‘I guess you did.’ She nodded.
Rafe scowled. ‘Were you always this—opinionated?’
‘Probably not,’ she conceded softly. ‘I guess time changes all of us. And not always for the better.’ She shrugged.
Cairo knew she had changed over the last eight years, that her life with Lionel had brought about subtle if not major differences in her. For instance, she no longer trusted even affection, let alone rakishly attractive men like Rafe Montero!
Rafe gave Cairo several sideways glances as he drove them down into the village, Daisy exclaiming in the back of the car as she pointed out several of her favourite haunts from previous holidays taken here.
At one time, Cairo would have been almost as happy as Daisy was by a trip to the shops and then into town for lunch. But not now, Rafe realized. It wasn’t so much that she had grown cynical as that her emotions were hidden away behind a wall of indifference that seemed almost impenetrable.
Or perhaps she was just bored, Rafe conceded ruefully. After all, this holiday with a six-year-old was probably a bit tame for her after the exotic life she’d led in Hollywood with Lionel Bond.
The sort of life Rafe avoided for the main part.
Oh, he couldn’t escape attending some of the parties or award ceremonies—like the one in Cannes this week. But given a choice Rafe preferred to be at his house on the beach, well away from the falseness and artificiality of the majority of the social scene in Hollywood itself.
But it was a life that Cairo, photographed at numerous glitzy parties over the years, had obviously thoroughly enjoyed.
‘How about we go to St Moritz for lunch instead of Grasse?’ he suggested once they had finished shopping in the local supermarket and were waiting beside the car for Daisy to come back from returning the trolley.
‘St Moritz?’ Cairo echoed guardedly.
He nodded. ‘We can either drive down the coast or get a boat across from—’
‘I know how to get there, Rafe, I’ve been there before,’ she cut in before shaking her head. ‘I just don’t see the appeal for a six-year-old girl.’
Of course she had been there before, Rafe acknowledged self-derisively. No doubt Cairo had been to all the fashionable in-places during her marriage, which meant she probably wouldn’t be interested in a trip to the sophistication of Monte Carlo, either, which was down the coast from Cannes in the opposite direction from St Mortiz.
So much for Rafe’s decision to try to make up for being so awful to her earlier on today.
‘I just thought a twenty-eight-year-old woman might be missing the shops on Rodeo Drive!’ he drawled.
Delicate colour warmed Cairo’s cheeks at the deliberate taunt. Shortly after her arrival in Los Angeles Lionel had opened accounts for her in all the exclusive stores on Rodeo Drive, and Cairo had to admit that for the first few months of their marriage it had been fun to go into any of those shops and buy anything that caught her eye.
But the novelty of shopping, like the gloss of her already failing marriage, had soon worn off, and she had been relieved to get back to work.
‘I don’t miss anything about my life in Los Angeles,’ she told Rafe flatly.
‘Nothing?’ he scorned.
‘Absolutely nothing,’ she echoed coldly.
‘I find that very hard to believe,’ he commented. ‘I seem to recall that never a week went by when your photograph didn’t appear in the newspapers or some glossy magazine as one of the “beautiful people” attending some party or premiere.’
‘Which I hated,’ Cairo told him stiffly. ‘It was Lionel’s way of life, not mine,’ she added as Rafe raised sceptical brows.
‘No?’
‘No— What is it?’ she asked as she saw Rafe’s attention had become distracted by something, or someone, across the car park.
She turned to follow his line of vision, but there was only a man unlocking and getting into his car, one of the ubiquitous long loaves of freshly baked bread under his arm.
‘Rafe …?’ she prompted with a frown as she turned back to him.
He shook his head. ‘Sorry, what were we talking about?’
Nothing of any importance, Cairo acknowledged heavily, knowing that Rafe had no reason to believe her claim that she hadn’t enjoyed the glamorous Hollywood party circuit. And why should it matter to her anyway? Except that it did….
‘Nothing important.’ Cairo gave him another searching look before turning away to smile at Daisy as she returned and got into the back of the car. ‘Do up your seat belt, poppet.’ Her voice warmed affectionately as she slid into the passenger seat.
Rafe remained distracted as he drove back to the villa, occasionally checking in his driving-mirror for that blue car and its driver.
He didn’t see it, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there….
He had first noticed the car behind them on the drive from the villa to the supermarket, had taken note of the fact that it had followed them into the car park, but had dismissed the coincidence when the driver got out to go to the stall in front of the supermarket where the fresh bread was being sold.
But they had been in the supermarket for at least half an hour, and the man had still been hanging about when they had come out again, supposedly reading a newspaper, although he had sauntered across to his car while they were loading their shopping in the boot.
He was becoming paranoid, Rafe decided as he turned up the lane to the villa and the little blue car was still nowhere in sight.
Paranoid or just hypersensitive after unexpectedly meeting up with Cairo again after years of avoiding her. She was right when she pointed out he hadn’t lived like a monk the last eight years, and those years had fooled him into believing himself well over her. But since he had kissed and caressed her yesterday afternoon in the kitchen he knew that he wasn’t over her at all.
There was no doubt Cairo was different now, sleekly so, her clothes all designer-label, everything about her more sophisticated and self-assured than the bright-eyed twenty-year old he had met while filming on the Isle of Man.
But he would be lying if he claimed that the attraction, that fierce ache to make love with her, wasn’t still burning beneath their thin veneer of civility.
Extremely dangerous.
And it was a danger Rafe needed to get away from, if only for a few hours!
‘For obvious reasons I have to go down into Cannes this evening,’ he told Cairo as the two of them put the shopping away while Daisy collected her swimming things from her bedroom.
‘Fine,’ Cairo accepted without interest as she continued to put cereals away in a cupboard.
‘You and Daisy can come with me if you like?’ Rafe heard himself offer—in complete contradiction to his thoughts of a few minutes ago …
His only excuse was that Cairo’s complete lack of interest in his plans for this evening had annoyed the hell out of him!
Cairo stiffened before slowly turning to face Rafe. ‘Why on earth would I want to do that?’ she prompted incredulously while inwardly shying away from the thought of going anywhere near all that glitzy artificiality again after she had so enjoyed avoiding it the last ten months.
As Rafe had pointed out earlier, she had attended numerous award ceremonies with Lionel over the years, both as an actress in her own right and as Lionel’s wife, had even been nominated for and won an Oscar herself three years ago.
Which meant Cairo knew exactly what the party in Cannes this evening would be like, everyone really there to see and be seen rather than to actually