it was crushing her skull, so that it was an effort to think straight.
Crossing her arms in front of her body, she forced herself to meet his eyes, and suddenly she was shaking again—only not with anger this time. There was something so intense in his gaze, so intimate...
Clearing her throat, she said quickly, ‘Look, I don’t have time for this. I need to get home.’ And away from this intense man and the effect he had on her. Only... She glanced down the deserted road. ‘But I suppose I can help you move your bike.’
‘That won’t be necessary.’
He stared at her calmly, and his calmness, his confidence, pulled her in so that her heart was slamming against her chest.
Only that was ridiculous—it was all ridiculous. Him and the effect he was having on her.
Wanting, needing, to escape the unsettling pull of tension between them, she took a step backwards, tightening her arms to contain the beat of heat pulsing in her chest.
‘Fine. Suit yourself,’ she said, sharpening her voice deliberately, pursing her lips in a disapproval she wanted to feel, but didn’t. ‘I get the feeling that’s what you’re best at anyway.’
‘Excuse me?’
Now he turned, his eyes narrowing, and she felt a rush of satisfaction at having finally got under his skin.
‘You heard me...’ she began, but her words died in her throat, like an actor who had forgotten her lines, and breathing in sharply, her eyes dropped to the brilliant and distinctive red stain blooming on his shirtsleeve like a poppy opening to the sun.
Blood.
‘YOU’RE BLEEDING!’
César Zayas y Diago gazed at the woman standing in front of him, frustration momentarily blotting out the pain in his arm. He didn’t regret the injury. He never did. No matter how intense, physical pain was straightforward and short-lived. It didn’t make you question who you were.
‘You’re bleeding,’ she said again.
She was English, not American—he recognised the accent—and a tourist, judging by her clothes. Probably she’d been sold a boat trip and then just dumped on the beach and left to find her own way home.
He would have to speak to his security team, but right now he needed to focus on the matter in hand—and most especially this titian-haired trespasser.
As his gaze fixed on her face his breath caught in his throat. No wonder he’d gone head over heels. She was astonishingly beautiful.
The first few seconds after coming off the bike he’d been too busy picking himself up to notice, his body distracted and tensed against any incoming pain. But now that he had time to look at her he was finding it hard not to stare.
She was slim, maybe too slim—certainly for his taste—but there were curves too beneath her clothes, and he could practically feel the heat coming off the cloud of flame-coloured hair that reached her elbows. But it was the contradiction between that accusatory, grey gaze and the sensual promise of that fascinating, perfect pink mouth that was making his head spin.
His shoulders tensed. Was it deliberate?
Somehow it seemed unlikely. His eyes flickered assessingly over her face. She looked nervous, less sure of herself than when she’d been berating him—or trying to berate him—in beginner’s Spanish.
But then she’d just had a shock.
Glancing down at his right arm, he pressed his fingers against the damp fabric, grimacing.
This was supposed to have been a rare, unscheduled moment of downtime. His day had started in Florida. He’d woken early for a five-thirty session with his trainer and moved seamlessly into a four-hour meeting with his lawyers over some cheap import that was using almost identical bottle branding to Dos Rios. The email about the bike had come into his inbox just as the lawyers were leaving, and on impulse, he’d decided to take a diversion to Havana.
He still wasn’t sure why he’d even ordered the bike in the first place. Coming to Cuba required both an effort of will and a secrecy he loathed but couldn’t avoid—his parents got so upset when he returned home. But maybe, subconsciously, he’d just wanted to make a point to himself that he could.
Besides, a motorbike was an easy way to top up his need for adrenalin, a need that he recognised, and embraced in those hours not spent pursuing global domination of the rum market.
And it had felt good—not just the spontaneity of kicking free of his schedule, but the actual act of bonding with the bike. His body and mind had been immersed in the angles of the road and the rush of the wind—and then suddenly she was there.
Like all accidents, it had happened too quickly for him to have any real sense of anything beyond the bike slip-sliding away from him, the earth tilting on its axis, a glare of sunlight and a blur of trees, and then the noise of metal hitting stone, followed by silence.
Even before he’d looked down and seen the blood he’d known he’d hurt himself, but he’d had enough injuries to be able to differentiate between those requiring a Band-Aid and those that needed a trip to A&E. And anyway, after the first shock had worn off he’d been more worried about her.
She’d been so agitated and upset that he had deliberately angled his body away from hers so that she wouldn’t see the blood—only then she’d fronted up to him, like a skinny little ginger cat, and he’d forgotten all about his arm.
Nothing had mattered except wiping that dismissive uppity sneer from her mouth.
Preferably with his mouth.
He felt his pulse jerk forward.
Careful, he warned himself. She might be beautiful, but he didn’t need another lesson in the pitfalls of acting on impulse—and by that he didn’t mean taking a bike for an unplanned road test.
Her eyes were wide with panic. ‘Why didn’t you say something?’
‘It’s fine.’ He held up his hands placatingly, and then regretted it as a drop of blood splashed onto the pale dirt.
‘How can you say that when you’re dripping blood everywhere?’
She was looking at him as though she’d seen a ghost. For a moment he thought about telling her about the other times he’d come off a bike, but it might backfire and make her panic more. And anyway, it was private. All of it was private. His pursuit of precision, the transcendence of the everyday and that heightened awareness that came with being at one with the machine. How could he explain what it felt like to lose all sense of himself—his past, his position as CEO, all of it—in the heat and speed of the ride? Why would he want to explain that to her?
He glanced past her back down the empty road. Why was she even here? On her own. She was just a tourist and now she was in the middle of a drama. No wonder she looked out of her depth.
It
