She wanted to know everything, and now, thank
God
, it seemed she’d have to wonder and speculate and imagine no longer. ‘Why don’t you start at the beginning?’ she said.
Rafael set his jaw and looked as if he were bracing himself. ‘I met Marina through my younger sister.’
‘Gaby?’
‘The next one up. Elena. She and Marina were best friends. Elena had a party to celebrate her birthday and we were introduced. We dated and three months later we got married.’
Nicky nearly fell off her chair because that didn’t sound like the action of the keen-on-control Rafael she’d come to know. ‘Wow, that was quick.’
‘Too quick with hindsight,’ he said dryly.
‘How long were you married for?’
‘A couple of years.’
‘What happened?’
He grimaced. ‘Once the honeymoon was over—literally—it became pretty clear that we had nothing in common.’
Nothing? She couldn’t believe that. Not when, as she’d discovered, he was intelligent and interesting and had well-formed opinions on an impressively wide range of subjects. ‘You must have had
something
in common,’ she said, ‘otherwise why get married in the first place?’
He rubbed a hand along his jaw and nodded briefly. ‘OK, there was one thing,’ he conceded and as a pang of jealousy darted through her Nicky wished she hadn’t pressed the point. ‘But naturally it wasn’t enough. We were too different. And too young.’
‘How old were you?’ she asked, dismissing the jealously as entirely normal and ignoring it.
‘I was twenty-three and Marina was twenty.’
‘Didn’t anyone try and stop you?’
‘Of course, but you know how I feel about advice. I’m as bad at taking it as I am at giving it.’ He gave her a tight humourless smile. ‘Besides, I’d just got back from Harvard and, having had the best education on offer, I thought I knew everything.’
‘But you didn’t.’
‘Apparently not. I certainly knew nothing about how to handle the mess we’d got ourselves into. We argued. A lot. In fact,’ he added with a frown, ‘we argued about pretty much everything.’
‘That sounds stressful.’
‘It was.’ He stopped and for a moment he seemed to be completely lost in the memory of it all before giving his head a quick shake and snapping out of it. ‘Anyway, things went rapidly downhill until I ended up virtually living at the office and Marina ended up having an affair.’
Nicky winced. ‘Ouch.’
Rafael sighed. ‘I can’t say I really blame her. We should never have got married in the first place. The whole thing was a disaster from start to finish and it’s not something I’m in a hurry to do again.’
At the thought of him, normally so focused and so in control, so way out of his depth and floundering in the face of such unfathomably emotional upheaval, Nicky felt her heart squeeze. ‘So how did your sister take it all?’
He went very still and a muscle ticced in his jaw. ‘It wasn’t the easiest of times,’ he muttered eventually. ‘We didn’t see all that much of each other for a while. It was...awkward.’
‘Just awkward?’ she asked, thinking that for someone who clearly adored his sisters—even if they did occasionally drive him up the wall—‘awkward’ was more likely to mean ‘gut-wrenching’.
‘OK, yes, it was more than awkward,’ he admitted, ‘but you know all about the healing powers of time.’
She nodded. ‘I do indeed.’
‘We got through it eventually but that isn’t something I’d care to repeat either.’
No, she could see why he wouldn’t want to repeat any of it. And she could equally see why he went to such great lengths to avoid emotional mess now because she’d do the same in the circumstances. Who needed it?
Feeling faintly guilty at having made him relive what had clearly been a difficult time, Nicky decided the situation needed lightening.
‘It’s just as well I’m not blonde, beautiful, temperamental or difficult, then, isn’t it?’ she said, flashing him a teasing smile.
Rafael stared at her, bewilderment flickering across his face. ‘What?’
‘Well, when this is over we should be able to part as friends, don’t you think? I certainly don’t intend to lose Gaby’s friendship over it.’
For a moment there was utter silence and Nicky wondered what she’d said. Then Rafael seemed to pull himself together and shot her a quick stomach-melting smile. ‘This is quite different,’ he said, and signalled for the bill.
