Читать книгу The Baby Of Their Dreams - Carol Marinelli, Carol Marinelli - Страница 11

IT WOULD BE an absolute lie to say the attraction hadn’t been as instant as it was mutual.

All through the lunch break there was a knot high in Cat’s stomach and tension in her muscles and she knew that she was bracing herself for him to come over.

Except he didn’t.

Ouch!

She wasn’t sure if she even wanted him to.

There was an arrogance to him, not that she couldn’t handle arrogant men; she’d dealt with more than her share of them.

No, it was something else about Dominic that had her seriously rattled—the presumption of sex.

From the briefest conversation she had gleaned that much. From the roam of his eyes on the bare skin of her back, from the sullen, one-sided conversation with his friend that had told her his mind was on her.

From the corner of her eye she watched as he came in from the balcony and then went over and chatted to a group.

She was incredibly aware of his presence and it had been a long time since she had felt anything close to that.

Not that it mattered.

She was being ignored.

Funny, but she knew that it was deliberate and what was stranger still it made her smile. ‘Excellent talk…’ A middle-aged blond man came over and introduced himself. ‘Gordon.’ He smiled.

‘Cat.’

It was a very long thirty minutes.

Gordon simply didn’t let up and Cat couldn’t really make her excuses and leave because he was talking about his wife who had died and the total hash that had been made in the emergency department.

It was a busman’s holiday for Cat as she lined up for the lovely buffet lunch and Gordon followed her with his plate.

‘Two hours, we waited, Cat,’ he said, and she glanced up and met those gorgeous grey eyes and saw that Dominic was now unashamedly watching her.

Rescue me, her green ones said, but he looked away.

‘And then…’ Gordon continued to tell her about his wife’s IV coming out and the drugs that didn’t go in. Yes, it was a sad story, but it was a story she dealt with every day and it was her lunch break.

‘Paella, please.’ Cat held out her plate to the waiter but he shook his head.

‘We’re waiting for some more…’

Cat chose some odd noodle salad, just to get away, but Gordon chose the same and he was off again. He sat next to her at a high table and droned on and on.

She met Dominic’s eyes again and this time he smiled.

You missed your chance, his eyes said.

I’ve changed my mind, was her silent plea.

Well, you’re too late!

He yawned and pulled out his pamphlet and with a very small smirk walked off.

What a bastard.

Cat laughed and then turned to Gordon’s confused expression.

‘I said, then she died…’

‘Sorry, I thought you said then she…’ Cat let out a breath. ‘What a terrible time you had.’

She just didn’t need to hear about it today of all days.

She didn’t see Dominic again all afternoon, not that it mattered by then. At 5:00 p.m. when she got back to her room to find that her luggage still hadn’t arrived, it wasn’t the Spanish-speaking English doctor who was on her mind.

It was Thomas.

She didn’t want to go down for dinner in an hour and be sociable.

Room service seemed a far better idea.

A huge plate of paella.

A bottle of wine.

She wished she’d brought his photo.

But there had been too many sad birthdays and, suddenly realising that she had a very small window if she didn’t want to spend tomorrow dressed in Gemma’s dress or linen pants that were more suitable for travel, she headed out.

She found herself in a large department store, explaining to an orange woman that, apart from a lipstick, she had no make-up with her.

‘My luggage was lost,’ she said.

The woman was so horrified on her behalf that Cat actually smiled. ‘It’s fine…’

It was.

So much so that instead of buying loads of make-up and then heading upstairs to the ropa de señora section to purchase a chic Spanish outfit Cat wandered out and found herself drawn to a busy market. There were gorgeous dresses blowing in the late-afternoon breeze and they were nothing like what she usually wore.

If she walked into work dressed as she was today, it would draw comment. Here, apart from a couple of vaguely familiar faces from conferences of long ago, no one knew her.

It was incredibly freeing—she could be whoever she chose to be.

Cat took her time with her purchases. She chose a loose long dress in lilac and shorts that were very short, along with a top and a stringy-looking bikini. And, she decided, instead of the museum on Sunday afternoon she was going to the beach.

She liked Barcelona.

Far more than she had expected to.

It was cosmopolitan, busy yet friendly, colourful and hot.

Walking back into the hotel, she was about to take her purchases up and get changed and, instead of hiding in her room, perhaps head out for dinner by herself when she saw him.

Dominic.

‘I was wondering where you were,’ he said by way of greeting, and Cat liked it that he was direct.

‘I went shopping…’ She was about to explain that her luggage was lost but then decided she didn’t have to explain anything.

‘Cat!’ a voice boomed, and she turned and saw that Gordon was bearing down on her. ‘There’s a group of us heading to the hotel restaurant. Why don’t you join us?’

‘Oh, I’d love to but I can’t,’ Cat said. ‘I’m expecting a call. A conference call. I—’

‘Maybe after?’ Gordon checked.

‘I’ll try.’

Gordon smiled over to Dominic. ‘Do you have plans or would you like to join us?’

Dominic dealt with things far more effortlessly than Cat. ‘I’ve already got plans, but thank you for asking.’

