‘I’m a stranger,’ she protested.
‘A stranger who saved his grandson’s life, his angel.’ And was she anybody else’s angel? he wondered. Was there a man back home who would not be pleased that she had driven off into the mountains with a stranger?
She wore no ring, but that didn’t mean she was unattached. For some women a man back home did not prevent them indulging in a holiday romance, though for some reason he was struggling to put her in that bracket.
The mockery in his voice brought Maggie’s chin up. Her fingers tightened around the medallion. His cynical sarcasm made her see red. ‘You shouldn’t make fun of him,’ she said fiercely.
‘I wasn’t making fun of him. I couldn’t help but notice you were enjoying the attention.’
This totally unfair scathing evaluation took Maggie’s breath away. ‘And their heirlooms, don’t forget that. I managed to fleece them too.’ She allowed her dark eyes to move contemptuously over his patrician profile before putting the medallion over her head. She freed her tangled hair from the chain. ‘You do know that you are a very unpleasant man, don’t you?’
‘Is that why you let me pick you up?’
Colour scored her pale cheeks. ‘I made a mistake and assumed you couldn’t be as shallow and superficial as you appeared—I was wrong. And you sulk.’
The bitter afterthought drew a startled look from Rafael.
‘I’d be happier having cheated death once today if you kept your eyes on the road.’
‘Sulk?’ Accustomed to hearing the women in his life express rapturous praise, Rafael struggled to swallow this more critical analysis of his character.
On any other occasion his utter astonishment at the accusation might have drawn a smile from Maggie.
‘Well, you’re obviously in a strop over something, but I’d be grateful if you didn’t take it out on me.’
They had passed through the village before reaction hit her. She started to shake. She tugged the blanket closer and made a clinical diagnosis of delayed shock.
‘Are you cold?’ Rafael asked, adjusting the heating.
Biting back a childish, ‘Like you’d care’ she compressed her lips and said coldly, ‘I’m fine.’
‘Then why are you shaking?’
She was bewildered by his continued hostility and accusing manner. Did he think she was acting?
Determined to give him no opportunity to accuse her of being an attention seeker or canvassing the sympathy vote she plastered on a cheery smile.
‘I’m not,’ she denied. ‘I feel fine.’ It was only a very small lie, actually. Other than her shaking hands and the scratches on her arm that were stinging she really didn’t feel too bad, and she would feel a lot better once this man was a distant memory.
She was a very bad liar, though even a good liar, Rafael thought, his eyes flickering briefly in her direction, would have struggled to deny the chattering teeth and milky pallor.
Accustomed to the company of women who did not know the meaning of ‘putting on a brave face,’ he realised that stoicism was an overrated quality. And, far from making a woman low maintenance, all it meant in reality was a man could never relax. He would always be wondering if the bright smile actually hid an inner anguish.
Not that her anguish, inner or otherwise, was anything to do with him.
Sweat broke out like a rash over his upper lip as he relived those moments when he’d thought he wasn’t going to outrun the avalanche of destruction, that he was going to see her lost under half a runaway forest.
‘I suppose you think it was a brave thing to do?’
‘I didn’t think at all,’ she admitted, punching in the hotel number and missing the anger that pulled the skin taut across the sculpted bones of his face.
Rafael could not believe this woman. She was acting as if nothing had happened—surely she realised what danger she had been in.
He realised it.
His entire body went cold every time he realised it. Even now he could feel the fear that had clawed across his skin as he had been forced to stand by, helpless, and watch, unable to stop her until it had almost been too late.
A fine sheen of sweat broke out across the golden skin of his brow when he recalled the moment that he had thought he would not reach her in time.
He was a man who did not indulge in pointless what-if scenarios, and Rafael’s knuckles stood out white on the steering wheel as he found himself unable to stop projecting images, each one more horrific than the last. They all ended the same, with her broken, crushed body, and he would have been at least indirectly responsible.
She wouldn’t have been in a position to be harmed if he had not lured her away from the city. He might not have intended her actual harm, but he definitely hadn’t had her best interests at heart.
If anything had happened to her…? The unaccustomed guilt lay heavy on Rafael’s shoulders.
‘They will probably inscribe that on your headstone.’
The bitterness in his voice drew Maggie’s indignant gaze to his face. ‘There’s no need to take it out on me and I’m not planning on needing one just yet!’
Rafael, his eyes trained on the road ahead as he swerved to avoid a pothole, asked, ‘Don’t take what out on you?’
Maggie compressed her lips, aware that if she said she thought he had switched off the charm offensive and started to be so nasty because his expected one-night stand had turned into something more tedious it would be tantamount to an admission she had been expecting the same outcome this evening.
And you weren’t?
Frowning at the ironic voice in her head, she punched in the hotel number again.
‘You might as well put that phone down.’
Maggie ignored him. ‘I need to leave a message.’ The tour guide would not worry if she missed the optional evening entertainment, but if she didn’t arrive back until the early hours it was possible that they might start to worry. ‘I had plans for this evening.’
‘So did I.’
She flashed him a look and he added, without looking at her, ‘We have no signal here.’
‘I saw you using your phone.’
An expression she struggled to interpret broke the impassive stoniness of his expression. ‘There is no signal this side of the mountain.’
Despite the information, she tried once more before admitting defeat. ‘What time will we reach the city?’ she asked, dropping the phone back in her bag.
In the mirror he caught sight of
