He shrugged. ‘I’m not certain. The location of the house makes it a perfect place to put up clients who are in Rio, so I’d like to have some sort of kitchen facility.’
‘What you ought to do is get someone who knows kitchens to take a look. There are several efficiency galleys that might fit, and…’
Talia fell silent. The expression on his face had changed; he was watching her with an intensity she remembered from the night he’d first told her about the job in Brazil.
‘Exactly. That’s what I thought, too. Which is why you and I are flying to Rio tomorrow.’
She stared at him. ‘Rio?’ she repeated blankly.
He nodded. ‘It’s less than two hours away. We can be there before lunch.’
There was a sudden flutter in her breast, as if her heart were a wild dove suddenly struggling against the bars of a cage. ‘What you need is a domestic engineer, not me.’
Logan waved away her objection. ‘You’re the nearest thing to it I have, and you’re already on the payroll. I need your opinion before I go ahead with this thing.’
Talia’s breath seemed to be caught in her throat. ‘But your engineers already—’
‘Engineers don’t know a souffl;aae from a slide rule.’
‘But Rio… How—how long would we be gone?’
His eyes moved over her slowly, coming to rest finally on her face. ‘I’m not sure,’ he said at last. ‘It all depends on you.’
Heat suffused her skin. ‘On me?’
His smile became crooked. ‘If you don’t think my idea will work, we’ll fly back.’
Why was her heart thudding against her ribs? Why was Logan watching her through eyes suddenly gone so dark they were like the sea? Talia swallowed, then swallowed again. ‘You mean the office-guest-house idea,’ she said finally.
A quick, indecipherable smile curled across his mouth. ‘What else could I mean?’
Before she could think of an answer, he was gone.
CHAPTER SIX
THEY left for Rio early in the morning, travelling to the airport in the same limousine that had brought Talia to Sao Paulo weeks before. Logan greeted her with a polite smile and a courteous ‘Good morning’ before turning his attention to the sheaf of papers he took from his attach;aae case. He was equally detached on board the Learjet, helping her up the steps to the plane with an impersonal hand at her elbow, suggesting she ask for coffee or something more substantial.
‘I promised my secretary I’d catch up on my correspondence,’ he said pleasantly. ‘You don’t mind, do you?’
Mind? She fought back the desire to laugh aloud. Instead, she managed a suitable smile and shook her head. ‘Not at all. I brought some work along, too.’
She had done just that. But it was impossible to read the report she carried. Her thoughts kept turning to Logan, seated across the narrow aisle, his face taut with concentration as he worked his way through a stack of letters.
Anticipation of the trip to Rio had kept her awake half the night. A business trip, Logan had said, but Talia had felt as if there was some subtle purpose to it of which she was unaware. When, finally, she’d fallen asleep, she’d dreamed, inexplicably, of the mother who had deserted her when she was a child. When she had awoken, she could recall only that she had dreamed it was not she but her mother who went off to Rio with Logan while her grandmother stood by, her arms crossed, her mouth a grim line of reproach.
Now, sitting across the aisle from Logan, watching surreptitiously as he read his post and spoke softly into a miniature tape-recorder, Talia began to relax. Clearly, the trip to Rio was business, just as he’d said. The last thing she wanted was to have to try and convince him that she just wasn’t interested in anything else.
Not that she didn’t find him attractive. She did—what woman wouldn’t? Her eyes skimmed over him. His brow was furrowed, his mouth firm. He had the same intent look he had when he examined reports or chaired weekly staff meetings.
A warmth swept through her. She had seen a different kind of intensity on his face, though, one that had softened his hard mouth and darkened his green eyes. It was a look that had spoken of desire, and she had brought it to his face. Logan had wanted her. She knew that, just as she knew she didn’t want him.
It was as if a silent message had passed between them. His head rose slowly. Their eyes met and held, and Talia felt as if a jolt of electricity had crackled between them across the narrow aisle. Her cheeks grew flushed as Logan’s gaze fell with slow deliberation to her mouth and lingered there.
‘Talia.’
