CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SIX
Caitlin had no idea what to expect as the jet swerved lower to a view of the blue Mediterranean, curling in an arc with trees and the cluttered town sprawling behind it. Even from above, the sight was breathtaking, the absence of impersonal skyscrapers promising the old-fashioned charm of history, old architecture and atmosphere.
‘You’ll see why it seems like a natural place for a hotel,’ Javier murmured as the jet began its descent to the airport. ‘It’s taken a long time for all the planning to go through, hence the importance of signing off at this last stage.’
‘What would happen if you decided not to follow through and finish the deal right now?’
‘It wouldn’t be the end of the world.’ He shrugged. ‘But it would be seriously delayed and then, of course, if the fortunes of the company took a blow with the marriage falling through and news of Alfonso’s ill health hitting the headlines…’ He gave another shrug. ‘There might have been cold feet and, with all the planning that’s gone into this, it would be a very costly waste of time. Alfonso was keen to get a stake in the leisure industry here in this historic slice of Europe and, like I said, I feel duty-bound to hold my end of the bargain.’
The jet sped down with the force of a rocket landing because of its size and Caitlin gritted her teeth and regulated her breathing. She wasn’t expecting Javier to reach for her hand, which was balled into a fist. He gently unclasped her fingers and linked his fingers through hers.
‘Relax.’
As a ploy, it worked insofar as she was no longer focused on the jet as it dropped down at a sharp angle. How could she focus on anything but the feel of his cool fingers against hers? She stared glassy-eyed at the dark hair curling round the metal of his watch and her breath caught in her throat.
‘You can give me back my hand.’ She breathed. ‘I’m fine.’
‘I’ll return it when the plane’s landed.’ His thumb absently rubbed hers. ‘Sometimes one person’s energy can rub off on someone else and I’ve flown on this jet a million times. I’m very calm. Are you beginning to feel a bit calmer now?’
Caitlin thankfully managed a response as her blood pressure shot through the ceiling and her eyes travelled from his wrist along his bronzed, lean and sinewy forearm.
As the jet made a soft landing, he turned to her with a smile and gently patted her hand.
‘Safe and sound. You okay?’
‘Perfect!’
‘Good.’
He dropped her hand, sat back, and Caitlin forced herself to try and breathe normally.
Her skin burned from where it had been touched and she surreptitiously rubbed her wrist with her hand, trying to erase the tingling sensation of being branded. Her whole body tingled, as if that brief touch had ignited nerve endings everywhere inside her. She barely noticed the black four-wheel drive that waited for them as they were ushered from jet to car like royalty.
‘What will you do when we get back to London?’ she asked breathlessly, as soon as they were seated and the car was pulling away at a sedate pace. Nerves propelled her into speech because silence would have felt too intimate. Her body was telling her something, asking questions that she didn’t feel prepared to answer.
How had this innocent crush become so overwhelming? Why hadn’t it just fizzled out when Isabella had turned up, when harsh reality had intruded? How innocent was it, really?
He reclined back against the seat, his legs spread wide, one hand draped loosely over his thigh.
She licked her lips and then smiled politely when he shifted so that he was looking at her.
‘Do about what?’
‘Well, if your original intention was to handle Isabella’s interests so that her father’s illness wouldn’t affect the share prices, what will happen now that the marriage has been called off? Will you still take over?’
Past him and through the window, Caitlin could see the calm, attractive panorama of palm trees fronting the sea with a deep blue sky as the backdrop. All around, there was a lack of urgency that made her feel as though she might be on holiday but, before that could take root, she killed it dead because the last thing this was, was a holiday.
‘To be decided.’
* * *
Javier looked at her thoughtfully. Her skin was shiny from the heat, even though the car was air-conditioned, and her hair had gone wild. Corkscrews curled in tendrils round her heart-shaped face, her mouth slightly parted, as though she was on the verge of gasping at the scenery flashing past them. She was wearing a short-sleeved shirt, patterned with pale flowers and buttoned down the front, and a loose skirt that fell to mid-calf. It should have killed all hope of sex appeal but, the second he had seen her, her sex appeal had knocked him sideways.
