Modern Romance Collection February 2025, #5-8

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER TWO

‘H I !’

There was a long pause while she stared at him as if she was in a desert and he was a cool, deep pool of water. She was struggling to elevate her gaze from his mouth. On one level she knew what she was doing, and that she must look like an idiot, but she couldn’t stop any more than she could stop breathing.

This made no sense!

She wanted to kiss him—and not in a warm and friendly way.

Her lashes flickered as she struggled to make some sort of logical sense of the jumbled thoughts that slid through her head.

Nothing was different. He was still the same Joaquin—just eighteen months older than the Joaquin she had shared a fish and chip supper with, sitting on a bench while he talked with animation about his new literacy programme, sounding committed and caring, and so genuinely angry that some children lived in homes without books that she had wanted to hug him. She’d had no issue at all in following through with the impulse, laughing when he had complained she’d got grease on his suit.

So what had changed? It wasn’t as if she didn’t already know he exuded a pheromone cloud that could poleaxe a woman at fifty paces. He was even dressed similarly today, because like on that evening he had come straight from a meeting. He was wearing a dark suit, a pale shirt, his narrow silk tie providing the only splash of colour. His hair was a similar length—short, but starting to curl on his neck the way it did when he needed a trim.

His skin still had that golden glow, with the faint shadow of stubble on his jaw an earthy addition to the miracle of symmetry that was his face. All strong angles and intriguing hollows, with penetrating dark, heavy-lidded eyes set beneath thick brows and framed by long, curling lashes any woman would have killed for. He possessed a sinfully fascinating mouth that combined lushness in the full lower lip with control in the sensually sculpted upper.

In short, he was chiselled perfection, then and now, but now she wanted to kiss him.

She really did.

These thoughts raced through her head as she tried to breathe through the moment, before managing a creaky inhalation and painting on a smile just this side of inane.

Asking herself why was for later. Now was the moment to stop looking like a total drooling fool!

‘Hi, back,’ she said brightly, breaking through the paralysis.

She didn’t want to think about the instinct that had bypassed her brain and nearly pushed her into action.

Luckily it had passed.

Blame it on his mouth, she thought—and, yes, that worked, she decided as her eyes lingered on the sensual outline of his lips. That sinfully sexy curve had probably given rise to many a forbidden fantasy, and her relatively tame one was going to stay safely locked in her head.

So it was all good, she soothed herself.

Joaquin’s wide brow indented in an interrogative frown. ‘Everything okay?’

Her feathery brows lifted as she shrugged and smiled, allowing her gaze to float away from his stare. ‘Having a bad hair day. And if you say every day is a bad hair day for me...’

The jokey warning drew his glance to the red-gold cloud of curls that surrounded her small face like a fiery nimbus, spilling down her slender back in a wild tangle of curls that looked bright against the black cotton top she wore underneath a green oversized shirt, unbuttoned, with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows.

She withstood his scrutiny, the only hint that she was not relaxed the shadow of wariness reflected in her wide-spaced pale green eyes.

‘I didn’t like to text while you were driving, but parking is impossible.’ She held her hair back with one elbow and craned her neck to look down the street.

‘I found a space.’

She pulled her head back in and gave her hair an irritated pat. ‘Of course you did,’ she murmured drily.

Still standing on the step, he arched a questioning brow.

‘Sorry—come in,’ she said, moving to one side to allow him inside without a collision. It was a very narrow hallway, and he was not a narrow man—lean, definitely, but his shoulders took up quite a lot of space.

She made herself as small as possible.

Joaquin shrugged and walked past her—no point overthinking the unaccustomed awkwardness he’d picked up on. Eighteen months was a long time...

But despite his pragmatic attitude he still couldn’t shake the impression that there had been a shift—that some dynamic between them had changed.

He was still the same, which meant that she had changed?

He found he resented the possibility.

He had wanted to relax, and Clemmie was always uncomplicated good company.

‘I saw you from upstairs.’

She bit her lip and stopped speaking a sentence too late. But at least he couldn’t see her face, which she was sure must have guilt written across it.

Not that there was any need for guilt. It had just been a slightly over-the-top reaction to her first sight of the tall, unmistakably broad-shouldered and long-legged figure.

She blinked away the image floating in her head and dismissed the visceral surge of tangled emotions that for a split second had made her brain shut down.

As he had reached the path in front of the house and paused to look up, she had found herself quite stupidly ducking down, out of sight.

