Just for a moment, her heart lifted. Maybe it was not true after all. She had been remembering too much in the last few days. Maybe she was just applying it to an innocent stranger. Maybe she was mistaken. Maybe…
She turned back to the picture.
She was not mistaken. She wished with all her heart that she was. But he was Steve, all right
There was no escaping it. Those blanked eyes were the last piece in the jigsaw puzzle. Now she saw clearly what her senses, more alert than her mind, had been picking up all along.
God help me, I even knew his smell, Nicky thought
She passed a shaking hand over her face. What was she going to do? Go downstairs and talk to him as if nothing had changed?
No, she thought. She could not do it. She still remembered that scene on the boat in every wince-making detail, and she could recall every word he had ever said to her.
As for that harsh kiss on the beach—well, if she was honest, had it not spoiled her for every kiss since? Andrew Bolton was only the latest in a long, long line of men who did not know what they had said or done to turn Nicky to ice. And the worst of it was that it was not their fault.
Every time a man took her in his arms, she had to fight to remind herself that he was not Steve and he did not despise her. When they touched her in passion all she could think of was another night and the stars and an angry man walking away from her. And she froze.
Nicky drew an unsteady breath. She put the photo frame down very carefully. It seemed important to restore it to the exact spot. She felt very cold and slightly light-headed.
She remembered a little too clearly the men she had dated in the last ten years. It was not a comfortable memory. Oh, she had not told them she froze when they touched her. Of course she had not She was a modern woman. She knew how to smile and flirt and kiss. She just did it all with a little metronome ticking in her head, marking the seconds until the man lost interest. And, when he did, she made sure she was the first to walk away.
Nicky looked at the photograph and thought, I have never kissed a man without thinking of him.
She shut her eyes.
‘I can’t bear it,’ she said aloud.
Unexpectedly, the sound of her own voice steadied her. She opened her eyes. What on earth was she going to do?
Her instinct was to run. As far and as fast as her little car would take her. But she only had to think about that for a second to realise she could not. Or not without getting into a whole maze of explanations she could bear even less: to Caroline and the other assistants at Springdown, to Martin de Vries and, not least, to Esteban Tremain himself.
At the thought, Nicky shuddered convulsively. So far the only good thing about the whole mess was that Esteban Tremain did not have the slightest idea who she was. He had probably forgotten the whole incident as soon as it happened, of course. After all, a teenage beach bunny wasn’t going to have much impact on a man as sophisticated as he was, even ten years ago. In the interim he had metamorphosed from Steve to Esteban and acquired a worldliness that hit you between the eyes. So he certainly would not remember her now.
She found she was pressing her hands together so hard that her wrists shook. In the mirror it looked as if she was praying. Nicky gave a shaky laugh and loosened her grip.
Of course he would not remember her now. Thank God. And it was up to her to make sure that it stayed that way. She could go down and act as if nothing had happened. She could.
She would be as sweet as pie to him. She would busy herself so totally with his damned kitchen that he would think of her as just another piece of equipment. Until she could get away, she would be so neutral, she would just disappear into the background. No confrontations, no arguments. She would agree with his every suggestion. She would challenge nothing.
It should not be too difficult. A man like Esteban Tremain was not going to take too much notice of a humble kitchen advisor, was he? She tried hard not to remember that he had already taken notice of her to the tune of three first-class rows and a toe-curling appreciation of her exposed flesh.
Taking her courage in both hands, Nicky went downstairs. Esteban was still in the kitchen. He had discarded his jacket for a dark sweater. He must have rumpled his hair as he’d pulled it on. To Nicky’s dismay, his slight air of dishevelment made him look a lot more like the man she remembered on the beach. She swallowed hard.
I must not think of him as Steve, she thought. I must not.
He had found a bottle of champagne and two glasses. He must have just opened it. The bottle stood on the kitchen table with a faint plume of smoke escaping from its neck.
‘What’s this?’ said Nicky, distracted.
He looked up from the task and gave her an unexpectedly charming smile. Nicky blinked.
