LITMIR.BIZ

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has your day been?’

      Rafael rubbed the back of his neck, let out what sounded like a deeply exasperated sigh and sat back. ‘Fruitful.’

      ‘In the literal or metaphorical sense?’

      ‘Both.’

      ‘How come?’

      ‘I spent the whole day with my estate manager discussing plans for an early harvest.’

      ‘I imagine you must have had a lot to catch up on.’

      Rafael arched a quizzical eyebrow. ‘Why would you imagine that?’

      ‘Gaby said you haven’t been here for months.’

      ‘I haven’t.’

      ‘Why not?’ It seemed a shame when the place was a little slice of heaven on earth.

      ‘I’ve been busy with work.’

      ‘And now you’re less busy?’

      ‘For the moment.’

      ‘So you’re on holiday too?’

      The minute the words were out of her mouth Nicky wished she hadn’t brought up the subject of holidays, because as Rafael fixed her with that startling green gaze of his and leaned forwards she had the feeling that she might be about to regret it.

      ‘I suppose I am,’ he said. ‘And talking of holidays...’ He paused and she automatically tensed because judging by the probingly intense way he was looking at her there was no ‘might’ about it. ‘Tell me more about yours.’

      ‘What about it?’ she asked and inwardly winced at her faintly prickly tone.

      ‘You’re here by yourself.’

      ‘Evidently.’

      ‘And indefinitely.’

      ‘Is that so surprising?’ Her fingers tightened around the stem of her wine glass as she wondered where he was planning to go with this.

      He tilted his head and regarded her for a second. ‘I suppose not, but don’t you have work to get back to?’

      She forced herself to relax before her defensive air piqued his evident interest in the reasons for her ‘holiday’ even more. ‘Not right now,’ she said, deliberately breezily. ‘I’m freelance.’

      ‘In what field?’

      ‘I’m a photojournalist.’

      ‘What do you specialise in?’

      Not a lot at the moment, she thought darkly, and decided to focus on the Nicky of a year ago rather than the wreck she was at the moment. ‘Human interest stuff mainly. Droughts. Conflict. Public protests. That kind of thing.’

      ‘It sounds dangerous.’

      Nicky shuddered as the incident that had sparked off the traumatic chain of events that had led her here flashed through her head. ‘It can be. On occasion.’

      ‘So why do you do it?’

      Wasn’t that the million dollar question? ‘Because I love it,’ she said, channelling her old self and dredging up the motivation and beliefs she’d started out with. ‘I love the idea of capturing a split second in time for ever. The look on a face, the mood of a crowd...’ She stifled another shudder. ‘I know it’s a cliché but I really do believe that a picture is worth a thousand words. I also believe in the justice of it, in showing people the truth and the story behind the headlines.’

      Or at least she had done. Now, though, she wasn’t sure what she loved about her work or what she believed in. ‘Plus I’m good at it,’ she added, because it was high time she started thinking positively.

      ‘I’m sure you are,’ he said, breaking eye contact to take a prawn of his own and toss it into his mouth. ‘How did you get into it?’

      Released from that probing gaze, Nicky felt as if she’d been holding her breath and had just remembered to let it out. ‘I entered a picture in a competition when I was ten and won,’ she said, giving herself a quick shake to dispel the light-headedness.

      ‘Impressive.’

      ‘I was addicted. I entered a lot of photos to a lot of competitions.’

      ‘And what did you win?’

      ‘A then state-of-the-art SLR.’

      ‘And it all went from there?’

      She nodded. ‘That camera became my most treasured possession.’ A snapshot of her young self with the camera inevitably hanging round her neck flashed into her head and a wave of nostalgia rose up inside her. ‘I took it everywhere with me. I’d spend hours just sitting and watching the light and even longer making pretty much everyone I came across pose for me. I must have irritated the hell out of them... Anyway,’ she said, dragging herself out of the past and back to the present, ‘eventually I went to journalism college, got a couple of assignments and things kind of took off after that.’

      ‘That simple?’

      She shook her head. ‘No. Actually it took years and it was incredibly hard work.’

      ‘It sounds fascinating.’

      She sat back and lifted her eyebrows. ‘Does it?’ For her the fascination had worn off a while ago.

      ‘To a mere businessman like me it does.’

      Nicky’s eyes widened and her jaw dropped at the understatement. ‘A mere businessman? You?’

      Rafael raised his eyebrows and lifted his glass of wine to his mouth. ‘What’s wrong with that?’

      ‘Nothing. But from what I’ve heard there’s nothing “mere” about you at all.’

      He went still, his glass hovering an inch below his lips and his eyes fixed on her with a disconcerting intensity. ‘Why? What have you heard?’

      Heavens, what hadn’t she heard? Beneath the full force of his unwavering gaze Nicky fought the urge to squirm—and where had that come from anyway?—and considered what she’d learned about him. Given that she and Gaby had been neighbours for two years, and close friends for the last one of those, she’d learned plenty.

      She’d heard that Rafael was some kind of corporate troubleshooter and that he was brilliant at everything, whether it was business, languages or women. She’d learned that he was thirty-two, a control-freak workaholic who didn’t know when to stop, and that he’d had a brief but disastrous marriage. She’d also discovered that, despite his apparently innate talent for identifying and fixing problems, much to Gaby’s and her sisters’ frustration, he channelled this talent into his business, and steered well clear of entangling himself in any trouble that might involve his siblings.

      Not that she’d be spilling all that out, of course. If anyone revealed that they knew so much about her she’d have had them arrested on the grounds of an invasion of privacy. ‘Oh, this and that,’ she said vaguely, aware that he was waiting for an answer.

      ‘So you and Gaby haven’t been discussing me?’

      He looked so unexpectedly and endearingly put out by the idea that Nicky found herself in the unusual position of grinning. ‘Well, you may have come up once or twice in conversation.’

      He grimaced. ‘I don’t know whether to be flattered or worried.’

      ‘You should be flattered.’

      The grimace eased. ‘Why? What did she say?’

      ‘That you’re a corporate troubleshooter and you like solving problems,’ she said, deciding that if she condensed the facts it wouldn’t sound too stalkerish, and actually feeling relieved to be talking about him rather than herself. ‘That you’re very driven and that your successes are stellar, both with work and with women.’ She paused and then

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