LITMIR.BIZ

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of a week or two in Spain. It spoke of months of exposure to the sun.

      ‘Sit in my car and I’ll have a word with him, then I’ll drive you back.’

      Bianca was so shaken by what had happened that she didn’t argue, although in other circumstances she might have done. She was too independent and used to running her own life and taking care of herself and her children to enjoy being ordered around by some strange man. But tonight she was quite relieved to be able to let him take charge; she let him lead her to his car and slide her into the front passenger seat.

      He left the door open, but instead of going straight into the bar he went round to the back of his car and was back a moment later with a warm woollen tartan car rug which he gently wrapped around her.

      ‘It gets quite cold at night at this time of year,’ he said as she looked up, startled, her blue eyes wide, the pupils dilated as she felt his hands moving over her. ‘And you’re probably still in shock. Just sit here and rest. It will only take me a minute to find Ramón and explain.’

      He closed the car door and she watched him walk rapidly over to the bar; the light from it spilled out around him as he opened the door and went in, his black hair gleaming and his face in sharp profile, his nose long and straight, his mouth a ruthless slash, his jawline determined.

      Not a man you would want to argue with, and few people probably ever dared—which accounted for his cool assumption that she would obey him.

      That could get annoying! she thought wryly, her mouth twisting. If she weren’t feeling so weak at the knees just now she would probably have resented being ordered around like that.

      Or did she start feeling weak-kneed the minute she saw him get out of this car?

      The idea made her tense and hurriedly shut her eyes as if that would make it easy to forget what she had just thought. It didn’t, of course. She couldn’t ignore the truth. Closer, and fully dressed, he was even more devastating than he had seemed at a distance, almost naked. She couldn’t understand why he was having such an intense effect on her. When he’d wrapped this rug around her his hands had touched her and she had felt her body throb with sensations she was afraid to remember. Her face ran with hot colour, her mouth went dry.

      With a pang she thought of Rob, and felt an instant stab of guilt. It was shameful to be feeling this way about some other man, a stranger she had only seen for the first time today. What’s the matter with you? she asked herself. You have been on your own now for three years and you’ve met plenty of men during that time, some of them pretty good-looking—what’s so different about this one? You’re acting like a teenager with a first crush.

      I wish I were a teenager! she thought. Well, maybe not a teenager—but I wish I were twenty again. I don’t want to be forty.

      Was that what it was all about? Was she desperately looking for some way to stop time? To go back to her youth?

      She pulled the rug closer, glad of the warmth. She was still shivering, her skin icy and her body weak with shock.

      Her birthday had been a watershed, she realised. It had made her think about the way time was passingseemed, in fact, to be accelerating. She hadn’t noticed the fact until her birthday. She had been too busy looking after her children, learning to run the shop, coping with grief and loneliness. When she had thought about time it was only to remember lost happiness—it had always seemed as if only yesterday she had been twenty years old and falling in love with Rob, walking on air, looking forward to marrying him, starting a family, believing blissfully that they had an eternity together in front of them. She gave a long sigh which wrenched her body. That was the best time of my life. I wish I could have it back again, she thought.

      But you could never have time back. It flowed, like a river, in one direction, on and on without stopping, and you could never swim back upstream. You had to go on with the river.

      She heard a sound and opened her eyes again to see the door of the bar opening. He was coming back.

      He walked quickly, long-legged, easy-moving, the night wind making his black hair blow back from his forehead, making his shirt ripple against him in a way that made the planes of his upper body very visible.

      She stared at the wide, muscled shoulders, the ribs and flat stomach of a man in the peak of condition, swallowing, aware of her pulses going crazy. She had never met a man who had this effect on her; it was really beginning to spook her.

      He opened the door and got back into the car and she was immediately tense, wildly conscious of his closeness, of the proximity of their bodies in that small, enclosed space, of the faint scent of his aftershave, his long legs stretching out beside her own. Sensual pleasure went through her in waves, making her mouth dry, her skin hot, her ears beating with hypertension.

      ‘I found Ramón and explained,’ he said, starting the car and glancing at her at the same time. ‘He was horrified when I told him what had happened. He wanted to come out to make sure you were OK, but I told him I’d look after you.’ The car began to move slowly as he added drily, ‘He also tells me he had given the usual warning about never leaving the party and going off on your own.’

      Flushing, she admitted it. ‘Yes, he did, but.’

      ‘But you didn’t think it could happen to you?’ His tone was sardonic and she felt her skin prickle with resentment. He obviously thought she was stupid, a silly woman with no common sense.

      ‘It was very hot and crowded in the bar and I needed some fresh air; I didn’t think it would be dangerous just to step outside; I didn’t mean to go anywhere else. But I noticed a dress in a shop window so I went over to look at it and—’

      She broke off, swallowing as she remembered the moment of panic as she’d faced the knife. She had been stupid; she couldn’t deny it. His cool censure was justified. She had no excuse for her folly. She had been warned, and had taken the warning lightly. ‘It happened so fast, there was no warning,’ she whispered.

      ‘There never is; they don’t give their victims a warning; they’re ruthless and vicious,’ he said drily. ‘You were lucky it didn’t end in tragedy—he might have used that knife and you could be on your way to hospital now, or a slab in the morgue.’

      She shivered and stared out of the window. He was right. She had had a narrow escape. What would have happened to her children if she had been killed tonight?

      As he drove through one of the squares, she stared at a large stone fountain, the spray of water shooting out of a nymph’s hands, glittering in the lamplight, rainbowcoloured. A group of young people in jeans and T-shirts ran out of a narrow, winding street and danced across the square, laughing and singing under the barebranched, pollarded lime trees.

      The car drove on along another road, between white houses, their window-boxes filled with little pink flowers, their shutters closed over the windows behind which, no doubt, people were eating—in Spain they ate dinner very late, often at nine or ten o’clock at night.

      A few moments later he drove out of town and headed down the motorway which ran along the Costa del Sol from Malaga to the border, with golf courses and new villa estates on their left, the sea on their right, a distant gleam of silvery water under the moon.

      She sighed. ‘It’s so lovely here, it’s hard to believe anything violent could happen.’

      ‘Well, it could,’ he said impatiently. ‘Just remember—it could happen anywhere, any time. We live in a violent world—whether we live in London, New York, Spain or anywhere else—it’s wise to be careful, wherever we are.’ He shot her another look. ‘You’re here for two weeks, aren’t you?’

      Her blue eyes widened. ‘Yes—how did you know that?’

      ‘I run the hotel, Mrs Fraser. It’s my job to know who is in each apartment. We pride ourselves on our security—some very rich and famous people stay with us and they expect us to keep a close eye on who comes and goes in the hotel. I’m sure you’ve noticed our security men patrolling the grounds?’

      Still

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