Careful, she thought.
‘Peace offering,’ he said lightly.
He poured, tilting the glasses professionally so the pale liquid did not foam over the top. He put the bottle down and surveyed the pale gold flutes with satisfaction before he strolled over. He held out a glass to her.
Nicky did not take it.
‘Where did you get that?’ she demanded. She was suspicious of the charm and shaken by her own reaction to it. ‘I didn’t bring any champagne. And there was nothing in the fridge.’
‘We have a cellar.’
He took her hand and curled her fingers round the cold glass. Nicky shuddered. How she remembered that touch.
Esteban gave her an enigmatic look.
‘Yes, I agree,’ he said provocatively.
Nicky nearly dropped her glass. Was he reading her mind?
‘What?’
His eyes laughed at her. ‘The champagne,’ he explained. ‘Just cold enough.’
But he ran one long finger lightly across her knuckles where her hand was closed convulsively round the stem of the wine glass. The touch left Nicky breathless—and in no doubt that he was reading her like a book. Help, she thought.
Esteban turned back to the table and retrieved his own glass. He raised it to her.
‘Your very good health,’ he said softly.
In spite of all her resolutions, Nicky did not find she could toast him back.
‘Why champagne?’
She knew she sounded sulky and could not help it. His dark brows twitched together as if she had hit a nerve suddenly.
‘That voice,’ he said.
Nicky was wary. ‘What?’
‘You have a memorable voice. The trouble is, I can’t remember where I’ve heard it’
Panic flared in Nicky, as sudden and violent as a forest fire. She fought it down. But not quickly enough.
‘What did I say?’ he demanded.
Oh, yes, he was certainly reading her like the simplest book in his library.
‘N-nothing.’
He scanned her face. ‘Have we met before?’
This was terrible. Nicky knit her brows, pretending to think.
‘I don’t remember any Esteban Tremain.’ It helped that it was the literal truth.
She could see he was not convinced. Alarm fluttered in her throat. She curbed it. Smile, goddammit. Smile, she told herself.
It was clearly not very successful.
‘Don’t look like that,’ he said. ‘I’m not going to jump on you.’
Nicky bristled at the superior tone. The obvious retort leapt to her lips: ‘That makes a change’. Just in time she stopped herself, folding her lips together tightly. It was a close-run thing, though.
And not before Esteban had seen her reaction. His smile died and his eyes grew keen.
‘Now what have I said?’
Nicky shook her head, taking a sip of champagne. Esteban sent her a shrewd look.
‘You’re as jumpy as a flea on a hot plate. Is that my fault? I know we got off on the wrong foot—’ he began. Nicky could not help herself. She gave a snort of laughter. How right he was and how little he knew it.
Esteban was disconcerted. ‘I’m sorry?’
‘I didn’t say anything,’ Nicky assured him hurriedly. The shock of discovery was beginning to wear off. She gave him a sweet smile. ‘You were talking about the wrong foot?’
He looked at her narrowly for a moment. Then gave a slight shrug.
‘The first time we spoke. I was already in a temper,’ he admitted.
It was the last thing Nicky had expected.
‘You mean when you shouted down the phone at me?’
Esteban had the grace to look uncomfortable.
‘I was furious about something else entirely. When I couldn’t get hold of de Vries it was just the last straw.’
‘So you took it out on me,’ she agreed pleasantly.
Esteban stopped being apologetic. He looked irritated. ‘It was a perfectly legitimate complaint’
‘You were very nasty.’
He made an impatient noise. ‘Well, now I’m trying to make amends.’ He raised his glass to her.
Nicky did not drink in response. ‘Try harder.’
‘That’s not going to be easy if you won’t meet me halfway,’ he pointed out. ‘Come on, drink your champagne and let’s start again.’
For a moment she was speechless. He’d ruined her life and he wanted her to wave it aside and start again?
But of course he did not know he had ruined her life. Unless she decided to tell him, that was. And Nicky thought that she would rather die.
