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He had never given the smallest sign that that was the case, though. She would never have agreed to marry him if she’d thought for one moment that he was madly in love with her. But some people were experts when it came to hiding their feelings.
‘Well, I’m here now,’ she said quietly as she sank down on the chair. ‘So why did you ask to see me when you thought you might die?’
He shot her a shame-faced look and too quickly denied thinking any such thing. ‘Who said anything about dying? Other people might have been weeping and wailing and thinking the worst but I knew I’d be OK,’ he said, not really convincingly. ‘Got a lot to live for, haven’t I?’ His voice strengthened with relief as he informed her, ‘I only got a smashed up leg—they’ve put metal pins in it—the rest of the injuries were pretty small beer, apparently, so I was luckier than I thought I was. No, the timing might have been a bit off, under the fraught circumstances, but I’d been going to ask your father for the phone number. I hadn’t got around to it and it was playing on my mind.’
His hand reached for hers and gave it a friendly pat. ‘I’d been worrying about you and I wanted to find out if you were OK, that Raffacani was treating you right. I had a pretty good idea of your feelings for him, but I was a bit unsure about him. I mean—a guy who would tell you, Come and live with me, or else—it made me more uneasy the more I thought about it, I guess.’
He gave her a wry smile. ‘I’ve got too used to looking out for you. And the habit sticks. I wanted to let you know not to be afraid of coming back if things weren’t working out. I would make the Dads give you a job on the staff again so you wouldn’t need to be afraid of being out of work. And, knowing you, I knew you’d be feeling you wouldn’t be we
lcome. I admit the folks were cut up when I told them the engagement was off. I explained why—though not about Raffacani’s threat to cancel all his advertising—and they came round. I wanted to let you know that we’d all welcome you back, if the need arose.’
‘You’re a good friend, Ben. The best,’ Lisa said huskily, her eyes filling emotionally. She blinked rapidly and noticed his increasing pallor with a stab of guilt for allowing him to say so much. ‘I should go; you’re beginning to look tired. I’ve kept you talking for too long. I’ll visit tomorrow if it’s OK with the family.’
She got to her feet. As well as tiring him she knew that the natural progression from what he’d already said, bless him, would be to question her about her relationship with Diego.
Her non-existent relationship.
She wasn’t yet up to discussing it with anyone, not even her dearest friends, without making a complete and utter fool of herself.
But Ben twisted his head on the pillow. ‘Stay. I get so bored! They won’t come to throw you out for at least another ten minutes.’
He looked so aggrieved she didn’t have the heart to leave. But she had to keep the conversation away from her ruined relationship with Diego somehow.
So, sinking back on the chair again, she said quickly, ‘Then you’ve got ten minutes to explain why you’ve started to show boy racer tendencies. Sophie and I always complained that you drove like an old granny on her way to the shops! No one can understand why you did what you did.’
Ben pulled a face, clearly embarrassed. ‘It won’t happen again, believe me! At the time of my accident my mind was away on another planet.’
On another planet? She said softly, ‘That’s not like you, Ben. You always have your feet well grounded.’
‘Don’t I know it!’ His face turned fiercely red, alarming Lisa until he told her, ‘I never thought I’d go and fall in love, but one look at her did it. It shook me rigid!’
‘Ben!’ Happiness for him brought the first real smile for days to her lips. ‘Good for you! Who is she?’
‘Sarah Davies.’ He spoke the name with hushed reverence. ‘You won’t know her, of course. She’s one of the high-flyers Raffacani brought in. She edits the gardening section—we’re broadening out, not just concentrating on way out fashions very few could wear or afford and society functions of no real interest to the majority of readers.’
‘And does she feel the same?’ Lisa steeled herself to ask. The last thing she wanted was to see him hurt. A man who up until now had staunchly pooh-poohed the idea of romantic, passionate love could be hurt so much more than a man who had been regularly falling in and out of that state since his teens.
Ben shrugged, wincing as a minor chest injury protested. ‘How would I know? Though when I finally plucked up the courage to ask her to have dinner with me she did look pleased. It was to have been the night of the accident, would you believe? My mind just wasn’t on what I was doing. I was all knotted up, wondering how I should play it—no practice in that sort of thing, as you know. And there I was, knocked sideways by a big white van! I guessed I’d well and truly blown it, until this came.’ He tipped his head in the direction of a get well card prominently displayed on the locker. ‘Read what she’s put and tell me what you think.’
‘That she’s holding you to that dinner date and hoping to visit you as soon as she gets the nod,’ Lisa affirmed after reading the cheery message. She got up and put the card in his hands. ‘I don’t think you’ve blown it. In fact I’m sure you haven’t.’
Leaning over, she put a careful kiss on his forehead. ‘And, as for how to play it—don’t even think about it. Just follow your heart and do what it tells you.’
Diego paced the terrace, the moon-silvered stone walls of the ancient monastery behind him offering no refuge from his tortured thoughts.
There had been no closure. Their brief time together had been meant to heal old wounds but had opened up new ones, wounds so raw and painful he could neither sleep at night nor rest by day.
He’d told himself he could put it all behind him, forget her, get on with his life. It hadn’t worked. He didn’t want to return to his home in Jerez, or get back to work, or stay on here.
He wanted to be with her. With Lisa. He needed her. Whatever her faults, he had to have her in his life, convince her he could make her happier than Clayton ever could.
And to accomplish that he had to do something about it. He had to go and get her, make her see they were meant to be together. It had been fated ever since he’d lifted her to her feet on that mountain track five years ago and first looked into her beautiful eyes. He’d been a lost man ever since and was damned well going to find himself again. With her. Only her.
Swinging on his heel, he stalked back into his favourite home, took the stairs two at a time and began to pack the few things he’d need. First thing tomorrow he’d be on the first available flight to London.
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE flocks of butterflies in Lisa’s stomach began to beat their fluttery wings as the hired Seat climbed to the upper reaches of the twisty mountain road.
