‘No, Cairo, you’ll get it whether you want it or not,’ he told her forcefully as he dropped down onto the sand beside her to take her chin in his grasp and turn her face towards his. ‘What happened to the Cairo Vaughn I knew and loved?’

‘Loved, Rafe?’ She laughed incredulously. ‘You don’t even know the meaning of the word!’ Her gaze was challenging.

Rafe continued to look at her wordlessly for several seconds before abruptly releasing her, knowing he wasn’t going to reach her this way. If there was any of the old Cairo left to reach …

Cairo glared at him with frustrated anger. Rafe hadn’t loved her. If he had loved her, then she wouldn’t have gone to his hotel suite that day eight years ago and found a naked woman in his bed!

‘This beach is slightly different from the one we once walked on together at midnight, isn’t it?’ he said huskily now.

Cairo eyed him warily, not quite sure how to reply to that comment.

She knew exactly which beach Rafe was referring to, of course. Just as she clearly remembered what had happened at the end of that walk. She was just surprised that Rafe remembered it, too, after all this time….

‘I seem to remember I ruined a pair of perfectly good shoes walking across the pebbles and rocks,’ she said coolly.

‘It was worth it,’ Rafe murmured softly.

Yes, it had been, but—

‘Have you ever been back there?’ Rafe asked, quirking up one eyebrow to signal his interest.

‘To the Isle of Man?’

She had only vaguely even heard of the Isle of Man, a small island located between England and Ireland, before she had been there on location during the filming of A Love For All Time. The island’s old-fashioned quaintness had been a perfect spot for the post-war love story, in which Rafe had had the role of male lead and Cairo had had the supporting actress role to Pamela Raines’s female lead.

A situation that had, unfortunately, become echoed in real life!

‘I try not to dwell on past mistakes,’ she dismissed in a deliberately offhand tone of voice.

‘It was damn cold on the beach that night, wasn’t it?’ he said, ignoring her supposed lack of interest in the topic.

Until they’d found the ideal way to keep warm, yes….

‘Rafe—’

‘Life seemed a lot simpler then, too,’ he continued wistfully as if she hadn’t spoken.

Her eyes widened. ‘Simpler?’

He nodded. ‘There was just you and me—’

‘And Pamela,’ Cairo put in dryly. ‘Let’s not forget the beautiful and rapacious Pamela, shall we?’

Rafe’s mouth tightened. ‘I forgot about her years ago.’

Cairo gave a derisive smile. ‘How convenient to have such an—accommodating memory!’

His eyes narrowed and his voice turned positively icy. ‘Pamela meant nothing to me.’

‘Has any woman ever meant anything to you, Rafe?’ Cairo enquired hotly.

How could he sit and claim Pamela had meant nothing to him?

The other woman had been naked in his hotel room that day, her hair all tousled, that look—that look of sleepy satisfaction on her face the result of Rafe’s lovemaking that Cairo had seen so often on her own face when she’d looked in the mirror.

His gaze became hooded now. ‘Just the one,’ he murmured, his meaning obvious as he steadily held her gaze.

‘Oh, please!’ Cairo muttered in disgust as she stood up and moved away from him. ‘I’m not that naïve twenty-year-old any more, Rafe. So don’t even think about trying your seduction routine on me again—’

‘It isn’t a routine, dammit—’

‘Of course it is!’ She turned on him angrily. ‘You sailed into Douglas Bay that day looking like a Spanish pirate captaining his ship and completely swept me and every other woman on the island off their feet!’

Cairo could remember it as if it were yesterday, standing at the window of her hotel room, watching as the three-masted sailing ship came round the headland and anchored in the bay, a small launch leaving the ship minutes later, the man at the wheel—looking every inch that Spanish pirate!—clearly the darkly handsome Rafe Montero.

Cairo had lost her heart to Rafe’s dark and rugged wildness before she was even introduced to him an hour later.

And she wasn’t going to fall for it again.

Ever.

‘I’m going for a swim,’ she told Rafe abruptly as she took off her T-shirt before peeling her skirt down over her hips and legs and revealing that she wore a brief white bikini beneath.

Rafe stood and watched Cairo as she ran down the golden sand to wade thigh-deep in the water before diving smoothly beneath its surface, his hands clenching at his sides as he appreciated how the white of her bikini emphasised the golden tan of her skin. Smooth, silky skin he could still feel against the palms of his hands.

