he start now?
When he’d eventually prised out the reason behind his father’s withdrawal—the flap his mother was getting in over the organisation of a charity ball months away—he’d told her he could quite understand why his father had locked himself in his study, and that if it were him he wouldn’t emerge until the night of the ball was long gone. At which point his mother had hung up on him in a fit of pique.
Then hot on the heels of that phone call, his eldest sister had invited him to a dinner party she was holding tomorrow night, which he suspected she’d engineered for the sole purpose of lining him up with one of her many single friends.
Rafael did not need help with his love-life, as Lola was well aware, but she’d inexplicably made it her life’s mission to see him hitched again. Which was a thoroughly futile exercise because he had no intention of ever remarrying, especially not to any of his sister’s friends, given the traumatic mess it had caused the last time he’d tried it. Once was quite enough, as he’d told her on countless occasions, but Lola had an infuriating habit of brushing him aside with a dismissive wave of her hand, and it was getting to the stage where if she didn’t back off he might well lose it.
By the time his youngest sister, Gabriela, had begun her relentless onslaught of phone calls and emails, in the interests of self-preservation Rafael had made the snap decision to ignore her and everyone else, and flee the madness that was temporarily defining his life.
Whatever Gaby wanted it could wait, he’d assured himself, jumping into his car and telling his driver to make for the airport via a quick detour to his flat for a suitcase, then hopping on his plane and heading south.
He’d done the right thing by escaping, he told himself now. He’d known it the second he’d got out of his car a couple of minutes ago and for a moment had just stood there in the inky velvet of the night, listening to the blessed silence, breathing in the scent of earth and jasmine as the dry heat wrapped itself around him, and feeling some of the excruciating tension gripping his muscles ease.
Quite apart from probably collapsing with exhaustion, if he’d stayed in Madrid the usually strong bonds of filial and fraternal affection might well have snapped, so he refused to feel even a pinprick of guilt at disappearing without a word. His mother and sisters would survive perfectly well without him for a week or two. And as for his father, well, over the years he’d proved eminently capable of looking after himself by burying himself in his beloved books whenever there was a sudden surge of emotion about the place, as was being demonstrated by his current study sit-in.
So no. No guilt, he told himself, stopping at the door, wrapping his hand round the handle and turning it. He deserved a break. He needed one. All he wanted was a week or two of peace and quiet at the vineyard he’d had no option but to neglect for the last few months. He wanted long early morning walks among the vines and endless lazy afternoons drinking wine by the pool. He wanted rest and relaxation. Fresh air and sun and, above all, solitude. Was that really too much to ask?
Rafael opened the door a fraction to reach in and flip the switch he presumed had been left on by mistake, and his last coherent thought as the door slammed back, as something struck him hard in the temple, as pain detonated in his head and everything went dark inside as well as out, was that evidently it was.
* * *
Yes!
With a heady mix of adrenalin and triumph racing through her, Nicky heard the intruder groan, watched him stagger back in the shadowy darkness, and blew out the breath she’d been holding for what felt like hours.
Hah. That would teach whoever it was that she was not to be messed with. That she might be in a bit of a state at the moment, that she might be out here miles from anywhere and practically all alone, but that she was far from defenceless.
Her attack-being-the-best-form-of-defence plan had been an excellent one, and with the element of surprise on her side he hadn’t stood a chance.
Still didn’t by the looks of things, she thought with a surge of satisfaction as he swayed to one side, hit the door frame and, with a torrent of angry Spanish, ricocheted off it.
Oh, he didn’t sound at all happy, but Nicky ignored the urge to wince and refused to feel guilty at the thought she might have done him some real damage because why should she when she was the potential victim here?
Not that she felt particularly victimish right now. In fact she’d never felt more victorious, which, after weeks of feeling nothing but listless, desperate and hopeless was very definitely something to be tucked away and analysed.
Although that analysis might have to wait until later, she thought, the satisfaction zapping through her slowly dissipating. Because with hindsight maybe her strategy hadn’t been quite as brilliant as she’d thought.
He was filling the doorway and therefore blocking her only means of escape, and now, judging by the way he was giving his head a quick shake and straightening, he was making an alarmingly speedy recovery.
Her stomach churned with renewed panic as her mind raced all over again. Oh, heavens. If she wanted to leg it and make it to safety she was going to have to administer a second blow. One that would this time fell him like a tree and incapacitate him for the few minutes she’d need to clamber over him and run.
With barely a thought for the consequences and focused solely on survival, Nicky channelled every drop of adrenalin, every ounce of aggression she possessed, and raised the book again.
But before she could slam it down, he hit the switch, lunged forwards and grabbed her. Stunned by the sudden brightness of the light and by the sheer force of the bulk that crashed into her, Nicky let out a shriek and lost her balance.
As if in slow motion she felt herself go down. Felt her assailant follow her. Felt a large hand clamp onto the back of her head and a strong arm snap round her back. She heard the thud of the book as it landed on the carpet and wondered vaguely what she was going to do for a weapon now.
After what seemed like hours but could only have been a second, she hit the floor. Her breath shot from her lungs. Her vision blurred, her head swam and her entire body went numb. For a few endless moments the only thing she could hear was the thundering of her heart and a weird kind of roaring in her ears.
And then the dizziness ebbed and the shock faded and as feeling returned she became aware of the warm ragged breath on her cheek. Of the hammering of a heart against her chest. And of the very considerable weight half lying on top of her, crushing the breath from her lungs, pressing her into the floor and showing no signs of shifting.
Or of anything for that matter, she realised dazedly, which meant that she had the advantage and she had to use it. Now.
Preparing to knee him where it would really hurt and hoping that that might succeed where Don Quijote had failed, Nicky glanced up to get a good look at the man she’d need to describe to the police.
And froze, her leg bent slightly at the knee and her hands flat against the hard muscles of his shoulders.
She stared up into the face hovering inches above hers, up at the dark-as-night hair, the thickly lashed, startlingly green eyes, the deep tan and that mouth, all so exquisitely put together, the face she’d seen countless times in the photos on Gaby’s mantelpiece—although admittedly never in its current furious state—and her breath shot from her lungs all over again. Only this time in one shuddery, horrified gasp.
The triumph vanished. The satisfaction disappeared. The thundering
