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‘Your nose is sunburnt.’
‘Oh.’ Was that all? She shrugged a shoulder. ‘That will teach me for buying the cheap stuff—’ she touched her forefinger to the end of her nose ‘—and for having a big nose,’ she joked.
His mouth thinned. ‘Your nose is perfect.’ He pushed his sunglasses back on and set the car in motion again. ‘And you have beautiful skin,’ he said gruffly. ‘You should protect it.’
A burst of warmth flared in Jordan’s chest at the unexpected compliments, despite how tersely they’d been delivered. She willed herself not to blush, but felt the colour rise in her cheeks regardless.
‘Look who’s lecturing now,’ she said lightly, attempting to cover her silly overreaction to a couple of abrupt remarks. ‘It’s kind of nice, though,’ she added, settling back against the seat and casting him a sideways glance, ‘you being all...protective. When I was little I used to dream of having a big brother who’d look out for me.’
His jaw tightened. ‘Jordan...’ he warned in a low, gravelly rasp that should have deterred her but instead sent a hot quiver through her belly.
Catching her tongue between her teeth, she bit down—literally—on the reckless impulse to see how far she could push him in this mood. Chances were his growl was worse than his bite. But she wasn’t quite brave enough to find out.
* * *
An hour later Xav leaned against the side of his car, ankles crossed, arms folded over his chest, his mind stuck on a single word like a turntable needle stuck on scratched vinyl.
Protective.
He clenched his jaw. If what Jordan provoked in him was protectiveness, it sure as hell wasn’t of the brotherly variety.
Dios.
The sibling reference had been nothing more than a taunt, surely? She couldn’t possibly be oblivious to the fact that the subtle, provocative two-way baiting and constant simmering tension between them was sexual chemistry.
When she had strolled onto the terrace this morning, wearing a stretchy yellow-and-white-striped dress that was little more than a thigh-length T-shirt, the hot surge of reaction in his gut had been anything but brotherly.
With her flame-coloured hair swept into a high, bouncy ponytail, her long legs smooth and bare and her feet encased in cute white tennis shoes, she’d looked like a burst of summer sunshine. A sexy, irresistible package of ebullience and warmth.
He’d known in that moment this trip was a bad idea, but he wasn’t a man who reneged on his promises. And, while he’d avoided analysing too deeply his feelings about what they were doing today, he wasn’t insensitive to the fact that visiting this village where he now stood, in the green forested foothills of the Catalan mountains in the middle of nowhere, meant something to Jordan.
Truth be told, he’d enjoyed their journey up the coast. When was the last time he’d put the top down on his sports car and hit the open road? For that matter, when was the last time he had driven instead of being driven? He employed a driver because travelling in a chauffeured vehicle allowed him to work while on the road, but he hadn’t realised how much he’d missed getting behind the wheel.
And when had he last consciously appreciated the natural beauty of the Costa Brava, or even his own private slice of the coastline, other than via the window of his jet when he flew in and out of the country on business?
Throw a beautiful woman into the mix—even one who pushed his buttons at every turn—and the result had been a blood-pumping exhilaration that was different from the adrenalin rush he derived from the day-to-day cut and thrust of the business world.
But when they had turned inland his pleasure had begun to evaporate, dwindling with each kilometre that had brought them closer to this dull, isolated backwater.
As he’d parked at the foot of an ancient cobblestoned street, a sobering, unwelcome revelation had struck.
This was the place his
biological roots could be traced back to. This sleepy, remote village that looked as if it had got permanently stuck in some bygone era.
He suppressed a shudder.
Even as a boy, given to fleeting bouts of curiosity about his biological parents, he’d not once imagined his beginnings to be so...inauspicious. As a teenager he’d stopped wondering altogether—any shreds of curiosity ruthlessly crushed, his focus one hundred percent on proving himself worthy of the name he carried to this day with a fierce sense of loyalty and pride.
A feeling of claustrophobia pressed down like a suffocating weight on his chest, and he wanted to climb into his car and floor the accelerator until the village was nothing more than a distant, inconsequential speck in his rear-view mirror.
Except he couldn’t. Because Jordan wasn’t with him and he didn’t know where the hell she’d gone.
He pushed away from the vehicle. He shouldn’t have let her wander off alone. By her own admission her sense of direction was non-existent. But when they’d arrived he’d checked his phone and found two missed calls from his brother and a voicemail mentioning Peter Reynaud.
He’d stayed in the car to call Ramon and Jordan had stepped out to give him privacy, stating she was going to stretch her legs.
He’d not seen her since.
