The Spaniard's Revenge

Taking a deep breath, Sophie swallowed back the panic that threatened to choke her. She was here to work. She had to forget every one of her personal concerns and just get on with it. ‘How exhilarating,’ she managed evenly. ‘I shall never know what to expect from one night to the next.’

Xavier shot her a darkly amused stare. ‘You won’t be here that long,’ he promised.

‘Don’t count on it,’ Sophie murmured under her breath, glancing around.

‘My apologies,’ Xavier said as he watched her. ‘I don’t know what you were expecting, but this isn’t the Ritz. It’s just an old place I’m using until I get something else built.’

‘I think it’s all quite satisfactory, thank you,’ Sophie countered. ‘Apart from having to share with you, it’s exactly what I expected.’ She saw his lips kick up at one corner, and his eyes begin to gleam. ‘Bathroom?’ she demanded briskly, though her heart was still juddering.

‘Bathroom?’ The drawled exclamation was accompanied by another humour-laced stare. ‘Turn right outside the door, third bush down—’

‘OK, Xavier,’ Sophie said calmly. ‘I can see I’m not getting anywhere with you being polite. So, let’s both shoot from the hip. Don’t waste your breath. You don’t frighten me.’ But the feelings he awoke in her did, Sophie acknowledged, struggling to ignore them.

‘Good,’ he said mildly, throwing up his hands in mock-surrender.

‘So when do I get to meet the rest of the team?’ she said, adopting her professional manner.

‘Impatient, Sophie?’

‘Keen to get on with the job.’ And to be too busy to think about anything else.

‘The rest of the team are in place now,’ he said. ‘I’ve been flying backwards and forwards from Spain for some time now. All that’s left is for me to finish my tour here and check that everyone has everything they need.’

‘And I fit in, where?’

Xavier’s eyes hardened thoughtfully as he looked at her. If he had seen her name before she arrived she wouldn’t even have got this far. And he wasn’t about to tell her that the last position on his list, the position she thought she was filling, was for his second in command—a doctor who would accompany him wherever he went. ‘Are you hungry?’

Sophie locked eyes. ‘You didn’t answer my question yet.’

‘And you didn’t answer mine,’ he said easily.

They stood confronting each other in silence for a few moments until Sophie saw something change in his eyes, then she quickly looked away.

‘We’ll discuss your position over dinner,’ he said. But the curl of his mouth, the look in his eyes, suggested, missionary, or dominant?

Defences formed in her mind and sprang to her lips. ‘I don’t know what kind of arrangement you have with your other female colleagues,’ Sophie said coldly, ‘but let’s get this straight from the outset, Xavier, I never mix business with pleasure. And I don’t find you the least bit attractive,’ she blurted when she saw the amusement behind his eyes.

‘You are hungry,’ he murmured confidently.

As a flood of feelings she had kept at bay for a lifetime threatened to overwhelm her, Sophie reminded herself forcefully how much she wanted this job. ‘As it happens, you’re right. I am hungry,’ she said, relieved she could sound so cool.

‘So, why don’t you leave the unpacking for now?’

Sophie relaxed fractionally.

‘By the way, where do you want to sleep?’ He echoed her glance down the line.

‘Next to the window?’ Sophie suggested. The first three bunks were already occupied—one of them by him, presumably. A two-bunk gap was the best she could hope for, so she’d take it.

Picking up her rucksack, Xavier dumped it on top of the last bunk. ‘After you,’ he said, gesturing towards the open door.

If possible, the kitchen was even more basic than the sleeping quarters. An ancient stove fed by bottled gas, and blackened with use, sat squat in one corner. A single cold tap dripped rhythmically over a large, rectangular pot sink crazed with age, and above that some hastily erected shelves were haphazardly stacked with assorted tinned food of uncertain origin.

‘I can feel your concern coming right at me through my shirt,’ Xavier observed, sounding pleased. ‘Time to book that plane ticket home?’

‘No,’ Sophie said flatly. And, as long as it was only concern he could sense, that was fine by her.

‘Well, it’s clean,’ he said, glancing around with relish. ‘At least I can reassure you on that point.’

Reaching up to the top shelf, he brought down a crude wooden box. ‘I’ve got some fresh supplies,’ he explained, tipping it a little so that Sophie could see inside. ‘The local big shot gets me anything I need. He offered me his youngest daughter yesterday.’

‘Did you accept?’ For some reason his gag bothered her more than it should have done, Sophie realised, wishing she could call back the question.

‘Joke?’

‘Ha ha,’ she intoned dutifully, keeping her face in neutral while a rogue shaft of sensation warned her not to think about Xavier in any way at all, other than as her boss.

‘So,’ she continued a little too brightly. ‘What do we have here?’ As his attention returned to their food supplies, Sophie’s gaze was drawn to his powerful arms. On one wrist he wore a black leather wristband, which had been his younger brother Armando’s, and on the other, a no-nonsense steel watch.

The sight of the wristband forced Sophie’s thoughts into a dark, shadowy corner. No wonder Xavier had been shocked to see her. How could he talk about the past without making some reference to the accident? He had to log everything as before or after. People who came after were safe, because they didn’t know, didn’t have to know. She was very much before the accident. She must have been the last person on earth he wanted around, she reasoned, telling herself to go easy on him.

Xavier stopped rooting through the food and stared back at her. Instinctively, he glanced at the wristband and, just for an instant, Sophie saw the pain was still as raw, still as devastating and undiminished as on the day Armando had been killed. Surely he couldn’t still be blaming himself? In that moment she longed to reach out to him, to touch him in some way, but the closed expression on his face warned her not to try.

‘The food’s pretty good,’ he said, confirming her suspicions, as he turned back to the prospect of supper with a force that suggested he was keen for them both to leave the past undisturbed. Plunging his hand into the depths of the box, he murmured, ‘Now this looks like Pachamana.’ Lifting out an earthenware pot, he held it up.

‘Which is?’

‘Various meats, and vegetables.’

‘Meats?’

‘Still a vegetarian?’ he guessed.

‘Sorry.’

‘Don’t apologise for that.’

He made it sound as if she had plenty to be sorry about without the fact that she was a vegetarian, Sophie thought wryly. ‘Do you have anything else?’

Xavier shot her a look that suggested this foray into domesticity was about as far from fun for him as it got. Remembering she had vowed to be nice to him, Sophie said, ‘Don’t you miss that wonderful chef your mother used to employ at Casa Bordiu?’

‘I don’t miss anything about my old life—with the exception of seeing my parents most days,’ he said, the expression in his eyes hidden from her as he turned away.

‘But all that opulence and then this—’ Instantly, Sophie knew she had gone too far, delved too deeply into realms he would rather forget. When he turned around the shadows in his eyes were darker.

‘Opulence?’ He spat out the word like poison, and then drew himself up to lash her with his pain. ‘Have you forgotten how my brother was killed? Opulence—’ He stopped, his face an ugly mask, but the words dredged up from some fetid place at his core hung in the air between them like a dissonant chord.

‘I hadn’t forgotten,’ Sophie said gently.