One More Sleepless Night

* * *

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

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.’