Their last meeting had consisted of a pretty one-sided conversation as Cairo had told him their relationship was over, followed three days later by the announcement of her engagement to Lionel Bond.
A marriage that had now also come to an end.
But Margo and Jeff were whistling in the wind if they thought that little fact was going to make any difference to how Rafe and Cairo felt about each other. Although her obvious determination now to see him leave only made Rafe stubbornly want to do the opposite!
‘Lemonade, Cairo?’ he commented with a grimace. ‘My own preference would have been a glass of wine on the terrace while we gazed out at the view down the valley to the bay of Cannes.’
She glared at him. ‘We aren’t going to be gazing out at anything together, Rafe,’ she snapped. ‘In fact—’
‘I said let’s save the explanations until later, Cairo,’ he reminded her forcefully. ‘For the moment I intend taking a swim with Daisy.’ To prove his point he deliberately slid the zip on his denims the rest of the way before slowly pushing the heavy material down his thighs.
And watched as Cairo’s eyes widened, and then widened even more as she realized his intent, her protest only dying on her lips as she saw that Rafe actually wore black swimming trunks beneath the jeans he had now completely removed.
But that momentary lapse in her protests had shown that she wasn’t as immune to him as she would have him believe, Rafe noted consideringly. Although he had no doubt, as he saw her shoulders straighten with new determination, that if challenged, she would vehemently deny that awareness.
She drew in a deep breath. ‘Rafe, how many times do I have to say it? You are not staying here!’
‘Sure I am,’ he came back easily. ‘We’ll spend the afternoon swimming and sunbathing with Daisy, then later this evening we can all cook dinner together, and then when Daisy is in bed, the two of us can—’
‘We can what, Rafe?’ Cairo cut in sharply, brown eyes glittering in dark warning as she gave an exasperated shake of her head, having thankfully now regrouped after being completely thrown seconds ago when she had believed Rafe was going to strip off to his underpants.
He usually wore the very briefest of underpants, if her memory served her correctly. And she was pretty sure that it did! Not that the swimming trunks were much better, as the thin material clearly outlined every powerful inch of his hips above long, tanned legs.
Her mouth thinned as she looked up and determinedly met his mocking blue gaze. ‘I repeat, Rafe, that the two of us are not going to be doing anything together—not later on this evening when Daisy is in bed, or at any other time!’
‘Do I take it from that remark that you aren’t pleased to see me again, Cairo?’ he murmured throatily.
How had he moved so fast? Cairo wondered slightly dazedly as she suddenly found Rafe was standing only inches away from her, so near she could actually see the pores in the skin of his face. So close that she could actually feel the heat of his body, and smell that clean male smell that was totally Rafe: tangy soap, a lightly elusive aftershave, and a pure animal scent that acted on a woman’s senses like a drug. On her senses like a—
No!
This man had broken her heart eight years ago. He hadn’t just broken it—the womanizing rat had trampled all over it!
Cairo stood her ground as she refused to be intimidated by the close proximity of his near-nakedness, almost eye to eye with him as Rafe was only a couple of inches taller than her own almost six feet. A compatibility in height that had once given them both incredible pleasure as they—
This was not the time to remember that compatibility! What she should be recalling was that in every other way that mattered they had been totally incompatible.
Her mouth tightened. ‘I have no idea what gave you the impression I might be— What are you doing?’ She flinched her head back sharply when he would have reached out and touched her cheek.
Rafe’s gaze narrowed as he saw her purely instinctive response to the move, his hand dropping slowly back to his side. He wondered just what Cairo’s eight-year marriage to Lionel Bond had been like to have caused her to flinch in that way at the merest hint of physical contact.
Unless it was just him that she didn’t want to touch her …?
It was a definite possibility, Rafe acknowledged grimly. The last time he and Cairo had spoken together she had left him in absolutely no doubt that, although she had enjoyed their relationship while it had lasted, she now had other plans for her life that most certainly did not include him.
