not the same flat.’

Her tone was low, coolly distant and withdrawn. It was the voice of a stranger, someone he did not know. There was not a trace in it of the ardent, passionate girl he had once known or even of the sweet innocent he had first met. The sweet innocent he had believed she was when they had first met, he corrected himself harshly. He had only seen what he wanted to see and had been pretty quickly disillusioned.

At twenty-one, and fresh from university, she had just been looking for a holiday fling. Mission accomplished, she had moved on to someone else.

‘A bigger flat became vacant last year, so I grabbed at it.’

‘Room for two.’

‘What?’

A puzzled frown drew her arched brows together.

‘Your new man,’ Raul explained. ‘I assume you wanted to move in together.’

‘Oh—no, nothing like that.’

A wave of her hand dismissed the man in her life of as little importance as he had been.

‘I had a promotion at work and the flat came empty in the same month. I’d always wanted more space, so it seemed the perfect opportunity.’

The lift came to a halt as she spoke, metal door sliding open, and she walked out into the corridor.

‘That used to be where I lived …’

Another wave of her hand indicated a door to her left.

‘But now I’m down here …’

If she expected a response she didn’t get one, other than a quick, inarticulate sound that might have been agreement. From the moment that she had turned to walk away from him, Raul had found that his attention was momentarily distracted. Following Alannah down the blue-carpeted corridor towards the door of her apartment was a sensual experience strong enough to draw his attention completely. The fall of her red-gold hair mirrored the straight line of her back in contrast to the rounded curves of her hips. Long, slender legs in the tight-fitting jeans added to the delight.

He welcomed the sensations, the warmth that flooded his body. It was something to fill the black, empty spaces that seemed to have invaded his heart and his mind ever since he had answered the phone in the middle of the night and heard the news about Lorena’s accident. From that moment he felt as if he had been barely moving, speaking, functioning. Even the discovery of Alannah’s presence in the hospital room had hardly touched him.

Even when he had held her as she sobbed in his arms, he had felt as if his head was flooded with dark, icy water so that he couldn’t feel, couldn’t think. He had responded as he would do to any human being who was in pain and distress, and in the same way he had offered her a lift to her flat, taken her out to the car. Because it was the only thing that he could do.

But then there had come that moment in the car, in the darkness of the night, when, looking down into her upturned face as he saw it in the light of the street lamps as they flashed by, he had seen not just another human being but a woman. A living, breathing, beautiful woman.

And that was when he had first felt the stirring of something else, something warmer, something more like a feeling. Something that made him feel as if the black, icy water that filled his thoughts might actually be shot through with tiny rays of light, warming it faintly. But that was when the car had come to a halt, bringing him back to the reality of a cold, dark, wet night in England instead of the warmth of the sun he had left behind in Spain, reminding him of why he was here. And it had brought all the emptiness rushing back.

And when she had got out of the car, paused to look back in, he had seen the same emptiness in her face. And he had known that at least he shared this with her. They might never be close again—hell, they had never truly been close—but right here, tonight, they shared this terrible sense of loss. That was when he had decided that for just half an hour, thirty short minutes, they could hold back the darkness together and then go on their way, like ships that passed in the night. ‘Come in …’

Lost in his thoughts, he hadn’t been aware of the fact that Alannah had opened the door and was now standing with it wide open, waiting for him to walk into her flat.

In an almost colourless face, the deep green eyes were like dark, mossy pools, bottomless and unfathomable, and the pallor of her skin was heightened by the rich fall of her hair, darkened by the rain outside. The same rain that had made the black T-shirt cling to the firm swell of her breasts under the damp cotton.

‘You should get out of those wet clothes,’ he said, hearing his voice rasp on the words as the bleakness of his thoughts showed in his speech.

He saw the shock that widened her eyes, the deep green flaring suddenly, gold burning in the darkness, and carefully adjusted his tone a degree or two.

‘Or at least dry your hair.’

‘I’m fine.’

As if to prove it she tossed back the damp strands of her hair and shrugged out of her jacket, dropping it on a nearby chair before heading across the room to where a door stood open into the kitchen.

‘And I should make you that coffee.’

Raul’s dismissal in his native Spanish was terse and to the point. There was a tension about her slender body that reminded him of a suspicion that had flashed through his mind in the moment she had first invited him in. She was edgy and uneasy, her mood communicating that there was more to this than met the eye. She didn’t really think that he believed she had brought him up here for coffee?

Just coffee wouldn’t put the ragged edge to her voice, make some unreadable emotion darken her eyes.

But she was obviously going to ignore him as she turned and headed through the door into the kitchen.

‘Bathroom,’ he said sharply, making her stop so abruptly that it was almost as if she had been expecting him to speak.

But obviously not what he had said, he realised as she frowned faintly in some confusion.

‘Where is your bathroom?’ he repeated.

