CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FOUR
Caitlin nodded slowly at Javier’s offer to bring up the drawbridge of privacy between them again. ‘That sounds good to me.’
‘And,’ Javier continued, ‘if you feel too uncomfortable dealing with the details of the wedding, then you can devote your time to showing Isabella around London.’
‘It’s okay, and actually there’s not much time to do that, anyway. When she gets back to London, it’ll be all systems go until you both get married.’ She looked at him thoughtfully. ‘And, now that I know a bit more about everything, I’m definitely going to be taking a more practical approach to what’s left to be done. I can’t imagine how the venue is going to cope with such little notice, but I’ll give them a call first thing in the morning.’
‘Leave that to me. I am very good when it comes to persuasion.’
‘Money can talk,’ Caitlin agreed, laughing. She’d ordered an elaborate salad but her mind was only half on the food on her plate as she dug in.
What Javier had told her were confidences, and she could never have foreseen him sharing them in a million years, because he wasn’t that sort. Yet he had let her into an intensely private part of his life, and that made her feel… special . Their normal working arrangement had shifted and deepened into something more substantial, something that was more personal and more intimate. When Caitlin thought about what he had said about never being able to love anyone because of the loss of his mother, and the collapse of his father in the wake of that, she could feel a swell of tenderness and compassion.
She understood. Experience had a way of carving out which road a person ended up going down. It truly wasn’t all about how much money a person had. She’d been blazingly angry when he’d tried to compare the nuisance of living in a gilded cage to the sadness and deprivation of her own foster-care background, but now…
He had suffered his own tragedies and they had scarred him. He had felt the basic structure of his life fall apart when his mother had died, and she couldn’t imagine how pitiful it must have been to realise that the one person he should have been able to turn to had removed himself to handle his own grief in a different and destructive way.
Next to her compassion and sympathy, though, was another emotion that wasn’t quite as straightforward… He really wasn’t in love with his fiancée. Maybe he was truly incapable of dropping his barriers and really loving anyone, but this marriage was really one of convenience. She didn’t feel quite so bad about the crush that wouldn’t budge.
She looked at him from under her lashes, taking in his hard-edged masculinity that she had always found so impenetrable. ‘Once you’re married,’ she ventured into the lengthening silence, ‘how is it practically going to work? I know you’ve just said that we have to close the lid on talking about anything personal, but I’m curious whether you’ll still be based here all of the time or not.’
* * *
When Javier looked across the table to her, all good intentions of returning to their relationship being strictly business with some light-hearted banter went down the plug hole. He was still shocked at her confession and was seeing her in a new light. He wanted to close his eyes and breathe in deeply when he recalled seeing her on that chair in the wedding dress of her dreams, twirling to some imaginary scenario she’d probably had in her head since she’d been a young girl. At the time, he’d been amused—amused and turned on, because her voluptuous curves were just so unbelievably, unexpectedly sexy.
Now, he wasn’t amused. Now, he wanted to take her in his arms, and it was such a crazy feeling that he didn’t know what to do with it. He told himself that it was natural to feel sympathy and maybe even a little pity for her story. Life wouldn’t have been easy for her. He would probably have felt the same about any one of his employees if he’d found out something about them of that nature. He would have to be a monster not to want to…hold her.
Who was he kidding? If he’d found out the very same thing about Tricia, the bubbly brunette currently covering for Caitlin, he would have been sympathetic enough, produced some tissues from somewhere and given her a bracing pep talk about painful experiences making you stronger. He would never have been tempted to take her in his arms and soothe her back to her usual good-natured self. He would never have gone down the road of saying anything about himself.
Where had that come from?
She’d gathered herself and was looking at him with polite curiosity, which made the logical need to return to normality even less tempting.
‘Probably not all the time, at least not to start with. I’ll have to be physically present to oversee the technicalities of taking over the business, but I don’t anticipate having to relocate there for any period of time. Isabella’s family concerns are less significant than my own, bearing in mind I have my own empire that’s quite separate from my family’s.’ Javier was barely aware of their plates being cleared as he looked into her eyes.
* * *
Caitlin laughed with genuine amusement. ‘When you say stuff like that, I really see what a different world you live in compared to the rest of the human race.’
‘There are lots of other people as wealthy as I am.’ He was smiling and sat back so that coffee could be put in front of them. His eyes were lazy and amused and sent shivers racing up and down Caitlin’s spine.
