One More Sleepless Night

by Lucy King

  ‘Where are you off to?’ he said sleepily.

  She twisted round and glanced down at him, drinking in the rumpled hair and sexy smile, and for a moment couldn’t remember. ‘I thought I might get up.’

  He rubbed his eyes, gave his head a quick shake and shifted up onto his elbow. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because it’s five in the afternoon.’

  ‘So?’ He stroked her wrist and her stomach all but disappeared.

  Nicky swallowed and racked her brains for a reason to get up when there wasn’t one. ‘My feet are getting itchy,’ she said even though they’d never felt less itchy.

  ‘OK,’ he said, sliding his hand up her arm and making goosebumps pop up all over her skin, ‘so how about a trip into town?’

  ‘That sounds great.’

  ‘Then into town we’ll go,’ he murmured, and then pulled her down and back into his arms and gave her a kiss that frazzled her brain and made a mockery of her pathetic effort to resist him. ‘Later.’

  *

  Quite a long time later, Rafael was sitting with Nicky at a table in a square in the centre of town, toying with the stem of his wine glass and wondering if he ought to be worried about what was going on here.

  There were certainly things he should be worried about. Work or, rather, his lack of interest in it was one, for example. Nicky’s friendship with his sister and its odd insignificance was another. Above all, he really ought to be concerned about the way that virtually anything that related to life beyond the physical and metaphorical boundaries of the vineyard simply didn’t seem to matter.

  Anything related to real life, in fact.

  What was going on with Nicky wasn’t real, he reminded himself, glancing over at her from behind his sunglasses and seeing a dreamy, wistful kind of smile curve her mouth. It couldn’t last for ever, and nor did he want it to. Never mind that she was remarkably easy to be with. Never mind that she was fascinating. And never mind that night after night she blew his mind. She’d soon be going home, as would he, and he was absolutely fine with that.

  So why did the thought of this being over and of her disappearing from his life for good leave such a bitter taste in his mouth? Why did it make his stomach twist and his chest squeeze? And when had the idea of going home started to sound quite so unappealing?

  Rafael’s fingers tightened around his glass and he shifted in his chair as it struck him that perhaps he wasn’t quite as happy about the temporary nature of this thing with Nicky as he’d tried to convince himself.

  Come to think of it, why did it have to be temporary anyway? Why couldn’t they continue seeing each other even after they’d returned to their respective homes?

  Nicky might have said she wasn’t looking for a relationship but presumably she’d meant one that tied her to one place, that compromised her freedom. But over the last week he’d come to understand and respect her sense of wanderlust and he’d never ask that of her. Besides, why would he even want to when her independence, her self-sufficiency and her commitment to her work were among the things he most liked about her?

  In that respect they were perfect for each other, so what would be wrong with a hot, steamy, long-distance affair? Nothing, as far as he could work out, so perhaps he ought to suggest it and see what she had to say…

  ‘So what did your wife think of all this?’

  Nicky’s question yanked him out of his thoughts and he froze with shock at the unexpectedness of it. His wife? She wanted to talk about his wife? Now?

  Forcing himself not to tense up, Rafael swivelled round to look at her. She was frowning and she’d gone a little pink and he got the impression that it was a question she hadn’t intended to ask.

  He wished she hadn’t because the subject of his marriage wasn’t one he cared to dwell on, but now she’d brought it up he could hardly pretend she hadn’t, however much he might want to. He supposed he was lucky to have got away without having to discuss it for this long.

  But never mind. It was fine. Just because she’d asked didn’t mean he had to tell her anything other than the basic facts, did it?

  ‘My wife?’ he echoed.

  ‘Well, your ex-wife,’ she amended with a slight smile.

  ‘She didn’t think anything about this.’

  Nicky frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘She never came down here.’

  Her eyebrows shot up. ‘What, never?’

  ‘No,’ he said coolly. ‘I’ve only had the vineyard for five years and she was always more interested in city life anyway.’

  ‘What was her name?’