He wondered now whether he had always been drawn to her on some crazy subliminal level. Had she been like a background song in his head that he only recognised now that their working relationship had shifted on its axis?
Because shifted on its axis it had, whether he wanted to admit it or not. He’d opened up to her. It was a disquieting and unsettling thought. He’d opened up to her, and had that somehow brought to the forefront an attraction he was now forced to acknowledge? A sexual pull that couldn’t be indulged?
Had the different dimension to their relationship opened up a Pandora’s box filled with things that couldn’t be countenanced? What Caitlin wanted from life was very different from what he wanted and what he knew he would aim for. She wanted all the things he would never be able to give any woman and would never be inclined to try to give any woman—not to mention the small but important fact that she worked for him. Still, his eyes lowered and lingered on the fine blonde hair on her arms, her short unvarnished nails, the curve of her breasts underneath her shirt.
Aside from anything else, his days for playing the field were coming to an end. He would have to find a suitable wife, one who fitted the only lifestyle he would be able to offer, and he had a deadline. There was no Isabella around who could step up to the plate without notice, because marriage would have suited her as well and, in many ways, the later the better. He would have to spend some time finding the right woman. It wouldn’t be easy.
Content with a powerful line of reasoning that was steering him away from an unacceptable temptation, Javier cast his mind back to what they were talking about—something about working in the Albarado empire. His mind wasn’t on it. His mind was still trying to get off the urge to keep looking at her luscious body.
‘Won’t it be a little awkward?’
‘Come again?’ Javier frowned and dragged himself back to the present while trying to stifle the sort of tightening in his body that might be awkward to conceal.
‘Even if your split was amicable, won’t it be a little awkward working in her company?’
‘Why would it? We’re all very close to one another and always have been. The only tricky bit will revolve around a proportion of ownership. As Isabella’s husband, a percentage of the shares would have devolved to me, hence there would have been more motivation on my part to make sure I had significant input into company decisions.’
‘I get that. And now?’
Javier wondered what it would feel like to trail his finger over her full mouth. The feel of her small hand in his had been a powerful turn-on. Taken a couple of steps further, how much more powerful would the turn-on be? He almost groaned aloud at the disobedient tangent his mind was going down.
‘Now,’ he managed, ‘now I’ll do as much as I can and keep a close eye on Alfonso’s health. He’s already making small strides so that’s a positive.’
‘Isabella must be so relieved. Has she told him about the marriage being called off?’
‘She’s waiting until he’s a little stronger.’
‘I hope he won’t be too shocked, especially considering so much was riding on your union with Isabella.’
Javier thought that the shock of the marriage being called off would take a definite second billing to the other news his daughter would soon be imparting.
‘I’ll continue to help out.’ He brought the conversation back to its original starting point. ‘But not indefinitely. I’ll just paper things over until Isabella gets a handle on the nitty-gritty.’
‘Can I ask you something?’
‘I feel I should say no at this point.’ But he smiled and continued to look at her, his eyes lazy and indulgent.
‘Are you angry at Isabella for what she’s done?’
‘Angry?’ Javier thought about it. Anger, and the loss of control it entailed, was an emotion he seldom indulged. His father’s loss of control over his emotions when his wife had died had been a powerful lesson in the dangers of losing it—the dangers of letting oneself be pummelled this way and that by feelings . He should have been angry because, to some extent, his future had been derailed, but anger was not an emotion he could summon.
‘Angry.’ Caitlin half-smiled. ‘As in, wanting to punch something or shout from the rooftops.’
‘What would be the point of getting angry? It’s not as though anger would change the circumstances. I don’t do anger. And add to that list jealousy, envy and need. A life spent without those things is a richer, more rewarding life.’
* * *
‘I’ll bear that in mind, moving forward.’ She grinned and her heart skipped a tiny beat as their eyes collided.
