her reflection in the mirror she hurried out, locking the door behind her before running down the several flights of stairs. She didn’t want to give Orlando the chance to invite himself up.
Not that she was ashamed of her flat—far from it. It might be tiny, but the rent was reasonable and it was nice and central—only a few stops on the underground to the headquarters of Spicer Shoes. However, it was hardly on a par with the sort of grandeur that Orlando Cassano was accustomed to.
He was studying the view when Isobel joined him, taking in the car park, the bike racks and the group of youths sitting on the wall that housed the dustbins. Her dash down the stairs had left her out of breath, and Orlando turned to look at her, coolly objective.
Isobel fought to suppress the familiar lurch in her stomach at the sight of him. He looked ridiculously out of place, standing there in his dark grey cashmere coat, the collar pulled up against the chilly breeze. All urbane, confident authority, he seemed the very antithesis of the crudely graffitied walls of this inner-city tower block.
‘How long have you lived here?’
Having performed a perfunctory kiss on both cheeks, Orlando took a couple of steps back and craned his head to look up, scanning the soulless concrete facade, the uniform rows of windows. Isobel watched his Adam’s apple move beneath the smooth olive skin.
‘A couple of years.’ She focussed on buttoning up her coat. ‘And, before you start, there is nothing wrong with it. We can’t all live on Caribbean islands or in Long Island mansions.’
‘Did I say that?’
‘Well, no, but...’
‘In that case I’ll thank you not to make accusatory assumptions.’ His mouth flattened into a tight line, his eyes narrowing with warning.
Isobel scowled back—this was not a good start. She knew she was being horribly prickly, but her nerves were shot to pieces, her head all over the place. Being in Orlando’s company again was pure torture, and not just because of the pregnancy, nor the fact that he obviously had no intention of letting her raise the child alone, although that was bad enough. Far worse was the realisation that for these past few weeks she had been fooling herself.
Somehow, while they had been apart, Isobel had managed to convince herself that what had happened on Jacamar—the way she had fallen head over heels for Orlando—had been the result of some sort of Caribbean magic...a spell that would be easily broken when she returned to the UK.
But that theory had vanished like an icicle in a furnace the second their eyes had met in the boardroom this morning, when the attraction Isobel had felt for him had been so powerful, so immediate, it had slammed right into her chest. And that wretched kiss hadn’t helped, opening her up to all sorts of forbidden desires. She could feel them now, stubbornly pumping through her body under the grey skies of London, without a coconut or a palm tree in sight.
‘My car is over here.’
He hardly needed to point it out. If Orlando seemed out of place then his gleaming car looked as if it had been dropped down from another planet. Sleek, black and low, it had certainly caught the eye of the local residents, several of whom had sauntered over to inspect it, peering in through the windows and running their hands over the immaculate paintwork.
Isobel felt familiar panic creep through her veins. Not because of the circling hooded youngsters—she’d lived here long enough to know that they wouldn’t bother her—but because cars, fast cars in particular, terrified her.
She had been seventeen when a horrific car crash had all but decimated her family, killing her father and leaving her mother in a wheelchair. Isobel had received only minor injuries, but the course of her life had changed for ever.
Giving up any idea of going to university, she had determined there and then that she would honour her father by taking on the family business and dedicating herself to making Spicer Shoes a success. She’d hoped the hard work would be cathartic and that a thriving business would mean security for the loyal Spicer employees and for her mother, whose continuing care in a residential home was eye-wateringly expensive.
More than that, she’d hoped to be able to make her mother see that the world hadn’t stopped the day of the accident. That she still had her daughter—alive and well and desperate to have a loving relationship with her, desperate to make amends.
But in the seven years that had passed, even though the business was now poised on the brink of massive success, Isobel’s relationship with her mother had become more strained than ever—something that weighed more heavily on her shoulders than she would even admit to herself.
And then there were the panic attacks. The crippling anxiety that Isobel still battled against whenever she sat in a car. But time and some intensive therapy had helped—plus the determination that she was going to overcome her fear. Now, dragging in a deep breath, she released it slowly, the way she had been shown, and strode with great determination to meet her nemesis.
Opening the door for her, Orlando waited as she slid in. Distracted by the car’s admiring audience, he hadn’t seemed to notice Isobel’s fear, which was just the way she wanted it. She waited as he went round to the driver’s side, her nails digging into the palms of her hands.
‘What can she do?’
Outside, she could hear a conversation starting up.
‘Over two hundred, technically.’
Oh, dear God. Orlando had opened his door and was standing outside it, just the lower half of his body visible to Isobel, one foot resting on the car’s sill.
‘Cool. You ever done that?’
‘I’ve taken her up to one-fifty on the autobahn in Germany and she still seemed to have plenty left.’
‘Wow. That’s cool, man.’
The way Isobel’s anxiety levels were racing, she suspected they would give it a run for its money. Reaching across, she pressed the car horn, meaning to grab Orlando’s attention so that they could get going—get this ordeal over with before she lost her nerve completely. But the jarring sound made her shrink back into her seat, and as Orlando peered in she caught his puzzled look.
‘You okay?’
‘Fine.’ She whispered the word under her breath as she double-checked the clasp of her seat belt. ‘Can we just get out of here, please?’
Swinging himself inside with cat-like agility, Orlando turned the key in the ignition and the engine roared into life. As he pressed his foot on the accelerator it growled throatily. Through the windscreen Isobel could see the look of respect on the young men’s faces.
‘You seem very impatient.’ He glanced at her, his hands gripping the steering wheel. ‘I can’t see that it hurts for me to spend a bit of time with those guys.’
‘You won’t say that when your car is found burnt out on a piece of wasteland.’
‘And you accuse me of prejudice?’ He gave a dismissive snort.
Isobel glared at him. ‘Look, I’m not saying they are bad kids, but a flashy car like this is bound to be a target for joyriders. It’s like asking for trouble.’
‘Ah, so it’s my fault.’