Cairo had taken Hollywood by storm when she’d moved there with her movie-producer husband eight years ago, but even so, she and Rafe had never met again until now. Cairo was a member of the partying set that Rafe avoided at all costs.
Rafe stood unmoving now, his gaze steadily holding Cairo’s more wary one as he noted other changes in her beside that ethereal slenderness.
Her eyes, those chocolate-brown orbs that could melt a man’s soul, were guarded now rather than glowing as they used to do.
There were dark shadows beneath those eyes, too, as if she hadn’t slept well for some time. And there were small delicate lines on either side of the fullness of her mouth, as if a smile had been grimly set there far too often and for far too long as a shield to the inner unhappiness she had no intention of allowing anyone to see or even guess at.
A veneer that had been totally exploded when Cairo had first separated from, and then divorced, her very powerful husband.
On the surface, their marriage had seemed idyllic. A myth that Rafe, along with everyone else who had ever seen or read anything about the couple, had totally believed in until their separation ten months ago….
‘Let’s all just go for that swim, hmm, Cairo, and talk about this later?’ he encouraged softly now.
Cairo stepped away from him. ‘You’re many things, Rafe, but I never thought stupid as being one of them—’ She broke off with a frown as Rafe gave her a derisive smile. ‘You find something about this situation amusing?’ she bit out irritably.
Yes, Cairo was definitely still in possession of that fiery temperament that had once attracted him so strongly and that made her so electrifying to watch on the big screen.
‘Only the way you keep insisting that I have to leave.’ He shrugged. ‘Even if I could manage to find an available hotel room in the middle of the Cannes Film Festival, I wouldn’t,’ he admitted.
‘Why wouldn’t you?’
‘Firstly, because I much prefer the peace and quiet to be found here—’
‘I agree—it was quiet and very peaceful!’ Cairo gave him a pointed glare, letting him know clearly that he was the reason that was no longer the case. ‘Rafe, you must know I have absolutely no intention of letting you stay on here.’
‘Ah.’
‘What do you mean, “ah”?’ she prompted warily.
‘The thing is, Cairo, that brings me to the second reason I have no intention of leaving, either now or in the immediate future,’ he told her firmly.
‘Which is …?’ she challenged.
Rafe couldn’t help laughing out loud. ‘That I’m not the guest here, Cairo—you are. This is my villa,’ he added dryly when she continued to look at him blankly.
Cairo stared at Rafe unblinkingly.
Rafe was the ‘friend’ who let Margo and Jeff stay at his villa in the South of France every year?
CHAPTER TWO
NO ONE looking at Cairo’s calm expression, as she relaxed in her bikini on a lounger beside the pool, would ever have guessed at the emotions seething inside her.
Except Rafe, of course.
The cause of those seething emotions!
But he was apparently too busy playing with Daisy, in the pool he had dived into immediately after announcing he owned the villa, to even seem aware of Cairo’s presence there, too. Other than physically dragging him out of the pool—which, considering Rafe weighed twice as much as she did, was a non-starter—and demanding he leave, Cairo had
little choice but to join the two of them down on the lower terrace.
Dark glasses shielded her eyes from prying eyes, as well as the glare of the sun as she contemplated her options.
Rafe owned this villa in the South of France.
A little fact that Margo had apparently forgotten to mention for the last eight years, seven of which she and Jeff had been coming to stay here for a couple of weeks every spring!
Or perhaps Margo had simply felt it more diplomatic not to mention that the villa belonged to Rafe….
Cairo had absolutely refused to discuss, with anyone, the reason for the end of her relationship with Rafe Montero. In fact, not only had she refused to talk about him, she had also forbidden Margo to talk to her about him, too. Which would, admittedly, have made it extremely difficult for Margo to tell Cairo that she and Jeff had remained friends with him all these years!
However, there was no way she could stay on here now that she knew Rafe owned the villa, so that meant Cairo had two options.
She could either return to England and the publicity, which, although it was nowhere near as unrelenting as it had been in the States, still dogged Cairo’s steps every time she so much as stepped out of the apartment she had bought in London and moved into six months ago.
