Читать книгу Hot Nights with a Spaniard: Bedded for the Spaniard's Pleasure / Spanish Aristocrat, Forced Bride / Spanish Magnate, Red-Hot Revenge - Кэрол Мортимер, India Grey - Страница 8

‘Don’t forget your mobile phone— Cairo, what the hell are you wearing?’

Cairo, about to push her sunglasses up onto the bridge of her nose, instead paused in the movement to look at Rafe over the top of them as he stared at her with a scowl on his face.

She knew it wasn’t the sunglasses he was referring to, or the white T-shirt and skirt she was wearing with flat sandals, so that left …

‘A baseball cap, of course,’ she snapped dismissively as she adjusted the peak of the white cap further down her forehead, her hair gathered up and looped through the fastening at the back to hang down in a loose ponytail. ‘An item of headgear that originated in your mother’s country, I believe,’ she added dryly.

‘So did the Stetson, but that doesn’t mean I’d ever wear one,’ Rafe retorted.

The three of them had spent most of the morning down by the pool until Rafe had suggested a trip out to collect more food supplies from the local supermarket. Daisy had then added her own idea that after they had brought the food back to the villa they could all go down into Grasse and have lunch in one of the many restaurants there before going on to one of the beaches along the coast.

A suggestion Rafe said he was more than happy to go along with, and meaning that Cairo was once again ‘outgunned and outnumbered’!

But that didn’t mean she was willing to go out without the disguise of her baseball cap. ‘I tend to freckle in the direct sun,’ she explained mendaciously.

His mouth quirked. ‘And we mustn’t let a freckle ruin that perfect complexion, must we?’

Her eyes narrowed. ‘Rafe, why don’t you—’

‘Actually, Uncle Rafe, Aunty Cairo is famous,’ Daisy informed him airily. ‘She wears the hat because she doesn’t want people to recognize— I’m sorry, Uncle Rafe, I didn’t hear what you said …?’

Daisy might not have been able to discern Rafe’s mumbled response, but Cairo certainly had, and she didn’t appreciate his comment of ‘infamous more aptly describes it’!

‘I’m nowhere near as famous as your uncle Rafe, Daisy,’ she assured the little girl lightly even as she shot Rafe a quelling glance before adjusting the sunglasses onto the bridge of her nose.

And completely hiding the expression in those dark brown eyes, Rafe noted—although it wasn’t too difficult to imagine what it was!

‘Come on, Daisy-May.’ He ruffled the little girl’s golden curls. ‘We’ll wait outside in the car while your aunty Cairo finishes putting on her disguise.’

‘Very funny, Rafe,’ Cairo drawled as she fell into step beside them. ‘Make sure you bring a bag out with you later, Daisy—your uncle is something of a sex-symbol, and we may need to beat off his female fans before the day is out,’ she warned her niece conspiratorially.

‘Now who’s being funny?’ Rafe raised dark brows as he opened the back door of the car so that Daisy could climb inside.

Cairo gave him a sweetly mocking smile. ‘I’m only stating the obvious, Rafe,’ she jeered.

Rafe grimaced. ‘A sex-symbol?’

She shrugged narrow shoulders as she moved round to the passenger side of the car. ‘I seem to remember reading somewhere that you were voted the sexiest man in America last year.’

Not a title he was particularly proud of.

As, no doubt, Cairo was well aware!

‘I’m surprised, with all that was going on in your own life this last year, that you could find the time to read about mine, as well,’ he jibed.

The teasing smile faded from her lips. ‘It made a pleas-sant change from some of the other trash that was being printed at the time!’

Rafe quickly moved round the car to where she stood. ‘Cairo—’

‘We really should be going, Rafe,’ she told him brittlely as she opened the car door herself to get inside and close the door firmly behind her.

Leaving Rafe standing in the driveway feeling like a heel. They had called a truce last night, for Daisy’s sake, and for most of the morning he had kept to that truce, as had Cairo. His present lapse was due, he knew, to the fact that he hadn’t slept at all well last night and that lack of sleep was catching up with him.

But how could he sleep when he knew that Cairo was in another bed just down the hallway? Probably as awake as he was, if for different reasons.