‘To our better acquaintance’ he was saying.
Nicky blenched.
‘To our better understanding,’ she temporised.
He was too quick to miss the way she had changed his toast. His brows rose.
‘Nicola Piper, you’re an unforgiving woman,’ he said softly. ‘I can see I shall have to do something about that.’
She managed not to wince. ‘I wouldn’t advise it.’ It was light enough but there was no disguising the fact that she meant it
Esteban looked at her speculatively. ‘You don’t think I can change your mind?’
She shook her head. ‘I’m a pretty hopeless case on the unforgiving front.’
‘But don’t you know that’s my profession?’ he said softly. ‘I specialise in reversing hopeless cases.’
She said more sharply than she intended, ‘I don’t know anything about you at all.’
And don’t want to, said her tone. To her annoyance, Esteban Tremain laughed as if he had won his first point. His eyes danced. His charm was as heady as wine—and he knew it. Careful, Nicky said to herself.
‘What an excellent place to start’. He stood up and made her a bow. ‘Let me introduce—Esteban Felipe Tremain, age thirty-eight, marital status unattached, qualifications numerous, hobbies sailing and baiting harmless kitchen planners.’
He held out his hand. His dark eyes were so warm, you could almost believe that the charm was for real, she thought. Careful, Nicky.
‘Pleased to meet you—what do I call you? Nicola? Nick?’
‘Nicky,’ she agreed reluctantly. She could not think of any way to deny him her name but it felt like another small surrender to that lethal charm.
Even more reluctantly, she took his hand.
‘Truce,’ she offered, trying not to remember the last time they had touched.
He pursed his mouth. ‘Oh, I think I want a lot more than a truce.’
Nicky was sure she was being baited again. There was only one way to deal with that. Fight fire with fire.
‘You’re getting a lot more,’ she told him dulcetly.
His eyebrows rose. She retrieved her hand with some difficulty.
‘You’re getting dinner,’ she concluded.
He gave a choke of surprised laughter. ‘Good point.’ Nicky felt a small glow of triumph. She put her champagne glass down and removed herself from that disturbing closeness. She had the ideal excuse, busying herself with the food.
Over her shoulder she said, ‘When would you like to eat?’
Esteban laughed lazily. ‘What luxury. I usually microwave a pizza.’
Nicky looked wryly at the dead microwave. ‘Not here, you don’t.’
As soon as she said it, she could have kicked herself. What a chance for him to start complaining about Springdown again! But he did not.
Instead he picked up the bottle and replenished her glass.
‘I was talking about my own place in London. My stepfather hates fast food. When we planned the kitchen, we slipped in the microwave when he wasn’t looking.’
Nicky was intrigued in spite of herself. ‘Your stepfather? But I thought this was your house.’
He shrugged. ‘Technically it is. He made it over to me some years ago. But it’s his home; he was born here. I only get down here every couple of months. He lives here.’
Nicky looked eloquently round the characterless kitchen.
‘Not so as you’d notice.’
Briefly his expression was sombre. ‘He’s been away.’
Absently he topped up his own glass. Nicky thought he would take the wine to his room and unpack but he did not. Instead he settled himself at the kitchen table as if he belonged there. As, she supposed with a slight shock, he did.
He looked round approvingly.
‘The kitchen looks better.’
‘You mean with some food in it?’ Nicky said tartly.
He nodded slowly. ‘I suppose I do. And light and some good smells as well, of course. It’s been a long time.’ He looked bleak suddenly.
Nicky felt an unwelcome twinge of sympathy. Where was the ‘very good friend’ the article talked about? If she was the woman Esteban had mentioned trying out the appliances, why hadn’t she made the kitchen her own?
She said with constraint, ‘I am sorry, Mr Tremain. I didn’t mean to pry.’
He came back to the present with a grimace. ‘You weren’t prying and my name is Esteban.’
Nicky did not say anything. She did not need to. Her silence said for her how totally she rejected the idea of calling this man by his Christian name.
Esteban considered her thoughtfully.
