peculiar yellow-grey colour that precedes a snowfall. He realised that if he didn’t leave soon he might find himself marooned in his mother’s house, subjected to significant conversations about the quality of his life choices.
He was unprepared for the unthinkable, which was a Mini whose engine had decided to hibernate.
An hour after he had left for the seemingly routine task of starting it up, letting it run for a few minutes and then assuring his mother that the car was fine and dandy, he was returning with a ferocious scowl and a premonition of hassle.
He pushed open the front door in a tide of bitterly cold air to find Cristina standing there, warmly clad in jeans and a jumper. The source of all his trouble.
‘The thing’s dead,’ he informed her, slamming the door behind him and stamping his feet on the mat. He divested himself of the beaten leather jacket and glared at her.
Cristina bit her lip, guiltily aware that she should have been the one seeing to her car, even though Maria had assured her that Rafael wouldn’t mind in the least checking on it first thing in the morning. She’d given the impression that it would be no bother at all. From the dark expression on his face, it certainly had been a bother.
‘I’m really sorry,’ she apologised profusely.’ I should have gone and tried myself. In fact, I was about to …’
‘Do you think you might have been able to get it going where I failed?’
‘No, but …’ She fidgeted and then gave him a watery smile. ‘Thank you so much for trying anyway. Is it very cold out there? I can make you a cup of hot chocolate, if you like. I’m good at making hot chocolate.’
‘No hot chocolate. Black coffee.’ He headed towards the kitchen which, thankfully, had not yet been invaded by the leftover guests. As an afterthought, and without turning around to look at her, he offered her a cup.
‘I’ve already had a cup of tea. Thank you.’ Cristina paused. Even windswept and scowling he was still rawly, powerfully sexy, just as sexy as he had appeared the night before when he had come to her rescue. She brightened up at the memory of that, the way he had helped her out when there had been no need. ‘Do you think I might be able to get in touch with a garage to come and have a look at it?’ she asked his averted back.
‘It’s Sunday and it’s going to snow.’ Rafael turned around to look at her. ‘I think the answer to that is no.’
Cristina paled. ‘What am I going to do, in that case? I can’t just stay here indefinitely. I’ve got my job. I can’t believe my car’s decided to just pack up on me!’
‘I doubt it was a deliberate act of sabotage,’ Rafael commented dryly, feeling slightly better after the coffee, but still aware that there was a shed-load of work waiting to be done and that he would have to leave sooner rather than later. The motorway would be fine, even if it began to snow, but getting down the lanes that led from his mother’s house could be challenging in bad weather, especially in a sportscar which was not fashioned for anything but optimum road conditions.
Cristina smiled and he was dimly aware that she really did have a smile that lit up her face, giving her a fleeting aspect of beauty. However, he was far more aware that time was pressing on, and he looked at his watch and then gulped back the remainder of his coffee.
‘I really have to go.’ He wondered whether she had any idea of his mother’s far-fetched ideas and decided that she didn’t.
‘I know it’s a huge imposition, but could you possibly give me a lift back to London—to whatever Underground station is closest to where you live? It’s just that I really need to get back, and … I could always get the garage to come out in the morning and fix the car … and then have someone drive it down to London.’
‘Or you could just stay and see to it in the morning yourself. I mean, surely your boss would let you have the day off for an emergency.’
‘I don’t have a boss,’ Cristina said with a touch of pride. ‘I work for myself.’
‘All the better. You can give yourself a day off.’ That sorted, Rafael dumped his cup in the sink and began heading for the door. But the image of her disappointed face behind him made him curse softly under his breath and turn back to her. ‘I’m leaving in an hour,’ he said abruptly, watching the disappointment fade away like a dark cloud on a sunny day. ‘If you’re not ready, I’ll go without you, because snow’s forecast and I can’t afford to be trapped here.’
‘You could always ask your boss for the day off.’ Cristina grinned. ‘Unless you are the boss, in which case you can always give yourself the day off.’
But she felt considerably cheered. It was peculiar, but there was something invigorating about him. She packed her bags quickly and efficiently. She hadn’t eaten breakfast, but her figure could do with skipping a meal, she decided. And Maria, despite her protests, assured her that she would telephone the garage herself and make sure that the car was delivered to London. She knew Roger, the chap who owned the garage, and he owed her a favour after she had given him a very lucrative tip indeed on the horses.
Rafael was less overjoyed with the arrangements. ‘Saddled with’ were the two words that sprang into his head. He could hardly blame his mother for the state of the Mini and its lack of co-operation in getting started, but as they manoeuvred down the country lanes one hour later he couldn’t help but feel that he had somehow been trapped into sharing his space with a perfect stranger.
And an extremely talkative one who seemed intent on ignoring the fact that he had a handless headset in the car for a reason. She patiently waited for business conversations to end, staring through the window at ominous skies which had gone from yellow-grey to charcoal, and then felt perfectly free to ask him about his work.
‘But don’t you ever relax?’ she asked, appalled after he had reluctantly given her a rundown of his typical day. They were leaving behind the first dismal flurries of snow and Rafael reluctantly abandoned his plans to call his PA, Patricia, for an update on the Roberts deal.
‘You sound like my mother,’ he told her curtly, then, because he could sense rather than see her baffled silence at the harshness of his response, he relented. After all, he only had a couple more hours in her company. Why be offhand when she was so determinedly upbeat? ‘I presume, if you’re your own boss, then you know that running a company is a twenty-four-seven commitment. What exactly do you do, anyway?’
Cristina, who had been a little hurt at his lack of curiosity about her life and what she did, smiled, more than prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt. After all, he was obviously very, very important. She had known, of course, that he came from a moneyed background, but she had had no idea that he was entirely and solely responsible for running the show. Little wonder he was so focused on work with little time to spare making polite chit-chat with her.
‘Oh, nothing very important,’ Cristina said, suddenly a little abashed at her pedestrian occupation.
‘Now I’m curious.’ He half smiled, and that half smile made her draw in her breath sharply, made a frisson of awareness ripple down her spine and send shivers racing all through her body. It was scary and exhilarating at the same time.
‘Well … do you remember I told you how much I love gardens? And nature?’
Rafael had a dim recollection but he nodded anyway.
‘I
