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CHAPTER ONE
IT WAS THE SCAR that halted Lottie in the doorway. A thin, livid wound, it sliced down from his brow, skipping over the eye socket before continuing an inch along his cheekbone. The sight of it clutched at her stomach, weighted her feet to the floor.
‘Rafael?’
Silence stretched tightly between them as they stared at each other across the dark panelled office.
‘Charlotte.’
‘How...how are you?’
‘Still alive.’ As he eased himself to stand against the edge of the desk his voice was cold, flat. ‘As you can see.’
‘Yes. Indeed.’ Lottie swallowed. Upright now, he stood with his hands splayed on either side of him, fingertips anchoring him to the desk. ‘I was very sorry—to hear about the accident, I mean.’
‘Thank you.’ His clipped reply snipped at her words, clearly designed to stop any outpourings of sentiment.
Not that she intended to show him any, of course. She knew she wasn’t here to display any sort of concern, express any sympathy. Rafael wasn’t the kind of man to tolerate such emotions. Especially from her.
She watched as he moved out from behind the desk and walked stiffly towards her, tall and rigid in a sober grey suit, his height towering over her as they came together. For a second they stood there, like repelling magnets, until Rafael bent forward to brush her cheek once, twice, three times. Lottie closed her eyes as she felt the whisper of his breath, the touch of his skin; him.
He pulled away immediately, leaving her staring up at his injuries.
Scratches of various lengths and depths crisscrossed his face and a purple bruise spread colourfully down one side. The scar, Lottie now realised, resembled the lash of a whip. That didn’t help at all.
‘So...um...your face...?’ She knew she shouldn’t go on about it, that he would hate her even mentioning it, but she needed reassurance, needed to stop looking at him as if she was witnessing a pig having its throat cut. ‘I assume the injuries are quite superficial?’
‘You assume correctly.’
‘And the rest of your body?’ His unnerving stare stupidly made her blush. So much for trying to appear detached. She gave a small cough. ‘I mean, what other injuries do you have?’
‘All fairly consistent with someone who has plummeted twelve thousand feet from the sky.’
‘I’m sure.’ Lottie pulled a face at the idiocy of her question. How many people had fallen twelve thousand feet and lived to tell the tale? Anyway, she already knew the extent of his injuries; it had all been there in the newspaper article: punctured lung, dislocated shoulder, three cracked ribs. ‘Did you ever find out...what went wrong? Why your parachute didn’t open?’
‘Misfortune, fate—call it what you like.’ Rafael shrugged his shoulders as if already bored with the subject. ‘It’s of no consequence now.’
‘No, I suppose not.’ But despite his casual dismissal Lottie didn’t doubt that the accident had been thoroughly investigated. And if someone had been found responsible it would be their own life they should be worrying about now. ‘But you were very lucky, as it turned out.’
‘Lucky?’ His tone suggested otherwise.
‘I mean lucky that a tree broke your fall. It could have been so much worse.’
‘True.’ His reply was deadpan. ‘I could have been dead.’
‘Ha!’ Why was she laughing? Nothing about this was the least bit funny.
It was pure, unmitigated torture.
She had prepared herself, of course, endlessly rehearsed how she would behave, what she would say when faced with Rafael again. She’d still been running through her calm and measured responses on the aeroplane over here, her twitching lips attracting the attention of her nosy nine-year-old neighbour. She had bullied herself into believing that she was ready. That she could cope—survive this one last meeting.
But as she looked at him now, past the recently inflicted injuries to the man beneath, the man she had fallen so madly in love with, all her confident convictions seemed to slide away. She remembered every tiny detail of his face. The thick, untidy brows that arrowed above almond-shaped deep brown eyes. The harsh sweep of his jawline, the square chin where a small cleft nestled, dark with stubble.
Yep, she remembered everything. She wished she didn’t.
‘Well, thank goodness for that tree, eh?’ Shifting her position, she crossed one leg in front of the other, the balletic pose spoiled by the hand that was shoved deep into the pocket of her jeans. Her voice sounded hideously chirpy but it did at least mask her desire to ask where this tree was, so she could throw herself on its dirty roots and thank it for saving Rafael’s life. ‘I’m so glad it was in the right place.’
