‘Your comment about needing me around whenever you find yourself in a crowd.’
‘That was a
joke
.’
‘It didn’t sound like one.’
And maybe it hadn’t been one
totally
, but that wasn’t the point. ‘I see,’ she said, folding her arms over her chest and feeling her blood beginning to simmer in response to his baffling attitude. ‘And you’ve deduced from that that I’ve somehow cast you in the role of knight in shining armour?’
‘Haven’t you?’
‘Of course not.’
‘It wouldn’t be your fault if you had.’ His face tightened. ‘This last week has been a mistake,’ he muttered, almost as if talking to himself. ‘
My
mistake.’
Did he really believe that? The hurt that suddenly cut through her momentarily robbed her of breath. ‘Why?’
‘Because I’ve let you become dependent on me and I shouldn’t have.’
She let out a slow measured breath to stop the top of her head blowing off. ‘You know, your arrogance is truly staggering,’ she said, staring at him in stupefaction as all the lovely warmth and the dizzying sense of wonder that had been bubbling away inside her for the last hour or so evaporated.
Rafael whipped his head round to give her a quick glance and she saw astonishment written all over his face. ‘What?’
‘I’m perfectly capable of being responsible for my own well-being,’ she said, silently adding,
You jerk
. ‘Like it or not, I’m in love with you.’ Although right now she really wished she weren’t. ‘And it has nothing to do with my recovery or dependency or whatever you think you’ve been doing over the last week.’
‘You can’t be,’ he said flatly. ‘We haven’t known each other long enough. You’re confusing love and lust, that’s all.’
Nicky fought not to gape at him as her head spun. What the hell was going on here? Who was this? Where was the Rafael she’d fallen in love with? The warm, thoughtful man who’d made her laugh and who’d made such passionate love to her. The one she’d got to know and admire. He had to still be there somewhere but why had he switched himself off like this?
And then suddenly a great wave of hurt and disappointment swept through her, boiling her blood and firing her indignation. If he didn’t feel the same way about her as she did about him that was fine. Painful, but fair enough. But this casual and cold dismissal of her feelings? No, that wasn’t right and it wasn’t fair.
‘How dare you?’ she breathed.
‘What?’ he said, casting her a quick cool glance as if he genuinely didn’t have a clue what she meant.
‘How dare you just brush me off like that?’
He shrugged. ‘Because I know what I’m talking about.’ The condescension in his voice made her want to slap him. ‘It happened to me. In my marriage. I thought I married for love. It turned out to be nothing more than lust.’
‘And you think that’s what’s going on here?’
‘If it’s not dependency, then very possibly. Have you ever been in love before?’
‘Well, no, but—’
‘Then how do you know that what you claim to feel for me isn’t love, but simply lust?’
And once again he rendered her speechless. She just sat there, totally bamboozled by his logic and unable to breathe. She felt winded, as if he’d struck her square in the chest.
And then sensation came flooding back, and all that hurt and disappointment and frustration at his reaction now combined with dizzying and unfamiliar red hot anger, and the whole lot of it surged through her in one great unstoppable wave.
‘I’ll tell you how I know,’ she said, feeling what little control she had when it came to him slipping away but too consumed by all the emotions tossing around inside her to do anything about it. ‘I know because even if we never made love again I’d still want to be with you. I know because I admire you and respect you and because I think you’re amazing. Yes, I love the way you make me feel, but it’s so much more than that.’ She glared at him. ‘And you know how I
really
know it’s love and not lust?’
‘How?’ he said, sounding as if he couldn’t be less interested.
‘By the way that your casual dismissal of what I feel is practically crucifying me.’
Rafael went still, but he didn’t look at her. ‘If I’ve hurt you, then I apologise, but perhaps it’s for the best.’
‘For the best?’ she echoed.
‘Better now than months down the line.’
God, she really had got it wrong, hadn’t she? Terribly, agonisingly wrong. ‘Are you honestly saying that you feel nothing for me?’