As the group walked off they were left standing.

‘Liar,’ Dominic said. ‘You don’t have a conference call you have to get to.’

‘Was it obvious?’ she groaned.

‘To me it was.’ Dominic nodded. ‘Liars always have a need to elaborate. You’d know that, working in Emergency.’

‘I know,’ she said. ‘So would Gordon.’

‘Is he a friend?’

Cat shook her head.

‘A colleague?’

‘No.’

‘So why not just say no if it’s something that you don’t want to do?’

‘I know that I should. I just feel bad…’

‘Well, don’t—he’s far too busy banging on about his late wife to notice what others are feeling.’

She felt her nostrils tighten. ‘That was mean.’

‘No,’ Dominic refuted. ‘He tried to run the whole sorry story by me yesterday. What’s mean is buttonholing a relative stranger and completely ruining their lunch.’

He shrugged.

He was dismissive.

She didn’t like that and she was about to head off when he halted her in her tracks.

‘Do you want dinner away from the hotel?’

‘I’ve got a conference call to make,’ she said, and gave him a tight smile.

‘Sure?’ he said.

Usually, yes.

She didn’t like his dismissal of Gordon but, apart from that, he was, well, deliciously overwhelming.

Gemma’s words were ringing in her ears. He didn’t have to be perfect, he didn’t have to be anything other than…

God, but she fancied him.

She could have left it there, just walked off and it would have been over. There were no games, no pretence, just his question, which she now answered truthfully. ‘Dinner away from the hotel sounds great,’ she said. ‘I’ll just…’ She held up her bags and was about to suggest that she take them up and meet him back here in…half an hour, or however long it took to get showered and dressed.

But by then she’d have changed her mind, she knew.

Half an hour from now she’d be calling Reception to pass on a message to him.

Or she could just go with how she felt now.

‘I’ll just ask Reception if they can take my bags up.’

The streets were noisy and he navigated them easily and took her to a place that Cat would never have found had she explored on her own—a few streets along from the strip the hotel was on. They walked down a stone stairwell and to an asado restaurant that was noisy and smoky, even with the open area out the back.

‘So, are you pleased your talk is over?’ he asked when they were tucked away at a table.

‘Very,’ Cat said. ‘I can relax now.’

And relax she did, admitting she had no clue about Spanish wine and letting him choose.

‘Are you staying till Monday?’ he asked, and she shook her head.

‘No, I fly out tomorrow evening—I’m back at work on Monday. I wish…’

‘Wish what?’

‘Well, I was really only thinking of my talk when I booked the flights. I wasn’t actually expecting to like Barcelona so much. I should have tagged on a couple of days’ annual leave and done a bit of exploring.’

‘You always could.’

It sounded very tempting but it was a little too late for that now. ‘We’re pretty short on staff at the moment. My colleague Andrew is going on leave and Hamish, he’s the other consultant…’ She rolled her eyes. ‘I’m sure you know how it is.’

‘Remind me,’ he said.

‘Remind you?’ she checked. ‘Where do you work?’

‘Scotland.’

She waited for him to elaborate, which he did but it was vague rather than specific. ‘I work a little bit here and a longer bit there,’ Dominic said, and Cat then felt the scrutiny of his gaze and the message behind his words as he spoke on. ‘I don’t like to be tied to one place.’ And then he elaborated properly. ‘Or one person.’

Well, that certainly told her.

In part, Cat was tempted to simply get up and leave. It wasn’t a meal, they both knew that. This wasn’t two like-minded colleagues sharing a dinner after a busy day at a conference.

This was exactly what the dear Dr Gemma had ordered.

Cat was old enough to know it.

Their knees were nudging and suddenly her lips felt too big for her face without the resting place of his mouth.

She felt his eyes glance down as she reached for her drink and from the sudden weight in her breasts she knew where his glance had been. Only, it wasn’t sleazy. Or, if it was, it came from both of them because she’d been doing the same to his bum a little earlier as he’d walked down the stairs.

No, this wasn’t just dinner.

‘Do you have a problem with that?’ he said, and she blinked as she tried to remember the conversation. Oh, yes, the not-tied-to-one-person thing, he was asking if she had a problem with that.

Did she?

Yes, a part of her did.

Very much so.

A part of her wanted to tell him where he could shove his arrogant, presumptuous offer and head back to her hotel room and bury herself in the grief of today.

Yet the other part of Cat thrummed in suspense. Could she simply let loose and enjoy a night of passion with a very beautiful man with the cast-iron guarantee of no future?

It was refreshingly tempting.

He was seriously beautiful. Far more so than she was used to.

He was also rather more brusque and arrogant than she would choose, just rather too alpha for her.

She was tired, so tired of the inevitable let-down in relationships, the starting gun of hope, the numerous false starts and then the sprint that turned into an exhausting jog, and then standing bent, hands on thighs, and admitting defeat, because the two of you were just not going to make it to the finish line.

She was surprised at the ease of her decision.

‘No.’ Cat finally smiled. ‘I have no problem with that.’