There was amusement in his expression and something else—something that set up a slow burn inside her, just like the burn she had felt when he had linked his fingers through hers. She was struggling to move past the warm gleam in his eyes and a tenseness in the atmosphere that gave her goose bumps.
‘I mean…’ she said a little weakly.
‘You mean…?’
‘Everyone gets angry now and again, and jealous and envious, and everyone sometimes longs for stuff they can’t have but feel they need…’
‘Repeat—I’m not like everyone,’ Javier said softly. ‘My experiences of seeing how my father reacted to my mother’s loss was a lesson enough in letting emotions guide your decisions. You allow that to happen and your decisions are always going to be wrong.’
He was so close to her, Caitlin could reach out her hand and brush it against his cheek.
‘Stop looking at me like that,’ she whispered.
Caitlin knew what he was going to do. She felt it in her bones. He was going to kiss her, and she wanted him to, just as she had wanted to get away from talking about work and dig into his head to try and find those deeper parts she had started glimpsing. She wanted to lean against him so that she could feel his hardness against her and the steady beat of his heart under the palm of her hand pressed against his chest.
This was something that had been simmering under the surface between them for a while. She had felt it and had ignored it but it had been there, now unlocked because she was no longer just his PA. The door between them hadn’t just opened for her . It had opened for him as well and maybe that was why she hadn’t been able to kill the crush on him. Maybe she had sensed a spark there waiting to be lit.
Her breathing hitched and she willed him to do what she wanted him to do: kiss her; settle his mouth against hers; let his hand find the heavy weight of her breast, because her nipples were pinching against her bra and she wanted him to stop that pinching.
She should have been shocked that her beautiful boss was staring at her with hot desire, eating her with his dark eyes, but in some part of her she wasn’t. Gut feeling was pushing through any sense of surprise and telling her that this was something that had been gathering momentum. If Isabella hadn’t broken off the marriage, it would have come to nothing, but it had been there even when Isabella had been around because Javier hadn’t been in love with his fiancée. So his eyes had wandered and she had sensed it.
Excitement coursed through her. A legacy of uncertainty had left her craving stability and safety when it came to any relationship with a guy. Javier was as safe and stable as a hand grenade.
But she felt an urge to see what adventure tasted like. It was one thing to read about romance and have adventures in her head but what would it really feel like to touch this man and have him touch her back?
Fire… She’d be putting her hand in an open flame and she would end up burnt—badly burnt.
She pulled back from the brink but she was shaking.
‘This place…the scenery…amazing.’
She turned away to gaze through the window, taking in a place bathed in the last rays of early-summer sunshine. Nestled between the sea and the mountains, and curving round one of the finest bays in the country, Nice was a seductive melting pot of elegance, vibrancy and charm. The sea was very blue. As the car swerved through the streets and her mind began to calm down, she could appreciate what she had missed, the graceful architecture of some of the grand, ochre-coloured buildings. If aristocrats had flocked here once upon a time, she could understand why.
She did her best to ignore Javier’s dark, disturbing presence next to her and the tingling from her near-brush with a situation she had only just about managed to swerve.
All was forgotten as the car swept towards the hotel. It was a magnificent curving masterpiece of cream fronted by a glass-panelled arch guarded by two uniformed men. The courtyard was huge and bordered by perfectly manicured lawns on either side. Even the trees and flower-beds looked as though they had been individually seen to by a top coiffeur, not a single leaf out of place. She automatically sifted her fingers through her unruly hair and absently wondered how trees and bushes could look more precisely trimmed than her hair.
The people milling around were the last word in glamour, perfectly tanned with big sunglasses and designer clothes.
‘This is amazing…’ she breathed at yet another opulent experience.
‘Not too shabby, I suppose.’
‘Of course,’ she said, as the uniformed guards held open the doors for them, and they left the warm sunshine to step into the cool of the white marble-and-glass foyer, ‘it wouldn’t be my personal choice for a honeymoon hotel. It’s not exactly brimming over with romance, is it? But then, I suppose, neither was your courtship.’
‘“Courtship” is a rather old-fashioned word, and there was nothing like that anyway. Can I have your passport? I’ll need it to check us in.’