Rafael frowned. ‘I wouldn’t say nothing. I like you a lot and I can’t get enough of you in bed. But as I said, that’s just lust.’
‘And what about if sex wasn’t part of the equation?’
‘I would rapidly lose interest.’
His voice might be flat and cold but the muscle ticcing madly in his jaw suggested he wasn’t as unaffected as he was trying to make out, and suddenly a tiny ray of hope burst through the tangle of hurt and confusion and anger within her. ‘I don’t believe you.’
He shrugged. ‘That’s up to you.’
As all the things he’d done for her, the way he’d held her, made love to her, talked to her flashed through her head she took a deep breath and a massive gamble. ‘I think you love me too.’
‘You couldn’t be more wrong, because I don’t.’
She let out that breath in a furious exasperated rush, suddenly utterly fed up with him. ‘God, I’ve never met such a stubborn, thick-headed man in my life. Nor one who is such an emotional coward.’
That jerked him out of his indifference. He snapped his gaze to hers, his eyes blazing.
‘What?’
Nicky gripped her seat belt and refused to quail. ‘You’re an emotional coward, Rafael.’
He snapped his gaze back to the road. ‘What the hell do you mean by that?’
‘Every time the going gets tough, every time something crops up that you don’t want to deal with, you retreat.’
‘I do not.’
‘No?’ she said. ‘OK, well, let’s take a look at the evidence.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. There is no evidence.’
‘You think?’ She held up her hand and ticked off her index finger. ‘Firstly there’s your marriage. Things started getting difficult and you buried yourself in your work.’
‘Don’t even begin to presume you know what went on in my marriage,’ he said icily calmly.
Nicky ignored his chilling fury. ‘I wouldn’t dream of it. But you even admitted that much, once you managed to get past your reluctance to talk about it in the first place. And then what about that time we met?’ She wiggled her middle finger.
‘What about it?’
‘Weren’t you escaping from the demands of two sisters, one mother and an ex-girlfriend?’
He gritted his teeth and his eyes flashed her a warning but she wasn’t about to stop now. ‘And then there was that kiss by the pool,’ she fired at him, giving up with the fingers altogether. ‘You might not have physically fled then, but emotionally you did, and you’re doing it again now. Going straight into denial and retreating, just because I’m being honest and you can’t deal with it. You look like you’re itching to escape and the only reason you’re not is because we’re in your car flying along at seventy kilometres an hour and you can’t.’ She gave him a withering look. ‘And you know something—while kind of understandable in a boy of eight, in a man of thirty-two it’s pathetic.’
Her words hung in the air, suspended between them, the seconds ticking heavily by before he said, ‘Yes, well, we can’t all be wild, adventurous risk- takers like you.’
She stared at him. ‘You see being honest and dealing with emotions as a risk?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘Then what about the rewards?’
‘In my experience there aren’t any.’
Ooh, she wanted to thump him. ‘If you truly think that, then that’s sad. Yes, I take risks—’ and none more so than the one she’d taken just now ‘—but they’re generally calculated ones. And even if one does go wrong—’ as this one seemed to be doing ‘—at least I tried. But what do you do? You hide.’
‘It’s called self-preservation.’
‘It’s called immaturity.’
Rafael flinched as if she’d struck him, but Nicky hadn’t finished. They might have arrived back at the
cortijo
and he might be yanking on the handbrake and reaching for the clip of his seat belt as if he couldn’t get away fast enough, but she matched him for speed. ‘You think you’re so good at solving problems and sorting out things for other people,’ she said, freeing herself and reaching for the door, ‘but what about you? Who sorts you out?’ She glared at him. ‘Right now the biggest problem here is you and your absurd refusal to even entertain the thought about how you might feel about me, and you’re not even bothering to try and fix it even though you could.’
‘There’s nothing to fix.’
‘There could be.’
‘There won’t be.’
He got out of the car and slammed the door shut, and it finally hit her that she’d never be able to get through to him. That he’d been hiding his emotions away for too long and too well. Nothing she could say or do would ever have any effect on him and Nicky had suddenly had enough.
