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She’d taken Annie to Cornwall when she was four, just for a weekend, but it had been perfect. They’d eaten ice cream and bought fish and chips, which they’d shared with dozens of hungry—or plain greedy—seagulls, and walked through narrow, cobbled lanes while smiling at locals. But it had been short, and hardly exotic. This, though, was not a holiday, despite the picturesque location.
Not only was this a work trip, but she couldn’t afford to forget that fact for even one moment. She had no idea why Graciano had done this, but there was no forgetting their past, and she couldn’t ever relax around him.
The issue of their daughter was an ever-present nightmare, a ticking time bomb she knew she would have to face head-on, but had no idea how to.
The helicopter touched down on a paved circular area joined to the house by a path lined on either side with espaliered fruit trees. Graciano stood in the centre of the path, feet planted wide and arms crossed over his chest, his body language anything but welcoming. In fact, if he hadn’t paid so much money for her expertise, and insisted on her coming to this island, she’d have said he was resenting her presence.
Well, that made two of them.
From the confines of the helicopter, she took a moment to observe him without being observed. Time had changed both of them, though she feared it had been much kinder to him. As an eighteen-year-old, Graciano had been slender—far too slender, courtesy of his life on the streets and too many skipped meals. He’d always been hypermasculine despite that, with a raw virility and confidence, but this was something else. His six-and-a-half-foot frame had filled out, so he stood muscular and strong, every inch of him conveying pure alpha male dominance. She knew enough about men’s clothes to know that those he wore were the very best, though they weren’t visibly branded. Their quality was obvious. He didn’t go to any effort with his appearance; he was too much of a man’s man for that, too focused on other things, but that didn’t matter. Effort or not, he was, without a doubt, the most beautiful person she’d ever seen.
His face was remarkable.
It always had been.
Her heart leaped into her throat as she remembered the first day they’d met. A summer storm had crossed Seville. She’d been terrified of the lightning, and from her reading spot in the conservatory, it was louder and brighter than anywhere else in the house, only she couldn’t get inside without crossing through the garden. Graciano had been working, pruning fruit trees, when he’d heard her scream. He’d told her later that it had chilled his blood. He’d thrown open the door and lightning had crashed behind him, but she was no longer afraid. She hadn’t even seen it.
All of her had become focused on all of him.
He’d worn a singlet top and shorts that sat low on his hips, and his shoes had been old and saturated. But none of that had mattered. She was transfixed by him. His jaw was square, as if chiselled from stone, his cheekbones angular and sharp. Stubble covered his chin, and his eyes were the darkest brown she’d ever seen, rimmed in thick, black lashes that were made even more dramatic by the falling rain. His hair had become drenched, but he’d driven his hands through it, pushing it back from his face, which had only served to draw attention to his high, fascinating brow.
‘Who are you?’ she’d gasped, lifting a hand to her chest.
‘Graciano. Are you hurt?’
It was so like him. He’d brushed aside the fact they didn’t know one another and had concentrated only on the information he’d wanted. He’d taken control, even then, as a street kid with nothing and no one.
He was Graciano. All hail Graciano.
As he stood there now, she felt the same power emanating off him, the same unfaltering command of a situation, and she knew she had to do a better job of guarding against those feelings this time, or she’d be as fully under his spell as she had been back then.
The thought terrified her into action.
She unclipped her seatbelt and moved to the central door of the cabin, so that the moment it was opened and the stairs brought down she could disembark, in control and ready for business. To prove that point, she pulled her handbag over one shoulder, taking comfort from the weight of her laptop and notebook. Only at that exact moment, her eyes sought, of their own accord, Graciano, and the manoeuvre of pulling her strap threw her off balance, so that as she took the second step, her ankle twisted and rolled. She extended an arm on autopilot, her hand curling around the railing for a vital second before slipping, her knees crumbling. She righted herself, somehow, for another excruciating second, but the momentum was too great.
She tumbled to the ground and lay, splayed like roadkill, on the elegant herringbone red brick pavers.
‘Great,’ she muttered under her breath, the sting in her scraped knees nothing to the monumental hole in her pride. ‘Just bloody great.’
To Alicia, it felt like a lifetime, but in reality, it took Graciano mere seconds to reach her. First, she heard his feet, not running, but walking with speed, and stopping right by her head, so she was greeted with obviously hand-stitched leather boots right in front of her face.
‘Alicia.’ He drawled her name with that awful cynicism of his.
Ignoring his proffered hand, cheeks flaming, she pushed up gingerly, her knees complaining as she moved, so she curled one hand around the railing and dragged herself halfway to standing before her ankle gave an almighty shot of pain and she let out a groaning sound, angry eyes piercing Graciano, as though he had somehow manipulated these circumstances.
‘What is it?’ he demanded again, and now, to her absolute chagrin, he put a hand around her back, steadying her, or at least, intending to steady her, but in reality it had the opposite effect, as a thousand blades shot through her body at his simple, light touch. His fingers splayed wide, forming a barrier over her hip. The movement somehow so intimate and familiar, and she was far too aware of him.
‘Don’t,’ she hissed, pulling away from him, then yelping again when her ankle almost rolled once more. ‘I’ve twisted my ankle,’ she snapped, as though it were his fault.
‘Evidently.’
‘I saw a heap of golf carts when we were flying over. Maybe one of those could help me to the house?’
‘That’s not necessary.’ Before she could intuit his meaning, he caught her around the waist and lifted her, cradling her against his chest as though she weighed nothing. It was an overwhelming moment. Ten years ago, they’d been lovers, but only once, only one night, and since then, they hadn’t seen each other. She hadn’t been touched by anyone. She’d been flirted with, asked out on dates, but no one had elicited a single frisson of warmth from her, let alone a full-blown fire.
Why the hell was it like this with them? Why did his touch send her nerves skittling all over the place?
She startled against his body, aware of every movement of his muscles, aware of his masculine fragrance, the stubble on his jaw.
