dangerously unreliable. He had the scars to prove it. And he wasn’t talking about the ones on his body.
‘Look, nothing’s broken. It’s just a graze.’
‘Even if it is you should still get it checked out. It’s not worth taking the risk.’
His jaw tightened. It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her exactly who he was, and that this was his estate and she was trespassing, and therefore the risk was all hers. But that would only confuse matters further.
He raised an eyebrow. ‘Is that a professional opinion?’
She glared at him, her chin jutting upwards. ‘I don’t have a car, but I could call an ambulance.’
An ambulance?
Frowning, he shook his head, contemplating all the time-consuming and unnecessary complications of such a step. ‘Absolutely not. It can wait until I get home.’
Forehead creasing, she took a step forward. ‘I don’t think you should wait. What happens if you feel dizzy, or the bleeding won’t stop?’
She hesitated, and he could see the conflict in her eyes—doubt at what she was about to suggest fighting with a determination to do the right thing. A long time ago he too had been just as transparent and easy to read. But he’d learnt the hard and humiliating way to keep his feelings hidden, or better still to avoid them altogether.
Her grey eyes rested on his face. ‘Look, we can walk the bike back to my villa. It’s not far from here. I have a first aid kit and I know how to clean a wound. At least let me take a look before you do anything else.’
So she lived nearby. He wondered where she was staying. From memory, he thought there were a couple of villas beyond the woods, but it seemed an odd place to choose as a holiday home. Most of Havana’s visitors liked to be nearer the city centre and all the regular tourist attractions. But there was something about this woman that made him think that perhaps she wasn’t here for the Malecón, the Gran Teatro or the Plaza Vieja.
So why was she here?
The answer shouldn’t matter, but for some reason it did. Before he had a chance to wonder why, he heard himself say, ‘Okay. You can take a look at it. But no ambulance.’
The walk to her villa took less than ten minutes.
Inside, she gestured towards a comfy-looking sofa. ‘Sit down and I’ll get you a glass of water.’
Sitting down, he felt a sense of déjà-vu. It was exactly the kind of traditional Cuban cabaña that his grandparents had grown up in, only theirs had been home to at least ten people. Not that they’d seemed to mind. For them—for his own parents too—family was everything.
He shifted in his seat, the ache in his chest suddenly sharper than the ache in his arm. He knew that his mother and father were proud of how he had built up the business, and grateful for the comfort and security he had given them, but what they really wanted—what would make them willingly give up their luxurious lifestyle in a heartbeat—was a grandchild they could spoil. Not that they said so, or at least his mother didn’t, but he felt their hope every time he mentioned a woman’s name in passing.
His stomach twisted. Children required parents, and typically that meant two people who loved one another, only that just wasn’t going to happen for him. Maybe the right woman was out there somewhere, logically, statistically, he knew she must be. But no amount of logic could counteract the fact that he didn’t trust himself to choose her, not after what had happened with Celia.
‘Here.’
She was back. Handing him a glass, she sat down beside him with a bowl of water, a towel and a large plastic box. When she’d told him she had a first aid kit he’d assumed she meant something she’d picked up at the airport. This, though, looked on a par with the kits at the distillery.
‘You’re very well prepared,’ he said softly.
He felt her tense.
‘It’s just the basics.’ She glanced up at him accusingly. ‘You should probably have a kit on your bike.’
In fact he did have one, and he was on the point of telling her that, but he was suddenly too distracted by the way her beautiful red-gold eyebrows were arching in concentration as she rummaged through the box.
Pulling out a packet, she looked up at him, her eyes meeting his, then dropping to the shining patch of crimson on his upper arm. ‘I need to see if it’s stopped bleeding.’
‘Okay.’ He nodded, but he was distracted by a glimpse of her feet. She had taken off her shoes, and there was something strangely arousing about her bare toes.
Pulling his gaze away, he glanced back up at her face.
A trace of pink coloured her cheeks. ‘So I need you to take your shirt off,’ she said huskily.
* * *
Kitty swallowed.
I need you to take your shirt off.
As her words reverberated inside her head and around the room her eyes darted towards the triangle of light gold skin at his throat. If only she’d just ignored his objections and called an ambulance. Outside, on the road, with his shirt turning red, she hadn’t thought about anything but the fact that he needed help. She certainly hadn’t envisaged him taking his clothes off. But how else was she going to be able to deal with his injury?
She cleared her throat. ‘Or I could cut the sleeve off?’ she offered.
He didn’t reply. He just stared at her. And suddenly she forgot all about his shirt, and even his injury, for nobody had ever looked at her so intently. It was as though he was trying to see inside her, to read her thoughts. Her muscles tightened against a sudden flood of heat. No one had ever looked at her with such focus, not even her husband. It was intimate, exhilarating, both an intrusion and a caress—
‘No, it’s fine. I’ll take it off,’ he said.
She watched as he started trying to undo the buttons, but they were sticky with blood, and before she knew what she was doing she leaned forward, batting his hands away.
‘Here. Let me.’
Her heart began to beat faster as her fingers pulled at the buttons. She could feel the heat of him beneath his shirt and, try as she might, she couldn’t stop her eyes from fixing on his sleek bronze skin as the fabric parted.
Her fingers twitched against the buckle of his belt and, avoiding his gaze, she lifted her hands and inched backwards. ‘I’ll let you take it from here,’ she said.
He shrugged his left shoulder free and then peeled the shirt tentatively away from his injured arm.
For a moment she stared at him in silence, her heart pulsing in her throat. It had been such a long time since she had looked at a man’s body. Or at least a body that looked like his.
With broad shoulders tapering to a slim waist his body was muscular, but not overly so, with just the finest trail of dark hair splitting the lean definition of his chest and stomach. His skin was