‘Well, if that really is the case,’ she said, her voice shaking with anger, ‘then this time
I’m
the one walking away.’
* * *
Nicky was wrong, thought Rafael grimly as the slam of the front door reverberated throughout the
cortijo
, leaving nothing but an eerie silence and the echo of all those accusations.
Dead wrong. About everything.
As if he needed sorting out. As if he needed fixing. The idea was laughable. He didn’t need either. He was fine the way he was.
And if he did occasionally retreat, well, what was the problem with that? As he’d told her, it was simply a question of self-preservation, that was all. It worked for his father and it worked for him. He had it under control. It wasn’t an issue. And it wasn’t immaturity. And what would she know about it anyway? She didn’t have a vast family that constantly badgered her, did she?
And OK, he might have been a bit thrown by that conversation about Marina and all the memories it had tossed up, and he might possibly have got it wrong about her being dependent on him, but as for them being in love with each other, well, that was completely absurd.
He wasn’t in love with her and she wasn’t in love with him. She couldn’t be. They’d only known each other for a few weeks. It wasn’t possible.
So it was a good thing she’d gone, wasn’t it, because, God, all that emotion... It had been horrible...
Stifling a shudder, Rafael stalked into the drawing room and strode towards the drinks cabinet. He reached for the brandy and filled a glass and winced as all the things Nicky had said and the way she’d said them hit him all over again. He tossed his drink back in one and hoped the burning alcohol that hit his stomach would obliterate the memory of the last half an hour.
At least it was all over now, which was excellent because he didn’t need this kind of hassle in his life. He didn’t need this kind of upheaval. And he could certainly do without feeling like this.
Whatever it was that was coursing through him right now it couldn’t possibly be something serious like hurt or disappointment or regret or anything. It was simply shock at the abruptness of her departure, that was all. And if he did feel a tiny pang of loss, well, that was only natural given the intensity and passion that their affair had had.
Like everything, recovering from it would simply be a question of patience and time, and with a bit of both he’d soon come to appreciate the lucky escape he’d had.
FOURTEEN
Nicky’s anger sustained her throughout the entire horrendous journey back to Paris. She bristled and fumed her way through the tiresome process of handing back her hire car, the booking of a last-minute, excruciatingly expensive flight, and, what with a three hour delay and a diversion to Orly, staying furious hadn’t taken all that much effort.
The teeth-grinding frustration of international travel notwithstanding, all she had to do was remember how she’d laid her heart, her feelings, everything she had on the line and how Rafael had trampled all over them, and it rose up inside her all over again. She’d mentally called him every filthy name she could think of in both English and French, and told herself over and over again that she was well shot of him.
But the minute she closed her front door behind her the adrenalin and energy drained right away sweeping up all her anger and strength with it, and with a low anguished moan she crumpled into a heap on the floor.
As despair and misery filled the gaping hole left inside her, she finally gave in to the wretchedness and tears spilled down her cheeks because she might be well shot of him but she was still crazy about him. Her heart felt as if it were being wrenched from her chest. Her head pounded, her throat burned and she ached all over.
Oh, how could it all hurt so
much
? And why was she crying like this? She never cried. Now, though, it seemed she couldn’t stop.
Burying her head in her hands as yet more tears welled up, Nicky reran the whole horrible conversation and with her anger at Rafael’s reaction all burned out she now helplessly charged off down the road of self-recrimination.
Why, oh, why had she had to say anything? Why had she had to go and tell him she loved him? Why couldn’t she just have kept it to herself?
She wrapped her arms around herself and rocked as regret spun through her. How could she have let rip at him like that? What gave her the right to fire all that stuff about his issues at him? And as for telling him he loved her, well, who the hell was she to assume that that was the case? He’d never given her that impression, had he? No, her common sense had been shot to pieces by everything that had happened in the previous half an hour and she’d jumped to that ridiculous conclusion all by herself.