‘Oh—down the corridor …’ She pointed in the right direction. ‘First door on the left.’

It took him just moments to stride down the corridor, enter the bathroom and snatch up the towel that was hanging on a rail against the wall. With the soft white cotton dangling from his fingers, he was back in the kitchen while she was still filling the kettle at the tap.

‘Here …’

With one hand he removed the still dripping kettle from her grip and set it down on the worktop. With the other, he draped the towel over her head and began to gently blot the soaking strands of her hair.

Alannah froze. Every inch of her slim frame became stiff with tension and rejection.

‘What are you doing?’ she demanded from under the towel.

‘I should have thought that was obvious. I’m drying your hair.’ ‘Then stop!’

It came from between gritted teeth, venom in every word. Enough to freeze his hands, still holding the towel.

‘I never asked you to do that—or anything like it. I said I was fine.’

‘You don’t look fine—’

‘I’m fine—so take your hands off me.’

‘Sure!’

Raul’s tone was clipped and hard. He dropped the towel on the floor and took a step backwards, hands coming up between them, bronzed fingers splayed wide in what looked like a defensive gesture.

But the expression in his eyes made a nonsense of any thought of defensiveness. There was nothing wary or unsure in the gaze that clashed with her. Instead a cold anger turned those burning bronze eyes translucent and challenge blazed out of them, defying her to take this further.

‘But in the terms of strict accuracy, my hands were never on you. So it seems that you, Alannah querida, are exaggerating just a little. More than a little.’

‘I’m …’ Alannah began but Raul ignored her attempt to protest, or apologise—she wasn’t quite sure which—and when he ploughed straight on, talking right over what she had been about to say, she found she was grateful that she hadn’t got so far as the apology.

‘If I had touched you then you might have something to complain about. Or if I’d kissed you …’

Alannah saw his intent in those devastating eyes, saw the way his head tilted, his gaze going to her partly open mouth.

‘You wouldn’t …’

She wanted to run—to get away—but even as the thought came into her mind she knew that he had got there first. Any chance of escape was cut off as one strong hand came down on the edge of the sink on either side of her body, enclosing her, trapping her and holding her unable to move.

He was so close—too close—and all the disturbing, worrying sensations that had sprung to life in the car now flared through her again but this time more sharply, more intensely, making her shift uncomfortably in the confined space of his imprisoning arms. But that only brought her up close against their warmth, their strength, and the hard, lean length of his body in front of her. Her heart was racing, sending blood pounding through her veins, and the sound of it was like thunder inside her head.

He was going to kiss her, she could be in no doubt at all about that. It was there in the smokiness of his gaze, the total stillness of his powerful body. He was going to kiss her and this time there would be no sudden stopping of the car, no announcement from Carlos to distract him from his purpose.

Nervously she slicked her tongue over dry lips, waited, watched as his handsome face came nearer.

And stared in disbelief as this time he was the one who called a halt, the slow movement stopping, his dark head moving in a gesture of denial.

‘I think not,’ he said harshly and spun on his heel, turning to march out of the door, leaving her staring blankly after him, wondering just what she had done to change his mind.

Was it some small reaction she couldn’t control? Had he seen something in her face? What—just what had stopped him, changing his mood and driving him away from her like that?

‘Raul …’

She tried for his name but the sound died in her mouth, shrivelling on her tongue. And she was only talking to his back, the long, straight line of his spine, the proud set of his dark head that was all she could see as he walked away from her. If he heard her at all then he made no sign.

And to Alannah’s shaken consternation that made her feel terrible, stunned and bewildered, shaking in reaction, and with her legs suddenly unsteady beneath her.

He might as well have kissed her; she was reacting as if he had. If he had actually wrenched her into his arms, plundered her mouth with his, ravaged her senses, he could not have made her feel any worse than she did now—or did she mean that she might actually have felt better? Shaking her head bemusedly, Alannah admitted to herself that she didn’t know. She only knew that she was trembling with reaction to just the closeness, the burn of the heat from his body along her senses. Her skin had prickled as if under assault from sensual pins and needles, her nerves twisting tight in anticipation of his kiss and then there had been the terrible sense of let-down when it hadn’t happened.

Let-down.

Even in her own thoughts, the word sounded wrong.

She had spent the last two years putting her time with Raul Marcín behind her, determined to forget about it, get him out of her life for good. She didn’t want to remember him, didn’t want to be with him, didn’t want him to have any part in her life, she told herself as she grabbed at the kettle again and shoved it fiercely under the tap. She could only feel thankful that Raul was no longer in the room to see the way that her jerky, clumsy movements betrayed her, giving away the unsettled way she was feeling, the conflict that was raging inside her.

‘Oh, no—no!’ The words slipped from Alannah’s lips, hidden under the rush of water as she turned on the tap to fill the kettle. ‘No—it can’t be this way!’