* * *
It
was
different, thought Rafael, shoving his hands in the pockets of his jeans and leaning back against a low wall as he watched Nicky hunker down at the bottom of some steps and lift her camera to her eye.
And thank God for it because his relationship with Marina had been a disaster. A complete disaster, and not just because they’d been young and had had precious little in common. Yes, those had obviously been contributing factors to the breakdown of their marriage, but what had really been at the heart of it all was Marina’s clinginess and neediness and his inability to handle any of it.
With hindsight he should have foreseen problems right from the start, or at least the minute he’d learned about her overprotective parents, the sheltered life she’d led and her desperate longing to escape.
If he’d been thinking straight he’d have paid attention to the great neon warnings his brain kept flashing at him and steered well clear, but in all honesty they’d met and he’d been so dazzled by her looks he’d stopped thinking at all.
It hadn’t helped that meeting her had coincided with his return to Spain after years of hard academic work and little play. He’d been demob happy and hell-bent on making up for lost time and she’d been only too willing to help. So he hadn’t stopped to think about what effect their whirlwind romance might have had on her and it had never occurred to him that she’d start to view him as some sort of saviour.
But she had, and before long the signs of her dependency on him had become apparent. She’d turned possessive, jealous and obsessive, calling him a dozen times a day just to check where he was and what he was doing. She’d stopped seeing the few friends she had and tried to stop him seeing the friends he had.
He’d unwittingly found himself responsible for her happiness and he hadn’t known what to do. And then it had got even worse because by the time he realised how needy and stifling she’d become—and how unhappy he made her—he’d also realised that he’d confused lust with love and that by marrying her he’d made a massive mistake.
And the awful guilt-inducing truth of the matter was that he hadn’t even thought about trying to sort things out, trying to make it work, because ultimately he hadn’t cared. Not during their fiercest arguments, not when Marina had had the affair and not even when she’d filed for divorce.
In fact the bureaucratic nightmare of the divorce had given him a greater headache than his marriage had, and the distress it had caused his sister, who’d been torn between her brother and her best friend, had given him greater heartache.
Which was so wholly
wrong
he’d vowed never to let himself get into that kind of a situation again. Never again was he going to mistake lust for love, thought Rafael, narrowing his eyes and setting his jaw as he watched Nicky, who was totally absorbed in what she was doing. Nor did he intend to ever get himself into a relationship where he might find himself depended on. For anything. The responsibility of it all was simply too great and he’d only screw up. Again.
And that was why being with Nicky was so refreshing. He admired the way she kept her cards close to her chest, had the ability to sort things through in her own head and didn’t ask anything of him. Above all he appreciated the way he could be himself, the way he didn’t feel he had to be constantly on his guard in case she wanted more than he was able to give, because she never would.
The thought of pursuing a more long-term relationship with her popped up in his head once again and his muscles tensed and his heart beat a fraction faster as the need to get started on it right now surged up inside him.
What was the point in waiting? In deliberating? There wasn’t any, was there? Because it seemed to him that she was just as into this as he was, and he didn’t think she’d say no. At least he fervently hoped she wouldn’t.
Rafael was just about to push himself off the wall and head towards her when he saw her shoot to her feet, take a quick step back and crash straight into a group of tourists who’d gathered behind her and were listening to the guide gesticulating at the memorial she’d been photographing.
If he’d had time to think about it—and if it had been anyone else other than Nicky—he’d have expected her to brush herself off, give them a quick smile and a heartfelt apology and then stroll back to him.
But he didn’t have time to think because it all happened so fast. So fast in fact that his brain slowed it right down.
He watched as Nicky froze and went white and then stumbled, and within what felt like aeons but could only have been a split second the little group was closing round her, hands reaching out to steady her.
As alarm began to flash through him he heard her cry of distress. Saw her lash out, and as he realised what was going on he didn’t stop to think or consider his actions. He just reacted.
