leaving only a holdall sitting on the driveway.
‘Grab a—? Rafe, you can’t just— What do you mean, you’re moving in?’ she repeated incredulously.
‘Exactly what I said.’ He shrugged those broad shoulders as he strode towards her.
Cairo instinctively took a step back. ‘I— But— You can’t!’
‘Why can’t I?’ he asked calmly.
‘Because—because—’
‘Stop babbling, Cairo, and bring the bag in.’ He didn’t so much as pause in those long strides that were rapidly taking him towards the villa.
Towards Cairo’s haven of tranquillity after months, years, of never knowing a moment’s peace. A peace that Rafe Montero had destroyed the moment he got out of his car!
She hurried to catch up with him and then struggled to match her strides to his much longer ones. ‘Rafe, what are you doing here?’
‘I could ask you the same question,’ he countered without so much as glancing at her. ‘Where are Margo and Jeff?’
‘They aren’t here,’ she replied.
Although Cairo was beginning to wish they were—her sister and her husband might have some explanation as to what Rafe Montero was doing here at their holiday villa!
‘No?’ He arched those dark brows again. ‘Have they gone out for the day or just shopping locally?’
‘Neither.’ Cairo shook her head exasperatedly. ‘Rafe, will you just stop and tell me what’s going on?’ Her voice rose in agitation as she came to a halt, her hands clenched tightly in frustration on the narrowness of her hips.
Rafe slowly placed his luggage inside the front door of the villa before pushing his sunglasses up into his hair once more to look across at Cairo through narrowed lids as he tried to come to terms with her being here.
It had been eight years since he had last seen this woman.
Eight long years.
It was a hell of a shock to suddenly find himself face to face with her again after all that time—
A shock?
Dammit, he was still reeling!
If anything, Cairo Vaughn was even more beautiful. Perhaps a little too thin, he allowed with a slight frown, those almost six feet of curves very willowy now. But her hair was still that long tumbling red, and her legs were still long and shapely beneath the black thigh-length T-shirt. Her face was thinner, too, emphasizing the delicate curve of high cheekbones beneath chocolate-brown eyes, her nose small and straight, but her lips were as full and pouting above the stubborn set of her small, pointed chin as they’d ever been.
Although her cheeks were healthily flushed with temper at the moment, those chocolate-brown eyes looking ready to shoot flames! It made her look more like the famous actress she was than the pale woman whose photograph had been on the front page of the newspapers for months during her very public divorce.
It was none of his business, Rafe told himself grimly. Just as Cairo herself was none of his business, either.
‘So where are Margo and Jeff?’ he asked again. He had a few things he would like to say to the other couple concerning the fact that neither of them had warned him that Cairo was going to be here!
‘I told you, they aren’t here,’ Cairo repeated exasperatedly.
Rafe’s eyes narrowed. ‘At all?’
She shook her head. ‘Margo’s doctor has ordered complete bed-rest for the last four weeks of her pregnancy.’
Margo and Jeff weren’t here.
Only Cairo was.
And neither Margo nor Jeff had bothered to let him know that little fact!
What was he supposed to—?
‘Uncle Rafe! Uncle Rafe!’
Rafe just managed to turn in time to catch the small golden-haired bundle dressed in a pink bathing costume as she came hurtling out of the villa and launched herself in his general direction.
Daisy.
Margo and Jeff’s six-year-old daughter.
If Cairo had brought Daisy with her, that probably meant she didn’t have a lover with her, as well. Probably…
‘Mummy said you’d be arriving today!’ Daisy beamed at him excitedly even as he swung her up to hold her in his arms.
To Cairo only one part of Daisy’s statement was relevant. ‘Margo knew you were coming here?’
‘Of course,’ Rafe confirmed as he moved Daisy into the crook of one arm to look across at Cairo with guarded blue eyes.
Cairo could barely breathe. Could barely think.
After the last stressful weeks, months, she had desperately needed to get completely away for a while, to be somewhere where she wasn’t being constantly photographed wherever she went. Which was why she had been only too happy to accept the suggestion her sister Margo had made, when she’d pointed out that as she and Jeff were unable to go on their usual May holiday to the South of France this year, Cairo might like to make use of the villa in their stead.
It had been Cairo’s own idea, with Margo eight months into what was turning out to be a precarious second pregnancy, that as six-year-old Daisy was on half-term holiday anyway, she could take the little girl with her.
It had all gone so smoothly until now, too. None of the press that had hounded Cairo so doggedly the last ten months had been looking for a woman travelling with a little girl of six. Neither had they recognized the actress Cairo Vaughn behind the dark sunglasses and the baseball cap she had worn to hide the fiery length of her hair as she drove onto the train that would take them through the Eurotunnel into France.
It had been a long drive, of course, but the villa, set high in the hills above Grasse, had been a pleasant surprise, a large, sprawling single-storey building that maintained its rusticity at the same time as providing all the amenities they could possibly want, including a huge pool on the lower terrace, and a number of small shops in the local village that would see to their daily needs.
And Daisy had proved a delightful companion, as only a gregarious six-year-old could, as she kept up a constant stream of chatter on the journey here, and then yesterday threw herself into the pool with enthusiasm once they’d finally reached the villa.
In fact, the simplicity of it all had been a wonderful relief to Cairo after so many years of knowing exactly what she would be doing next week, next month, next year!
But never, during any of Cairo’s plans to come to France, had Margo so much as mentioned Rafe Montero. In fact, Cairo hadn’t even known that her sister and brother-in- law were still friends with him.
She gave a puzzled shake of her head. ‘Margo didn’t say anything to me about your coming