  ‘Marina.’

  ‘And what was she like?’

  ‘Blonde. Beautiful.’

  ‘Naturally,’ she said dryly.

  ‘She was also temperamental and difficult.’

  Looking slightly mollified by that, Nicky sat back. ‘So what went wrong?’

  Suddenly feeling as if he were sitting on knives, Rafael shifted uncomfortably in his chair. ‘Hasn’t Gaby told you?’

  ‘No. She’s loyal and I didn’t like to ask.’

  ‘Let’s just say it didn’t work out.’

  ‘Yes, the divorce part of it kind of gives that away.’

  He shrugged. ‘There you go, then.’

  Nicky fell silent and for a moment Rafael thought with blessed relief that was that. That she’d understood that he didn’t want to talk about it, and that as far as he was concerned the topic was now closed.

  But apparently it wasn’t, at least not for her, because she was lifting her sunglasses off her nose and up into her hair and giving him a look that suggested that she didn’t think him brushing over it quite so dismissively was on.

  ‘Is that it?’ she said, clearly not impressed. ‘Is that all I’m getting?’

  ‘Isn’t that enough?’

  ‘Not nearly.’

  ‘Tough.’ That was all he was prepared to divulge.

  Nicky harrumphed and folded her arms over her chest. ‘Well, that doesn’t seem entirely fair, does it?’ she said eventually.

  Rafael lifted an eyebrow at her indignation. ‘What doesn’t?’

  ‘I tell you all about the stuff that happened to me yet you get to avoid talking about what happened to you? I don’t think so.’

  The urge to tense up was back but he stamped it down and pasted a bland smile to his face. ‘But the difference is that you chose to tell me. Willingly. And I don’t particularly like talking about my marriage.’

  ‘I’m sure you don’t,’ she said archly, ‘but you might find it surprisingly therapeutic. I did, after all.’

  ‘I don’t need therapy. I got over it years ago.’

  She fixed him with another far too perceptive look. ‘Really?’ she asked with a scepticism that made him want to grind his teeth.

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘In that case, why the reluctance to talk about it? And why do you still have such a thing about getting involved with your sisters’ friends?’

  This time Rafael couldn’t stop his jaw from clenching because as he contemplated her irritatingly shrewd questions he realised she had a point. And he, therefore, didn’t have much of a choice if he didn’t want her thinking she was right. ‘Fine,’ he said as if it didn’t bother him in the slightest. ‘What do you want to know?’

  *

  Rafael’s marriage might have been occupying her mind a lot lately, but Nicky had never had any intention of actually bringing it up.

  However she’d been gazing in the direction of the wedding-goers gathering in front of the church on the other side of the square and idly wondering whether he and the beautiful but temperamental Marina had been married here or in Madrid and what the dress had looked like, when the warmth and the wine and a sheer sense of contentment had obliterated her inhibitions and the question had simply spilled out of her mouth.

  Once it had there’d been little point in hoping he hadn’t heard her and even less in trying to back-pedal. And if she was being completely honest, she
wouldn’t have retracted it even if she could because the curiosity had been practically killing her.

  She wanted to know everything, and now, thank God, it seemed she’d have to wonder and speculate and imagine no longer. ‘Why don’t you start at the beginning?’ she said.

  Rafael set his jaw and looked as if he were bracing himself. ‘I met Marina through my younger sister.’

  ‘Gaby?’

  ‘The next one up. Elena. She and Marina were best friends. Elena had a party to celebrate her birthday and we were introduced. We dated and three months later we got married.’

  Nicky nearly fell off her chair because that didn’t sound like the action of the keen-on-control Rafael she’d come to know. ‘Wow, that was quick.’

  ‘Too quick with hindsight,’ he said dryly.

  ‘How long were you married for?’

  ‘A couple of years.’

  ‘What happened?’

  He grimaced. ‘Once the honeymoon was over—literally—it became pretty clear that we had nothing in common.’