She’d lost all control and because of it she’d never see him again. Her throat ached and her eyes stung all over again and she let out a quiet anguished moan as what little was left of her heart shattered.
God, if this was love then she was lucky to have escaped it for the past twenty-nine years because she’d never known agony like it. Never felt hopelessness like it, not even when she’d been at rock-bottom.
How long she sat there, crying and tormenting herself with what ifs and if onlys, she had no idea. All she knew was that by the time she was all wrung out and had no tears left, long silvery grey fingers of daylight were inching through the slats in her blinds.
With a deep sigh, Nicky wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her coat, sniffed unattractively and pulled herself together. This wasn’t doing her any good, was it? She might be feeling battered and bruised but she couldn’t stay here wallowing in self-pity for ever.
Groggily she got to her feet. She swayed a little and had to lean against the wall for support. Her limbs felt like jelly and she hurt everywhere but she gritted her teeth and made it into the kitchen because maybe things would look a bit brighter after coffee.
There was something remarkably restful about going through the motions of filling the pot with water, adding the coffee grounds to the filter and then screwing the top on. Something comfortably familiar, and as she put the pot on the hob, lit the gas and then leaned back against the counter to let it do its thing she determinedly rallied her spirits.
She might have screwed up whatever she and Rafael had had by recklessly telling him she loved him, but one good thing had come out of that whole mess of a conversation, and that was that she’d been right about wanting to settle down.
Despite the considerable progress she’d made she still—frustratingly—wasn’t one hundred per cent back to her old self, so maybe she did need a bit of permanency to give herself the chance and time to focus on her.
And she might not have Rafael to settle down with but that didn’t mean she couldn’t do it anyway, did it?
Of course she could. She might love him, but she didn’t
need
him. Even before she’d realised she loved him, she’d been toying with the idea of making changes to her life, and she was perfectly capable of making those changes on her own. In fact with no one else to consult, with no one to offer an opinion and advice, it would probably be easier.
She’d start now, she thought, pouring a cup of coffee and taking a hot fortifying sip. Thinking positively was the thing. Staying buoyant and remaining focused. And in the process she was bound to forget all about him.
* * *
This was getting ridiculous.
Rafael was sitting at his desk again, ignoring the files piled up in front of him again and staring blankly into space. Again.
With a growl of frustration he pushed his chair back, stalked over to the window and scowled down at the city spreading far below. What the hell
was
this? Why couldn’t he focus? And where had this incessant restlessness and edginess come from?
He’d been back in Madrid for a week now, and every single minute of it had been diabolically awful.
He should have been fine. God knew he had plenty to occupy himself. The new job he’d taken on—sorting out a company whose management structure was so top heavy that it was in danger of toppling over—gave him enough work to keep him busy for months. But to his intense irritation he wasn’t fine.
He couldn’t concentrate on anything. He couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, and it was driving him nuts. He was cross, tired, hungry and frustrated, which, as he never usually got cross, tired, hungry or frustrated, only made it all ten times worse.
He should have been thinking about ways to flatten out his client’s absurdly rigid management hierarchy. He should have been drawing up proposals and schedules and setting up meetings, but was he? No. All he could think about was that if ending things with Nicky had been for the best why wasn’t he rejoicing at having had such a remarkably lucky escape? Why did her accusations keep ricocheting around his head as if on some bloody unstoppable loop? And why hadn’t that stab of loss gone away?
He’d had plenty of time to forget her and he’d used up practically every drop of his patience trying to do just that, but neither had made a blind bit of difference because he simply couldn’t get her out of his head. She was in there all the damn time, sometimes distracting him with her smiles, her voice and that maddening habit she had of biting on her lip whenever she was thinking, but more often sitting in the darkness of his car, spitting fury and flinging all those awful things at him.
For the life of him he couldn’t work out why what she’d said was having such an effect on him. It wasn’t as if he’d sat around deliberately dwelling on it. No. In fact he’d never been busier. Apart from the welcome distraction of work, he’d taken his mother out to a hip new restaurant. He’d caught up with Gaby. And yesterday he’d spotted a new bud on the baobab he’d grown from seed.