He hadn’t been able to forget how good Cairo had felt when he’d touched her earlier, but Cairo would have been worrying about Margo, something Rafe knew he hadn’t taken too much into consideration during their conversation. But hell, at the time Jeff had just asked him to stay on here and take care of Cairo and Daisy. A request, for Daisy’s sake, Rafe had known he couldn’t refuse.

But that didn’t mean he had to like being here with Cairo.

Any more than Cairo had to like being here with him, perhaps?

‘I’m sorry,’ Rafe muttered as he got in the car beside her and switched on the engine.

Cairo gave him a startled look. ‘What?’

Rafe drew in a sharp breath. ‘I said I’m sorry,’ he repeated more clearly. ‘It was a cheap shot.’

‘Yes, it was,’ she agreed huskily—although an apology was the last thing she had been expecting!

He gave a wry smile. ‘I guess I deserved that.’

‘I guess you did.’ She nodded.

Rafe scowled. ‘Were you always this—opinionated?’

‘Probably not,’ she conceded softly. ‘I guess time changes all of us. And not always for the better.’ She shrugged.

Cairo knew she had changed over the last eight years, that her life with Lionel had brought about subtle if not major differences in her. For instance, she no longer trusted even affection, let alone rakishly attractive men like Rafe Montero!

Rafe gave Cairo several sideways glances as he drove them down into the village, Daisy exclaiming in the back of the car as she pointed out several of her favourite haunts from previous holidays taken here.

At one time, Cairo would have been almost as happy as Daisy was by a trip to the shops and then into town for lunch. But not now, Rafe realized. It wasn’t so much that she had grown cynical as that her emotions were hidden away behind a wall of indifference that seemed almost impenetrable.

Or perhaps she was just bored, Rafe conceded ruefully. After all, this holiday with a six-year-old was probably a bit tame for her after the exotic life she’d led in Hollywood with Lionel Bond.

The sort of life Rafe avoided for the main part.

Oh, he couldn’t escape attending some of the parties or award ceremonies—like the one in Cannes this week. But given a choice Rafe preferred to be at his house on the beach, well away from the falseness and artificiality of the majority of the social scene in Hollywood itself.

But it was a life that Cairo, photographed at numerous glitzy parties over the years, had obviously thoroughly enjoyed.

‘How about we go to St Moritz for lunch instead of Grasse?’ he suggested once they had finished shopping in the local supermarket and were waiting beside the car for Daisy to come back from returning the trolley.

‘St Moritz?’ Cairo echoed guardedly.

He nodded. ‘We can either drive down the coast or get a boat across from—’

‘I know how to get there, Rafe, I’ve been there before,’ she cut in before shaking her head. ‘I just don’t see the appeal for a six-year-old girl.’

Of course she had been there before, Rafe acknowledged self-derisively. No doubt Cairo had been to all the fashionable in-places during her marriage, which meant she probably wouldn’t be interested in a trip to the sophistication of Monte Carlo, either, which was down the coast from Cannes in the opposite direction from St Mortiz.

So much for Rafe’s decision to try to make up for being so awful to her earlier on today.

‘I just thought a twenty-eight-year-old woman might be missing the shops on Rodeo Drive!’ he drawled.

Delicate colour warmed Cairo’s cheeks at the deliberate taunt. Shortly after her arrival in Los Angeles Lionel had opened accounts for her in all the exclusive stores on Rodeo Drive, and Cairo had to admit that for the first few months of their marriage it had been fun to go into any of those shops and buy anything that caught her eye.

But the novelty of shopping, like the gloss of her already failing marriage, had soon worn off, and she had been relieved to get back to work.

‘I don’t miss anything about my life in Los Angeles,’ she told Rafe flatly.

‘Nothing?’ he scorned.

‘Absolutely nothing,’ she echoed coldly.

‘I find that very hard to believe,’ he commented. ‘I seem to recall that never a week went by when your photograph didn’t appear in the newspapers or some glossy magazine as one of the “beautiful people” attending some party or premiere.’

‘Which I hated,’ Cairo told him stiffly. ‘It was Lionel’s way of life, not mine,’ she added as Rafe raised sceptical brows.

‘No?’

