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He picked up her T-shirt and led her through to the small kitchen. He turned on the light and she looked down and saw blood, and the evidence of their coupling.
‘I can’t have a shower—they’ll hear the pipes.’
‘I know,’ Nico said.
Instead he turned on the water at the sink and began to wash her, slowly and carefully.
Tenderly.
It was the second best moment of her life.
Then he put the T-shirt over her head. She did not get another kiss, but he held her for a moment and then released her.
Aurora returned to her pink bedroom and lay in a bed in which she no longer felt she belonged.
CHAPTER FIVE
AURORA AWOKE VERY EARLY, as she always did, in her own bed, but to a world that felt different.
She gave no thought to the wildfires.
For days she had been obsessed by them, but now her first thoughts were of Nico and what had happened between them.
There was no regret—in fact it was bliss to recall. But there was a tremble of fear. For she had not thought she could love him more, or want him more, than she had this time yesterday.
But she did.
Only then did she register the sound of rain—a light patter against her window. Aurora climbed out of bed and peered out. There was steam from the heat, and black smoke in the sky, and a steady fine drizzle of rain.
Aurora pulled on a dress and sandals, and as she slipped out of the house she stole just one look at Nico, crashed out on the couch.
Nico was not feigning sleep this time, but he woke at the sound of the door closing softly and then the steady, welcome patter of rain.
He was not one to examine his emotions—more often he shut them down—but for a moment he lay there, trying to label how he felt.
It wasn’t so much regret that had him closing his eyes tight, for in all his twenty-six years those hours last night had been the best of his life.
It was guilt.
Guilt because although everything had changed between them nothing had changed about what he wanted from his life. He did not want love and he certainly didn’t want marriage.
Nico had lost control in the small hours and he was not used to losing control.
He always used condoms.
Always.
Yet last night he had not given them so much as a thought.
Had her brother come home, or if her parents had got up and caught them, they would be heading over to the priest right now to arrange a wedding.
Instead he dressed, and headed out to where he knew he would find her.
It was muggy and humid, and no doubt the water would evaporate long before it got to the fires, but the rain would certainly help because the mountains had been tinder-dry.
Down through the village he headed, towards the cliffs overlooking the ocean.
He found her walking through the temple ruins, clearly deep in thought, because she jumped a little when she saw him, evidently not having heard his approach.