His voice turned her name into a caress. It would be so easy to reach out and touch him, so easy for him to touch her. They were alone in the cabin, high above the earth, where anything could happen. Anything…
Something rose in Talia’s throat, thick as cotton wool. She tore her eyes from his and turned to the window beside her. ‘We’ll be in Rio soon, won’t we?’ she asked in an artificially bright voice.
There was a silence, and then she heard Logan let out his breath. ‘Yes,’ he said. She heard the shuffle of papers, the snap of a lock. ‘In just a few minutes.’ She turned as he rose and crossed the aisle, the same expression of polite indifference he’d worn earlier on his face. He put one hand on her seat-back and leaned towards the window. ‘I’ve asked the pilot to swing out over the ocean and come in the long way. I thought you might like a look at the city.’
He was wearing some kind of light cologne. It smelled like fresh air and forests, and it reminded her of the night he’d kissed her in the redwood grove.
She closed her teeth lightly over her bottom lip. ‘Thank you.’ Her voice sounded hoarse, and she cleared her throat. ‘That was thoughtful.’
‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’ He bent over her as the plane banked; his hand brushed her hair as he pointed out of the window. ‘That’s Sugar Loaf Mountain—see it? And there’s the Corcovado with the statue of Christ—did you know you can go to the top? The view is incredible, especially at night.’
Logan went on talking as the famous curve of Copacabana Beach swung by beneath them. But it was hard to concentrate. He was too close—she couldn’t breathe without inhaling his scent, couldn’t move her head for fear of touching his hand.
‘Rio is a wonderful city. I spent some time in South America when I was just out of university.’ He laughed softly. ‘It didn’t last long—I was working in the Buenos Aires office, and it only took a couple of months to convince me I could never work for my father. But I still remember the places I discovered, places the tourists haven’t found yet.’ He looked down at her and smiled. ‘Too bad we won’t have time to see any of them.’
He was waiting for her to answer, but she was tongue-tied. Say something, she told herself fiercely, don’t just sit here and… She said the first thing she could think of. ‘But you went to work for him four years ago. Your father, I mean.’
Logan shrugged his shoulders as he sat down beside her. ‘Circumstances change,’ he said. ‘He was old and ill; I had no choice.’ His voice flattened. ‘Not that I wasn’t reluctant. I was doing pretty well on my own.’
‘You did it, though.’
He stretched his legs out and sighed. ‘He needed me. And my wife was all for it. She said I’d been travelling too much, that this way I’d be home more.’
His words drifted to silence. ‘And?’ Talia said finally.
‘And I was.’ He laughed, the sound sharp as broken glass. ‘Unfortunately, her ideas of domesticity and mine were different.’
In her mind’s eye, Talia saw again the unhappy woman in the magazine photo who’d foolishly thought that she could keep Logan Miller by the home fires. No women would ever be able to do that, Talia knew, and there was a sudden wrenching pain in her heart.
The plane banked again, more sharply this time. Logan reached across her and Talia drew in her breath.
‘Your seatbelt,’ he said, his fingers brushing lightly against her as he closed it. ‘It was unbuckled, and we�
�re starting our descent.’ Their eyes met. ‘Perhaps we’ll have time for a look at Rio after we’ve seen the house. Would you like that?’
A look at Rio—a fast sweep in a taxi, and then back to Sao Paulo and work. Nothing to have lost sleep over, you fool. Do you feel better now?
She didn’t. She felt as if she’d lost something she’d never quite found. But she managed a little smile in return. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘that would be lovely.’
* * *
The house-cum-office was disposed of in no time at all. In fact, it amazed Talia that anyone should have been foolish enough to have recommended it to Logan in the first place.
‘The building’s not antiquated, it’s ancient,’ he snapped to the young assistant who’d met them at the airport. ‘Whose idea was this?’ He cut off the stammered response almost before it began. ‘Never mind. Just see to it that there’s a full report on my desk Monday morning.’
Talia glanced at her watch as he handed her back into the waiting cab. They had been in Rio less than two hours. With a pang of regret, she realised that they’d be back in Sao Paulo by mid-afternoon.
