‘Or your sense of timing is lousy,’ he suggested sardonically.
Maybe he was right. Maybe it hadn’t been the most diplomatic observation to make when they were in effect walking alongside a whole pack of lies. She released a sigh; he acknowledged it by giving her arm a gentle squeeze that could have been sympathising with that weary little sigh. And, because it felt right to do it, she slipped her hand around his lean waist—and leaned just that bit more intimately into him.
As the automatic exit doors slid open for them, a small commotion just behind them made them pause and glance back to see a group of dark-eyed, dark-sui
ted Spaniards heading towards the doors with a pack of photographers on their trail. It was only as the group drew level with them that Eve realised the men were clustered around an exquisite looking creature with black hair, dark eyes and full-blooded passion-red mouth.
‘Miss Cordero, look this way,’ the chasing pack were pleading. Camera bulbs flashed. Miss Cordero kept her eyes fixed directly ahead as her entourage herded her towards the exit doors Eve and Ethan had conveniently opened for them. As they swept by, someone called out to Miss Cordero. ‘Is it true that you spent the night in Port Said with your lover, Sheikh Rafiq?’
Eve felt Ethan stiffen. Glancing up at his face she saw a frown was pulling the edges of his brows across the bridge of his nose. ‘What?’ she demanded. ‘Who is she?’
‘Serena Cordero, the dancer,’ he replied.
Eve recognised the name now. Serena Cordero was the unchallenged queen of classical flamenco. Her recent world tour had brought on a rash of Spanish dance fever, causing schools dedicated to the art to open up all over the place. It wasn’t just classical dance she performed with sizzling mastery. Her gypsy fire dance could put an auditorium full of men into a mass passion meltdown.
None of which explained why Ethan was standing block-still with a frown on his face, she mused curiously. Unless…‘Do you know her?’ she asked him, already feeling the sting of jealousy hit her bloodstream at the idea that Ethan might know what it was like to have the exotic Serena dance all over him!
But he gave a shake of his dark head. ‘I only know of her,’ he said, making the chilly distinction.
‘Then why the frown?’
‘What frown?’
He looked down at her. Eve looked up at him. The now familiar sting of awareness leapt up between the two of them. ‘That frown,’ she murmured, touching a slender long finger to the bridge of his nose where his eyebrows dipped and met. It was too irresistible not to trail that fingertip down the length of his thin nose. Her hand was caught, gently crushed into his larger hand and removed.
The question itself was no longer relevant: Serena Cordero had suddenly ceased to exist. Mutual desire was back, hot and tight and stifling the life out of everything else.
‘Let’s go,’ Ethan murmured, striving to contain it.
He wanted her, she wanted him. It was going to happen some time, Eve was sure of it. ‘Okay,’ she said.
Attention returned to the exit doors, they stepped outside into the afternoon heat. Coming here from the Caribbean should have meant they were acclimatised to it by now. But the Spanish heat was so dry it scorched the skin, whereas the Caribbean heat was softened by high humidity and cooled slightly by trade winds coming off the sea.
The Cordero entourage had disappeared already. There was a chauffeur-driven car standing by the kerb waiting for them. Eve was glad to escape into the air-conditioned coolness of its rear seat. Having helped to stash their luggage in the car boot, Ethan joined her. The heat emanating from his body made her shiver, though she didn’t know why it did.
Two hours of this, she was thinking breathlessly, as they took off with the smoothness of luxury. The prospect brought back the aching tiredness, the tiredness thankfully dulled the aching pulse of desire. Settling back into soft leather, Eve had just reconciled herself to this final leg of their journey when, to her surprise, they hadn’t even left the airport perimeter before they were turning in through a pair of gates and drawing to a halt next to a gleaming white helicopter bearing the Petronades logo on its side.
‘What now?’ she asked curiously.
‘Our transport to San Estéban, courtesy of your cousin, Leandros,’ Ethan sardonically supplied. ‘Having been so instrumental in getting us both here, I thought it was time he helped make this final part a bit easier.’
Easier, truly said it. Their two-hour drive south was cut by two-thirds. As they skipped over the top of a lush green headland, Ethan said, ‘San Estéban.’
Glancing out of the window, Eve felt her heart stop beating in surprise. ‘Oh,’ she said, gasping in astonishment, unsure what it was that she had been expecting, but knew that it certainly wasn’t this.
Her gaze took in the modern example of a Moorish castle guarding the hill top, then it flicked down the hill to a beautiful deep-water harbour with its mosaic-paved promenade that linked it to the pretty white-washed town. In the quest to create something magical, that same Moorish style repeated itself in a clever blend of modern with ancient. Nothing clashed—nothing dared. It was no wonder that her grandfather had been so eager to have Hayes-Frayne apply their magic touch to his project, she realised. From up here she could see the same sense of vision that must have inspired her grandfather when Leandros had suggested he come out here and take a look for himself.
Turning her face she looked into Ethan’s grey eyes and saw a different man looking steadily back at her. The artist—the man with the vision that inspired others; the sensitive romantic who perhaps could fall in love with the unattainable, and maybe even go so far as to love because that person was out of his reach. It was a well-known fact that artists liked to suffer; it was a natural part of their persona to keep the creative juices flowing by desiring what could never be.
Was that part of her attraction? Eve then found herself wondering curiously. With her grandfather openly stating that Ethan was not what he wanted for his only grandchild, had Theron unwittingly lifted her to the same desirable heights as the very married Leona Al-Qadim?
His eyes were certainly desiring her, she noted, but, for the first time, she didn’t like what she could see. Don’t raise me up onto a pedestal, she wanted to warn him, because she had no intention of remaining there, safely out of reach.
The helicopter dropped them onto a helipad custom-built to service the Moorish castle which, she realised, was really a hotel set in exquisite grounds. A car was waiting to transport them along the hill top that surrounded the bay where exclusive villas lay hidden behind screens of mature shrubs and trees. Eventually they pulled in through wide arched gates into a mosaic courtyard belonging to one of those villas.
Ethan unlocked the front door while the driver of their car collected their luggage and stacked it neatly by the door. Ethan knew the man; they’d chatted in Spanish throughout the short journey and continued chatting until the driver got back into his car and drove way.
Almost instantly silence tumbled down around them as it had done once before when they’d found themselves suddenly on their own like this.