Or alternatively she could find somewhere else for herself and Daisy to stay in this beautiful area of France.
The latter option was the obvious one, of course. For one thing, Daisy was sure to be very disappointed if they had to cut their holiday short. For another, Cairo really didn’t want to return to England yet, seeing as she had actually been enjoying this first proper holiday she had taken in years.
Dammit, why had Rafe Montero had to turn up and disturb their tranquillity in this way?
Also, having turned up, and discovered Cairo here instead of Margo and Jeff, what was he still doing here? He had to know how awkward this situation was for her. He also had to know that the two of them couldn’t remain here alone—apart from Daisy—together!
He just didn’t give a damn.
But then, he never had….
Cairo looked across at him from behind her sunglasses, watching the droplets of water glistening on his face and shoulders as he stood up in the deep end of the pool playing a ball game with Daisy, his dark hair wet now and slicked back from his face as he grinned mischievously at the little girl. That ruggedly handsome face had once made Cairo’s heartbeat quicken just to look at it …
She turned sharply away, her hands clenching at her sides as she fought back those painful memories.
Here and now was what mattered.
But here and now Cairo felt completely at a loss to know what to do next. Rafe, on the basis that this villa was actually his, was quite rightly refusing to leave, but the logistics of finding another villa for Daisy and herself to move into seemed overwhelming to Cairo.
And this indecisiveness was Rafe’s fault, too!
Because Cairo had allowed herself to relax during the last twenty-four hours, to just let herself be, to exist, to let herself revel in the fact that, after years of making films back to back, she had no pressing work pressures for the next two weeks, when she was due to begin rehearsals for the lead in the London play she had agreed to appear in.
Now Rafe, with his unwanted presence here, was forcing her into once again making decisions, when it was the last thing she felt like doing.
She desperately blinked back the tears of frustration. She wouldn’t cry. She would not!
So if she wasn’t going to be ‘sad,’ then she would just have to get ‘mad’. And Rafe Montero was the obvious person for her to get mad at!
‘Are you coming in for a swim or not?’ Rafe leant his arms on the side of the pool as he looked across at her.
He had been totally aware of Cairo the last hour or so as she lay so still and silent on a lounger beside the pool, not reading a book or magazine but just staring off into the distance.
She looked even more slender now that she had removed the overlong T-shirt to reveal that she wore only a brief black bikini beneath; there didn’t seem to be an ounce of superfluous flesh on those long silky limbs.
Long, silky limbs that had more than once been entwined with his …
‘No, I’m not coming in for a swim,’ she answered him tersely now. ‘Rafe, you must see that we have to talk about—about the awkwardness, of this situation …?’
Yes, of course he knew the two of them had to talk. Dammit, he was no more happy about finding himself practically alone here with Cairo—young Daisy apart—than she obviously was at having him here.
But neither did he think it was a good idea to have Daisy witness an argument between her aunty Cairo and her ‘uncle’ Rafe, especially when—as it was sure to!—it resulted in the two of them saying things it would be much better for Daisy not to hear.
His mouth thinned. ‘Cairo, how does Daisy seem to you?’
‘Seem to me?’ she repeated with a frowning glance at the little girl playing at the other end of the pool by throwing a coin into the water before diving in to collect it.
‘Dammit, Cairo.’ Rafe quickly ascended the steps that led out of the pool. ‘How long is it since you’ve seen or cared about anyone but yourself?’ he demanded as he stood beside her to pick up a towel and begin drying his hair.
Cairo gasped at his accusing tone. ‘That is totally unfair, Rafe!’ It was also totally unfair what his semi-nakedness was doing to her heart-rate as he leisurely dried himself off with the towel!
‘Is it?’ he challenged grimly as he moved to sit down on the lounger next to hers. ‘Tell me what you see when you look at Daisy,’ he ordered.
Cairo stared at him rebelliously for several long seconds before turning her attention to her young niece. ‘I see … a little girl having fun playing in the pool,’ she said.