His dark lean face had looked hauntingly beautiful—not something that was open to debate, just a fact—and as she’d looked at it the inevitable tummy quiver had been there. But within normal levels. Because she was no longer a smitten eighteen-year-old and they had something much more precious than sex. They had something that lasted and she was not going to blow it.

Or make a fool of herself.

‘You sure you are all right?’ he asked.

‘Fine.’

And she was, she decided, cutting herself some slack. In eighteen months she had simply forgotten the sheer scale of his physical presence—but on purely aesthetic grounds alone he deserved a tummy-quiver and a dry mouth.

The idea of not having Joaquin in her life was something she was not willing to contemplate.

She didn’t want things to change.

Her small chin firmed; it didn’t have to. She took a deep, sustaining breath and her nostrils flared—not to smell the damp winter air that had entered the hallway, but the crisp, masculine scent that clung to his tall, lean person.

She paused to allow her heartbeat to return to normal and the skittering tingle in her belly to vanish, the tendrils of heat under her skin to cool. None of these things happened, but she stubbornly clung to the belief that they would.

‘Are you ready?’

She was ready, but his impatience triggered a belligerent defiance in her—because his impatience belonged to a man for whom people were never late. It was the impatience that came with having people arrive early—she was betting he didn’t notice—and the impatience that came when people were always eager to please.

She really hoped that when he did marry it would be to someone who would not encourage these traits, though it probably wouldn’t be. He’d marry someone who told him he was perfect; that was the way of the world. Oh, she knew he’d said he would never marry, and with his parents as an example she understood where he was coming from, but she was sure that one day he’d meet someone who would shake his certainty. Someone he would walk through fire to be with.

She repressed a little sigh and lifted her chin. Before the inevitable perfect, pouting wife turned up he was still her best friend.

‘Actually, no,’ she lied, embracing the illusion of control as she slanted a sweet smile up at his startled face.

She watched as his initial shock slid into a semi-amused dark, appreciative glitter that said he knew she might be and probably was winding him up. They’d always verbally fenced, and until she’d felt it again she hadn’t realised how much she had missed the buzz that was now in her blood.

At the foot of the stairs she paused and swung back, very aware of the eyes that were following her. Her bouncing curls followed her impetuous action before falling across one narrow shoulder.

‘I am grateful,’ she blurted suddenly.

His brows lifted and a lazy half-smile tugged one corner of his mouth into a fascinating smile. ‘It doesn’t show.’

‘Allow for the fact I’ve just put everything in the wrong recycling boxes.’

His brow arched. ‘Deliberately?’

She pushed out a scornful snort. ‘Don’t tell me you’d know a recycling box if it bit you on your...’

Her eyes dropped and she felt the scorch of heat on her cheeks before she fixed him with a glower, to show she had not been thinking about his excellent behind.

‘Consider this a learning experience,’ she told him. ‘Imagine that not everyone has people arriving early with smiles fixed on their faces, saying what they want to hear...it will make you a better person, Joaquin. Seriously, though, this is a nice thing for you to do. You are really helping me out of a bind.’

‘I feel sure you would have worked something out.’

‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘I would have. But travelling with you beats hitching.’ The dimple in her right cheek deepened.

Before he could ask if she was actually serious about the idea of hitching—he’d put nothing past her—she had whisked away, taking the stairs three at a time.

She hadn’t lost weight—she’d always been slim and she still was—but the curves of her body seemed more defined than he remembered. She was, he decided, searching for the right word and finding it, sleeker .

She made him think of a sleek cat, all supple curves and claws. The rear view of her bottom was pretty spectacular too, he observed objectively.

‘Go through!’ she yelled over her shoulder.

After a moment, he did. The options were limited. The only open door was at the end of the narrow tiled corridor, all the other doors along the way were closed, complete with locks.

He had walked the length of the kitchen he’d found himself in when she reappeared, breathless, fighting her way into a boxy quilted jacket. She was showing a different view of the jeans, and also a tiny sliver of smooth belly as she got her arm stuck half in and half out of the sleeve as it tangled with the oversized blouse.

‘Let me,’ he snapped out, annoyed at the effort it took to raise his eyes from that satiny sliver of bare flesh.

Her eyes lifted as she shook her head to dislodge the curls, revealing her green eyes, pale aquamarine. ‘I can manage.’

He arched a brow and shrugged.

Clemmie always had been incredibly stubborn—to an irritating degree. And that much at least had clearly not changed. His wide brow furrowed as he tried to pin down what the elusive change was.