‘No— What is it?’ she asked as she saw Rafe’s attention had become distracted by something, or someone, across the car park.

She turned to follow his line of vision, but there was only a man unlocking and getting into his car, one of the ubiquitous long loaves of freshly baked bread under his arm.

‘Rafe …?’ she prompted with a frown as she turned back to him.

He shook his head. ‘Sorry, what were we talking about?’

Nothing of any importance, Cairo acknowledged heavily, knowing that Rafe had no reason to believe her claim that she hadn’t enjoyed the glamorous Hollywood party circuit. And why should it matter to her anyway? Except that it did….

‘Nothing important.’ Cairo gave him another searching look before turning away to smile at Daisy as she returned and got into the back of the car. ‘Do up your seat belt, poppet.’ Her voice warmed affectionately as she slid into the passenger seat.

Rafe remained distracted as he drove back to the villa, occasionally checking in his driving-mirror for that blue car and its driver.

He didn’t see it, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there….

He had first noticed the car behind them on the drive from the villa to the supermarket, had taken note of the fact that it had followed them into the car park, but had dismissed the coincidence when the driver got out to go to the stall in front of the supermarket where the fresh bread was being sold.

But they had been in the supermarket for at least half an hour, and the man had still been hanging about when they had come out again, supposedly reading a newspaper, although he had sauntered across to his car while they were loading their shopping in the boot.

He was becoming paranoid, Rafe decided as he turned up the lane to the villa and the little blue car was still nowhere in sight.

Paranoid or just hypersensitive after unexpectedly meeting up with Cairo again after years of avoiding her. She was right when she pointed out he hadn’t lived like a monk the last eight years, and those years had fooled him into believing himself well over her. But since he had kissed and caressed her yesterday afternoon in the kitchen he knew that he wasn’t over her at all.

There was no doubt Cairo was different now, sleekly so, her clothes all designer-label, everything about her more sophisticated and self-assured than the bright-eyed twenty-year old he had met while filming on the Isle of Man.

But he would be lying if he claimed that the attraction, that fierce ache to make love with her, wasn’t still burning beneath their thin veneer of civility.

Extremely dangerous.

And it was a danger Rafe needed to get away from, if only for a few hours!

‘For obvious reasons I have to go down into Cannes this evening,’ he told Cairo as the two of them put the shopping away while Daisy collected her swimming things from her bedroom.

‘Fine,’ Cairo accepted without interest as she continued to put cereals away in a cupboard.

‘You and Daisy can come with me if you like?’ Rafe heard himself offer—in complete contradiction to his thoughts of a few minutes ago …

His only excuse was that Cairo’s complete lack of interest in his plans for this evening had annoyed the hell out of him!

Cairo stiffened before slowly turning to face Rafe. ‘Why on earth would I want to do that?’ she prompted incredulously while inwardly shying away from the thought of going anywhere near all that glitzy artificiality again after she had so enjoyed avoiding it the last ten months.

As Rafe had pointed out earlier, she had attended numerous award ceremonies with Lionel over the years, both as an actress in her own right and as Lionel’s wife, had even been nominated for and won an Oscar herself three years ago.

Which meant Cairo knew exactly what the party in Cannes this evening would be like, everyone really there to see and be seen rather than to actually meet up and chat with old friends and just enjoy themselves.

Rafe leant back against one of the kitchen units to study her through narrowed lids. ‘You haven’t worked in almost a year, Cairo.’

She blinked. ‘Sorry?’

His mouth thinned. ‘You haven’t made a film in over ten months.’

‘So?’

‘So, as I pointed out yesterday, the world of acting is a fickle one.’ He shrugged. ‘Too long out of the limelight, and the industry, as well as the public, tends to forget you exist.’

‘Your point being?’

He frowned. ‘My point being, you need to get back to work!’

Cairo gave a humourless laugh. ‘As I told you yesterday, I really don’t see what business it is of yours—’

‘You can’t hide away for the rest of your life, Cairo,’ he pointed out.

Her eyes widened. ‘I’m not hiding—’

‘What else would you call it?’ he attacked her impatiently. ‘You’re staying in a villa miles from anywhere, and you wear sunglasses and a baseball cap to disguise your appearance when you do go out. I’d call that hiding, wouldn’t you, Cairo?’