But, to her surprise, the cab headed not towards the airport but into the mountains that ringed the city. Logan grinned when she turned to him with a question in her eyes. ‘I thought we’d take a look at the Corcovado statue. I told you, the view’s spectacular. Then we’ll go to the Botanical Gardens and walk along the Avenue of Palms. And then—’
Talia stared at him. ‘But what about the flight back? Don’t we have to get to the airport?’
‘I gave Bob the afternoon off.’ Talia’s eyebrows rose, and Logan shrugged. ‘How was I to know we’d need him again so quickly?’
It was plausible. Still, she felt a faint unease. ‘I have work waiting at the office,’ she said slowly. ‘Surely you must know where you can reach him?’
A mischievous grin spread over Logan’s face. ‘I have work waiting, too. Look, I’ll make a deal with you. I won’t tell we took the day off if you don’t. After all, I promised you a tour of Rio.’
‘A look, you said. And now—’
‘And now, fate’s handed us a chance to enjoy ourselves. I haven’t stolen off for a day in years, Talia, and I’ll bet you haven’t, either.’ He smiled. ‘Wouldn’t you like to do something for once just because it feels good?’
The unease came again, and with it a sudden quicksilver tremor of excitement. ‘There’s nothing wrong with planning,’ she said. ‘If you don’t plan, you can’t get anything done properly.’
Logan smiled. ‘That’s true enough if you’re talking about a day’s work. But having a good time should be spontaneous. After all, here we are in Rio, with hours ahead of us…’
She turned to him slowly. ‘That building we went to see—did you know that it wouldn’t be suitable?’
His face was a study in innocence. ‘Are you accusing me of planning all this?’
Colour rose to her face. ‘Answer me, Logan.’
‘What would you do if I said I had?’
‘I’d tell you to take me back to Sao Paulo,’ she said without hesitation.
He smiled lazily. ‘Then it’s a damned good thing I didn’t have a thing to do with what happened. Look, this is all much simpler than you’re making it. We finished our business early and now we have a choice. We can sit at the airport, waiting for Bob to show, or we can take a look at Rio. Which shall it be?’
Talia stirred uneasily. ‘That’s not much of a choice.’
Logan grinned. ‘My sentiments, exactly. You might as well sit back and enjoy yourself.’
The quicksilver tingle came again, bringing with it a sudden breathlessness. It was the change in altitude, she told herself, looking out at the heavy green foilage that grew alongside the mountain road—it had to be. ‘I’ll try,’ she said. ‘But I’ll probably just keep thinking of all the work waiting for me in Sao Paulo.’
Logan laughed. ‘Tell me that a couple of hours from now and I might believe you.’
* * *
It took less time than that for the constraints that bound her to begin to slip away. It had been silly to accuse Logan of planning this day—the more she thought about it, the more foolish she felt for even having thought such a thing. There’d been a mix-up, that was all, and they were left with time to spare. And he’d been right, it would have been foolish not to see Rio. It was, as he’d promised, a wonderful city.
The exotic Brazil she had longed for was here, in this beautiful place beside the sea. Instead of Sao Paulo’s grey skyscrapers, Rio had buildings drenched in soft, sun-washed colours. Instead of crowds of faceless business-people, there were crowds of laughing Brazilians, the women lovely, the men handsome. And Logan knew all the right places to go: they saw parrots so bright in colour that they seemed artificial, and artisans working in clay and wood. The cab took them to a nearby village and they watched as fishermen worked their long woven nets. They even walked the pristine-white sands of a deserted, palm-tree-fringed beach, Logan with his grey flannel trousers rolled to mid-calf, Talia with her shoes clutched in her hand.
‘Hungry?’ Logan asked as she slipped her shoes on again.
‘Yes,’ she admitted, ‘a little.’
He smiled and took her to a little restaurant just off the beach for lunch. A scarlet macaw shrieked from its perch on the veranda as they stepped inside.
The menu was long and indecipherable. Talia puzzled over it for a few minutes, then put it aside. ‘I don’t understand a word,’ she said. ‘Could you just order me a sandwich and a glass of iced tea?’
Logan laughed. ‘In a churrascaria? That would be heresy.’
‘What’s a—a…?’
‘A grill house. They serve churrasco here, Talia. Brazilian barbecue.’
