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‘I went to your old place and a neighbour told me you’d moved. She wouldn’t give me your new address, but she told me that a friend of yours owned this coffee bar and would probably give you a message for me.’
‘This is Diego,’ Maya murmured, her glance shifting away from his for the briefest second towards the older man sitting opposite her. ‘This is his place.’
‘Pleased to meet you.’ Moving towards their table, Blaise stuck out his hand.
The Spaniard made no move to take it. Instead he abruptly pushed himself to his feet, his expression definitely suspicious. ‘And you are…?’
‘Blaise Walker.’
‘So you are the man that—’
‘It’s all right, Diego.’ With a pleading look Maya managed to still what he had been going to say next. ‘I’m sure Blaise isn’t staying long…are you?’
‘I wouldn’t be too sure about that. I need to talk to you, Maya…however long it takes.’
‘I need to talk to you too. So maybe—maybe we should go back to my place? We can get a bus just down the road…’
‘My car’s parked round the corner.’
Feeling queasy, as well as apprehensive, Maya got slowly to her feet. With trembling fingers she attempted to refasten the buttons on her coat, but quickly gave up and left it open. Whatever she and Blaise had to say to each other, it wasn’t a conversation to be aired in public. Yet her stomach was fluttering wildly with nerves at the mere thought of being alone with him again. Not only that but probably having to say goodbye to him a second painful time after he’d said what he had to say and then left.
‘Diego, I’ll give you a call later on tonight, okay?’
‘Make sure you do,’ the Spaniard replied gruffly, now regarding Blaise with not just suspicion but also antagonism in his eyes. ‘I am not happy about how you looked when you came in, and I want to hear what you were going to tell me and make sure everything is okay.’
‘It will keep…and I’ll be fine. I promise.’
Saying nothing, his expression implacable, Blaise held the door open for her to precede him out into the rain.
She’d lost a little weight, he saw with a flicker of alarm. Her cheekbones were more pronounced, the smooth, perfect skin stretched over them like pale satin, making her spellbinding emerald eyes seem huge and her luminous beauty even more incandescent. But so many feelings, sensations and fears kept hitting him that it was difficult for Blaise to stay with one train of thought for long. Ever since he’d let her go the only thought that had been and still was constant was that he missed her. He missed her so much that it was as if he’d been inflicted with some agonising chest wound that wouldn’t heal. He’d called himself all kinds of imbecile for doing what he’d done, but insults and fury hadn’t helped. Not when there was still the same underlying fear that daily ate away at his soul—a corrosive terror that almost paralysed him and stopped him from doing what his heart all but begged and pleaded with him to do.
When he’d seen that article about the art auction in the newspaper it had finally galvanised him into action…finally told him it was time to conquer his fears and make the one decision he needed to make above all others.
His gaze flicked interestedly round the recently painted living room of Maya’s new flat, noting the more comfortable furnishings and furniture and the sense of space that had been so severely lacking in her previous tiny abode.
During the car journey to get here she had haltingly told him about the opportunity that had come up to move to a bigger place—how she had eagerly grasped it with both hands and how Diego had helped her move. Having met the surly Spaniard who owned the coffee bar Maya liked to frequent, Blaise silently owned to feeling quite put out that she was friends with such a man…a man who had looked at him as if he’d like to punch a fist right in the centre of his gut. He smirked grimly.
A couple of pretty cards wishing her happiness in her new home graced the magnolia-painted mantelpiece, he noticed, fighting to gain control over the growing feelings of jealousy and possessiveness that poured through him. Who had sent her the cards? Was she seeing someone? Sitting quietly on the sofa across the floor from where he stood, her long legs encased in sheer black hosiery and her hands calmly folded in the lap of her deep burgundy skirt, Maya met his glance steadily, with no hint of the strong emotion that currently tormented Blaise.
‘What made you sell the portrait?’ he heard himself demand, his heart thudding because it wasn’t the first thing he wanted to do. Even now he had to wrestle with the almost overwhelming urge to just haul her up from where she sat and kiss her senseless.