‘No,’ she bit out. ‘What I would call it is taking a well-earned holiday after years of constantly working my—’ She stopped and drew in a controlling breath. ‘I can’t remember the last time I was able to just relax and lie in the sun.’

‘You’ll freckle, remember?’ he taunted.

‘I’ll risk it!’ she snapped. ‘And I really don’t see what any of this has to do with my not wanting to come to a party in Cannes with you this evening.’

‘There will be directors there. Producers, too. The people who will give you your next job, Cairo,’ Rafe explained patiently as she made no response.

‘I don’t need anyone to give me my next job, Rafe,’ she assured him.

He studied her carefully. ‘You already know what you’re going to work on next, don’t you?’

Cairo gave a mocking inclination of her head. ‘Yes, Rafe, I already know what I’m going to work on next.’

‘Which is?’

‘None of your business!’

‘Are the two of you arguing?’ Daisy asked from the kitchen doorway, her expression curious rather than concerned.

‘Of course not, poppet,’ Cairo hastened to reassure her. ‘Uncle Rafe and I were just—having a discussion about something unimportant.’ She shot Rafe a warning glance.

‘Oh.’ Daisy nodded. ‘Because Mummy and Daddy always kiss and make up when they have an argument.’

Cairo snorted at the thought of her and Rafe ever being able to ‘kiss and make up’. There was simply too much history between them for them ever to be able to do that!

A sentiment Rafe obviously agreed with as he answered the little girl. ‘As Aunty Cairo said, Daisy, we weren’t arguing,’ he said dryly. ‘So, who’s hungry?’ he added enticingly, Daisy’s shout of agreement completely overshadowing the fact that Cairo said nothing.

She was too irritated with Rafe to speak, that was why!

She had spent years being persuaded, cajoled and pushed by Lionel into taking one film role after another, usually for his production company, of course, and she wasn’t about to be railroaded by anyone else—least of all the arrogant Rafe Montero—into doing anything, or going anywhere, she didn’t want to go.

She certainly wasn’t going to allow Rafe to goad her into going to Cannes with him this evening!

But he seemed no more interested in pursuing the subject as they found a place to park in Grasse before walking through to the shops and restaurants. In fact—thankfully!—Rafe seemed decidedly distracted again, leaving Cairo to enjoy the aromas and atmosphere of the town whose main industry was its wonderful perfumes.

Rafe hadn’t been being paranoid earlier about the blue car and its driver …

He was pretty sure of it now, the little blue car having come out of a side road as Rafe drove down from the villa and out onto the main road. It had then stayed a two-car distance behind them on the drive to Grasse, and followed them into the same car park once they got into the town. Although the driver, definitely the same man as before, noticing Rafe’s narrow-eyed interest across the car park as he got out of the blue car, had quickly locked the doors before disappearing in the opposite direction to the one Rafe, Cairo and Daisy took.

Admittedly Rafe hadn’t seen the man since, but a sixth sense, a tingling sensation at the back of his neck, told him that the man was still around somewhere.

Was he just an avid movie fan who had maybe recognized Rafe when he arrived at the supermarket?

Or—worse!—a reporter?

Several people had given Rafe a second glance as the three of them strolled through the busy streets of Grasse, as if they thought they recognized him, only to look at Cairo and Daisy and decide they must be mistaken; Rafe Montero wasn’t married, let alone father to a six-year-old girl.

But the man in the blue car seemed more dogged than that, and he had obviously been waiting at the bottom of the access road in the hopes of being able to follow the next time Rafe left the villa.

Or Cairo did….

Rafe gave her a frowning glance. She was still wearing the baseball cap and dark sunglasses, but otherwise seemed relaxed, and was obviously enjoying herself as she and Daisy looked at scented candles as a present to take home to Margo.

Something Rafe doubted she would continue to be if the man following them should turn out to be a reporter hot on her trail!

‘Is everything all right, Rafe?’ Cairo queried once the three of them were seated at a shaded table in the square where they had decided to have lunch.

He raised dark brows. ‘Why shouldn’t it be?’

Cairo frowned. ‘You seem—preoccupied, that’s all.’