  Nothing? She couldn’t believe that. Not when, as she’d discovered, he was intelligent and interesting and had well-formed opinions on an impressively wide range of subjects. ‘You must have had something in common,’ she said, ‘otherwise why get married in the first place?’

  He rubbed a hand along his jaw and nodded briefly. ‘OK, there was one thing,’ he conceded and as a pang of jealousy darted through her Nicky wished she hadn’t pressed the point. ‘But naturally it wasn’t enough. We were too different. And too young.’

  ‘How old were you?’ she asked, dismissing the jealously as entirely normal and ignoring it.

  ‘I was twenty-three and Marina was twenty.’

  ‘Didn’t anyone try and stop you?’

  ‘Of course, but you know how I feel about advice. I’m as bad at taking it as I am at giving it.’ He gave her a tight humourless smile. ‘Besides, I’d just got back from Harvard and, having had the best education on offer, I thought I knew everything.’

  ‘But you didn’t.’

  ‘Apparently not. I certainly knew nothing about how to handle the mess we’d got ourselves into. We argued. A lot. In fact,’ he added with a frown, ‘we argued about pretty much everything.’

  ‘That sounds stressful.’

  ‘It was.’ He stopped and for a moment he seemed to be completely lost in the memory of it all before giving his head a quick shake and snapping out of it. ‘Anyway, things went rapidly downhill until I ended up virtually living at the office and Marina ended up having an affair.’

  Nicky winced. ‘Ouch.’

  Rafael sighed. ‘I can’t say I really blame her. We should never have got married in the first place. The whole thing was a disaster from start to finish and it’s not something I’m in a hurry to do again.’

  At the thought of him, normally so focused and so in control, so way out of his depth and floundering in the face of such unfathomably emotional upheaval, Nicky felt her heart squeeze. ‘So how did your sister take it all?’

  He went very still and a muscle ticced in his jaw. ‘It wasn’t the easiest of times,’ he muttered eventually. ‘We didn’t see all that much of each other for a while. It was…awkward.’

  ‘Just awkward?’ she asked, thinking that for someone who clearly adored his sisters—even if they did occasionally drive him up the wall—‘awkward’ was more likely to mean ‘gut-wrenching’.

  ‘OK, yes, it was more than awkward,’ he admitted, ‘but you know all about the healing powers of time.’

  She nodded. ‘I do indeed.’

  ‘We got through it eventually but that isn’t something I’d care to repeat either.’

  No, she could see why he wouldn’t want to repeat any of it. And she could equally see why he went to such great lengths to avoid emotional mess now because she’d do the same in the circumstances. Who needed it?

  Feeling faintly guilty at having made him relive what had clearly been a difficult time, Nicky decided the situation needed lightening.

  ‘It’s just as well I’m not blonde, beautiful, temperamental or difficult, then, isn’t it?’ she said, flashing him a teasing smile.

  Rafael stared at her, bewilderment flickering across his face. ‘What?’

  ‘Well, when this is over we should be able to part as friends, don’t you think? I certainly don’t intend to lose Gaby’s friendship over it.’

  For a moment there was utter silence and Nicky wondered what she’d said. Then Rafael seemed to pull himself together and shot her a quick stomach-melting smile. ‘This is quite different,’ he said, and signalled for the bill.

  *

  It was different, thought Rafael, shoving his hands in the pockets of his jeans and leaning back against a low wall as he watched Nicky hunker down at the bottom of some steps and lift her camera to her eye.

  And thank God for it because his relationship with Marina had been a disaster. A complete disaster, and not just because they’d been young and had had precious little in common. Yes, those had obviously been contributing factors to the breakdown of their marriage, but what had really been at the heart of it all was Marina’s clinginess and neediness and his inability to handle any of it.

  With hindsight he should have foreseen problems right from the start, or at least the minute he’d learned about her overprotective parents, the sheltered life she’d led and her desperate longing to escape.

  If he’d been thinking straight he’d have paid attention to the great neon warnings his brain kept flashing at him and steered well clear, but in all honesty they’d met and he’d been so dazzled by her looks he’d stopped thinking at all.