With his heart pounding as fiercely as he bet hers was and with adrenalin suddenly roaring through him, he raced over. Muttering a rough apology, he pushed his way through the crowd to where Nicky was standing, pale, sweating and shaking. He wrapped one arm around her waist, the other around her shoulders and drew her into a firm embrace.
‘It’s all right. You’re OK,’ he murmured against her hair, every cell of his body turning inside out with the need to absorb her panic and give her some of his strength. ‘Lean on me. I’ve got you.’
THIRTEEN
I’ve got you.
As Rafael tightened his grip on Nicky’s waist and led her away from the group of people and their curiosity at her extraordinary reaction to their mini collision, the words he was murmuring into her hair over and over spun round and round her head because now all the panic and confusion had evaporated it suddenly struck her that he
did
get her. He really did.
There she’d been a moment ago, surrounded and trapped and in the terrifying grip of a flashback, her heart hammering and panic drowning out the voice of common sense that was telling her the hands on her were only trying to steady her and that she wasn’t in any danger. And then, just when her knees had been about to give way, just when she’d thought she’d been about to faint and almost falling apart at the awareness that she
still
wasn’t as over everything as she’d thought, there
he’d
been, charging to her rescue like some kind of white knight, taking her into his arms and shielding her from the nightmare, warm and solid and so very reassuring.
She hadn’t had to ask for his help. She hadn’t had to spell it out. He’d somehow instinctively known what was wrong, and he’d put it right.
He’d got it.
He got
her
.
And not only a second ago, she thought dazedly as Rafael leaned back against the wall of the church and held her tight still murmuring soothing words into her hair. The truth of it was that over the last week he’d often appeared to be able to read her mind, apparently understanding exactly what she needed—whether it was space, silence or company—sometimes even before she did. And she’d been able to gauge his moods too.
It was as if they had some kind of connection and the weird thing was that, far from finding it unsettling as she should have done, she’d actually revelled in it. Which meant that not only did he get her, but that she
wanted
him to.
As
that
thought slammed into her head Nicky’s slowing heart began to race all over again because hot on the heels of it came a whole load more, cascading into her head so fast that she went dizzy.
Oh, dear Lord. The attention and care he’d lavished on her in the last few days? She loved it. The feeling of being cherished, protected, looked after? She loved all that too. And as for the way he’d just rushed to her rescue, well, that melted just about every independent feminist thought she’d ever had.
She ought to have found it stifling, but she didn’t. She ought to have been horrified that it went against everything she’d ever thought she’d valued, but she found she couldn’t drum up much objection to that either.
And why not?
Because she was head over heels bonkers in love with him.
Nicky froze, her pulse going berserk and her knees threatening to buckle all over again.
She was in love with him. She had to be. What else could account for it all?
She’d never really thought about falling in love. Never imagined she would. Never expected it. It wasn’t that she didn’t believe in it as a concept, and it wasn’t as if she hadn’t had a good example of it set by her parents. It was just that she’d never felt it herself before. She’d always been too busy to look for it. Too focused on staying on the move and remaining unattached.
But not any more because now she was thinking about it she was beginning to realise that she loved everything about him. And it had nothing whatsoever to do with the mind-blowing sex, because even when they weren’t in bed she still had that wonderfully warm sense of contentment. Every time he smiled at her, every time he looked at her and every time he touched her. In fact every time he crossed her mind her heart turned over and she went soft and warm inside.
If that wasn’t love, then what was it?
And just like that all those things that had been baffling her recently suddenly made sense. Her lack of enthusiasm about going back to Paris. The longing to learn everything there was to know about him. The brief jagged pain that scythed through her at the thought of them being over. The wrenching of her heart when she’d caught sight of the couple floating out of the church not five minutes ago, beaming and radiating happiness and wrapped round each other as they posed for photographs beneath a Mudéjar arch. And the couple of dark-haired green-eyed children she’d secretly imagined racing around the
cortijo
...
