Page 23 of One More Sleepless Night

There was a pause. ‘Gone? Gone where?

‘Back to Madrid.’

‘Why?’

An excellent question. ‘Work, according to the note I’ve just found.’

There was a moment’s silence while Gaby processed the information. ‘That doesn’t make any sense at all.’

‘Well, it is Sunday,’ said Nicky, propping the piece of paper back where she’d found it. ‘So I guess he had to get back for Monday.’

‘But it’s August,’ said Gaby, sounding utterly baffled. ‘No one works in August.’

Nicky bit her lip and tried to ignore the niggling suspicion that he’d planned to stay longer than just the weekend and had it not been for her he’d still be there. ‘Apart from Rafael apparently,’ she said, and then added as much to reassure herself as Gaby, ‘You said yourself that he’s a workaholic.’

Gaby sighed. ‘That’s true, I suppose. What else did his note say?’

‘Not a lot. Just that I’m to enjoy the rest of my holiday.’

‘I second that… So tell me everything. How did Rafael take you being there?’

Nicky grimaced as snapshots of the last couple of days flashed through her memory. ‘I don’t think he was entirely happy about it.’ Which had to be the understatement of the century.

‘No, well, he only has himself to blame,’ said Gaby huffily. ‘If he’d bothered to get in touch I could have explained everything.’

‘It was fine,’ said Nicky and hoped she wouldn’t be struck down for the little white lie. ‘Rafael spent most of the time talking to his vines and I’ve spent most of it reading by the pool. An

d that’s—er—about it.’

Gaby hmmed sceptically. ‘Now why do I get the feeling you’re not telling me everything?’

Probably because Nicky sounded as guilty as hell, even though she didn’t really have anything to be guilty about. But heavens, now really wasn’t a good time for Gaby to have one of her flashes of insight, because she was, after all, Rafael’s sister, and, while Nicky didn’t have any siblings so she didn’t know for sure, she doubted Gaby would feel comfortable knowing exactly what had gone on by the pool any more than she would be discussing it.

‘Nicky?’

She stifled a sigh and ran a hand through her hair. ‘I can’t imagine,’ she said and cringed because it would have been hard to sound less convincing.

‘Could it be because you’re being uncharacteristically evasive?’

Nicky could virtually see her friend’s antennae quivering, and pinched the bridge of her nose. ‘I’m not being evasive,’ she said. Evasively.

Gaby sucked in a breath and then said in a steely voice that Nicky had never heard before, ‘What did he do?’

Nicky felt herself go bright red and thanked God Gaby wasn’t around to see it. ‘Nothing.’

‘Rubbish. I know my brother. Did he make a pass at you or something?’

She wriggled in her chair and thought that however uncomfortable it made either of them, she’d have to come clean because one thing she’d discovered about her neighbour was that she might be all about balance and peace and chakras but she could be ruthlessly relentless in her pursuit of the truth when the mood took her.

‘It was just a kiss,’ she said lightly. ‘That’s all. Rafael kissed me, we had a—ah—little chat about it, and then at some point between then and now he must have gone.’

Long seconds of silence ticked by. So many of them, in fact, that Nicky wondered if they’d been cut off. ‘Gaby? Are you still there?’

‘I’m here.’

‘Did you hear what I said?’

‘I did.’

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