‘You really don’t like me, do you?’
Nicky shifted uncomfortably. ‘Are you surprised?’ she hedged.
It was not the answer he wanted. ‘Well, that’s honest, I suppose.’ He surveyed her for an unsmiling moment. Then he said abruptly, ‘Why do I make you nervous?’
Nicky’s heart lurched sickeningly. The last time he had looked at her like that was on a boat in the Caribbean and—
‘You don’t!’ she said loudly.
Esteban’s eyes narrowed in an arrested expression. ‘Oh, that voice,’ he muttered. ‘Where have we met before?’
To her consternation, he leaned forward across the table and took her by the wrist.
The floor surged under Nicky’s feet like the deck of a boat Stop it, her mind yelled, panic-stricken. She wrenched herself away.
‘Don’t touch me.’
This time she had really startled him. For a moment she read blank amazement in the dark eyes. And not just amazement, either. Attraction, sizzling and irrefutable. When he looked at her like that, Nicky shot back over the years in the blink of an eyelid. She was a trembling teenager again, surrendering to a magnetic pull she did not understand.
Not again, thought Nicky, her mouth suddenly dry. Never again.
She fought for control. ‘I’m here to sort out your kitchen,’ she said crisply. ‘Not play games with you.’
‘Who’s playing?’
Her every instinct was to retreat. By a supreme effort of will she managed not to. Instead she took a step towards him and slapped her hand down on the table between them. It made the glass and bottle ring.
‘Stop right there,’ she said with quiet force. ‘You know perfectly well you’ve been baiting me since the moment you arrived.’
And before in London, she thought, though she was not going to say it. She heard again, ‘You’re the blonde.’
‘You push me around.’ She was almost shouting. ‘You won’
t tell me anything—not about who uses the kitchen, not about anything. You—Oh what’s the use?’
There was silence. Nicky was sure he could hear her heart thundering. She put a hand to her throat to quieten the pulse that drummed there.
Esteban watched the gesture through narrowed eyes.
‘I think this is about more than inadequate briefing’ he said at last
‘No’, said Nicky, her voice shaking.
It was exactly the same unheeded protest she had made on the beach all those years ago. Even Nicky could hear the telltale tremor. She shut her eyes. How long before Esteban realised that the last time he’d heard her voice she had been shouting ‘I hate you?’ How long before she said it again?
He said conversationally, ‘Are you always this dramatic?’
Nicky opened her eyes. He was looking annoyed. But not angry; not embarrassed and guilty; not like a man who’d realised a disreputable incident from his past had risen to haunt him.
She took her hand from her throat. Disaster averted. This time anyway.
‘I don’t like being messed about,’ she said with truth.
‘Evidently.’
He seemed to take a decision. He gave a quick shrug.
‘OK, you can have the full run-down. It’s no big deal. My stepfather was getting too old to run the estate but he wanted to keep it in the family. Since my mother died, I’m all the family he’s got. I took over the administrative side of things and he carried on living here. I took control of the land. He ran the house. At least that was the theory—’
He broke off, lapsing into a brown study. Nicky thought of the smell as she’d unlocked the front door. It had not smelled like a house that was lived in. She said so.
‘What?’ He looked up. ‘Oh. Shrewd of you. No, it isn’t. It’s been empty for the best part of a year. Except when I can get down here. Which isn’t as often as I should.’
‘So why the kitchen?’
He was puzzled. ‘What?’
‘Nobody lives here full time,’ she pointed out. ‘You’re happy with microwaved pizza. Why the glossy-mag kitchen?’
‘Oh, that.’ He sounded bored. ‘My stepfather has always wanted to come back. He’s been ill, you see. The doctors said it would probably be good for him to come home but he couldn’t live on his own. The district nurse would visit but he needed a full-time housekeeper if he was going to live here again. The person I—’ he hesitated ‘—had in mind said the existing kitchen was a death trap. So my stepfather stayed in his nursing home and the builders came in to the Hall.’
The Latin Affair Page 9