‘But they don’t exactly grow on trees.’
‘True.’ Javier laughed and didn’t say anything for a few seconds, although he kept his dark eyes fastened to her face until delicate colour bloomed in her cheeks.
Caitlin licked her lips and sipped some coffee. She felt his eyes on her as she drank and she wondered whether he could see how flustered she was. She hoped not.
She carefully placed the cup on its saucer and kept her eyes lowered for a couple of seconds before looking at him. ‘Isabella loves London but she seems quite hesitant about living over here. I hope I’m not out of order telling you this.’
‘You’re not.’ Javier sighed. ‘She’s going to have to learn to adapt over here, as this is where I’ll be based, but that’s not to say that she won’t be free to come and go as she pleases.’
‘Won’t you miss her company at all?’
* * *
Javier took some time before he answered because the one answer he could have given her that would have been truthful was something that it was not within his remit to do. He and Isabella would discreetly lead their separate lives, respecting one another, while she continued to see the partner she had secretly had for nearly three years.
It was ironic to think that, if she’d had the sort of ordinary background the woman sitting opposite him had probably longed for, she would have had fewer restraints when it came to declaring her sexuality. As it was, her privileged background and the traditional circles in which her family moved had made it hard for her.
He produced the least contentious answer he could think of.
‘You know me well, Caitlin. I find work is very successful when it comes to filling in the gaps.’
‘And I suppose if you have to flit between Spain and London, you could always time your visits there to coincide with hers. But what about when a family arrives?’ She looked at him thoughtfully over the rim of her cup. ‘I’m guessing, even if it’s a business arrangement, that you’ll both want to have a family?’
‘We’ll have a family.’ Javier looked down, played with the handle of his cup and nodded to the waiter for the bill. ‘We both have a responsibility when it comes to that.’
‘Well, that’ll really mean you’ll have to be in one place without too much flitting going on.’
* * *
Caitlin looked past him to the ideal family she had always had in her head: four kids, maybe five. She knew that she would have plenty of love to go round. She also knew that she would be there for every one of them, seeing their first steps, hearing their first words, going to the first parents’ days… Doing all the things no one had ever done with her.
‘That’s your background talking,’ Javier said gently and Caitlin blinked and looked at him.
‘What do you mean?’
The bill had arrived but they were still sitting at the table. Caitlin didn’t know about him, but for her there was no one around them. She felt oblivious to everything and everyone but for the man looking at her with his head tilted to one side. Was she the only one aware of an electric charge between them?
‘Would you like a liqueur?’
‘A liqueur? I wouldn’t know, because I’ve never had one.’
‘Maybe it’s time we remedy that.’
‘I really need to go and fetch Benji.’
‘Okay.’ Javier shrugged and Caitlin immediately decided that Benji could wait a while. Angie was used to her erratic timekeeping. They were friends and they had fallen into a routine of sharing him.
‘I mean…’
‘Limoncello is very user-friendly.’ He beckoned to the waiter and ordered two, but his dark eyes remained pinned to her face.
‘Why did you say what you said, Javier?’
‘About your background dictating your views on family?’
‘Yes, because I don’t think my background has anything to do with it. Most people share my views when it comes to bringing up children.’
‘Maybe you’re right.’
‘Why do you sound surprised?’
‘Because Isabella and I led a very different life when it came to family bonding. There was bonding but not quite in the way you’d probably understand.’
‘What does that mean?’
Javier shrugged. ‘What you would expect of most rich dynasties: nannies, help and then even more so after my father’s expensive divorce, which brought him to his senses. He never tried to replace my mother again, but he buried himself in work, and I can’t say I saw a lot of him over the years. I was, it has to be said, boarding for quite a number of those years.’
‘And Isabella… I suppose you’ll tell me that her experience mirrored yours?’
‘As did quite a few of our mutual friends’. It’s a very small world when you live at the very top of it.’
‘Can I say something?’
‘Why not?’ Javier grinned, his seriousness dissipating into amusement. ‘I’m not sure I could stop you at this point.’
‘I’m guessing that all those women you’ve dated in the past…’ Caitlin sipped the limoncello and winced, although on the second sip it somehow tasted a lot better.
‘Go on. I’m eager to hear where you’re going with this.’