As her muscles gently collapsed beneath the deluge of emotion descending over her Nicky sank against him. God. Not a fan of emotional mess? Who had she been kidding? She’d never wanted it more. She wanted the roller coaster of the ride. The highs and the lows, the laughter and the arguments. She was bone-deep tired of being footloose and fancy free, of the endless travel and being alone. She wanted to settle down. She wanted someone to share her life with. She wanted Rafael.
Her heart thumped as her mind raced. But what about him? How did he feel about her? Could she even begin to hope he might love her back? Yes, she’d noticed his concern for her, the way he’d cared for her, the warmth with which he looked at her, but did any of that mean anything? Surely it had to mean
something
...
Listening to the steady beat of his heart beneath her cheek and taking strength from the arms around her and the warm hard body still supporting her, she sifted through all the evidence, analysing every look and every smile he’d given her, every little thing he’d said and done, and her heart thumped wildly as she came to the conclusion that he very well could.
And OK, from what she’d just learned about his marriage of course he’d be wary of loving again and wary of commitment, but maybe she could show him that with someone who understood him, with
her
, he needn’t be.
Nicky closed her eyes and took a deep breath, inhaling the intoxicating scent of him as she struggled to absorb all these earth-shattering discoveries and would have swayed had she not been locked in his embrace.
‘Would you like to go home?’ he said softly.
And just when she thought her system couldn’t cope with any more shocks, wham, there was another one, because didn’t
home
sound like the most heavenly thing ever?
She’d never had a home before. Never wanted one. If she’d ever thought about it she’d have shuddered at the idea of anything so permanent. So cosy. So boringly domestic. But that long-held belief went the way of the others and exploded into smithereens because right now she couldn’t think of anywhere she’d rather be than with Rafael. At home. For ever.
Feeling that the world had somehow tilted violently and then settled back down all upside down, Nicky dazedly leaned back in his arms, smiled up into his eyes and said, ‘Yes, please.’
* * *
The fact that Nicky didn’t seem to have anything to say during the car journey back to the
cortijo
suited Rafael down to the ground because there was so much stuff churning around in his head he didn’t think he’d be able to hold anything remotely resembling a conversation even if she’d wanted one.
At some point between taking her in his arms to lead her to safety and getting in the car something had changed. What precisely it was he couldn’t work out. All he knew was that something was different, it was deeply unsettling and for some reason it threw his idea of a long-term relationship with Nicky right on its head.
He’d been leaning back against that wall and holding her close when he’d felt her stiffen, then soften. All of a sudden it had seemed to him that she was pressing just that little bit closer and not because she wanted to get horizontal and naked with him but because she wanted to simply be with him.
For some reason the idea of it had made him reel. It had made him prickle with foreboding and fill with trepidation. And then, before he’d had time to recover and to reassure himself that he was merely still shaken up by what he’d seen Nicky just go through and must have imagined it, she’d smiled up at him, her eyes shining and her face all soft and dreamy. She’d looked at him as if he were her knight in shining armour and his heart had given a sudden lurch because at that moment tough, resilient, independent Nicky had been replaced by someone he didn’t recognise.
And frankly it spooked the hell out of him.
‘Rafael, are you all right?’
His hands tightened on the steering wheel and he wished they were home already so he could put some distance between them. ‘Fine,’ he muttered. ‘Why?’
‘You’re very quiet.’
‘Just thinking, that’s all.’
‘About what happened back there?’
‘Partly.’
‘Me too.’ There it was again, that dreamy wistfulness in her voice drifting through the dark, winding through him and twisting his gut into knots. ‘Thank you for coming to my rescue.’
Rafael tensed and felt a bead of sweat trickle down his spine as his stomach instinctively clutched tighter. ‘You’re welcome.’
‘I’ll have to make sure you’re around every time I find myself unexpectedly in the middle of a crowd.’
Her words hit his brain and Rafael went utterly cold, because despite the faint teasing note in her voice he didn’t think she was joking. And if she wasn’t joking, then he was in a whole lot of trouble. And if he was, then it was all entirely of his own making.