‘Oh, but I don’t…’
But Logan was already gesturing for their waiter and ordering their meal. The only part of it that Talia understood was his request for duas cervejas.
‘No beer for me,’ she said quickly. ‘I told you—’
‘You wanted iced tea. I heard.’ He gave her a lazy smile. ‘But I decided to ignore you.’
‘You can’t do that, Logan.’ Irritation threaded her voice. ‘I know what I want.’
His eyes met hers. ‘Are you certain?’
Talia drew in her breath. The simple question seemed too dangerous to answer. After a moment, Logan smiled.
‘Trust me. I promise, you’ll like what I have in mind.’
Moments later, Talia shook her head in disbelief as their table began filling with platters of food. There were grilled meats and poultry, fried bananas and plantains, salads and condiments, and ice-cold Cerpa beer.
She laughed. ‘No,’ she said, ‘it’s impossible. Is all that just for us? I could never…’
But, as it turned out, she not only could, she did. Some of the tastes were familiar, others were new and exotic, but all of it was wonderful. Logan had been right about the beer, too. It was the perfect accompaniment.
And, while they ate, they talked. Not about anything special—they groaned over the foreign tourists at a nearby table who thought to overcome the language barrier by talking to their baffled but smiling waiter in ever louder voices; they laughed when the shrieks of the macaw on the veranda outside joined in as counterpoint.
Talia couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt so relaxed. And so happy. Her eyes swept over Logan’s face. She was glad he’d insisted that she come with him to Rio, glad she’d let him talk her into this bit of sightseeing…
‘What are you thinking?’
She felt herself flush. ‘Me?’ She shrugged her shoulders and looked down at her plate. ‘Just that—that I may not eat again for the rest of the week.’
He grinned. ‘Good, hmm?’
‘Not good. Marvellous.’ She laughed. ‘Understand, I only ate all this food in the interests of scientific research. I mean, what kind of caterer would pass up the chance to investigate a new cuisine?’
He no
dded solemnly. ‘Of course.’ Smiling, he reached across the table and touched her mouth. ‘You have a spot of investigation on your chin, Senhorinha.’
Instantly, her easy laughter died. Once more, the air between them seemed to shimmer with energy.
‘Talia.’
She looked into his eyes as his finger lightly traced the outline of her mouth. Her heart stopped beating. Desire was there, in his face, and suddenly she felt the answering beat of her own pulse. What would he say if she parted her lips and drew his questing finger into her mouth…?
The thought sent waves of heat flaming through her. Oh, God. What was happening? Talia pulled away, then fumbled for the cloth napkin in her lap. ‘If we don’t walk off this meal,’ she said, ‘I’m not going to be able to fit on the plane.’
‘Talia, listen to me—’
She shook her head. ‘Please,’ she whispered, ‘let’s go.’
Logan stared at her and then he nodded and pushed back his chair. ‘All right,’ he said finally. ‘Why not?’ He tossed some bills on the table, then helped her to her feet. ‘Come to think of it, we haven’t seen Copacabana Beach yet.’
‘Isn’t it time we went back?’
He smiled. ‘There’s no hurry. We have all the time in the world.’
All the time in the world. She knew it was true; after all, they weren’t bound by airline schedules or timetables. Then why did it feel as if the minutes were counting down to some zero hour?
Logan took her hand as they walked. She could hardly protest—the closer they came to the black and white mosaic pavement that bordered the famous beach, the more crowded it became. Between the strollers and the street vendors, it would have been easy to have become separated.
He laced his fingers through hers and bent his head towards her. ‘I still remember the first time I came to Copacabana.’ His teeth glinted in a quick grin. ‘I took one look at the women in their tangas—their bikinis—and I thought I’d died and gone to heaven.’
Talia glanced up at him, picturing him at twenty-two, and she smiled. ‘Yes, I can imagine.’
And she could. The young Logan Miller must have had a wonderful time in Rio. Not that he was being neglected now. The women strolling by were beautiful, their skin tanned, their bodies lush, and many of them looked at the man beside her with frank admiration. But he wasn’t paying them any attention. Talia’s blood leaped with the realisation. He was too busy talking to her, watching her, saying things that made her smile.
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