But she had loved him once and what was it that they said—that you never forgot your first love? She had adored him, fallen hopelessly, helplessly, irredeemably in love with him in the space of a heartbeat and she had put her own foolish, vulnerable, naïve and innocent heart into his hands and his keeping, only to have him crush it brutally, tearing it into pieces. But at the same time, in the way that long ago dinosaurs left their footprints etched into stone, so he had left his mark on her and her senses, her memories, had responded to his touch, his closeness at the most basic, most primitive level of awareness.

She made a terrible, a stupid mistake in the hospital when, weak and despairing, she had flung herself into his arms and sobbed out her misery on his shoulder. She’d allowed herself to know, just for a very short time, the dangerous, the forbidden comfort of having his arms around her, his strength supporting her, the lean power of his body close to hers. And doing that had weakened her defences, opened cracks in the armour she had built up around herself so that something about Raul could get through to her and stab at her cruelly, leaving her more vulnerable to him than she had been before.

So when he’d tried to dry her hair she’d reacted—overreacted—like a scalded wildcat, turning on him hissing and spitting, so that she had only herself to blame for his cold anger, the way he had walked out on her. And by being overly defensive she had given away too much of the vulnerability she was really feeling.

But not again, she determined as she slammed the lid onto the kettle before banging it down on the stove; never, ever again.

‘If that is for the damned coffee you seem so insistent on, then I have to say yet again that I really do not want one.’

Raul had appeared in the doorway again, big, dark and dangerous-looking, a disturbing scowl on his face.

‘Then what do you want?’

His broad shoulders lifted in an expressive shrug, but even though the gesture seemed to dismiss her question as irrelevant something new flared in the deep bronze pools of his eyes. Something that sent a shiver of apprehension skittering down her spine as she realised that her uneasiness had caught on his nerves and what she saw in his gaze was coldly burning suspicion.

‘You tell me—after all, you were the one who invited me in. And coffee was your excuse for doing so.’

‘It wasn’t an excuse …’

The knowledge of why she had really invited him into her flat, the worry that she still hadn’t dared to broach the subject, made her voice croak in a way that she knew sounded as if she had something to hide.

‘No?’ Raul questioned harshly. ‘Then why am I here? Because you will not convince me that coffee was uppermost in your mind.’

‘Not uppermost,’ Alannah conceded but then she saw the way that his head went back, his eyes narrowing, and her throat closed up sharply, preventing her from going any further.

‘Sí?’ Raul questioned sharply. ‘So if the coffee was not the most important thing—then what was? Tell me why I am here—why you invited me to your flat in the first place.’

Pushing a hand into his jacket pocket, he pulled out a slim black mobile phone and held it up between them.

‘And tell me the truth or I will call Carlos and tell him to come now …’

His thumb moved, hovered over the speed-dial button.

‘No—wait …’

She couldn’t let him go, not until she had told him the truth that he had demanded—the truth about Chris and the accident and. But how could she tell him without carefully leading up to it? She couldn’t just blurt it all out, throw it in his face without any lead-in or preparation. That was why she had made such a fuss about the coffee.

But where could she start? How could she tell him when she knew already just what his reaction would be?

She should start with Chris … but just the thought of the name of her adored younger brother made her mind freeze in pain, unable to frame a single word but Chris.

‘Alannah …’

She had waited too long, her thoughts preoccupied by her worries, and Raul was growing impatient, his use of her name a low growl of warning. As she forced herself to focus she saw his thumb move again, threatening to press the button.

‘No—please wait!’

To her intense relief he hesitated, stopped the movement, his thumb barely a centimetre above the surface of his phone. The bronze eyes he turned on her seemed to burn over her skin, searing away a fine layer and leaving her feeling raw and exposed, desperately apprehensive.

‘Then tell me.’

‘I will—I promise. But not here. Not like this. Why don’t we go and sit down? We’d be more comfortable in the living room.’

But comfortable for how long? She had to tell him now; had to get it out in the open or he would walk out before she managed it. But she didn’t dare to think of what would happen after she’d told him. Deep in the pit of her stomach all the nerves twisted into tight, cruel knots of trepidation until she felt that she might almost be sick.

‘I need to be comfortable for this?’

That note of suspicion had deepened, darkened, intensifying all her fears just to hear it.

‘It would be more—more civilised. Look, just give me a minute to get a drink, a glass of water—you might not want one but I do. And then I’ll—then we can talk.’

For an uncomfortable second she thought he was going to refuse. The cynical, sceptical glance he turned on her face made her stomach muscles tighten in apprehension. But then, just when she thought he wouldn’t, he inclined his dark head in agreement.

‘OK,’ he said as he turned and walked back into the living room. ‘I will wait—but only a minute. I am not a patient man and I want to know just what the hell is going on.’