‘Look again, Cairo. Closer,’ he insisted as she would have protested.
Cairo bit back her resentment at his arrogant tone as she turned her attention back to Daisy. Tall for her age, with shoulder-length golden hair and blue eyes, Daisy looked to her like any other healthy, happy six-year-old on holiday.
Or did she …?
Now that Cairo thought about it, before Rafe’s arrival earlier, Daisy hadn’t been as chatty this last twenty-four hours. Oh, her niece had played in the pool yesterday and, this morning, had helped Cairo prepare their meals, but she had been less gregarious than usual, less spontaneous, less inclined to do anything, and had refused absolutely to go to the local shops with Cairo this morning so that they could restock on food. Cairo had put this uncharacteristic lack of cooperation down to tiredness after their journey, but what if that wasn’t the reason?
Cairo turned frowningly back to Rafe. ‘You think she’s worried about Margo?’
His mouth twisted derisively. ‘What do you think?’
Not knowing how much Daisy actually knew about Margo’s condition, Cairo wasn’t really sure how to answer that question.
Maybe Rafe was right. Maybe Cairo had been too wrapped up in her own problems just recently to give anyone else’s a thought. Although she certainly didn’t thank Rafe for being the one to point that out—until now she hadn’t even known he liked children, let alone understood Daisy’s moods.
She sat up on the lounger. ‘Perhaps I should sit down with her and calmly explain that Margo just needs to rest for a few weeks because her blood pressure is a little high—’
‘And you think a little girl of six will be reassured by that explanation?’ Rafe said sarcastically.
Colour warmed Cairo’s cheeks at his intended rebuke. ‘I think it might be worth a try, yes!’
He scowled. ‘If that’s the extent of your knowledge of children, perhaps it’s as well that you and Bond never had any!’
Cairo gasped incredulously at his scorn, the fact that she had thought exactly the same thing following her separation from Lionel not important at that moment; Rafe certainly hadn’t meant it in the same way she d
id.
‘Look at yourself, Cairo.’ Rafe’s gaze ran over her with scathing dismissal. ‘Perfect hair. Perfect skin. Perfect teeth. Too-perfect body. Perfect damned everything! At least you looked human eight years ago; now you just look like every other perfect Hollywood actress!’
Cairo felt her cheeks pale at his deliberately insulting tone. It was too much on top of everything else she had gone through the last eight years.
She stood up. ‘When I want your opinion, I’ll ask for it— Let go of me, Rafe!’ she instructed between gritted teeth as he reached out to curl long fingers about her wrist.
A too-slender wrist, Rafe decided even as he felt the creamy softness of her skin beneath his fingers, his gaze moving down to her hand now, the long, slender fingers completely bare of rings. Although there was a slightly whiter band of skin on the third finger of her left hand where her wedding ring and that huge rock that Bond had bought her as an engagement ring used to be….
‘I don’t think so,’ he challenged softly, even as his fingers tightened about her wrist.
Dark sunglasses hid the emotion in her eyes, but the pallor of her cheeks and the unhappy curve of her mouth were evidence of her rising anger.
She was angry? After years of deliberately blocking any memory of Cairo from his mind, Rafe had been forced to relive every single one of them during the last hour. It hadn’t improved his temper at all.
His mouth compressed into a thin line. ‘How’s your career, Cairo?’
Her eyes narrowed with suspicion. ‘The last time I looked it was just fine, thank you.’
‘Really?’ Rafe taunted.
‘Yes—really!’ she grated.
Rafe shrugged. ‘You can’t live on the publicity of the divorce for ever, you know. At some time in the not too distant future you’ll have to get back to work.’
Cairo’s palm itched, her free hand actually aching from the effort it took to stop herself from slapping that arrogant smile from Rafe’s mockingly curved lips.
He grimaced. ‘I’m just trying to be helpful—’
‘When I want your advice, I’ll ask for it!’ Her eyes flashed an unmistakable warning.
Hot Nights with a Spaniard (Mills & Boon M&B) (Mills & Boon Special Releases) Page 2