‘You’re inexperienced, Cristina. You’re also of a trusting nature. It’s a lethal combination.’
‘I’m not a complete idiot, Rafael.’
‘No, you’re not an idiot, and I’m not trying to tell you what to do. F’m just giving you a bit of friendly advice.’
‘I don’t need your friendly advice!’
Looking at her, Rafael thought differently. The woman was an accident waiting to happen. Even dressed as she was, in that relentlessly unflattering outfit, she still had curves and a figure that a man could want. And something about her face was softly feminine, with those wide, dark eyes and long lashes and a mouth that promised satisfaction. Of course, she had no idea, wrapped up as she was in comparisons to those sisters of hers, comparisons that were cemented in childhood. He wasn’t getting through to her, and meeting number one had already been missed. He looked at his watch, and before he could say anything Cristina sprang to her feet, suddenly aware of the passing of time and the fact that there was still an awful lot to do with the delivery of flowers before the shop opened at ten. She also had a relatively large order to dispatch to a hotel for a conference room, and it was a commission which she couldn’t possibly ruin because from that could come any number of future orders.
‘I have to go,’ she said breathlessly.
Rafael, who had been about to say precisely the same thing, wasn’t sure that he liked being dismissed. Nor did he care for her heartfelt apology for rushing off because she had some work to do. Wasn’t that his prerogative?
‘We haven’t finished our conversation,’ he grated, following her to the door and then along the pavement as she walked briskly back in the direction of her shop.
She turned and flashed him one of those smiles of hers, this time regretful.
‘I know, but I didn’t like the way the conversation was going anyway.’
‘You didn’t like the way the conversation was going anyway?’ Talking to this woman was like taking a magical mystery tour. Rafael had no idea what she would say next and he was beginning to think that, whatever it was, it would be unexpected and not in a pleasant way. Accustomed as he was to women responding to him as a man, Cristina’s bluntness was a shock to his system.
‘You were practically accusing me of being incompetent in my dealings with other people,’ she explained, glancing across at him and feeling that shiver of awareness. ‘I know you probably mean well,’ she carried on, ‘But it’s actually a little insulting.’
‘Insulting? Insulting? Run that by me, because I don’t see how I’m insulting you by trying to be helpful! You seem to have forgotten that you were the one who insulted me by implying that I don’t treat women well!’ He was beginning to feel a little hot under the collar.
‘I’m not a simpleton, and if you’d listened to me you’d realise that you’d got it all wrong.’
‘Got what all wrong?’ He wondered if she was about to try and convince him that, with her wealth of inexperience, she knew more than he did about the predatory nature of some men. God save him from ever trying to do a good deed!
‘I haven’t been putting ads in a newspaper for a blind date!
No one does that these days anyway! At least, not very many. These days people who want to find someone use the Internet!’
‘I wouldn’t know.’
‘I put an ad in the newspaper because I wanted to find out whether there were any opportunities for me to coach a women’s football side. Martin replied. He coaches for one of the schools in the area and he thought it might encourage more of the girls to get involved if they had a female coach!’
Rafael grimaced. ‘You should have said that from the start,’ he admonished.
‘You didn’t give me the chance!’
They had reached the shop and she turned to him with a little sigh. ‘I guess you probably feel some kind of duty towards me because of the connection with our parents,’ she said kindly, even though being considered a duty to someone else left a very nasty aftertaste in her mouth. ‘But you see, there’s no need. I would never, ever try and find my soulmate through a newspaper advertisement!’
‘So are you telling me that you’ve now got a second job working at some school somewhere?’ He wondered if she knew how dangerous some schools could be, and immediately reminded himself that she really wasn’t his responsibility.
‘Not a job, no.’ She pushed open the shop door and Rafael followed her in. The delivery of flowers had been sorted out and the shelves were stacked with an extraordinary array of plants, exotic blooms that filled the air with a lush, heavy scent.
Cristina looked at him. ‘I’ve volunteered to coach a couple of classes after school. First one on Tuesday. Martin’s not sure what the turnout is going to be, but he’s keen to make this work.’
‘Where’s the school?’
She smiled at him, a sunny smile that lit up her face. ‘It’s pretty close to here, so I can leave the shop with Anthea and get to the school by five. I’m looking forward to it. I need the exercise, at any rate!’
‘Impossible to tell under those layers of clothing.’
She felt his eyes burning through her and the safe, light-hearted change of topic left her feeling heady. ‘And you probably need to get back to work,’ she reminded him.
‘Right.’
He left the scent of flowers, but his mind refused to be reined in by the clinical sanctuary of his plush office. His meetings all went according to plan, but he was distracted and he could feel his PA dithering around him, aware that something was out of kilter.
None of this was going to do. Categorising was his speciality. Women belonged in one category and his work belonged in another, and they never, but never, overlapped. He certainly never found himself staring through his window while his BlackBerry lay on his desk, reminding him that he was contactable twenty-four hours a day without reprieve.
The woman was a liability.
He buzzed through to summon his secretary and on the spur of the moment asked her what his movements were for the next day.
As expected, wall-to-wall meetings, culminating in a mind-deadening event at one of the art galleries. He was surrounded by phenomenally expensive works of art and yet had never actually made it to any of the galleries in the city.
‘Cancel everything after four o’clock,’ he instructed her. ‘I’II keep the art gallery appointment. Some useful people are going to be there.’ He had to repeat the request before the blank, incomprehending expression on her face was replaced by her usual efficient one.
But it felt better knowing that he was going to tackle the thorny situation of Cristina and her meeting with a perfect stranger at a strange school. She might be clueless, but he had sufficient savvy for two. Once he had put his mind to rest that everything was as it should be, he would be able to focus instead of having her niggling away at the back of his mind.
And his mother would be pleased. In fact, he was feeling quite pleased with himself later that evening as he poured himself a whisky on the rocks and switched on his home computer, which interfaced with the one at his office, enabling him to take up where he had left off without any glitches.
He might be an unreliable catch when it came to women, he thought, remembering her accusations earlier on—but never let it be said that he was the sort of man who would not do what he could to protect a member of the opposite sex, even if was from herself.
Having established a pleasing moral high ground, he was finally able to devote his usual one-hundred-and-ten-percent to the work at hand, switching off the computer just after it had turned midnight.