Cairo was right; she was no longer a naïve twenty-year-old. Just as he was no longer twenty-nine and bowled off his feet by her beauty the moment he was introduced to her.

But a part of him wished that he were….

CHAPTER SIX

‘I THINK you’re being absolutely ridiculous, Rafe,’ Cairo told him coolly as she hung their wet costumes and towels on the line strung between two trees at the back of the villa. Daisy was inside watching a cartoon channel on the television.

They had all showered and changed since returning an hour ago, Cairo now wearing a loose cream-coloured blouse over fitted jeans, the dampness of her long hair twisted into a knot and secured at her crown, her face completely bare of make-up.

She looked about eighteen, Rafe decided impatiently. Although that in no way stopped her being so damned stubborn he wanted to shake her until her teeth rattled!

His gaze narrowed on her warningly. ‘If you won’t agree to come down to Cannes with me this evening, then I’m not going, either,’ he repeated evenly.

‘Scrap my previous statement—your behaviour is positively juvenile!’ Cairo glared at him. ‘I won’t if you won’t,’ she mocked as she reached for another of the towels and began to hang it on the line. ‘You have to go to Cannes this evening, Rafe—I don’t!’

‘I don’t have to go anywhere until I’ve managed to find out the identity of the man who spoke to Daisy at lunchtime,’ Rafe assured her just as stubbornly.

Rafe had called several people he knew in the newspaper business, but as yet none of them had been offered a story about himself and Cairo. They would call him back when, or if, they did.

Admittedly his own temper was slightly frayed around the edges after those memories earlier of their time together on the Isle of Man. But Cairo’s adamant refusal to even think about reconsidering her decision not to go down to Cannes with him tonight was only increasing Rafe’s frustration, which was already exacerbated by a sexual tension that was becoming more unbearable by the minute.

She sighed. ‘So much for your “couple of phone calls”.’

‘If he’s a reporter, then we’ll know by tomorrow morning, anyway,’ Rafe pointed out. ‘I only said if he’s a reporter, Cairo,’ he said as she gave a pained groan.

She shook her head. ‘We both know that he is. Do you think he has photographs, too?’

‘If he’s any good at his job then, yes, of course he has photographs.’ There was no point in even attempting to lie, Rafe knew, when tomorrow morning’s newspapers would tell their own story, no doubt including wild speculation about their relationship.

He could see it now, photographs of himself and Cairo shopping for food, of them walking through Grasse with Daisy, of the three of them laughing together as they sat down at the table in the square outside the restaurant.

All very cosily domestic.

Deceptively so.

Anyone who had ever listened to a single conversation between himself and Cairo would know differently—they couldn’t even discuss the weather without getting into an argument about it!

‘I don’t see anything in the least funny about this situation, Rafe!’ Cairo snapped as she saw his rueful smile. ‘The reason I’m annoyed is pretty obvious after the publicity following my divorce from Lionel.’ She grimaced. ‘But I’m sure there must be someone in your own life who isn’t going to be amused, either, by photographs of the two of us together.’

Cairo hadn’t spent long, boring hours in her trailer waiting to be called on set for months now—that was the only time she flicked through the glossy magazines that contained those sorts of gossipy articles—so she had no idea whether or not Rafe was involved with anyone at the moment. But he probably was….

His mouth twisted mockingly. ‘I doubt any of my family will be concerned.’

Cairo sighed. ‘I wasn’t talking about your family and you know it.’

Rafe had occasionally talked about his family when they were together. Of his Spanish father who had visited America as a student and fallen in love with the blonde-haired, blue-eyed daughter of a Texas rancher, the two of them marrying once they finished college, and now working that ranch in Texas themselves, along with Rafe’s younger brother, Pedro, and his wife and young family.

Rafe grinned. ‘I’m well aware of that, Cairo,’ he drawled. ‘And, no, I very much doubt that photographs of you and I together are going to bother anyone but the two of us.’

‘What a shame,’ she came back insincerely.

Rafe sobered. ‘Cairo, I would never have kissed you last night if I was involved with someone else.’

She raised sceptical brows. ‘Really?’