Nothing as obvious as her skin, which was still translucently pale. Her stubborn little chin was still stubborn, and her mouth was still too wide for her small heart-shaped face. The green eyes, their irises rimmed by black that defined the colour, were still slightly slanted.

The awkward silence stretched.

‘Good-sized kitchen.’

His attempt to say something nice about the room made the dimple in her right cheek appear.

‘It doesn’t seem that way when all ten of us are trying to cook a meal.’

His brows hit his hairline. ‘Ten!’

‘More when you include girlfriends and boyfriends,’ she said, openly amused by his shock. ‘Think of it as a free lesson in how the other half live.’

Her amusement vanished when his dark eyes swivelled her way.

‘Including yours?’

‘Including my what?’ she said, feigning ignorance.

‘Boyfriend.’

‘Oh...’ She had frequently teased him about his well-documented love life, which he insisted was half fiction—that left an awful lot of non-fiction—but he had never once previously asked her if she was dating. It had been one of their unspoken no-go areas—not that she had realised it until now, as he ignored the Keep Out signs.

For a brief moment she was tempted to invent a boyfriend, to make her life sound more interesting than it was, or more complicated. The thought brought a stab of shame. She was not her mum, who thought a woman needed a man—a mindset that had always struck Clemmie as weird, because her mum was a competent and together woman, who could turn her hand to anything. She had been a brilliant single parent and, thanks to her elegant French grandmother, could make a cheap outfit look designer just because of the casual confidence she wore it with. She ought to be the last woman to feel the sort of self-doubt she did after a love affair ended badly.

Clemmie could not imagine ever putting herself in that position...laying herself open to that sort of hurt.

‘Oh, I’m not planning on settling down for a long time yet.’

Which told him absolutely nothing and instantly made him curious.

‘But in the meantime you are enjoying yourself?’ he asked, then stopped, aware that he was starting to sound unhealthily interested in her sex life. ‘This place suits you?’ he added, changing the subject.

‘You mean I look at home against a backdrop of peeling wallpaper and flaking paint?’

He laughed, an attractive sound—but then everything about him was attractive. She searched his face, looking for some flaw, and found that he looked tired—well, you would if you spent your days making millions and your nights falling out of nightclubs. Not that she had ever seen photographic evidence of the falling.

The same could not be said of all his companions, she thought sourly.

She had never seen him the worse for drink—not even on her eighteenth birthday. He’d been glazed, she decided, thinking about the smoky hot look in his eyes before he had removed her hands from around his neck.

‘It was a question, not a statement. I meant do you like sharing? You wouldn’t prefer a place of your own?’

Clemmie laughed.

Looking bemused by her reaction, he pressed, ‘You don’t mind sharing?’

Rumour had it that some women did not mind sharing Joaquin... Clemmie gave her head a tiny shake, to banish the lurid images that rode the coat-tails of that thought.

‘It’s not about preference. With London rents and my salary I don’t really have an option,’ she responded, her heated cheeks the only clue to her mental gymnastics. ‘And there is always company. You’re never alone.’

‘That doesn’t mean you can’t be lonely.’

The idea of Clemmie being lonely in this place, with its peeling paint and, having noticed the tangle of exposed wires along the ceiling, what he suspected were botched electrics, brought a rush of furious anger quite out of proportion with the circumstances.

Oblivious to the anger he was experiencing, Clemmie grinned, treating the comment as a joke ‘Earplugs are a must, but when I need some “me time” there is a park within walking distance.’

‘You could always come and work for me, you know. There is always a place for someone smart who can think outside the box. You are capable of so much more...’

He realised it was way past the moment when he should have shut his mouth and stopped speaking. Clemmie never had disproved the ‘redheads and temper’ theory. Anger swelled over her like a dark cloud.

‘I am not a charity case. I happen to love my job, and if money mattered to me I wouldn’t have gone into it to begin with.’

Actually, she had more fallen into it than chosen it, after a holiday job before she started uni had gone so well that she had been offered a full-time post.

‘I know you consider I’m a failure, and you can’t understand someone who doesn’t care about money and things . I didn’t have a five-year plan, and as for fulfilling my potential—what makes you think this isn’t my potential?’

The horror of what she had just said hit her with the force of a sledgehammer.

His expression was thoughtful as he looked at her, which made Clemmie think she had just exposed her soul, or at least her inadequacies, to him.

