‘But what if—?’
‘Enough, Jordan.’ He spoke tersely. ‘Leave it alone. This is not your business.’
The rebuke nettled. As did the implication that she was meddling in affairs that didn’t concern her. ‘Camila was my stepmother,’ she said quietly.
‘And my birth mother.’ He gritted out the admission, as though he found the truth of it distasteful. ‘Who was also foolish and irresponsible.’
Jordan gasped. ‘That’s not fair! You can’t judge and condemn people when you don’t have all the facts.’
‘The facts don’t matter.’
His white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel and the hard jut of his jaw told her he was angry now. But so was she.
‘Of course they matter. How else will you understand what happened?’
‘Understanding what happened won’t change the outcome, or the present. The past is irrelevant.’
She looked at him, aghast. ‘How can you say that? It’s your own history—’
‘Exactly,’ he bit out. ‘History. Done and dusted. I have no interest in the past.’
Stunned into silence, she studied the severe lines of his profile for a moment, running her gaze from the black slash of his eyebrow to the proud ridge of his nose and down over the lean terrain of cheekbone and jaw—the same hard, exquisitely sculptured jaw she’d impulsively kissed on the street and then wished she hadn’t when a blast of heat and longing had sizzled right through to her core.
She swallowed. She didn’t want to kiss him now. She wanted to grab those big shoulders of his and shake the arrogance out of him.
She turned her head away, looked out of her window and managed to hold her tongue for the next forty minutes. Only when Xavier’s mobile phone rang for a third time in quick succession did the urge to speak get the better of her.
‘Maybe you should stop and take that,’ she said, continuing to look out of her window. ‘No doubt it’s a work call.’
She heard him draw a sharp breath.
‘Sí. We will need to stop.’
She expected him to pull over straight away, on the side of the road, but he drove on for ten minutes towards the coast, to a small, sunny seaside town where a beautiful church and pretty whitewashed buildings huddled around a sandy bay.
As soon as he’d parked up she said, ‘I’ll stretch my legs,’ and stepped out of the car with a sense of déjà vu.
She’d done the same thing back in Camila’s village, giving him privacy to make a phone call. Heaven forbid the CEO of the Vega Corporation should take a whole Sunday off!
‘Don’t go far,’ he called from the driver’s seat, and she slammed the door, saving herself from having to respond to his bossy instruction.
She jammed her sunglasses on and looked around. Whether by chance or design, he’d chosen a spot that gave her a choice of shops and cafés in one direction and a beach in the other.
The beach beckoned, and the instant she took off her shoes and sank her toes into the silky-soft sand her spirits lifted. It was a gorgeous spot, and not overcrowded, with sunbathers and swimmers enjoying themselves without having to compete for their own piece of sea or sand.
She walked a short distance and was tempted to sit down and linger, but the sun was fierce and she didn’t have her sunhat. She’d be better off sitting in the shade of a café awning.
She retraced her steps and then bent down to brush off her feet and slip her sneakers back on. She had just finished tying her laces when a football hurtled up the beach towards her, a tall, shirtless young man in hot pursuit. Automatically she stuck her foot out to stop the ball and its pursuer skidded to a halt in front of her.
‘Gràcies.’
He stooped to retrieve the ball, and as he straightened his gaze travelled up her body, taking her in with unabashed interest from her ankles to her face. He grinned at her and she couldn’t help but grin back. He had the ripped physique of a man but she guessed he was in his late teens, and he was hardly threatening.
‘No hay problema,’ she said, borrowing a phrase she’d heard Rosa use.
Her young admirer cocked his head, long dark hair flopping in his eyes. ‘You are English?’
‘Australian.’