Caitlin reached into her handbag, handed it to him and gazed around her. Huge, ornate marble pillars intersected the expanse of cream, white and pale greys. Clusters of white upholstered chairs formed seating spaces around glass tables, and in turn were loosely partitioned off by long, oblong walnut dressers, some of which were dressed with enormous vases of white lilies.
She was vaguely aware of Javier talking to the girl behind the desk in rapid French before he turned back to her sharply.
‘Right. Off we go.’
* * *
How to break the news? Javier wondered as they silently rode the lift up to their floor, because he had a feeling she was going to freak out when he told her that they would be sharing a suite of rooms, especially after their drive to the hotel. Just thinking about the sexual tension that had stretched between them made him break out in a sweat.
He’d never wanted any woman so badly in his life before. He’d known that, if he’d touched her, she would have melted in his arms, just as he’d known that giving in to that temptation would send their reliable working relationship into territory best left unexplored. She’d pulled back but he’d seen how shaky she’d been. She’d come as close as he had to turning their relationship on its head, in the grip of something as pointless as lust.
‘Here we are.’
As Javier swiped the key card and stepped back, Caitlin stepped into a glorious expanse of living area. He saw her gaze past white sofas, a pale Persian rug and little glass tables, through to a veranda with yet more seating, and beyond that the fading colours of the sky that melted into a panoramic view of the sea.
She strolled towards the French doors that were flung open onto the veranda and stepped out into the balmy fresh air. There was a stupendously impressive view of a rectangular pool surrounded by neat rows of white deck chairs and white umbrellas overlooking a drop down to the ocean beneath. People were still there, drinking and being served by waiters, elegant figures in floaty sarongs and wide hats.
‘Wait…’ She swung round. Javier was almost directly behind her. ‘Are we both going to be here?’
‘I’m afraid so.’
‘You’re afraid so? I’m not sure your fear is going to help here! How is this going to work?’
‘No need to look so horrified, Caitlin. It’s going to work because it has to. I did ask at the desk whether two rooms would be available because of a change of circumstance but, unfortunately, the place is sold out—very popular time of year.’
‘I can’t share a room with you!’
‘Look around you, Caitlin—this is hardly a room .’
‘I’ll stay somewhere else. It’s not a problem for me. I’m not fussy.’
‘Everywhere is going to be booked up.’ He raked his fingers through his hair and stared at her. ‘There are two bedrooms. There are two bathrooms. Our paths need not cross until a designated time in the morning when we can spend an hour or so doing our due diligence before we meet the various CEOs in the conference room reserved for us here.’
‘Javier…’
‘What’s the problem?’ His dark eyes challenged. ‘What do you think is going to happen, Caitlin?’ What so nearly happened between them in the back of the car hung between them, unspoken.
‘Nothing’s going to happen. I just…think it might be a slightly awkward situation, given it was supposed to be your honeymoon suite.’
‘Isabella would have been in a separate room. This would have been a work base. You’ll be in a separate room, this will be a work base. So, again…what’s the problem? Because I’m comfortable with this arrangement. If an alternative had been possible, fine. But there was no alternative.’
‘Isabella would have been in a separate room?’
‘I told you, ours was a business arrangement in every sense of the word. So back to your objection—do you feel somehow unsafe sharing this space with me?’
Again, cool challenge was in his eyes, daring her to voice what she had no intention of voicing.
‘Absolutely not.’
‘Then that’s nicely settled.’
He spun round on his heels and headed to the cases which had preceded them. ‘Now, why don’t you have a look around and settle in? I’m going to stick my case in whichever room you don’t want, head downstairs, and start some preliminary liaising with the guys we’ll be meeting tomorrow and confirm arrangements for the conference room. The sooner I get this wrapped up, the better.
‘Isabella and I were going to meet Don, the site manager, for dinner. There’s no need for you to join us but you’re more than welcome, although it won’t be a business meeting as such. He’s an old friend of the family. You can stay here and order up food or go wherever you want to—up to you. You have the company card. Use it on whatever you choose.’