‘When did I say any of those things?’ he asked eventually, not reacting with the anger she had anticipated to her outburst.

She gave a guilty little grimace. ‘Never,’ she admitted gruffly.

‘I never had a five-year plan either—that would be too limiting. Plans equate with tunnel vision; they blind you to the opportunities that fall your way and they stifle ingenuity. That’s not to say I would opt for chaos, but routine and consistency are the enemy of innovation.’

‘Well, no one would ever accuse you of being consistent. You change the rules depending on your mood.’

‘And there is the secret of my success.’ He elevated a satirical brow. ‘Are you ready now ? If it helps, you have totally put me in my place.’ He executed an elegant mock bow. ‘I am humble.’

She gave a snort of amused disbelief. ‘Sure you are.’

Some of the tension in the air between them seemed to have dissolved, and she felt more comfortable. The tingly stuff was still there, but in the background.

‘Yes, and I am a supermodel,’ she retorted, adopting a catwalk pose and pouting.

His smile faded. Her action had lengthened the sliver of flesh to a section of creamy perfection, and lifted her small breasts under their layers in a way that could make a man who was not him think about peeling them away to reveal what was underneath.

Sleek.

From the ether the word came into his head again as he struggled to straitjacket the hormonal surge of his imagination.

He said the most lust-dampening thing he could think of.

‘You do know that your fridge is growing things that might be a jungle by the time you get back?’

‘It’s a salad tray—it’s meant to be green,’ she retorted. ‘And what were you doing in our fridge anyhow?’

‘I was looking for some water.’

‘We don’t do designer water—but we do have a tap.’

‘I’ll pass.’

He stood waiting impatiently for her to join him, carrying the extra bag she had apparently forgotten.

This time they got fifty feet down the road before she stopped.

‘Did I lock the door...? I’ll have to check.’

By the time she got to the car—it hadn’t been hard to locate the only long, low, luxury car on the block—Joaquin was already loading her bags into the boot.

Clemmie threw her handbag on the back seat and straightened up, one hand still on the passenger door handle of the soft-topped car.

‘I had locked it. I should text Mum and tell her when we’ll be arriving. She didn’t have a clue you were coming, you know.’

He dismissed the criticism with a quick sideways glance and a shake of his head. ‘My presence need not impact your mother’s break. I am quite capable of looking after myself.’

‘So you’ll be having beans on toast next door while we enjoy something delicious Mum knocked up? Are you angling for an invite, Joaquin? Actually,’ she continued, not giving him an opportunity to respond, ‘I wouldn’t mind you being there on Saturday. That is the big reveal of Mum’s new boyfriend and I have to be on my best behaviour. She thinks he’s a saint.’

‘And if he is will you mind that?’

Her brows drew into a frowning line over the bridge of her small, neat nose. ‘Why would I mind? I don’t want him to be another loser.’

‘Well, you and your mum have always been a team.’

‘I’m not jealous, if that’s what you are suggesting, I’m just...’

‘Own it—you don’t like sharing.’

‘I hate seeing my mum hurt.’

‘She hasn’t allowed experience to make her bitter. She is a warm, open woman who—’

‘Unlike me, you mean.’

He swore under his breath. ‘What is it with you today, Clemmie? You are so touchy.’

‘It’s not me. It’s you and your...’

Her voice trailed away. The truth was that although she had always been aware of the male aura he projected, she had never been so skin-peelingly focussed on it, and the anticipation of how it was going to feel in the enclosed space of the interior of the car did not improve her mood.

She inhaled and pinned on a forced smile. ‘Sorry. It’s been a long day. I do want Mum to be happy, but I hate her being unhappy. I just wish she wouldn’t do it to herself.’

‘I know, Clemmie, but you can’t expect her to be celibate.’

Some of us manage quite well .

Clemmie shook her head. ‘I know that, but why would anyone put themselves out there like that? Risk having their heart stomped on? You know, sometimes I understand totally why people go for anonymous sex. It doesn’t have the power to hurt.’

‘I agree. But though it’s great in the short term, it can get a bit bland and samey. It can leave you with a hunger for something just out of reach.’

She stared as he slid into the driver’s seat.

After a pause he murmured, ‘Take it from someone who knows.’

Things had only just got back to normal and he was talking about sex... How did that happen?

She shifted uneasily in her seat and turned her head sharply, as if the cars they were passing were fascinating, after a moment redirecting the conversation into safer channels.