But the food in that restaurant had tasted like cardboard. All he’d wanted to ask Gaby was if she’d seen Nicky, and the new baobab bud left him oddly numb.
None of his usual fail-safe methods of self-preservation had worked and he’d now got to the stage he wished he could reach down, yank out everything that was churning around inside him and twisting him into knots and toss it in the bin because it was all driving him insane.
Especially the guilt that at some point over the last week had taken up what was turning out to be permanent residence in his conscience. The guilt that, along with the little voice that had been niggling away in his head, was beginning to suggest that firstly he’d behaved appallingly and that secondly Nicky might have had a point.
For days he’d tried to resist both. For days he’d been telling himself that his reaction to her declaration she was in love with him had been perfectly normal given his experience with Marina, and that of course Nicky hadn’t had a point.
But right now he was just so
tired
. And not just physically. He was tired of resisting. Tired of constantly lying to himself—or at the very least denying the truth—and tired of trying to forget her.
Rafael rubbed a hand over his face as for what felt like the billionth time everything she’d said, everything she’d accused him of, ran through his head. And as something deep inside him finally gave way, fracturing and crumbling into dust, the truth smacked him right between the eyes.
Nicky had been deadly accurate in summing him up, hadn’t she? He
did
back off and run when the going got tough.
He’d started the moment he’d decided he’d had enough of his sisters hassling him when he’d been a boy and escaped to the end of the garden, and he’d never stopped. He’d done it with Marina, he’d done it with his sisters and his mother and his girlfriends and he’d done it with Nicky. Every time, every single time he faced anything that might require an emotional response he fought to escape. And if he couldn’t he shut himself down.
Look at what had happened when Nicky had told him she loved him. He’d been cold. Dismissive. Cruel. He’d hurt her. Crucified her, she’d said. And why? Because he’d been unable to handle it. Unable to let himself believe it, because if he allowed himself to believe it then what else might he end up believing?
Rafael stumbled over to his chair just in time to sink into it and buried his head in his hands as the now unfettered truth rained down on him.
God, he
was
the problem, wasn’t he? She’d accused him of being pathetic, stubborn and thick-headed, and he was, because was he
really
still hung up on what had happened with his marriage? It was nearly ten years ago, for heaven’s sake. He wasn’t twenty-three and Nicky wasn’t Marina.
She wasn’t needy and clingy and desperate for his attention, and of
course
she didn’t depend on him for her recovery or her well-being or anything else. She’d been taking care of herself for years.
And he
did
know the difference between lust and love, didn’t he?
Taking a deep breath, Rafael made himself face up to the facts he’d stupidly and lily-liveredly shied away from in an absurd effort to distance himself from Nicky and the way she made him feel, his pulse racing and his breathing shallowing.
It wasn’t lust that had made him wish he’d been there to protect her when she’d been attacked on that assignment. It wasn’t lust that had made him want to look after her that week at the
cortijo
. And it certainly wasn’t lust that was making his heart ache like this.
It was love.
And how else did he know? He knew because when she smiled his world brightened. When she looked at him his stomach melted. During the last seven days it hadn’t just been the sex he’d missed, but the very essence of her. He’d missed her laugh, her teasing and her vibrancy.
And he knew because for the first time in his life he wanted everything he thought he feared. He wanted
to be someone she could depend on. Someone she could turn to for advice and support and comfort.
As wave after wave of emotion swept through him Rafael’s hands shook with the force of it.
God, he loved everything about her. She was the bravest, most incredible woman he’d ever met and he’d been a blinkered, idiotic fool. Well, not any more, he thought, suddenly jerking upright and filling with grim determination. Enough was enough and he was through with hiding.
Making a snap decision, he leapt to his feet and scooped up his wallet and his car keys. She wanted honesty and emotion and risk-taking from him? She’d get it.
He could only hope he hadn’t left it too late.