Page 50 of One More Sleepless Night

‘You think?’ She held up her hand and ticked off her index finger. ‘Firstly there’s your marriage. Things started getting difficult and you buried yourself in your work.’

‘Don’t even begin to presume you know what went on in my marriage,’ he said icily calmly.

Nicky ignored his chilling fury. ‘I wouldn’t dream of it. But you even admitted that much, once you managed to get past your reluctance to talk about it in the first place. And then what about that time we met?’ She wiggled her middle finger.

‘What about it?’

‘Weren’t you escaping from the demands of two sisters, one mother and an ex-girlfriend?’

He gritted his teeth and his eyes flashed her a warning but she wasn’t about to stop now. ‘And then there was that kiss by the pool,’ she fired at him, giving up with the fingers altogether. ‘You might not have physically fled then, but emotionally you did, and you’re doing it again now. Going straight into denial and retreating, just because I’m being honest and you can’t deal with it. You look like you’re itching to escape and the only reason you’re not is because we’re in your car flying along at seventy kilometres an hour and you can’t.’ She gave him a withering look. ‘And you know something—while kind of understandable in a boy of eight, in a man of thirty-two it’s pathetic.’

Her words hung in the air, suspended between them, the seconds ticking heavily by before he said, ‘Yes, well, we can’t all be wild, adventurous risk-takers like you.’

She stared at him. ‘You see being honest and dealing with emotions as a risk?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘Then what about the rewards?’

‘In my experience there aren’t any.’

Ooh, she wanted to thump him. ‘If you truly think that, then that’s sad. Yes, I take risks—’ and none more so than the one she’d taken just now ‘—but they’re generally calculated ones. And even if one does go wrong—’ as this one seemed to be doing ‘—at least I tried. But what do you do? You hide.’

‘It’s called self-preservation.’

‘It’s called immaturity.’

Rafael flinched as if she’d struck him, but Nicky hadn’t finished. They might have arrived back at the cortijo and he might be yanking on the handbrake and reaching for the clip of his seat belt as if he couldn’t get away fast enough, but she matched him for speed. ‘You think you’re so good at solving problems and sorting out things for other people,’ she said, freeing herself and reaching for the door, ‘but what about you? Who sorts you out?’ She glared at him. ‘Right now the biggest problem here is you and your absurd refusal to even entertain the thought about how you might feel about me, and you’re not even bothering to try and fix it even though you could.’

‘There’s nothing to fix.’

‘There could be.’

‘There won’t be.’

He got out of the car and slammed the door shut, and it finally hit her that she’d never be able to get through to him. That he’d been hiding his emotions away for too long and too well. Nothing she could say or do would ever have any effect on him and Nicky had suddenly had enough.

‘Well, if that really is the case,’ she said, her voice shaking with anger, ‘then this time I’m the one walking away.’

*

Nicky was wrong, thought Rafael grimly as the slam of the front door reverberated throughout the cortijo, leaving nothing but an eerie silence and the echo of all those accusations.

Dead wrong. About everything.

As if he needed sorting out. As if he needed fixing. The idea was laughable. He didn’t need either. He was fine the way he was.

And if he did occasionally retreat, well, what was the problem with that? As he’d told her, it was simply a question of self-preservation, that was all. It worked for his father and it worked for him. He had it under control. It wasn’t an issue. And it wasn’t immaturity. And what would she know about it anyway? She didn’t have a vast family that constantly badgered her, did she?

And OK, he might have been a bit thrown by that conversation about Marina and all the memories it had tossed up, and he might possibly have got it wrong about her being dependent on him, but as for them being in love with each other, well, that was completely absurd.

He wasn’t in love with her and she wasn’t in love with him. She couldn’t be. They’d only known each other for a few weeks. It wasn’t possible.

So it was a good thing she’d gone, wasn’t it, because, God, all that emotion… It had been horrible…

Stifling a shudder, Rafael stalked into the drawing room and strode towards the drinks cabinet. He reached for the brandy and filled a glass and winced as all the things Nicky had said and the way she’d said them hit him all over again. He tossed his drink back in one and hoped the burning alcohol that hit his stomach would obliterate the memory of the last half an hour.

At least it was all over now, which was excellent because he didn’t need this kind of hassle in his life. He didn’t need this kind of upheaval. And he could certainly do without feeling like this.

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