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‘What did you think you were doing? This is the rainforest, not Bond Street. You don’t just go for a gentle stroll!’
‘I know that.’
‘Then what the hell were you doing walking along this path?’ He’d just removed a snake from within inches of her neck. Why wasn’t she clinging to him or screaming hysterically? It occurred to him that she was the most unpredictable woman he’d ever met. ‘It’s impossible to understand you! You just don’t behave the way every other woman would behave!’
‘Given your views on women, I’ll take that as a compliment.’ Her eyes flickered around her and she licked her lips and moved closer to him, clearly unsettled by the sudden presence of the snake. ‘I took a wrong turning.’
‘A wrong turning?’ His fingers bit into her upper arms and he gave her a little shake, incredulity mixing with exasperation. ‘How could you possibly have taken a wrong turning? It isn’t a complex route.’
Colour tinged her cheeks. ‘I—I wasn’t concentrating and I mixed up my left and my right.’
‘You did what?’ He shook his head, not even bothering to conceal his frustration with her. ‘Out here, that sort of mistake can mean the difference between life and death. Don’t you realise that? Are you stupid?’ He felt her tense in his arms and then she pulled away from him and lifted her head to look at him.
Something shone in her eyes. Tears? Anger? He wasn’t sure.
‘Don’t ever call me stupid.’ Her voice was hoarse. Raw with hurt and pain. ‘I accept that I took the wrong path and I realise that getting lost in the rainforest could have had disastrous consequences, but I’m not stupid. Don’t call me that, ever again.’
He spread his hands, baffled as to why a single word should trigger a greater emotional response than an enormous snake. ‘Then why did you allow yourself to get lost?’
She hesitated for a moment before answering, her chest rising and falling as she sucked the air into her lungs. ‘Because I always confuse left and right.’
‘Why would you confuse left and right?’ He looked at her, uncomprehending, and she swallowed hard.
‘Because I’m dyslexic.’
He stared at her. ‘You’re dyslexic?’
‘That’s right.’
Dyslexic? Rafael spent a moment or two sifting through the archives of his brain. ‘You mean that you have problems reading?’
‘Actually no, I’m not too bad at reading, but I’m hopeless at directions, I always mix up my left and right and I’m terrible at numbers.’ She looked away from him, the heat burning in her cheeks. ‘Absolutely appalling at numbers. But I suppose you already know that.’
He did?
Stunned by her confession and still trying to grasp the implications of her reluctant confession, he frowned. ‘You didn’t get lost yesterday on your way to the forest pool.’
‘I asked Maria for directions and wrote left and right on my hands. It washed off in the pool, otherwise I wouldn’t have got lost today.’
He let out a long breath. ‘You’re telling me that you can’t read figures and yet you’re running your own business?’
‘It shouldn’t matter. Plenty of dyslexics are extremely successful in business. My father is responsible for everything to do with the numbers. I can do everything else as long as I don’t have to look at the figures. Figures confuse me.’ Her tone was stiff and suddenly it all fell into place.
Not naïvety, not stupidity—dyslexia.
His expression suddenly grim, he reached down and closed a hand round her slender wrist. ‘Come on.’ ‘Where are we going?’
‘Back to the lodge, where I can ask you the questions that need to be asked. And this time I want the truth, Grace. No holding back.’
‘My dyslexia isn’t important and I don’t want you to treat me differently because—’
‘Grace—’ he hauled her against him and glared down at her as anger, as intense as it was inexplicable, bubbled up inside him, ‘do me a favour and let me decide what’s important. This time I want to know everything. And I mean everything. If there’s something in that head of yours that you don’t think I need or want to know, then I especially want to know about that.’
Grace stood in his office again, listening to the interminable buzz of the phone. It was like an annoying insect, she thought numbly. He might be hiding out in the rainforest but people still didn’t leave him alone.
Only he clearly had no intention of talking to anyone. He lifted the receiver, instructed someone to filter his calls until further notice, his tone short and clipped. Then he dropped the phone back into its cradle and turned his attention to her.
‘All right.’ He lounged in his chair, his eyes watchful. ‘I’m listening.’
