going for a swim,’ she told Rafe abruptly as she took off her T-shirt before peeling her skirt down over her hips and legs and revealing that she wore a brief white bikini beneath.
Rafe stood and watched Cairo as she ran down the golden sand to wade thigh-deep in the water before diving smoothly beneath its surface, his hands clenching at his sides as he appreciated how the white of her bikini emphasised the golden tan of her skin. Smooth, silky skin he could still feel against the palms of his hands.
Cairo was right; she was no longer a naïve twenty-year-old. Just as he was no longer twenty-nine and bowled off his feet by her beauty the moment he was introduced to her.
But a part of him wished that he were….
CHAPTER SIX
‘I THINK you’re being absolutely ridiculous, Rafe,’ Cairo told him coolly as she hung their wet costumes and towels on the line strung between two trees at the back of the villa. Daisy was inside watching a cartoon channel on the television.
They had all showered and changed since returning an hour ago, Cairo now wearing a loose cream-coloured blouse over fitted jeans, the dampness of her long hair twisted into a knot and secured at her crown, her face completely bare of make-up.
She looked about eighteen, Rafe decided impatiently. Although that in no way stopped her being so damned stubborn he wanted to shake her until her teeth rattled!
His gaze narrowed on her warningly. ‘If you won’t agree to come down to Cannes with me this evening, then I’m not going, either,’ he repeated evenly.
‘Scrap my previous statement—your behaviour is positively juvenile!’ Cairo glared at him. ‘I won’t if you won’t,’ she mocked as she reached for another of the towels and began to hang it on the line. ‘You have to go to Cannes this evening, Rafe—I don’t!’
‘I don’t have to go anywhere until I’ve managed to find out the identity of the man who spoke to Daisy at lunchtime,’ Rafe assured her just as stubbornly.
Rafe had called several people he knew in the newspaper business, but as yet none of them had been offered a story about himself and Cairo. They would call him back when, or if, they did.
Admittedly his own temper was slightly frayed around the edges after those memories earlier of their time together on the Isle of Man. But Cairo’s adamant refusal to even think about reconsidering her decision not to go down to Cannes with him tonight was only increasing Rafe’s frustration, which was already exacerbated by a sexual tension that was becoming more unbearable by the minute.
She sighed. ‘So much for your “couple of phone calls”.’
‘If he’s a reporter, then we’ll know by tomorrow morning, anyway,’ Rafe pointed out. ‘I only said if he’s a reporter, Cairo,’ he said as she gave a pained groan.
She shook her head. ‘We both know that he is. Do you think he has photographs, too?’
‘If he’s any good at his job then, yes, of course he has photographs.’ There was no point in even attempting to lie, Rafe knew, when tomorrow morning’s newspapers would tell their own story, no doubt including wild speculation about their relationship.
He could see it now, photographs of himself and Cairo shopping for food, of them walking through Grasse with Daisy, of the three of them laughing together as they sat down at the table in the square outside the restaurant.
All very cosily domestic.
Deceptively so.
Anyone who had ever listened to a single conversation between himself and Cairo would know differently—they couldn’t even discuss the weather without getting into an argument about it!
‘I don’t see anything in the least funny about this situation, Rafe!’ Cairo snapped as she saw his rueful smile. ‘The reason I’m annoyed is pretty obvious after the publicity following my divorce from Lionel.’ She grimaced. ‘But I’m sure there must be someone in your own life who isn’t going to be amused, either, by photographs of the two of us together.’
Cairo hadn’t spent long, boring hours in her trailer waiting to be called on set for months now—that was the only time she flicked through the glossy magazines that contained those sorts of gossipy articles—so she had no idea whether or not Rafe was involved with anyone at the moment. But he probably was….
His mouth twisted mockingly. ‘I doubt any of my family will be concerned.’
Cairo sighed. ‘I wasn’t talking about your family and you know it.’
Rafe had occasionally talked about his family when they were together. Of his Spanish father who had visited America as a student and fallen in love with the blonde-haired, blue-eyed daughter of a Texas rancher, the two of them marrying once they finished college, and now working that ranch in Texas themselves, along with Rafe’s younger brother, Pedro, and his wife and young family.
Rafe grinned. ‘I’m well aware of that, Cairo,’ he drawled. ‘And, no, I very much doubt that photographs of you and I together are going to bother anyone but the two of us.’
‘What a shame,’ she came back insincerely.
Rafe sobered. ‘Cairo, I would never have kissed you last night if I was involved with someone else.’
She raised sceptical brows. ‘Really?’
‘Dammit, Cairo—’
‘Rafe, I have no intention of getting into yet another argument with you,’ she told him wearily. ‘Just accept that I am not going to Cannes with you tonight—’
‘Why the hell not?’
‘One, I don’t want to go. Two, I didn’t bring anything suitable to wear. Three,’ she added simply, ‘I’m still waiting for Jeff to return one of my calls.’
She had made two so far. One at the restaurant when she had reached his answering service, and hadn’t bothered to leave a message as she had quickly rung off to be with Daisy. And another one at the beach when she had returned from her swim and had left a message asking Jeff to call her back as soon as possible to let her know how Margo was.
She had brought her mobile outside with her now in the hopes he would call back soon.
Rafe scowled. ‘One, I don’t give a damn what you want; I’m not going out and leaving you and Daisy here alone this evening. Two, you can go naked for all I care. And three, that’s what mobile phones are for!’ he all but snarled.
‘There’s no need to shout—and I told you not to touch me again, Rafe!’ Cairo’s eyes flashed a warning as she looked down at the fingers that had reached out to curl like steel bands about her arm.
Rafe breathed unevenly as he looked down at her for several long seconds. ‘You would try the patience of a saint, Cairo!’
‘You should be just fine, then, shouldn’t you?’ she baited him. ‘I told you to let go of my arm, Rafe.’ She looked up to meet his gaze unflinchingly.
The very air seemed to have stilled about them,
