Clenching his teeth against the intensity of it, he forced himself to remain seated, knowing she hadn’t yet spotted him in the darkened hallway. Her light wrap slipped as she turned to shut the door, and he caught a glimpse of one smooth shoulder and arm. Her dark silky hair was tied in a careless knot on top of her head, giving her neck a long, smooth, elegant line that he couldn’t help but follow.
He found himself tracing the lines of her body, wondering how he’d ever thought her boyish. She was tall, her figure lithe, but there were curves he hadn’t noticed before—right down to the shapely denim-clad legs.
Shutting the door, she tugged off her boots and kicked them into a corner.
She turned and stumbled to a halt, her breath squeaking out in alarm. ‘Marco! Damn it, you really need to stop skulking in dark hallways. You nearly scared me to death!’
‘I wasn’t skulking.’ He heard the irritation in his voice and forced himself to calm down. ‘Where have you been? I called you several times.’
She pulled the wrap tighter around her shoulders, her chin tilting up in silent challenge. ‘I went for a drink with the team.
They’re all flying out tomorrow morning and I wanted to say goodbye. I know that wasn’t part of the deal—me socialising with the team—but they kept asking and it would have been surly to refuse.’
Annoyance rattled through him. The last thing he wanted to discuss was his team, or the deal he’d made with Sasha Fleming. Dios, he wasn’t even sure why he’d come back here. He should be by his brother’s bedside—even if the doctors intended to keep him in his induced coma until the swelling on his brain reduced.
‘And you were having such a great time you decided not to answer your phone?’
‘I think it’s died.’
‘You think?’
‘You’re annoyed with me. Why?’
Sasha asked the question in that direct way he’d come to expect from her. No one in his vast global organisation would dare to speak to him that way. And yet … he found he liked it.
Rising, he walked towards her. A few steps away, the scent of her perfume hit his nostrils. Marco found himself craving more of it, wanting to draw even closer. ‘Why bother with a phone if you can’t ensure it works?’
‘Because no one calls me.’
Her words stopped him in his tracks. For a man who commanded his multi-billion-euro empire using his BlackBerry, Marco found her remark astonishing in the extreme. ‘No one calls you?’
‘My phone never rings. I think you were the last person to call me. I get the occasional text from Tom, or Charlie, my physio, but other than that … zilch.’
Marco’s puzzlement grew. ‘You don’t have any friends?’
‘Obviously none who care enough to call. And, before you go feeling sorry for me, I’m fine with it.’
‘You’re fine with being lonely?’
‘With being alone. There’s a difference. So, is there another reason you’re annoyed with me?’
She raised her chin in that defiant way that drew his gaze to her throat.
He shoved his phone into his pocket. ‘I’m not annoyed. I’m tired. And hungry. Rosario had gone to bed when I arrived.’
‘Oh, well, that’s good. Not the tired and hungry part. The not annoyed part.’ She bit her lip, her eyes wide on his as he moved even closer. ‘And about Rosario … I hope you don’t mind, but I told her not to wait up for me.’
Marco shook his head. ‘So where did you go for this drink?’ He strove to keep his voice casual.
‘A bodega just off Plaza Mayor in Salamanca.’
He nodded, itching to brush back the stray hair that had fallen against her temple. ‘And did you enjoy your evening out?’
Her shrug drew his eyes to her bare shoulder. ‘Leon is beautiful. And I was glad to get out of the villa.’
Her response struck a strangely discordant chord within him. ‘You don’t like it here?’
‘I don’t mind the proximity to the track, but I was tired of knocking about in this place all by myself.’