‘Good.’

Housekeeping sorted, she tried to focus on the menu but, at thirty-four, she felt she’d just passed her driving test and been given the keys but was far from skilled enough to drive.

‘Están listos para ordenar?’

The waiter came over and presumably asked if they were ready to order.

‘I’ll have paella.’ She handed back the menu.

‘The chicken here,’ Dominic said, ‘is the best you’ll ever taste…’

Her eyes narrowed. Usually she’d say that she’d like the paella, thank you for interfering. She certainly didn’t need a man choosing her food and yet as she glanced around, sure enough, the locals were eating the chicken.

Oh, he was so far from her usual fare but, no, he didn’t need to be perfect tonight.

‘When in Spain…’ She shrugged.

She had the chicken and, as he had promised, it was amazing.

‘Lemony, herby and so fat and juicy,’ Cat commented on her second mouthful.

‘And salty,’ Dominic said. ‘We’ll be up all night, guzzling water…’

He was presumptuous.

She knew, though, that he was right.

The rest of the world, the past, the future, was like rain as they huddled, as if under some imaginary umbrella, and enjoyed now—the spectacular food, the music that filled the restaurant.

They barely talked about work. She said something about being the only female consultant and how they gave every gynae patient to her. He mentioned how he’d lived in London till a couple of years ago, just half an hour or so away from her.

But then work got left behind and she found out how he loved the architecture in Edinburgh but was fast falling in love with Spain.

And she told him about her passion for renovation, and her obsession with wallpaper, how she could spend hours leafing through sample books but, even then, you could never quite know how it would look once up.

Usually she never got to that part as eyes had long since glazed over with boredom.

His glazed with lust.

‘Do you put it up yourself?’ Dominic asked.

‘I do.’ She smiled.

‘I feel emasculated.’

‘Oh, I doubt you could ever be that.’

It was Dominic who then smiled.

Was it wrong? she wondered as they danced.

Was it wrong to be dancing and happy on his birthday?

Tonight it felt right.

A sexy flamenco dancer was kicking his heels and strumming away and then, when he slowed things down, Cat felt her cheeks blaze with fire for sins not yet committed as Dominic pulled her into him.

His fingers ran lightly down her bare back and it felt utterly blissful.

‘Fourteen hours later than I’d have preferred,’ Dominic said into her ear, because that was how long it had been since he’d first itched for the feel of that sexy spine beneath his fingers.

‘Well, I’m glad for your sake that you waited,’ she said, imagining her reaction had he been so bold.

His touch didn’t feel bold now; it felt right.

When the music ended they made it back to their table and when the bill came Cat did her usual and put her card down.

‘We can go halves,’ she said as he picked up the card to hand it back to her.

‘Don’t do that, Cat.’

‘What?’

‘Ruin a perfectly good night.’

If she were setting the ground rules for the future, she’d have insisted on paying her way.

Instead, they were setting the ground rules for tonight and she shivered in the warm night air as they headed for the hotel.

They walked back along the beach. It was after eleven but not really dark thanks to a near full moon and, despite the hour, the beach was far from deserted.

‘There are some gorgeous beaches not far from here,’ he said. ‘Are you still determined to head back without seeing the place?’

‘I am, though I wish I’d known just how much I’d like it,’ she admitted. ‘I’m going to come again but next time for a holiday. You’re here a lot, then?’

‘Quite a bit,’ Dominic said. ‘I have family here.’

‘Oh.’

She ached to know more about him but Reticent was possibly his middle name because, apart from long conversations about everything and nothing, he gave away little.

The only thing she was sure of was their attraction.

‘Which is why,’ he continued, ‘when I saw the conference was being held this year in Barcelona I decided to combine both. I’m very glad now that I did.’ He turned her around and she looked into his dark eyes and his face. He was unreadable. ‘I wish you had got here on Thursday.’

‘Why?’ she asked, her brain a bit sluggish with his mouth so close. She was far too used to focusing on work and she assumed that she must have missed some spectacular talk, or some cutting-edge revelation. The answer was far more basic than that.

‘We could have had three nights instead of one.’

Still, he didn’t kiss her, though she ached, ached for him to do so, but he just smiled in the dark like a beautiful devil and then they walked on.

Back at the hotel Cat was breathless, though not from walking, as they stepped into the foyer. They went through Reception and there was a lot of noise coming from the bar from their fellow attendees.

‘Did you want to go to the bar?’ Dominic offered.

‘Yes.’

‘Again,’ he said, ‘she lies.’

Cat smiled. ‘She does.’

They headed for the elevators.

No, he didn’t ask her for her floor.

He pressed his.

They stood backs against opposite walls facing each other as the lift groaned its way up, letting people in, letting people out.

And his eyes never left her face.

With three floors remaining they were finally alone and still he did not beckon.

Stay, Cat told herself, though she felt like a Labrador waiting for Christmas dinner.

Ping!

She walked slowly only because he did.

And his very steady hand swiped the card and opened the door to his room.

Would he offer her a drink? Cat wondered as she looked around.