‘Dammit, Cairo—’

‘Rafe, I have no intention of getting into yet another argument with you,’ she told him wearily. ‘Just accept that I am not going to Cannes with you tonight—’

‘Why the hell not?’

‘One, I don’t want to go. Two, I didn’t bring anything suitable to wear. Three,’ she added simply, ‘I’m still waiting for Jeff to return one of my calls.’

She had made two so far. One at the restaurant when she had reached his answering service, and hadn’t bothered to leave a message as she had quickly rung off to be with Daisy. And another one at the beach when she had returned from her swim and had left a message asking Jeff to call her back as soon as possible to let her know how Margo was.

She had brought her mobile outside with her now in the hopes he would call back soon.

Rafe scowled. ‘One, I don’t give a damn what you want; I’m not going out and leaving you and Daisy here alone this evening. Two, you can go naked for all I care. And three, that’s what mobile phones are for!’ he all but snarled.

‘There’s no need to shout—and I told you not to touch me again, Rafe!’ Cairo’s eyes flashed a warning as she looked down at the fingers that had reached out to curl like steel bands about her arm.

Rafe breathed unevenly as he looked down at her for several long seconds. ‘You would try the patience of a saint, Cairo!’

‘You should be just fine, then, shouldn’t you?’ she baited him. ‘I told you to let go of my arm, Rafe.’ She looked up to meet his gaze unflinchingly.

The very air seemed to have stilled about them, not a sound to be heard except their own breathing as they continued that silent battle of wills, their faces only inches apart as blue eyes held brown.

Cairo felt as if the whole of her insides were melting as Rafe stood far too close to her, those fingers encircling her arm sending waves of awareness to her breasts and thighs.

Only Rafe had ever been able to make her feel like this with just a look. Only Rafe had ever been able to make her want him with just the touch of his hand against her flesh.

A hand he now let drop back to his side even as his gaze continued to hold hers captive. ‘Do you know what I want to do to you right this minute?’ he murmured.

Cairo moistened dry lips, unable to speak or look away from that mesmerizing gaze.

‘If you won’t let me touch you, then let me tell you all the things I’ve been imagining doing with you,’ Rafe said gruffly. ‘Wild, wonderful things—’

‘Rafe—’

‘Erotic beautiful things,’ he continued mercilessly, his eyes gleaming with the desire he no longer held in check. ‘You see that wall behind you …? Yes, that wall,’ he confirmed softly as Cairo gave the low stone wall a quick glance. ‘I want to slip off your jeans and panties before sitting you on top of that wall and kneeling in front of you. I want to slowly unbutton your blouse to bare your breasts to the sun so that I can touch them, kiss them, lick your nipples, suckle them into the heat of my mouth—’

‘Rafe …!’ Cairo’s intended groan of protest instead came out as an aching entreaty for him to continue, her skin becoming sensitized just by his words, by the evocative image he was creating, her nipples hard against the soft material of her blouse, and a moist heat pooling between her thighs.

His eyes were dark. ‘Then I want to kiss my way—slowly—down to your navel.’ His voice was low, hypnotic. ‘Dipping my tongue, tasting you, before I go lower, parting your legs even as I part your glossy curls and find the very centre of you with my lips and tongue. I still remember the taste of you there, Cairo. So sweet and hot …’ He groaned.

‘Rafe, you have to stop this now!’ she choked, all of her feeling on fire now, aching with a need for the things he had described so eloquently.

‘Why do I, Cairo?’ His gaze still held hers. ‘I’m only talking, telling you of the things I would like to do with you.’

Cairo could feel every single one of them! Could feel his hands and lips against her breasts, suckling her nipples, his mouth hot and liquid across the flatness of her stomach as he moved lower, tasting that pool of moisture there, licking her, sucking ever so gently on her arousal and taking her over the edge into wild oblivion. She could feel all of that just as strongly as she felt the sun beating down on them.

Just as she could imagine touching Rafe, her hands gliding lovingly over the broadness of his bare shoulders and torso, her lips following that same path, kissing him, caressing him as she slowly made her way down to the hard thrust of his arousal, lips and tongue tasting him as she took him in her mouth and felt his response to those caresses, hearing his groans of longing, his need for release …

Why had everything gone so wrong between them eight years ago? she wondered achingly. Why, when she had loved him so much, given so much—when they had been able to give each other such physical pleasure—hadn’t she been enough for him?