The knowledge struck him like a blow and he inhaled sharply. God, he’d been a fool. He’d told Nicky to lean on him and that was precisely what she’d done. And not, he could now see, in a solely literal sense. Nor only back in that square. She’d been leaning on him ever since he’d brought her back down here and like a blind idiot he hadn’t seen it.
In fact he’d been
provoking
it.
He’d thought he’d simply been keeping an eye on her. Making sure she was OK. Spending time with her, getting to know her and encouraging her to talk about what had happened in the Middle East to help her get over it. But what he’d really
been doing over the course of the last week was creating an environment in which she was
bound
to come to depend on him.
How he could have forgotten that she might not be as fully recovered as she claimed he had no idea. Hadn’t she woken up in the early hours, sweating and trembling, only a couple of nights ago? She had, and without a thought for the consequences he’d gathered her in his arms and held her until she’d stopped shaking with fear and started quivering with something else entirely.
And then back there in the square he’d rushed to her side, and that must have fanned the flames because, God, the way she’d smiled up at him... As if he’d rescued her from more than just a flashback...
Rafael’s blood chilled. He wasn’t that man. He couldn’t be. He couldn’t be responsible for her well-being because he’d only fail and very probably set her back months.
So he could forget any idea of a long-distance, more permanent relationship, he thought with grim resolve. Things had already gone far too far and the minute they got back to the
cortijo
he’d be putting a stop to this affair, this budding relationship, this whatever it was, once and for all.
‘Rafael?’
‘What?’ he growled, completely lost in thought.
‘I think I love you.’
* * *
Perhaps Rafael’s car in the dead of night wasn’t the best place to blurt out she loved him, thought Nicky, clinging onto the door handle as the car swerved briefly before being hauled back under control, but really she hadn’t had much of a choice. She’d never been one to tackle things anything other than head-on, so once she’d realised she loved him and wanted something more with him the need to spill it out had bubbled and built until it just sort of erupted from her.
But maybe she should have told him while they were in bed or something because she didn’t know what reaction she’d been expecting but she’d known what she’d been hoping for, and the short sharp curse, the fierce scowl, and the crackling tension that was suddenly filling the space between them wasn’t it.
But it was way too late for regret. Her declaration was out there, the words were echoing between them in the thick darkness and there was no taking it back. All she could do now was brace herself for his response.
Releasing her death grip on the door handle, Nicky swivelled slightly to look at him and, with her heart in her throat, waited.
And waited.
And waited.
But to her growing bewilderment Rafael remained resolutely silent, his jaw tight and his focus fixed on the road ahead, and with every kilometre that the car gobbled up she went a little colder.
‘Aren’t you going to say anything?’ she asked, when the deafening silence finally became unbearable.
‘What do you want me to say?’
At the complete lack of emotion in his voice it dawned on her that this conversation was unlikely to go the way she’d have liked, and Nicky filled with apprehension. ‘I don’t know,’ she said, suddenly feeling all shaky inside. ‘How about thank you? I’m flattered. I love you too.
Something
.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said flatly, ‘but you don’t love me.’
For a moment she thought she must have misheard, but no, he really had just told her that she didn’t love him.
As it sank in Nicky felt her eyes widen and her jaw drop because of all the responses she could have imagined an outright denial of her feelings would never have occurred to her. ‘What?’ she breathed.
‘You don’t love me. You just think you do.’ He shot her a quick unfathomable look. ‘I’m not some kind of white knight, Nicky.’
She blinked. ‘I know you’re not.’
‘Do you?’ His jaw tightened.
‘Of course.’ She might have had a moment of fancy back there in the square but that was all it had been because she knew perfectly well that, not only did Rafael have feet of clay like everyone else, but she didn’t need a knight.
‘I can’t be responsible for your well-being.’
Confusion spun through her. Had she missed something? Had they had a conversation she’d forgotten about? They must have done because where was all this coming from? How on earth had they got from her telling him she loved him to this? And where had this God complex suddenly sprung from? ‘What makes you think you are?’