PROLOGUE
THE man lounging back on the pale hide sofa appeared infinitely more at ease than the camera crew and reporters crowding the room. But he was suffering the glare of the lights, and people from Wardrobe were still buzzing around him like gnats.
As he sent a look spinning up to dismiss them, one girl holding a fat brush loaded with powder misread the signs and froze, trapped in his stare. Her eyes darkened and her lips plumped, all within the space of a few seconds. The television lights were blindingly bright but, as far as she was concerned, they might have been alone in a candlelit hacienda full of soft lights and low music.
‘Enough,’ he snapped. ‘I don’t do make-up.’
The other girls took the hint, backing away step by step in a timid, doe-eyed flock, dreaming wildly he might call one of them back.
‘Go,’ Xavier Martinez Bordiu insisted in a low, gravelly voice, flicking his wrist at the remaining girl. ‘Go join your friends. You’re not needed here.’
Abruptly, her eyes cleared and, as he watched them fill with tears of embarrassment, a pang of regret caught him unawares. Straightening up, he reached out to apologise, but she had already gone with the others and the double doors leading out of his apartment at the presidential palace had closed behind them.
What the hell was wrong with him?
As Xavier made a deep sound in his throat, feeling a stab of familiar pain, he saw the Floor Manager starting to panic. He made a signal to deflect the man’s concern, but he was already calling. ‘Water for Dr Martinez Bordiu.’
Xavier sat back again, oblivious to the splendour of his surroundings: chandeliers the size of houses, ivory fretwork screens, precious paintings banked up side by side as far as the eye could see on towering walls decked out in crimson silk.
This was a temporary stay at the President’s personal invitation, but he had lived with such opulence all his life. It meant nothing to him. However sumptuous his living quarters, however attentive his staff, even a life of unremitting luxury could pall in the end. That was why he had trained to become a doctor. And that was partly the reason he had chosen to lose himself in Peru, in a medical project that meant everything to him.
His jaw clenched and then released again as he waited impatiently for the vanities of the woman who was shortly to interview him about the project to be indulged.
She had the dark flashing looks of a true South American beauty. She was voluptuous and provocative, with a fall of glossy, nut-brown hair cascading over her smooth tanned shoulders. And when she turned to look at him he saw the tip of her tongue creep out to moisten her lips.
He viewed her lazily through hooded eyes and saw her squirm a little on her seat to ease what he knew would be bolts of desire. He knew then he could have her after the show: here, where he was sitting, or straddling his lap on the hard, upright chair where she was having her make-up perfected…or there on the Aubusson rug in front of the wall of windows so that everyone in Lima could get an eyeful.
He had that effect on women. And somewhere along the way it had all become too easy for him.
He never got involved. He didn’t need to. He didn’t need anyone. He was fine by himself. He had trained himself to be that way. Loving and losing, they were the same thing as far as he was concerned—and better avoided.
But that didn’t give him the right to trample rough-shod over other people’s feelings, Xavier thought, mouthing a quick response as someone brought over a jug of iced water and a glass. His thought processes changed track suddenly. Shutting out the rest of the room, he ran over the moment he almost made someone cry—not in pictures, but emotions, and found he cared…he really cared.
He subdued the rush of relief that gave him as the presenter came to sit across from him on a matching sofa, and tuned his expression to neutral as the interview began.
CHAPTER ONE
‘XAVIER MARTINEZ BORDIU! Are you sure, Henry?’
Shocked at hearing the name—even more shocked at blurting it out in a tone that made her boss’s head shoot up—Dr Sophie Ford felt her cheeks flush red. She knew she only had herself to blame when Professor Henry Whitland levelled a thoughtful stare on her face.
‘Xavier Martinez Bordiu is one of the finest physicians in Europe. We’re lucky to have the chance to work with him,’ he reproved her mildly. ‘I can’t think of anyone better to head up the immunisation programme in Peru.’
But Sophie wasn’t listening. Images of piercing navy-blue eyes were flashing through her mind…and sun-streaked tawny-brown hair, the colour, lustrous and rich, like a glass of good brandy—
‘Sophie… Sophie?’
While her head of department struggled to recapture her attention it took Sophie a few moments to shunt her thoughts back on track. ‘I’m sorry, Henry. You were saying?’
He frowned. ‘I’ve heard Dr Martinez is something of a maverick, leaving all that luxury behind him and those vast estates…half of Spain, wasn’t it?’ He shook his head and sighed as he thought of it. ‘But he’s bringing his Midas touch to medical projects now, so perhaps we should be grateful.’
He waited a moment, then stared at Sophie inquisitively. ‘You’re very quiet, Sophie. Is there anything else about him you think I should know?’ Laying down his gold-rimmed spectacles, he pinched the bridge of his nose as he waited for her to answer.