‘So why are you here? Shouldn’t you be in Spain, for the traditional Perez anniversary celebrations?’

‘I should.’

She glanced curiously at his profile, taking in the tautness of his jaw. ‘Have you fallen out?’

‘I have never fallen in.’

She grunted, well able to understand this. ‘Your mum is a bit of a cow...’ Her eyes widened. ‘I said that out loud, didn’t I? Sorry.’

‘No apologies necessary for speaking the truth. She is.’

‘They still think you are their route to Perez immortality?’

‘I am not interested in immortality.’ His eyes briefly flickered her way. ‘The name ends with me.’

‘You might change your mind when you meet—’

‘Not you too!’ he exploded in irritation. ‘I will never change my mind. Marriage and happy-for-ever-after is not on my five-year plan,’ he mocked.

‘Except you don’t have one. All right, all right!’ she tacked on quickly, when his expression slid from irritated to thunderous. Marriage was not a subject he was capable of joking about. ‘I think—’

Before she could complete her placatory sentence the tickle in her nose exploded into a full-blown sneeze that was quickly followed by another. One hand pressed to her face, she reached into her bag for a tissue. The contents were in her lap, minus any tissues, when she heard the exasperated click of Joaquin’s tongue.

‘The glovebox.’

She nodded and reached forward. The tissues fell out, along with a small leather box. The gold tooled letters in the aged leather made her brows lift.

His eyes swivelled sideways, and before he could tell her to leave it alone she had opened the box and was viewing the ring that lay inside the cushioned velvet.

Was this why he had overreacted? she wondered. He was already secretly engaged? Or on the point of becoming engaged? Did he not want the world, including her, to know before he popped the question?

‘I wouldn’t have told anyone. I won’t tell anyone,’ she mumbled, putting the pain in her chest down to the fact that he hadn’t trusted her with his secret. In fact, he had lied.

‘Tell anyone what?’

‘That you are engaged—or about to be.’

‘Did you not hear a word I have been saying? I am not getting engaged. Will you put the damned thing back?’ he growled.

‘All right...all right,’ she returned, examining the ring, which she had slid onto her finger. ‘She must have very slim fingers,’ she said, hating the unknown woman.

He sighed, barely clinging to his temper. ‘I am not getting engaged.’

‘I’m not going to blab.’

‘Take it off, Clemmie.’

There was a small pause, interrupted only by her frantic huffing. ‘I’m trying to... Butter... Have you got any butter?’

‘Butter?’

‘To grease my finger. Or ice.’

‘For God’s sake!’ he ground out. ‘Just leave it. I’ll—’

Joaquin never got to finish his sentence.

His life didn’t flash before his eyes, but time did seem to go into slow motion. Conversely, his thought processes seemed to speed up, evaluating his options with a cool logic devoid of emotion as the lorry that had careered across the central reservation up ahead maintained its head-on collision course with them and picked up speed.

There was not going to be any last-minute reprieve unless he effected it.

He registered a squeak from the passenger seat. No scream—just a quick, breathy, ‘I’m fine.’

Was that in response to a question he didn’t recall voicing? There was no time to speculate, just sift through the alternatives.

They were limited.

Do nothing. Drive into the steady stream of vehicles on the opposite side of the road. Or hope there was a soft landing beyond the hedge that skirted the embankment.

It turned out there was a ditch.

The car lay at a forty-five-degree angle, its back wheels spinning, the sound loud above the drumming in his ears. He’d turned to Clemmie, with a grin that was fifty percent adrenaline and fifty percent relief on his face, when there was a deafening thunder as the lorry crashed about fifty yards north of them.

He didn’t look to see where. He could see Clemmie’s face and she wasn’t grinning back. She was unconscious, her blood-streaked face ashen.

A hundred lessons in what to do when dealing with a casualty slid through his head. They were instantly discarded. This was not a casualty—this was Clemmie. He struggled to push the emotion away and deal with the facts.

Spinal injuries—do not move. Maintain airway. Recovery position.

Which came first?

And then priority didn’t matter, as his nostrils flared at the acrid smell of fuel. An audible hiss added urgency, and then he saw the first lick of flame.

‘Leave it, mate! Save yourself! It’s going to explode!’ yelled a distant voice above the roar. ‘She’s probably gone anyway.’

She’s alive, he said inside his head, because he didn’t have time to waste in voicing his fury.

Leave her...?

That was not an option—less of an option than a world without Clemmie in it.