‘I get that way when I’m hungry,’ he dismissed, before pointedly turning his attention to reading the menu.

Cairo continued to look at him for several more seconds before looking down at her own menu; after all, she had no reason for complaint as long as Rafe continued to help keep Daisy entertained.

Besides, he was probably as worried about Margo as Cairo was.

She had spoken briefly to Jeff on the telephone this morning, her brother-in-law promising to call her later today once he had any news about Margo and the baby. Cairo’s mobile was turned on in her shoulder-bag for just that reason.

It was very pleasant sitting here in the sunshine, Cairo decided as she relaxed back in her chair once they had given their order to the waiter and Daisy and Rafe were busy discussing the merits of the beaches in the area, something they were both familiar with if the friendly argument that ensued was anything to go by.

Cairo watched the two of them from behind dark sunglasses, appreciating how good Rafe was with Daisy, talking to her as an adult rather than a child as he considered the merits of her suggestions, Daisy obviously equally enthralled with him.

Again Cairo asked herself why he had never married and had children of his own …

Rafe was thirty-seven now, at the very top of his profession, a successful director, as well as one of the most sought after—and sexy—actors in the world: the most sexy according to that American poll last year!

There had been plenty of women in Rafe’s life over the years, too, photographs of him with those beautiful women often appearing in the glossily expensive magazine that she occasionally read while waiting in her trailer to be called on set.

Yet he had never married, had remained one of the most elusively eligible bachelors in the world … whom Cairo knew herself to be completely physically aware of!

It would be futile to claim otherwise when she was sensitive to everything about him, from his silkily dark hair that brushed the collar of his black polo shirt, down to the bareness of his slimly elegant feet casually thrust into black deck-shoes.

He was as sexy as hell, Cairo acknowledged achingly. Even more so than he had been eight years ago, maturity having added another dimension to his already many-faceted personality, lines of experience now beside the deep blue of his eyes, his rare smile one of mocking challenge.

‘She’s a great kid, isn’t she?’ Rafe said as Daisy excused herself to go to the ladies’ room inside the restaurant.

‘Er—yes, she is,’ Cairo agreed abruptly even as she wrenched her gaze away from the moulded perfection of Rafe’s sensually curving mouth and her thoughts from the memory of how forcefully that mouth had claimed hers yesterday afternoon.

Rafe’s gaze narrowed on her flushed cheeks. ‘Have you ever wondered that if we had made it together, we might have had a daughter of Daisy’s age by now? Maybe a couple more, too?’

‘Certainly not!’ she denied firmly.

Rafe shrugged. ‘Just a thought.’

Thank goodness she hadn’t become pregnant during their three-month affair—that really would have complicated a situation that had ultimately proved heartbreaking enough when Rafe had become bored with her naïve adoration and secretly turned his attentions to another, much more experienced, woman.

But she couldn’t deny that at one time, in her naivety, she had inwardly, deliciously thought about becoming the mother of Rafe’s children….

‘I think I’ll just try giving Jeff a call while Daisy isn’t here.’ She took her mobile from her bag and put the call through to her brother-in-law, effectively putting an end to that conversation.

But if nothing else, it had served as a reminder that Cairo hadn’t been enough for Rafe eight years ago, and despite her earlier thoughts of how wonderful he was with Daisy—of what a good father he would make to his own children someday—Cairo knew that she wouldn’t be enough for him now, either.

Rafe took advantage of Cairo’s preoccupation to sit back and run a lazily sweeping glance over the busy square, aware that he still had that uncomfortable prickling sensation at the base of his nape, as if he was being watched.

Not that he had actually seen the driver of the blue car again.

But perhaps that wasn’t surprising after Rafe had shown him so clearly in the car park that he was aware of the other man’s interest?

Or maybe Rafe was wrong and it really was coincidence that he had seen that particular man in that particular car twice in one day?

Maybe …

He just didn’t happen to believe that strongly in coincidences—

‘Dammit!’ Rafe grated harshly even as he surged angrily to his feet and turned to stride towards where he had just seen Daisy emerge from the ladies’ room in the restaurant.

To where a man—the same man who had earlier been driving the blue car, Rafe was sure of it—had stopped her and engaged her in conversation!