holding the island’s other famous export—the Cuban cigar.
All were gazing at the camera.
All except one.
Remembering the picture, Kitty felt her mouth grow dry.
The Dos Rios CEO was turning away, so that his face was slightly blurred, and it was possible only to sense the flawless cheekbones and sculpted jawline beneath the smudge of dark stubble and tousled black hair.
There was no key to identify who was who, but it didn’t matter. Even blurred, his features and the clean lines of his buttoned-up and clearly expensive shirt were stamped with an unmistakable air of privilege, that sense of having the world at his feet. For him, life would always be bright and easy and fast—too fast for the shutter speed of any camera.
Only his smile—a smile she had never seen but could easily imagine—would be slow...slow and languorous like a long, cool daiquiri.
She swallowed, almost tasting the hit of rum and the tang of lime on her tongue.
Except she didn’t drink daiquiris. Daiquiris were cocktails, and she had never felt cool or confident enough to order one. Not even here in Cuba.
Especially not here in Cuba.
Everyone was so beautiful and sun-kissed and happy. The men had dark, narrowed gazes and moved like panthers, and the women made even the simplest actions—crossing the road, buying fruit at the market—look as though they were dancing the Mambo.
She hadn’t dared to face Havana at night, but she had visited three times during daylight and she could still feel the vibrancy of the city humming in her chest—drowsy but dangerous, like a swarm of bees. She’d been captivated not just by the people but by the faded revolutionary slogans on the walls promising Revolución para Siempre—Revolution For Ever—and the Pantone palette of gleaming, buffed máquinas, the classic nineteen-fifties American cars that lined every street.
Everywhere there were reminders of the past from elaborate, Colonial-style balconies to curving marble staircases. It was vivid, and exhilarating, and she had been tempted to press herself against the hot stucco and absorb some of the lambent warmth of the city into her blood before heading off to explore the tangle of alleys leading off the main squares.
Only she had a terrible sense of direction.
Speaking of which—
She had reached a fork in the path, and she stopped and glanced hesitantly in both directions.
There was no point trying to use her phone—the signal was only strong enough right by the sea—and it was impossible to see over the tops of the pine trees that gave the estate its name. If she went the wrong way it would take for ever. She’d just have to make her way to the track-cum-road that led through the estate and then she’d know where she was.
She felt her heart begin to beat faster.
Her villa was at the edge of the estate. Usually it was home to one of the maids who worked at the main house, but she had gone to the other side of the island to take care of her sick mother, so it was currently empty. She’d been told by Andreas, the head of Dos Rios security, that she was welcome to explore the estate, but she had mostly stuck to the beach and woods around the house. She had never gone as the far as the road before, not on foot anyway.
It took less than ten minutes, and as she stepped between the trees onto the edge of the track she knew immediately where she was. Thank goodness. From here, her villa was only ten minutes away.
Breathing out in relief, she lifted up her hat and fanned her face—and then froze. Half hidden by the dark green vegetation, sunlight dappling their backs, were a group of the wild horses that roamed the estate.
Her heart gave a thump. She knew from conversations with Melenne, who came in three times a week to clean the cabaña, that the horses were not wild in the sense of dangerous, they were just not ‘broken’. They moved freely, foraging in the woods, and it showed in their satin-smooth coats and toned muscles.
They were so beautiful, she thought, feeling a lump building in her throat, and tentatively, slowly, she took a step closer, holding out her hand to the nearest one. She held her breath as he gazed at her assessingly, and then her pulse darted as his soft, velvety nose snuffled against her fingers.
Breathing out cautiously, she held her hand steady—and then suddenly there was a rumbling growl from behind her, and as one the horses turned and wheeled away between the trees.
What the—?
Turning round towards the noise, Kitty lifted her hand to shield her face as a burst of sunlight hit her eyes. The noise swelled into a roar and there was a gleam of metal. She gasped, the sound choking off as a motorbike and its rider reared up in front of her. She got just the briefest impression of dark eyes narrowing in surprise, and then everything seemed to go into slow motion as the bike swerved away from her, skidding, tilting sideways, sliding smoothly across the coarse-packed dirt until finally it came to a shuddering stop.
For a moment, time contracted to a heartbeat.
Was he hurt?
Was he—?
She couldn’t even think the word—and she pushed it away. She was struggling to breathe, her brain scrabbling, her mind stunned, disbelieving what had just happened. And then something opened inside of her chest, and even as panic jostled with fear she was running towards the bike.
The rider was already on his knees, and as he clambered to his feet he glanced up at her and swore in Spanish under his breath—or at least she assumed by the tone of his voice that he was swearing. Her Spanish lessons had been more focused on conjugating verbs than on cursing.
As she reached the bike she stopped and glanced back down the road, stomach clenching. From here it was possible to see clearly in both directions. Had she been standing on this spot she would have seen the bike, and he would have seen her, and the accident would never have happened.
The randomness of it made her head spin. In contrast, the motorcyclist seemed remarkably unperturbed.
Watching him, she felt her skin start to prickle. He was pressing his hand against the chassis of the bike as though it was one of the horses he’d startled, making the muscles beneath his oddly formal white shirt strain against the poplin.
He looked so vivid and real and she hated that he might have been hurt; hated too that she had unwittingly played a part in his accident. If only she had been standing where she was now. But then she would never have met him—this man.
Her breathing jerked as the thought sneaked into her head from nowhere and refused to leave.
It had been a long time since a member of the opposite sex had even registered on her radar, but this man resonated.
Out of the corner of her eye she noticed the underside of the bike’s wheel, still spinning slowly, and she was grateful for the reminder of what had so nearly happened and how she should react, for otherwise her brain might not have remembered what passed for acceptable behaviour.
‘Are you okay?’
He lifted his gaze and for a moment she forgot to breathe as dark green eyes the same colour