They were questions Cairo had asked herself many times over the years. The answers were all too obvious.

With the prospect of a month’s filming on the Isle of Man—a beautiful unspoilt island but nevertheless one that offered very little in the way of entertainment for a man as rakish as Rafe Montero—Cairo must have been an easy conquest, a diversion in what might otherwise have been a tedious time for him when he wasn’t actually filming.

Admittedly the relationship had continued for a while longer once they’d all returned to London to complete the filming, Cairo more often than not spending the night in Rafe’s penthouse suite at his hotel with him, the two of them even occasionally going out to dinner with Margo and Jeff.

But somewhere along the way Cairo had missed the signs that Rafe was tired of the relationship. She knew why she had missed them, of course; her own love for Rafe had made her completely blind to anyone and everything else!

She had certainly been blind to the fact that Rafe’s attention had moved on to someone else, that it was now his co-star, Pamela Raines, who interested him, and whom he wanted to share his bed. As it had turned out, Rafe had been so determined the actress would share his bed that he hadn’t even had the time to tell Cairo to vacate it before moving Pamela Raines into it …

Cairo certainly couldn’t allow herself to be seduced into becoming Rafe’s South of France ‘diversion’, too!

What thoughts were going through her head, Rafe wondered as he looked at her searchingly. Whatever they were, they were making her frown.

‘Were you and Bond happy together?’ he suddenly rasped harshly.

Her eyes widened. ‘I don’t think—’

‘It isn’t going to hurt you to tell me that much, surely, Cairo?’ Rafe pressed, knowing the moment of intimacy was over. For now …

She shook her head. ‘Haven’t you been reading the newspapers the last ten months, Rafe?’

He shrugged. ‘In my experience they rarely report the truth.’

She gave a laugh of pure cynicism. ‘That’s been my experience, too!’

‘Well?’

‘I haven’t asked you about any of your relationships the last eight years, so why on earth should I answer any of your questions about my marriage to Lionel?’ she retorted indignantly.

‘Ask away,’ Rafe invited.

‘I—’ Cairo broke off as her mobile began to ring. ‘That could be Jeff,’ she pointed out huskily.

‘Then you had better answer it, hadn’t you?’ he bit out curtly, before turning away to thrust his hands in his pockets.

Dammit, every time he and Cairo came even close to understanding each other, something, or someone, interrupted them!

Why the hell he wanted answers to these questions after all this time was beyond him. Maybe it was because of those memories this afternoon of when they’d met on the Isle of Man, when the connection between them had seemed so instant and exclusive….

As it had seemed to be just now, too….

Or maybe it was because the abrupt end of his relationship with Cairo three months later had always seemed like unfinished business to him….

One day they had seemed to be totally together and the next she had told him it was all over, using empty phrases like ‘we both need our own space’ and ‘it was fun while it lasted but now it’s over’ as she’d walked out of his life.

Phrases that had only made sense to Rafe when that very same evening Cairo had gone out to dinner with the producer of the film, and only weeks later she had married him!

To add insult to injury, the ‘happy couple’ had even invited him, and the rest of the crew from A Love For All Time to the wedding! Rafe had excused himself from that invitation and spent the afternoon in bed with his co-star Pamela Raines instead.

But being here with Cairo like this, talking to her, touching her again, imagining making love with her, seemed to have released all those old memories, the good, as well as the bad.

Half of him had wanted to punish her just now as he told her of how he would make love to her, the other half punishing himself for still wanting her. He was still hard from those imaginings, his arousal a low throb that he had no control over—

‘Margo’s had the baby,’ Cairo spoke huskily behind him. ‘A little boy,’ she added as Rafe turned in sharp enquiry. ‘Margo is fine,’ she continued emotionally. ‘The baby—

Simon Raphael—is in an incubator, but Jeff seems very hopeful that he’s going to be okay, too—’ She broke off to bury her face in her hands as she began to cry.

‘But that’s good, isn’t it?’ Rafe frowned, this time having no choice but to take her in his arms.

Cairo had no idea why she was crying. Relief, probably. She had been so worried about Margo and the baby.