He closed off the line of thought. It was an action now and think later scenario, and he just had to hope and pray, as he gave up on opening the door and dragged Clemmie’s limp body through the smashed window, that he was not doing any damage to her.

As he pushed his way through the hedge, away from the car and onto the road, he saw a crowd had gathered around a figure sitting hunched on the road, near where the lorry had hit a tree.

Someone was yelling something that Joaquin couldn’t hear, but whatever it was had spurred the small group into action. Supporting the man between them, two members of the group began to move away.

Joaquin only noted this with the five percent of his brain that wasn’t focused on the pale, blood-streaked face of the woman he carried. Everything in his chest had contracted into an icy fist, but he pushed through the fear, knowing that this was not the time for emotion.

Her face was illuminated as the lorry went up in flames, lifting off the ground in an explosion that deafened him. The scene now looked like a war zone, but Joaquin just carried on running as there was a second explosion—presumably his car.

‘You can put her down, mate. We have it now.’

Joaquin carried on running, initially not registering the words or the presence of the two uniformed figures who were jogging along on either side of him.

Then, as consciousness of the hand on his shoulder registered, he slowed.

‘I can’t hear...’ he said, feeling as though he was speaking into an echo chamber.

‘It’ll pass.’

The paramedic nodded to the stretcher that had appeared beside them and Joaquin released Clemmie to the care of the professionals. He stood there feeling helpless, and more terrified than he had ever felt in his life.

‘Let’s get a line in...her SATS are good.’

They allowed him to go in the air ambulance with her, where he sat back, feeling comforted by the cool efficiency and thumbs-up signals of the emergency staff.

Clemmie felt herself rising through layer upon and layer of clinging grey cotton wool. She reached the surface and the noise hit her. She knew that something had happened—something bad that she didn’t really want to remember. The pain was something to focus on, not remembering. And then she saw Joaquin and it all came back.

He was getting married! And he didn’t trust her—he had lied.

She groaned.

‘Clemmie, it’s okay. You’re going to be fine.’ He turned away. ‘She’s awake, she’s in pain—give her something.’

Clemmie closed her eyes—they felt too heavy to keep open. She felt a sudden rush, and the pain she had been clinging to receded.

She forced her eyes open again, unsure how long they’d been closed.

‘It’s stuck, Joaquin. I’m so sorry. They might have to amputate... No, I’m joking.’ She really didn’t feel like joking. ‘Don’t let them take my finger.’

‘She’s passed out!’ Joaquin yelled accusingly as he felt panic ripping through him.

‘Her SATS are fine—don’t worry.’

‘Don’t worry’ in these circumstances had to be the most insane thing he had ever heard.

The flight might have lasted five minutes or five hours. It had been surreal. And the sensation continued now, as they entered the hospital. He kept up with the trolley until suddenly double doors opened and then closed in his face. Clemmie was whisked away into the white corridor distance.

‘Sir, you need to be checked out. The burns...’

Joaquin shrugged dismissively. He didn’t need to be a medical expert to diagnose that the pinkness of his skin under the sooty grime was superficial.

‘I’m fine,’ he responded, ignoring their frustration as he channelled his inner ‘billionaire in charge’ persona. It was a relief to step away from the unaccustomed feeling of helplessness, or at least to smother it.

He repeated his demand to see Clemmie, to be told what was going on, until people stopped looking sympathetic and nervously directed him to sit in the waiting area until they got someone more senior to speak to him.

Fighting the clutch of dread in the pit of his belly, feeling by turns furious and terrified, Joaquin was oblivious to the attention his physical presence, along with the cuts and grazes, the blackened face and singed clothes, was attracting. Even more attention came his way when the large TV screen on the wall playing silently was suddenly lit up with images of a tall man backlit by fire carrying a red-head. A red circle appeared on the screen, to highlight the sparkle of a ring on the unconscious figure’s finger.

It began to play again, on a loop, as the newsreader at the top of the screen spoke and the commentary scrolled across the screen, putting words to the action that he assumed had been recorded on someone’s phone.

The third replay filtered into his consciousness.

He swore under his breath. Just what he needed. He was now a billionaire hero who was engaged. To prove the point there was now an enlarged picture of the ring on Clemmie’s finger.

He was suddenly conscious of several phones being turned his way, recording images that would no doubt be added to the rubbish already out there.

His jaw set, Joaquin got to his feet as a man appeared, his sleeves rolled up to the elbow and his tie tucked into his shirt. At last—someone with the authority to make a damned decision.