Rafe’s gaze narrowed as he saw her purely instinctive response to the move, his hand dropping slowly back to his side. He wondered just what Cairo’s eight-year marriage to Lionel Bond had been like to have caused her to flinch in that way at the merest hint of physical contact.
Unless it was just him that she didn’t want to touch her…?
It was a definite possibility, Rafe acknowledged grimly. The last time he and Cairo had spoken together she had left him in absolutely no doubt that, although she had enjoyed their relationship while it had lasted, she now had other plans for her life that most certainly did not include him.
Cairo had taken Hollywood by storm when she’d moved there with her movie-producer husband eight years ago, but even so, she and Rafe had never met again until now. Cairo was a member of the partying set that Rafe avoided at all costs.
Rafe stood unmoving now, his gaze steadily holding Cairo’s more wary one as he noted other changes in her beside that ethereal slenderness.
Her eyes, those chocolate-brown orbs that could melt a man’s soul, were guarded now rather than glowing as they used to do.
There were dark shadows beneath those eyes, too, as if she hadn’t slept well for some time. And there were small delicate lines on either side of the fullness of her mouth, as if a smile had been grimly set there far too often and for far too long as a shield to the inner unhappiness she had no intention of allowing anyone to see or even guess at.
A veneer that had been totally exploded when Cairo had first separated from, and then divorced, her very powerful husband.
On the surface, their marriage had seemed idyllic. A myth that Rafe, along with everyone else who had ever seen or read anything about the couple, had totally believed in until their separation ten months ago….
‘Let’s all just go for that swim, hmm, Cairo, and talk about this later?’ he encouraged softly now.
Cairo stepped away from him. ‘You’re many things, Rafe, but I never thought stupid as being one of them—’ She broke off with a frown as Rafe gave her a derisive smile. ‘You find something about this situation amusing?’ she bit out irritably.
Yes, Cairo was definitely still in possession of that fiery temperament that had once attracted him so strongly and that made her so electrifying to watch on the big screen.
‘Only the way you keep insisting that I have to leave.’ He shrugged. ‘Even if I could manage to find an available hotel room in the middle of the Cannes Film Festival, I wouldn’t,’ he admitted.
‘Why wouldn’t you?’
‘Firstly, because I much prefer the peace and quiet to be found here—’
‘I agree—it was quiet and very peaceful!’ Cairo gave him a pointed glare, letting him know clearly that he was the reason that was no longer the case. ‘Rafe, you must know I have absolutely no intention of letting you stay on here.’
‘Ah.’
‘What do you mean, “ah”?’ she prompted warily.
‘The thing is, Cairo, that brings me to the second reason I have no intention of leaving, either now or in the immediate future,’ he told her firmly.
‘Which is…?’ she challenged.
Rafe couldn’t help laughing out loud. ‘That I’m not the guest here, Cairo—you are. This is my villa,’ he added dryly when she continued to look at him blankly.
Cairo stared at Rafe unblinkingly.
Rafe was the ‘friend’ who let Margo and Jeff stay at his villa in the South of France every year?
CHAPTER TWO
NO ONE looking at Cairo’s calm expression, as she relaxed in her bikini on a lounger beside the pool, would ever have guessed at the emotions seething inside her.
Except Rafe, of course.
The cause of those seething emotions!
But he was apparently too busy playing with Daisy, in the pool he had dived into immediately after announcing he owned the villa, to even seem aware of Cairo’s presence there, too. Other than physically dragging him out of the pool—which, considering Rafe weighed twice as much as she did, was a non-starter—and demanding he leave, Cairo had little choice but to join the two of them down on the lower terrace.
Dark glasses shielded her eyes from prying eyes, as well as the glare of the sun as she contemplated her options.
Rafe owned this villa in the South of France.
A little fact that Margo had apparently forgotten to mention for the last eight years, seven of which she and Jeff had been coming to stay here for a couple of weeks every spring!
Or perhaps Margo had simply felt it more diplomatic not to mention that the villa belonged to Rafe….
Cairo had absolutely refused to discuss, with anyone, the reason for the end of her relationship with Rafe Montero. In fact, not only had she refused to talk about him, she had also forbidden Margo to talk to her about him, too. Which would, admittedly, have made it extremely difficult for Margo to tell Cairo that she and Jeff had remained friends with him all these years!
However, there was no way she could stay on here now that she knew Rafe owned the villa, so that meant Cairo had two options.
She could either return to England and the publicity, which, although it was nowhere near as unrelenting as it had been in the States, still dogged Cairo’s steps every time she so much as stepped out of the apartment she had bought in London and moved into six months ago.
Or alternatively she could find somewhere else for herself and Daisy to stay in this beautiful area of France.
The latter option was the obvious one, of course. For one thing, Daisy was sure to be very disappointed if they had to cut their holiday short. For another, Cairo really didn’t want to return to England yet, seeing as she had actually been enjoying this first proper holiday she had taken in years.
Dammit, why had Rafe Montero had to turn up and disturb their tranquillity in this way?
Also, having turned up, and discovered Cairo here instead of Margo and Jeff, what was he still doing here? He had to know how awkward this situation was for her. He also had to know that the two of them couldn’t remain here alone—apart from Daisy—together!
He just didn’t give a damn.
But then, he never had….
Cairo looked across at him from behind her sunglasses, watching the droplets of water glistening on his face and shoulders as he stood up in the deep end of the pool playing a ball game with Daisy, his dark hair wet now and slicked back from his face as he grinned mischievously at the little girl. That ruggedly handsome face had once made Cairo’s heartbeat quicken just to look at it…
She turned sharply away, her hands clenching at her sides as she fought back those painful memories.
Here and now was what mattered.
But here and now Cairo felt completely at a loss to know what to do next. Rafe, on the basis that this villa was actually his, was quite rightly refusing to leave, but the logistics of finding another villa for Daisy and herself to move into seemed overwhelming to Cairo.
And this indecisiveness was Rafe’s fault, too!
Because Cairo had allowed herself to relax during the last twenty-four hours, to just let herself be, to exist, to let herself revel in the fact that, after years of making films back to back, she had no pressing work pressures for the next two weeks, when she was due to begin rehearsals for the lead in the London play she had agreed to appear in.
Now Rafe, with his unwanted presence here, was forcing her into once again making decisions, when it was the last thing she felt like doing.
She desperately blinked