* * *
Javier watched her with brooding intensity, watching the way she delicately sipped the liqueur and the way her eyes flitted to his face and then flitted away just as fast. He’d never had a conversation like this before in his life. His interaction with women tended to be pleasant, fun and superficial. They flirted and he responded and a nice time was had by one and all. He was a generous and considerate lover. He just wasn’t a committed one and, when the time came for him to walk away, he could do it without any feelings of guilt because he’d never promised anything. He didn’t encourage the sort of deep conversations such as the one he was having here and now.
Actually, he’d never been tempted to. He hadn’t thought himself capable of going down that road or even being interested in it. But he was. He couldn’t take his eyes off her face and every muscle and sinew in his body was engaged in what she was saying.
‘Well?’ he prompted.
‘I reckon you’ve gone for a certain type,’ Caitlin said quietly, ‘because you’ve known that you would never be tempted to form an attachment to that particular type.’
‘And what type is that?’
‘Well…not that I’ve met them all…but I suppose the type of woman who enjoys being pampered and being seen hanging on to your arm at openings and functions.’
‘Tut-tut. Why can’t a guy be tempted to form an attachment to a woman like that?’
* * *
Caitlin raised her eyebrows but she was smiling because his amusement was infectious.
‘Lots of guys can, but my theory is that, even if you and Isabella had never had any kind of arrangement, you would only ever want to settle down with someone like her. Someone from the same social circle you belong to…someone who knows how the ritual of living a life of privilege is handled. And I don’t mean a rich life, I mean one that involves tradition and expectation and duty and all that stuff.’
She breathed in sharply and then held her breath, because now that she had said what she’d said she could feel herself hanging on for his answer.
Was she right? Would he only ever seek to settle down with a woman from the same privileged background? It made sense, especially in the light of everything she’d seen and heard. He and Isabella were matched and, if not Isabella, someone like her, someone with the same acceptance of a life of old money and ingrained tradition.
For just a second, Caitlin looked at the place she’d come from and felt like the matchstick girl standing outside in the cold and looking through the windows to where people from a very different world enjoyed a banquet of the finest food. The differences between Javier and someone like her couldn’t be more stark, and it was something that had really only crystallised in her head when Isabella had come on the scene.
It didn’t matter how he answered her question—of course it didn’t!—but she was still hanging on, pretending to smile and be amused while her heart thudded like a drum inside her.
‘You’re right. I’ve never given it much thought, but maybe you have a point when you say that I’ve been having fun with women I never had any intention of settling down with, because I already knew the sort of woman I was always destined to wed.’
Caitlin forced a laugh. ‘Understandable.’
‘Not that it matters, because I already have my bride waiting in the wings. Which reminds me… I’ll be in touch as soon as I hear from her. Everything’s in place as far as I can tell so all that’s needed now is…’
‘Something for the bride to wear.’
‘Excellent. Now…’ He stood up, glanced at his watch and stepped back, waiting as she followed suit and scrambled to her feet. ‘My driver will be waiting outside. I can get him to deliver you back to your house.’
‘No need.’
* * *
‘How did I know you were going to say that?’
He gazed down at her thoughtfully. She was wearing the sort of outfit no woman he had ever dated would have been seen dead in: loose, lots of clashing colour, not even a token nod to a designer. Her hair was all over the place. And yet the pull he felt was intense because he had connected with her on a basis that went far beyond the superficial appeal of how she dressed.
Javier was uneasy with this. He’d never opened up to anyone and he couldn’t understand how it was so easy to do so with her. Was it because they weren’t involved in any kind of physical relationship? Over the years, Isabella had confided in him, and considered him one of her closest friends, and yet, he realised he had never opened up to her the way he just had to Caitlin.
He had never shared his feelings about his mother and her premature death, and had never voiced how those feelings had changed him for ever. Isabella knew all about his father’s lapse of judgement, the way he’d gone off the rails for a while, but had she known anything about how he’d personally felt about all that? When Javier thought back to that time, he didn’t think so, yet somehow he had shared it with Caitlin. He wasn’t guarded with her; that was why. He had always been guarded with women, always watchful for prying questions as a way into trying to seduce him into the sort of relationship he wasn’t interested in.
The thoughts were like a low, persistent buzzing in his head as Caitlin hailed a cab, just as his driver eased in front of them and drew to a stop.
‘Thank you for inviting me out to dinner, Javier.’
Javier shook his head, frowned and looked down to meet her blue eyes. She gazed steadily back at him.
‘Was it as torturous as you’d thought it was going to be?’