‘Okay.’
‘Okay to which part of what I just said?’
‘Okay to being very happy to stay put and order up something to eat. Or maybe venture out. I’m not sure, but yes, I’ll let you catch up with your friend and, as for the rooms, I don’t mind which I get.’
‘Tomorrow we can convene on the veranda at eight-thirty. I’ll have breakfast brought to us.’
‘Sounds good, and I’ll make sure I do some final work on the deal before then.’
‘Feeling a little better now about the horror of sharing this suite with me?’ Half-turning to her as he strolled to retrieve his laptop from the sleek, expensive case, he raised his eyebrows, but his expression was unreadable.
‘I don’t remember saying anything about being horrified to share this enormous suite of rooms with you, actually.’
‘Splendid, because…’ he captured her gaze and held it so that she could hardly breathe ‘…despite what very nearly happened between us in the car, there’s nothing at all to worry about.’
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’
‘Of course you do.’
* * *
Caitlin felt anger roar through her because he had raised something she wanted to forget; because that brief moment, which had been earth-shattering for her, had not touched him in the same way. Her stupid crush made her vulnerable and she hated that.
‘I think that’s best left forgotten,’ she told him coldly. ‘Nothing like that has ever happened before and nothing like that will ever happen again.’
‘Of course,’ he murmured into the lengthening silence.
He headed for the door and repeated his invitation to spend on whatever she wanted—whether it was clothes or food, because she was doing him a favour by coming here with him—and left with a half-salute and no backward glance.
Caitlin didn’t relax until she knew that Javier would no longer be in the hotel, at which point she scarpered to one of the two enormous bedrooms and firmly locked the door behind her.
She took in her surroundings, but distractedly. There was an enormous bed with crisp white linen, an enormous white sofa and a huge walnut desk, with sufficient plugs to ensure no one who wanted to work had to hunt around for charging points, and beautiful abstract paintings. The television was wafer-thin and large enough to ensure a theatrical experience. Everything was so huge and so beautiful that it was almost a shame to think about ruining it all by actually being in the room and doing stuff like going to bed or just sitting on the sofa. She could see the ocean sparkling beyond through the floor-to-ceiling French doors. Unsurprisingly, the bathroom was the size of her flat, and she and Benji could have slept in the bath with room for him to have a run.
How could she ever have foreseen this? And how could she ever have predicted that her childish crush would morph into this great, big thing she was finding difficult to handle? She’d been hurt after Andy, and had retreated to lick her wounds, but now she could see that, even when the wounds had been well and truly licked clean, instead of getting back out there she had been lazy. She had turned her attention to Javier and idly whiled away two-plus years living in cloud cuckoo land instead of doing what any other young woman would have done—namely replacing her dead-beat ex-boyfriend with someone more suitable.
The arrival of Isabella on the scene had knocked her right back to planet Earth, but instead of propelling her into hitting the singles scene it had plunged her into the confusing place where her secret crush had grown shoots and shot up like the beanstalk in the fairy tale.
What a mess. She didn’t want to be up and about when Javier returned. She needed to gather herself and take heart from the fact that they would only be here for a week. London would restore everything back to where it should be. Open doors could be shut.
With the prospect of Javier bouncing up earlier than expected from his dinner, she hurried the meal she’d ordered, which had arrived with pomp and ceremony, lots of silver domes and starched linen. She was well and truly bathed and in bed, with her door locked and only the bedside light on, when she heard the sound of the outer door being opened.
The rush of forbidden excitement, the sudden tingle of absolute awareness that he was just in the same space as her, filled her with dismay. As she switched the bedside light off, she vowed that tomorrow was another day and she would make sure to stifle all the inconvenient feelings that had no place in her relationship with her boss.
Forget about that crazy almost-moment that had nearly overtaken them. It was all in the past. And, as soon as they returned to London, she would hit the singles scene and destroy the parasite that had taken her over and was eating her up.
She just had to last out her time here and focus on the reason she had come in the first place: a missing fiancée and a deal to be delivered.