Xavier Martinez Bordiu? Sophie played for more time with a dismissive gesture. Rumour said Xavier had become Spain’s most notable monument to chauvinism in a country hardly noted for the retiring nature of its men. Would she have volunteered for the project if she’d known who was in charge? Probably not.
‘No, Henry,’ she said, able to reassure him on one point at least. ‘There are no skeletons in Dr Martinez Bordiu’s closet as far as I am aware.’ But even that wasn’t strictly true, Sophie realised as her face burned a little hotter. ‘I hear on the grapevine that he’s become a great doctor,’ she said, struggling to return to safer ground as her throat dried.
‘You speak as if you already know him.’
‘I used to,’ Sophie admitted. ‘I knew the Martinez Bordiu family when I was a child.’
‘Ah,’ Henry said.
Why did she have a sinking feeling he wasn’t about to let the matter rest? Henry wanted to be a lot more than her boss at St Agnetha’s, and it was fair to say a kind of understanding had developed between them. Henry lived in the same village as her mother, whose knowledge of him was minimal, but enough for her to
describe him optimistically as a safe pair of hands. Sophie had no argument with that. Henry Whitland was kind, thoughtful and very well respected in his chosen field. And one day she would have to make a decision about her personal life…
‘And Xavier?’ he pressed.
Xavier, Sophie mused. The last time she’d seen him she’d been a hormonal teenager—but now she was a career woman with better things to think about than romance, she warned herself sternly.
‘Xavier Martinez Bordiu,’ Henry said again, with a touch more impatience.
‘Yes?’ Sophie said helpfully.
‘Forgive my interest, but I can’t help noticing how the mere mention of his name makes your face flush. I realise it’s none of my business—’
‘I should have known who was leading the team,’ Sophie said with a shrug.
‘Martinez Bordiu kept his name out of it until recently. You could hardly be expected to know. Does it make a difference to your application?’
‘Do you mean, am I going to back out? No,’ Sophie said firmly. Whatever problems might be associated with working for Xavier, she could handle them. Glancing at her watch, Sophie suddenly found herself longing to escape to the purposeful bustle of the wards.
‘Must you dash off?’ Henry said with a touch of petulance as she stood up to leave. ‘I thought we could talk some more.’
‘I should be getting back—’
‘I do remember your connection with Martinez Bordiu now.’
Sophie tensed as she waited for him by the door.
‘I remember some talk in the village of a terrible accident in Spain—and, forgive me, but am I right in thinking that your parents split up shortly after that—?’
‘That’s right,’ Sophie confirmed abruptly. ‘Now, if you don’t mind, Henry—’
‘Far be it for me to risk Sister Spencer’s wrath,’ he agreed. ‘It’s almost time for rounds. I’ll walk with you.’
As they parted at the double swing doors that led into the children’s ward, he put his hand on the sleeve of Sophie’s white coat, stopping her. ‘I’m sure Dr Martinez Bordiu will be delighted to see you again.’
That tugged a smile from Sophie that didn’t quite make it to her eyes. She doubted Xavier would see it that way. ‘It’s kind of you to say so, Henry,’ she managed politely.
‘I wondered if we might discuss some of the wider issues regarding your posting over dinner tonight?’
Sophie’s stomach clenched uncomfortably. ‘I’m not sure, I—’
‘Just a quick snack? At that brasserie you love down the road.’
‘The one you hate?’ Sophie shot him a wry grin as she shovelled her hands into her pockets.
‘I don’t hate it,’ he argued mildly. ‘The music’s a little loud.’
‘Eight o’clock, then,’ she agreed with a quick smile. ‘I’ll meet you there.’
It wasn’t that she didn’t enjoy Henry’s company, Sophie reasoned as she pushed the double doors that led through into the ward and hurried to join the small group of junior doctors milling around the nurses’ station. She just needed more time to work out exactly what role he played in her life.
Casting a preoccupied glance out of the window of the light aircraft, Sophie tried telling herself that the arrangement she had made with Henry was fine. Before she left England he had insisted she have the antique ring she was now absentmindedly twirling round her finger. Their understanding was open-ended—no pressure, no deadlines; it was more of a thinking space than an engagement. He offered friendship and security. And security, as her mother had pointed out pragmatically, was exactly the sort of thing a career woman like Sophie would come to want. Eventually.
‘Mark my words, you will want to settle down one day…’
Settle, maybe, Sophie mused, remembering her mother’s forceful lecture. But settle down? She wasn’t so sure about that.
She didn’t feel ready for suburbia just yet. Maybe she never would, she thought, peering out of the window again. There was still so much she wanted to see, so much to do first. But her sensible self demanded a hearing: Henry was a man in his mid-forties, with a wealth of experience behind him…behind him being the operative phrase as far as her mother was concerned. She had delicately pointed out that a man like Henry was less likely to make demands on Sophie.