‘I never thought it was going to be torturous.’
‘I had to drag you here kicking and screaming.’
‘That’s an exaggeration—mildly protesting. I was caught on the back foot because it was a dinner you should have been having with your fiancée.’
‘But now you see why the situation may not be quite what you had in mind…’
‘We’d said…’ Caitlin looked away and took a deep breath before continuing. ‘We’d said that we wouldn’t do the whole personal thing, Javier.’
‘So we did.’
‘But I just want to say that I have a much clearer picture of your situation and I apologise for falling into the trap of romanticising it.’
As Caitlin ducked into the cab, Javier leant down till he was level with her.
‘When it comes to me,’ he drawled, ‘the best advice I can ever give any woman is to never romanticise about me. I can do flowers and jewellery and tickets to the opera, but romance? That’s way beyond my scope and always will be.’
He straightened and stood back just as she turned away so that he missed the expression on her face. He watched as the cab eased its way into the traffic and eventually disappeared left after some traffic lights. He’d enjoyed the evening. Maybe he’d been wrong in assuming that spontaneity wasn’t his thing. Or , a little voice in his head said slyly, maybe you’ve only discovered the joys of spontaneity since your PA has shown a side to her that’s got your curiosity going…
He pushed the voice to one side, preferring not to dwell on that, and began to think about the nature of his arrangement with Isabella. It had all seemed so straightforward when they had talked about it a couple of months previously. They had both recognised that, as only children—both from family dynasties that were bound with ties that stretched from duty into friendship, both with the unspoken agreement that they belonged to family lines that would always protect one another when it came to safeguarding their respective dynasties—marriage was always going to be the desired final destination.
And, as it turned out, one that suited both of them. Within that marriage, they would discreetly lead their own separate lives. There would never be a lack of pleasant companionship and deep affection, and those were powerful bonds that could easily unite two people in a lifelong committed relationship.
As for kids, they would find a way. Medical intervention would achieve the desired result. They cared deeply for one another. There would never be any acrimony between them, wherever their paths led. Whatever their unusual situation, they would make good parents. What could go wrong?
Javier’s gut currently told him that there might be more hitches with their well thought-out plan than he might suspect.
He took the car back to his house, resisting the urge to contact her immediately. As soon as he was back at his place, he punched in her number, moving to the kitchen to pour himself a stiff whisky. It was late, but not too late for a nightcap, and he had a sinking feeling that a nightcap was necessary.
Isabella answered on the second ring and he could tell from the stilted, stressed tone in her voice that whatever she was about to say was probably not going to be what he wanted to hear.
* * *
It was not yet nine in the morning when Caitlin yawned her way out of sleep and groped towards her phone which was beeping next to her on the bed. She nudged Benji aside, eyes half-shut, debating whether to answer or not, because eight-fifty-three on a Saturday was way too early for her to take calls. Benji edged his way back to his original position at her side and resumed snoring.
Which was precisely what Caitlin wanted to do. Her weekend stretched ahead of her completely empty of social engagements. It was a blank canvas waiting to be filled with absolutely nothing in store but pottering, heading to the nearest park to enjoy the weather and have an ice cream, and then watching telly in her most comfy clothes with a bowl of pasta on a tray on her lap while she caught up on trashy programmes.
Guilty pleasures after an evening that had left her nerves jumping. She’d felt bonded to her boss in a way she never had before and suddenly her crush felt dangerous—something she could no longer write off as a harmless fantasy. And it was especially dangerous because, even though he wasn’t in love with Isabella, he’d made it abundantly clear he was never going to fall in love with anyone else…especially not someone like her who had zero understanding of what it meant to live in his rarefied world.
She reluctantly took the call and then bolted upright when she heard the dark, sexy familiar strains of Javier’s voice at the end of the line. Benji gave a yap of protest and then watched her balefully as she listened to her boss tell her that he needed to have a word with her as soon as possible.
‘You’re not still in bed, are you?’ he asked as an afterthought.
‘Of course I’m still in bed!’
‘It’s nearly nine in the morning.’
‘It’s also a Saturday. Can I ask what this is about?’
‘My driver’s on his way to get you, Caitlin. I’d make the journey over to you myself, but I have to take care of a couple of things before I see you, and I can’t do that in the back of a car.’
‘Your driver is on the way to get me?’
‘I’m sorry to have sprung this on you, Caitlin, but…there was no choice. He’ll be with you in half an hour.’