But it wasn’t just that, she knew. The strain of being here with Rafe, talking to him, having him describe what it would be like making love to her, feeling every caress and touch of his lips on her body, was also taking its toll. Finding herself in his arms certainly wasn’t helping her dispel the effect!

She straightened, avoiding his searching gaze as she wiped the tears from her cheeks to step away from him. ‘It’s much better news than I’d hoped for,’ she agreed.

His eyes narrowed. ‘Does Jeff want you and Daisy to go back to England now?’

‘Not for a few more days, until he’s absolutely sure …’ Cairo shook her head. ‘I have to go in and tell Daisy the good news,’ she said as she turned away.

‘Cairo?’

She closed her lids briefly before turning back to look at him with guarded eyes. ‘Yes?’

Rafe’s gaze was mocking. ‘Now there are only two reasons why you can’t come to Cannes with me this evening….’

She drew in a sharp breath. ‘Rafe, you have no idea of the avalanche of publicity we would be bringing down on ourselves by appearing in public together!’

Rafe gave a rueful smile. ‘I think I have a pretty good idea. Besides, with the appearance of tomorrow’s newspapers, the chances are we’re going to be presented with a fait accompli, anyway.’ His mouth tightened grimly. ‘Personally I would rather spike the bast—the guy’s guns, by appearing in public with you tonight and so ruining his chances of an exclusive tomorrow.’

He had a point, Cairo realized unwillingly.

She was weakening in her resolve not to accompany him, Rafe noted with satisfaction as she hesitated. And he was determined that she would, meant it when he told Cairo she couldn’t go on hiding like this. Yeah, her divorce had been messy and very public, but she needed to get some perspective back in her life.

With their past history, why the hell should he care what Cairo did, either now or in the future?

He shouldn’t.

And yet he knew that he did….

He should never have given into the temptation of telling her all the things he would like to do to her.

‘Well?’ he prompted tersely.

Cairo sighed heavily, knowing that he wasn’t going to give up.

‘Okay, I—I’ll ask Daisy what she wants to do—’

‘Coward,’ Rafe told her softly.

Her chin came up, her eyes flashing darkly. ‘You know nothing about me, Rafe. Nothing!’ she snapped angrily.

He shrugged. ‘Then prove me wrong, Cairo, and come with me tonight.’

Her mouth twisted into a derisive smile. ‘I guarantee you’ll regret your insistence more than I will.’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘I’m willing to take that chance if you are.’

Was she? She could see the logic of what Rafe was saying concerning spiking the guns of the reporter who had followed them today. The two of them appearing together in public this evening would certainly diffuse the exclusivity of any story he might have written. Except the very idea of appearing in public with Rafe as her partner for the evening, so totally aware of him as she now was, was Cairo’s idea of a nightmare!

‘I’ll ask Daisy,’ she repeated firmly. ‘If she wants to go, then we will.’

Rafe could tell by the finality in her tone that it was the best answer he was going to get for now.

‘Okay.’ He sighed. ‘Go and talk to Daisy now so that I know whether or not I have to call and make my excuses for this evening, after all.’

Rafe made no effort to follow Cairo into the villa, instead moving to sit on one of the chairs on the terrace, needing these few minutes’ respite to bring his throbbing need for her under control.

Impossible when he could practically taste her….

CHAPTER SEVEN

‘YOU have to believe me, Cairo, when I tell you I had no idea Bond had been invited this evening!’

Cairo knew by the grimness of Rafe’s expression as he looked down at her so intently that he was telling the truth.

Not that she had ever thought otherwise; the two of them might have had their differences in the past, Rafe uncaring of her feelings for him, but she had never found him to be a vindictive man.

Believing what he did, to have deliberately brought her to this party in Cannes knowing Lionel was going to be here, too, would definitely have been vindictive on Rafe’s part!

Until now it had been a surprisingly pleasant evening. Cairo had met up and chatted with several old acquaintances as she sipped the freely flowing champagne, and Daisy was absolutely enthralled with the whole thing as she pointed out people she recognized from films and television.

There had been the usual barrage of photographers outside, of course, an experience Cairo had also found less of an ordeal than she had expected. Rafe had kept a firm hold of her arm and smilingly fended off most of the more personal questions while at the same time keeping an eye out for the man who had followed them earlier today. He wasn’t there, Rafe had informed her as they went into the huge white marquee on Cannes beach where the party was being held.

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