  It hadn’t helped that meeting her had coincided with his return to Spain after years of hard academic work and little play. He’d been demob happy and hell-bent on making up for lost time and she’d been only too willing to help. So he hadn’t stopped to think about what effect their whirlwind romance might have had on her and it had never occurred to him that she’d start to view him as some sort of saviour.

  But she had, and before long the signs of her dependency on him had become apparent. She’d turned possessive, jealous and obsessive, calling him a dozen times a day just to check where he was and what he was doing. She’d stopped seeing the few friends she had and tried to stop him seeing the friends he had.

  He’d unwittingly found himself responsible for her happiness and he hadn’t known what to do. And then it had got even worse because by the time he realised how needy and stifling she’d become—and how unhappy he made her—he’d also realised that he’d confused lust with love and that by marrying her he’d made a massive mistake.

  And the awful guilt-inducing truth of the matter was that he hadn’t even thought about trying to sort things out, trying to make it work, because ultimately he hadn’t cared. Not during their fiercest arguments, not when Marina had had the affair and not even when she’d filed for divorce.

  In fact the bureaucratic nightmare of the divorce had given him a greater headache than his marriage had, and the distress it had caused his sister, who’d been torn between her brother and her best friend, had given him greater heartache.

  Which was so wholly wrong he’d vowed never to let himself get into that kind of a situation again. Never again was he going to mistake lust for love, thought Rafael, narrowing his eyes and setting his jaw as he watched Nicky, who was totally absorbed in what she was doing. Nor did he intend to ever get himself into a relationship where he might find himself depended on. For anything. The responsibility of it all was simply too great and he’d only screw up. Again.

  And that was why being with Nicky was so refreshing. He admired the way she kept her cards close to her chest, had the ability to sort things through in her own head and didn’t ask anything of him. Above all he appreciated the way he could be himself, the way he didn’t feel he had to be constantly on his guard in case she wanted more than he was able to give, because she never would.

  The though
t of pursuing a more long-term relationship with her popped up in his head once again and his muscles tensed and his heart beat a fraction faster as the need to get started on it right now surged up inside him.

  What was the point in waiting? In deliberating? There wasn’t any, was there? Because it seemed to him that she was just as into this as he was, and he didn’t think she’d say no. At least he fervently hoped she wouldn’t.

  Rafael was just about to push himself off the wall and head towards her when he saw her shoot to her feet, take a quick step back and crash straight into a group of tourists who’d gathered behind her and were listening to the guide gesticulating at the memorial she’d been photographing.

  If he’d had time to think about it—and if it had been anyone else other than Nicky—he’d have expected her to brush herself off, give them a quick smile and a heartfelt apology and then stroll back to him.

  But he didn’t have time to think because it all happened so fast. So fast in fact that his brain slowed it right down.

  He watched as Nicky froze and went white and then stumbled, and within what felt like aeons but could only have been a split second the little group was closing round her, hands reaching out to steady her.

  As alarm began to flash through him he heard her cry of distress. Saw her lash out, and as he realised what was going on he didn’t stop to think or consider his actions. He just reacted.

  With his heart pounding as fiercely as he bet hers was and with adrenalin suddenly roaring through him, he raced over. Muttering a rough apology, he pushed his way through the crowd to where Nicky was standing, pale, sweating and shaking. He wrapped one arm around her waist, the other around her shoulders and drew her into a firm embrace.

  ‘It’s all right. You’re OK,’ he murmured against her hair, every cell of his body turning inside out with the need to absorb her panic and give her some of his strength. ‘Lean on me. I’ve got you.’

  THIRTEEN

  I’ve got you.

  As Rafael tightened his grip on Nicky’s waist and led her away from the group of people and their curiosity at her extraordinary reaction to their mini collision, the words he was murmuring into her hair over and over spun round and round her head because now all the panic and confusion had evaporated it suddenly struck her that he did get her. He really did.