‘Javier, has it occurred to you that I might have plans for the day?’
‘It hadn’t, now that you mention it. Have you?’
‘No, but…’
‘Then that’s good news for me. You can bring the dog.’
‘Bring the dog where, exactly?’
‘My place.’
‘Javier…’
‘Caitlin, I have to go. I have an incoming call. I’ll see you in under an hour and, trust me, if I didn’t have to disturb you at the weekend then I wouldn’t. I hope you know that.’
She was already hopping out of bed, followed by Benji, whose tail was wagging in keen anticipation of an unexpectedly early start. Javier sounded bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and she knew that he’d probably been up since five. He’d once let slip that he worked out in his basement gym no later than five-thirty as often as he could because by six-thirty he liked to be on the move. That included weekends. She’d privately thought that that must be a big ask for his partners who might prefer someone who didn’t leap out of bed at the crack of dawn come rain, hail or shine. But then, not many men could match up to Javier, whether he flung off the bed-covers at five sharp or not.
She showered and dressed at the speed of light and was groggily waiting for his driver at the allotted time. He’d barely given her time to breathe, far less debate what she was going to wear, so she had chucked on a pair of jeans, some plimsolls and a white tee-shirt, with a logo of a famous rock legend, which had shrunk in the wash but was soft and comfortable.
There was no time to take Benji for his morning walk so she packed some food for him and, like it or not, she would have to walk him as soon as she got to Javier’s place, whatever urgent situation happened to have arisen.
Still sleepy, she dozed against the car door as she was delivered to Javier’s house which, unlike nearly every property in the capital, sat completely within its own grounds with a courtyard at the front that was barely visible behind high black wrought-iron electric gates. The pavement outside was broad and peaceful because all the houses had their own parking spaces behind similarly forbidding gates. Perfectly pruned trees interrupted the pavements, neatly set in equally perfect circular beds. The electric gates eased open and then quietly closed behind them as his driver stopped, killed the engine and then leapt out to open the passenger door for her before she could do it herself.
Benji had been sitting on her lap, tongue lolling out as he eagerly absorbed the passing scenery, and as soon as the car door was opened he leapt out and bolted across the courtyard, tail wagging, sniffing everywhere before leaving his mark on one of the car tyres just as Javier emerged through his front door.
‘Sorry,’ Caitlin apologised, glancing at Benji before settling her gaze on Javier, who had begun walking towards her. ‘But he hasn’t had his morning run. I’m afraid he’s going to have to run around here till he does what he has to do.’ She waved a roll of poo bags at him. ‘But I’ll clean up, don’t worry.’
Her eyes were helplessly drawn to him. Like her, he was in a pair of jeans, but instead of the rock tee-shirt, he was in a loose-fitting white linen shirt that hung outside the waistband. He was wearing very expensive tan loafers. He was the very essence of sophistication and she had to peel her eyes away just to make sure Benji didn’t embarrass himself too much on the pristine courtyard.
‘Come inside. Have you eaten breakfast? I could get my driver to pick something up from the local deli.’
‘I’m fine. I just want to know what’s going on.’
It was a wonderful, crazily enormous house with three floors above and one below. It must have been at least ten thousand square foot, with towering vaulted ceilings and a sweeping staircase that travelled upwards in glass-sided spirals so that the magnificent interior downstairs was showcased from every angle. There wasn’t a single element to the house that wasn’t bespoke.
She’d been here before, in a flying visit to get some stuff for work, and had even joined a couple of clients for a celebration drink post signing a deal, but she still had to be reminded where the nearest downstairs cloakroom was and then how to find her way to the kitchen. Benji was nowhere in evidence and she could only pray that he wasn’t discovering the delights of leaving paw prints on white furnishings.
But Javier and Benji were waiting for her as she entered the kitchen and for the first time she noticed that there was a grimness to Javier’s expression that she hadn’t noticed before.
‘What’s wrong?’ she asked, suddenly very concerned, moving towards him instinctively. ‘You’re scaring me, Javier. Are you okay?’
‘Thanks for the show of concern but I’m okay. I’ve brought you here because there’s been a slight hitch in proceedings.’ He’d had his back to her as he fiddled with his coffee machine and now he turned to hand her a cup of coffee, which she took without really noticing, because her eyes were on him.
‘What kind of hitch?’
‘The wedding is off.’