Page 11 of Emergency Engagement

The bravado she had nurtured over the past fortnight, when she had been busy planning what to take and preparing detailed lists of what she would need on the catering front, seemed to have deserted her. At six in the morning, with wintry darkskies outside, she scrutinised her reflection in the mirror in her bedroom and tried not to feel sick with nerves.

It was going to be hot when she got there. She would be leaving horrible weather and stepping out into hot sun—at least, according to everything she had read. When she looked at herself, what she saw was a confusing sight: light jeans and a white tee-shirt underneath a thick cardigan with a duffel coat and a woolly hat. She looked like someone who hadn’t a clue where she was heading or what to expect, and so had dressed for all eventualities.

The time had come—no backing out now. Her phone buzzed: a text message from Rafael’s driver, which had been the agreed communication when Rafael had arranged for her to be collected. Her lift was here. She gave one last look but, as she pulled her cases out to the front door, she wondered whether her jumbled sartorial choices reflected the jumble of emotions running through her and the confusion of not knowing what to expect when she got to the other side.

The sun had just about set as Rafael approached the airport terminal. It was easy finding a spot to park because the terminal was tiny and the car park, for reasons that escaped him, was unnecessarily large. The sky was indigo and, even though he was at an airport, he could still hear the sounds peculiar to tropical nights: the clicking of crickets blending into the background noises of frogs and toads and all the other small creatures that emerged at night.

Planes were not on a loop here. The sky was empty but, as he parked the small four-by-four, he could hear the distant roar of one swerving towards the little island, so perfectly positioned that it always escaped the annual round of hurricanes that cut aswathe through some of the other islands further north towards Puerto Rico.

He’d had minimal contact with Sammy since they’d parted company a couple of weeks ago. A contract had been emailed, conditions laid down and signatures received. He had instructed his PA to email her with some information about where she would be going, and he had personally emailed her confirming numbers and telling her that she would have to be equipped to cater for two vegetarians. In return, she had sent him a list of basics she would need including an assortment of meats, fish and prawns, which could be frozen and used as appropriate. She would get fresh stuff when she arrived. They’d been business-like communications.

He’d felt the need to put some distance between them, although he couldn’t quite understand why. This was about business, and it should have been clear cut, but she’d somehow got under his skin and he hadn’t been able to get her out of his head for the past couple of weeks. He’d thought of her, angrily jabbing her finger at his audacity. He’d married it to memories of her as a teenager, and had been unnerved by how much air time she’d taken in his mind.

Rafael sighed and vaulted out of the car. Perhaps he should have taken a slightly more personal approach, especially given the situation in which he had recently found himself, which had turned out to be rather delicate, to say the very least. He needed Sammy on side rather than glaring at him from under her lashes.

The airport was busy. People were coming to collect friends or relatives, others arriving to drop off. It was still very warm, even though the sun was setting, and despite a light breeze. He was half-enjoying the sing-song lilt of the voices around him as he strolled towards the pick-up point outside the little terminal.Mostly, though, he was thinking about how he was going to play this one out.

He almost missed her as she appeared through the open side of the terminal where a stream of arrivals was making its way out, pulling bags, or else with bags loaded onto trolleys being pulled by the guys who worked at the airport.

Sammy was gazing around her with a lost expression, a chunky cardigan loosely knotted around her waist, in pale-blue baggy jeans and trainers and with a couple of pull-along cases with a coat draped over the handle of one. She looked very young and very wide-eyed, the breeze riffling her short dark hair, blowing it this way and that. Their eyes met and, even in the semi-darkness, he could make out her sudden stiffening as he walked towards her.

‘Sammy.’

Sammy blinked. Eight and a half hours had taken her from a cold and bleak England to...somewhere that felt like another planet. The sky was clear and the heat was seeping through her clothes, making her perspire, and the noises were ones with which she was utterly unfamiliar.

She’d been abroad, but never anywhere tropical and, the minute she’d stepped out of the plane onto the stunted ladder that led down to the tarmac, she’d been confronted with the reality of just how much was about to change for her.

Frankly,everything—which had fired up another flare of resentment towards Rafael, the employer she hadn’t asked for and certainly didn’t want. But, now that she was here and he was towering over her, he seemed like an anchor in these unfamiliar waters.

‘Let me take your bags. Is this all you brought with you? Tell me how your flight was—was it okay? I find first class always makes the most of a tedious experience.’

‘I didn’t expect you to come and meet me.’

‘That wasn’t the original plan,’ Rafael murmured soothingly. ‘But then I thought that here you were...a stranger in a strange land and you might find it helpful to see a face you recognise.’

They were heading towards the car park. The horizon fading away into a darkening sky looked limitless...a stretch of colour uninterrupted by buildings, housing, factories or even the usual network of busy roads that led out of airport terminals.

Sammy breathed in a heady aroma of exotic trees and plants and then eyed Rafael suspiciously out of the corner of her eye.

‘You’re being very nice to me, Rafael.’

‘I didn’t realise that was a crime. Here we are. The cars here are usually driven for their usefulness, hence this four-by-four pick-up. It can tackle all manner of poor roads.’

‘You mentioned that you weren’t going to meet me because your contingent of guests would be at the villa. Won’t they be missing you?’

‘They’ll all big boys and girls. They can cope for a couple of hours.’

‘Is that how long it’s going to take to get to your villa?’ Sammy frowned and clambered into the passenger seat. ‘I didn’t think that the island was that big...’

‘It’s not. Ready?’

He swivelled so that he was facing her. Their eyes met in the darkness of the pick-up and Sammy blushed. Her comfort zone was several thousand miles and over eight hours away. She shivered, and for a few seconds her brain went completely blank because, up close and personal like this, the sheer power of his presence and the force of his incredible, suffocating masculinity hit her like a sledgehammer.

She’d spent the intervening time reminding herself that she disliked him...but now the past and the present rushed at her, giving him form and shape, and making him more than just a convenient cardboard cut-out of a bad guy.

It took her a couple of moments before her brain re-engaged and, just as he turned the engine into life and began reversing out of the space, she said, ‘So why is it going to take so long?’

‘Thought it might be an idea to take you somewhere...so I could brief you on what to expect.’

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