While Orla slumbered peacefully in his bed, Duarte sat on the balcony in the warm, still dark of the night, staring out into the distance, feeling anything but peaceful.
Dinner had turned out to be unexpectedly awkward. Conversation, for once, had flowed like concrete. And it was all because of that comment of hers about his seduction techniques.
It had stung, he thought, vaguely rubbing his chest. He didn’t know why. When applied to his exploits prior to his marriage, it was nothing less than the truth. He’d revelled in the chase and honed his skills to razor-sharp perfection. Yet there’d been no calculation in his decision to have delivered to his apartment all Orla’s favourite food tonight. No ulterior motive. They had to eat and it had simply seemed the easiest option. Besides, their affair was blazing. Seduction was unnecessary.
Perhaps, with hindsight, inviting her here had been a bad idea. At the time, he hadn’t even had to convince himself that he needed to keep her close so he could keep an eye on her. He’d acted purely on instinct. The last two weeks had been a heady rush of lazy conversation and endless pleasure. As he’d confessed by the river, he liked her, even more so now than he had done then. She was clever and perceptive, self-aware and quick to learn. She had a smile that he wanted to bottle so he could take it out whenever he needed a moment of sunshine, and he found her scent on his pillows so soothing that staying at the Casa didn’t bother him any more. Thanks to her original mistake it was unrecognisable anyway, and besides, the new memories they were creating there were doing an excellent job of erasing the old.
Missing even a second of that when she’d soon be gone for good had been deeply unappealing, and he hadn’t thought twice about issuing that invitation. But he should have, because it had been rash and reckless and smacked of a man with a shaky grip on his control.
What he’d been thinking over the last fortnight he had no idea. He didn’t need to know what made her tick. Her innermost thoughts and opinions were of no importance. She didn’t need to know anything about the city of his birth or the place where he lived. And God knew why he’d taken her on a tour of the vineyard the day before yesterday. It wasn’t as if he’d wanted her to be impressed by the changes and innovations he’d brought to the business, even though she had been.
He’d come to suspect that the stab to the chest he’d felt when she’d swum a width of his pool on her own had been one of pride. The way she’d handled the cabbage crisis had filled him with admiration, and none of that was necessary. It suggested emotional intimacy, and, unlike intimacy of the physical kind, that played no part in anything. He had no business taking it upon himself to make her see what she was missing out on, living her life the way she did. Instead of ordering all her favourite food last night they should have just eaten out. This was sex without strings and that was it.
But as long as he remembered that there was no need for concern, he told himself, ruthlessly silencing the little voice in his head trying to protest that it might have become more than that. Tonight had been a mistake and some of the things he’d said and done over the last couple of weeks had been dangerously unwise, but there was no point in overanalysing anything or attaching to it a greater significance than it warranted. What was done was done and regrets were pointless. The swimming lessons and conversation could stop easily enough. It was just a question of control.
Tomorrow he’d be in a meeting most of the morning, and when he was done he’d take Orla back to the Quinta. Once there, he’d spend the days they had left proving to her and himself exactly what this fling of theirs was. He’d keep his distance by day and make up for it by night, until she was gone, and everything would be fine.
***
The following morning Orla was taken on a private tour of Duarte’s port house, where she discovered a taste for dry white port and a fascination for the history of his family.
The original founder, Duarte’s ancestor, might have come from a humble background, but flushed with vinicultural success, he’d married into the local aristocracy, and ever since then the family’s wealth and connections had multiplied. Offspring attended the world’s finest schools and best universities, before generally taking up a position in the business.
Judging by the oil paintings that hung on the walls of a gallery built specifically for that purpose, Duarte’s looks had been passed down the generations along with his staggering personal wealth. And he’d definitely ended up with the best of them, she’d thought dreamily as she’d stood and stared at his portrait for so long someone had asked her if she’d wanted a seat.
In comparison, she felt rather inadequate and insignificant, so to counter that she visited the most beautiful book shop she’d ever seen, followed by a pasteleria famed for its custard tarts, and the exquisite perfection she’d found in each had made her feel a whole lot better.
At first, Orla had been relieved to be on her own. That awkward moment before dinner last night had been followed by some horribly stilted conversation and then some mind-blowing yet strangely soulless sex. This morning, just before Duarte had left for his meeting, she’d tried to apologise, although she wasn’t quite sure what she was apologising for, but he’d looked at her as if he hadn’t a clue what she was referring to before kissing her senseless and telling her his car was at her disposal. It was all baffling, not least the switch from soulless to smouldering, and because she felt as though she was suddenly on shaky ground she’d welcomed the breathing space his meeting gave her.
But by the time she arrived back at the airport, she was unexpectedly sorry he hadn’t been there to share the experiences with her. At the port house, she’d kept turning to ask him something about one ancestor of his or another, but of course he wasn’t there. In the Livraria Lello she’d come across a book about the history of seventeenth-century winemaking in south-west Spain and had wanted to know if he already had it and, if not, whether he might like it. She’d missed him, which was ridiculous when they’d only been apart for a handful of hours and the morning had started off rather oddly, but it was what it was.
She was also filled to the brim with a warm sort of glow that she just couldn’t seem to contain. For the best part of a decade she’d organised the lives of other people and, while she loved her job, when it came to things like marriage proposals on icebergs, she couldn’t help but feel the occasional pang of envy. This was the first time ever that someone had arranged something solely for her. From the moment they’d taken off yesterday evening she’d barely had to lift a finger. She’d been sublimely fed, luxuriously chauffeured around and, despite the odd uncomfortable moment, been taken care of most excellently. Duarte had made all that happen—for her—and as a result she felt ever so slightly giddy.
‘How was your meeting?’ she asked when he joined her in the private lounge at the airport, her heart banging against her ribs at the sight of him because the man in a beautifully cut charcoal-grey suit really was something else.
‘Productive,’ he said, shrugging off his jacket and rolling up his shirtsleeves with an efficiency that left her weak-kneed and breathless. ‘I signed a new contract to supply the biggest department store chain in the States.’
‘We should celebrate.’
His ebony gaze collided with hers, glittering with a sudden heat that stole the breath from her lungs, and everything fell away, the noise, the lights, the people, everything. ‘Hold that thought.’
She held that thought all the way back to the Quinta. She couldn’t have shaken it even if she’d wanted to. Forget the landscape. She’d admired it on the journey out. All she could admire now were his hands. His forearms. His profile, complete with the sexiest pair of sunglasses she’d ever seen on a man.
When not occupied with flying the helicopter, his hand was on her thigh, skin on skin, just high enough for her to wish it was higher, covering her where she needed him. She felt increasingly feverish, hot and trembling as if she were on fire. Her stomach was fluttering and her head was buzzing. The pressure in her chest matched in intensity the throbbing between her legs. She was burning up with wanting him and her heart felt too big for her chest. If she didn’t have him inside her soon she was going to explode.
The minute they’d touched down on the estate and Duarte had switched off the engine, Orla unclipped her seatbelt, her hands shaking. He took off his headset and unbuckled himself, but before he could jump out she launched herself across the gap and planted herself on his lap. She smothered his gasp of shock with her mouth and started kissing him with all the wild, unidentifiable tangle of emotions swirling about inside her, until he put his hands on her head and drew her back, his eyes blazing.
‘Stop.’
‘No,’ she breathed raggedly. She didn’t want to stop, ever.
‘We can’t do this.’
What? ‘We can.’
‘You’ll snap the lever.’
‘Who cares?’