Sophie’s lips hardened as she remembered what had caused her mother’s apprehension where men were concerned. Home was supposed to be a sanctuary, but it hadn’t proved to be that for her mother. It hadn’t been that for Sophie either, though she didn’t bear any physical scars. She had only cowered on the stairs as a child, listening to the violence that stemmed from her late father’s drunken rages. It was a miracle her mother had survived at all, let alone gone on to live a full and happy life—and that was only thanks to the resilience of the female spirit.
Shifting in her seat, Sophie forced her mind to close down on that part of her life and concentrate on Henry instead. He had proved himself the perfect mentor, a loyal colleague and a true friend. And maybe, when she was ready, he would make the perfect husband. She reminded herself that the large cabochon amethyst was just a friendship ring…and that lots of successful marriages were founded on friendship; then, slipping it off her finger, she fastened it safely inside the top pocket of her jacket.
‘Look out of the window.’
Evie, the pilot, broke into Sophie’s thought processes, tipping the wings to give her a better view. ‘We’re just starting to fly over the Nazca Lines.’
‘I had no idea they covered such a vast area,’ Sophie said. Gigantic stylised figures, carved by an ancient people, reached across the arid umber plain below them for as far as she could see.
‘Some of them are over three hundred metres across and, on that scale, only visible from the air,’ Evie informed her, banking steeply. ‘I’ll spin you around to get a better look.’
She was serious, Sophie realised, bracing her feet against the floor as the small aircraft stood on its nose. Willing herself to stay calm, she managed to keep her stomach in place as they rotated through a full turn. But then, as curiosity got the better of her, she opened her eyes. She could make out a monkey, a fish, a spider and some sort of bird, as well as numerous geometric figures all painstakingly carved into the wide span of desolate earth, before the female equivalent of the Red Baron straightened out her plane and flew on.
‘How on earth?’
‘No one knows,’ Evie said, anticipating the question. ‘When? How? Why? It’s a complete mystery. Even Xavier—’
‘Xavier?’ Sophie cut in, viewing her attractive companion with a keener eye.
‘Xavier Martinez. Isn’t that who you’re going to be working with? There’s not much else happening out here apart from his medical project. But if you don’t know him yet,’ she said, without giving Sophie a chance to butt in, ‘you soon will. That’s his truck down there. And this is as far as I go.’
Sophie instinctively braced her feet again as the small plane plummeted down on a trajectory that had the ground screaming up at a furious rate to meet them.
‘Damn!’ Evie exclaimed as she levelled out for landing. ‘One of these days I’ll get that monument to male chauvinism to jump out of the way—or maybe even notice me. But not today,’ she fumed, ramming on the brakes after touchdown.
Making a tight turn, she accelerated down the narrow, bumpy airstrip to where Sophie could see a rangy figure, casually dressed, lounging back against the side of a dusty brown pick-up truck.
Extending her hand as they stopped, Evie said, ‘I take it they’ve equipped you with a radio. If that sexist brute gets too much for you and you need an out, just call me, OK?’
‘I can handle Xavier Martinez,’ Sophie said confidently, returning the firm handshake. ‘We’ve known each other for years.’
‘You obviously haven’t met him lately.’
‘No,’ Sophie admitted. After the rumours she’d heard she couldn’t resist probing just a little. ‘When I di
d know him he was quite a charmer…’
‘Charmer?’ Evie demanded incredulously. ‘People change. I give you a week,’ she added, drawing to a halt within spitting distance of Sophie’s new boss.
And then the pilot’s door flew open and Xavier was right there, ducking his head inside the confined space, baiting Evie with a dark, searing glance. The heat flew in from outside the aircraft, enveloping them in a warm cloud of faintly spicy air, and the temperature inside the small cabin went soaring up.
‘Women drivers!’ he challenged in a low, husky voice.
That voice… How could she have forgotten that voice? Sophie wondered, as vibrations rippled up and down her spine. That lust-inducing Latin growl of censure and testosterone that had every woman within earshot figuratively licking her lips…except this woman, Sophie asserted, feeling her defence shields snap into place.
‘Is it my fault you like to litter up the place?’ Evie retorted smartly. ‘Now clear off my runway, Don Juan. The light’s not going to hold up for much longer, and I need to get away.’
‘What about your passenger?’ he cut in, straightening up so that Sophie’s view out of the door was suddenly obstructed by a spread of rock-hard chest, clothed in a rugged, chequered shirt open at the neck to reveal a scoop of black cotton.
‘Dr Sophie Ford, safely delivered. Would you care to sign the manifest—’
‘What the hell?’ He ducked in again and peered across. ‘Is this some sort of a joke?’
A giant hand seemed to seize hold of Xavier’s guts and wrench them out where his back used to be. A red mist descended over his eyes as he tried to control the emotion clawing at his senses. It was so real, so tangible, he tried clearing it from his eyes with the knuckles of one hand. If there was anything on this earth he never wanted to see, or hear from, again, it was a member of the Ford family. Every one of the promises he had made to himself back in Lima to improve his manner evaporated as he stormed round the front of the aircraft.