chapter TWO
IT WASN’T JUST crazy. It was insane.
Simone stood with her back to the bay and looked up at the building where Alesander Esquivel lived and felt cold chills up her spine despite the warm autumn sun. His apartment would have to be on the top floor, of course, and so far above her she wondered that she dared to think he would lower himself long enough to even let her in, let alone seriously consider her proposal.
And why should he, when it was the maddest idea she’d ever had? She’d get laughed out of San Sebastian, probably laughed out of Spain.
She almost turned and fled back along the Playa de la Concha to the bus station and her grandfather’s house in Getaria and certain refuge.
Almost.
Except what other choice did she have? Getting laughed out of the city, the country, was better than doing nothing. Doing nothing would mean sitting back and watching her grandfather’s life slide inexorably towards death, day by day.
Doing nothing was no choice at all. Not any longer.
How could she not even try?
She swallowed down air, the sea breeze that toyed with the layers of her favourite skirt flavoured with garlic and tomatoes and frying fish from a bayside restaurant. Her stomach rumbled a protest. She could not stand here simply waiting to cross this busy road for ever. Soon she must return to her grandfather’s simple house and prepare their evening meal. She had told him she needed to shop for the paella she had planned. He would be wondering why she was taking so long.
And suddenly the busy traffic parted and her legs were carrying her across the road, and the closer she got to the building, the larger and more imposing it looked, and the more fanciful her plan along with it.
She must be crazy.
It would never work.
He’d just stepped out of the shower when the buzzer to his apartment sounded. He growled as he lashed a towel around his hips, wondering what his mother had forgotten, but no, Isobel was not the sort to give advance warning, not since he’d once lent her the key she’d made a habit of forgetting to return.
So he chose to ignore it as he swiped up another towel to rub his hair. He did all his work at his city office or out at the Esquivel estate in Getaria. Nobody called on him here unless they were invited. And then the buzzer sounded again, longer this time, more insistent, clearly designed to get his attention.
And he stopped rubbing his hair and wondered. Had Bianca been waiting for his return, keeping a safe distance from his mother? She had known his travel plans. She’d known he was due back today.
Serendipity, he thought, because she could hardly read anything into one last night if she’d invited herself back. Why not enjoy one last night together for old time’s sake? And tomorrow or the next day, for that matter, he could tell her that her services were no longer required.
‘Bianca, hola,’ he said into the intercom, feeling a kick of interest from beneath his towel and thinking it fortuitous he wouldn’t have to waste any time getting undressed.
His greeting met with silence until, ‘It’s not Bianca,’ someone said in faltering Spanish, her husky voice tripping over her words and making a mess of what she was trying to say. ‘It’s Simone Hamilton, Felipe Otxoa’s granddaughter.’
He didn’t respond for a moment, his mind trying to join the dots. Did he even know Felipe had a granddaughter? They might be neighbours but it wasn’t as if they were friends. But no—he rubbed his brow—there was something he remembered—a daughter who had married an Australian—the one who had been killed in some kind of accident some months back. Was this their daughter, then? It could explain why she was murdering his language. ‘What do you want?’ he asked in English.
‘Please, Señor Esquivel,’ she said, and he could almost hear her sigh of relief as the words poured out, ‘I need to speak to you. It’s about Felipe.’
‘What about Felipe?’
‘Can I come up?’
‘Not until you tell me what this is about. What’s so important that you have to come to my apartment?’
‘Felipe, he’s … Well, he’s dying.’
He blinked. He’d heard talk at the estate that the old man wasn’t well. He wasn’t unmoved but Felipe was old and he hadn’t exactly been surprised at the news. He still didn’t see what it had to do with him.
‘I’m sorry to hear that, but what do you expect me to do about it?’
He heard noises around her, of a family back fresh from the beach, the children being scolded by their mother for tracking sand back to one of the lower apartments, a father, grunting and grumpy and wearying of his so-called holiday and probably already dreaming about a return to the office. She tried to say something then, her words drowned out by the racket before she sighed and spoke louder. ‘Can I please come up and explain? It’s a bit awkward trying to discuss it like this.’
‘I’m still not sure what I can do for you.’
‘Please. I won’t stay long. But it’s important.’
Maybe to her. As far as he was concerned, Felipe had been a cantankerous old man for as long as he could remember and, whatever the distant reason for the feud between their two families, Felipe had done nothing to build any bridges over the intervening decades. But then, neither had his father during his lifetime. In a way it was a shame he hadn’t been alive the day some lucky gambler had knocked on Alesander’s door and offered him the acres of vines he’d won from Felipe in a game of cards. His father had been trying to buy the old man out for years.
He raked his fingers through his hair. The vines. That must be why the granddaughter was here. Had Felipe sent this hesitant little mouse with some sob story to plead for their return? He would have known he’d get short shrift if he tried such a tactic himself.
Maybe he should let her in long enough to tell her exactly that. He glanced down at his towel. Although now was hardly the time. ‘I’m not actually dressed for visitors. Call me at my office.’
‘My grandfather is dying, Señor Esquivel,’ she said before he cut the connection. ‘Do you really think I care what you are wearing?’ And the hesitant mouse with the husky drawl sounded as if she’d found a backbone, and suddenly his interest was piqued. Why not humour his neighbour’s granddaughter with five minutes of his time? It wasn’t as if it was going to cost him anything and it would give him a chance to see if the rest of her lived up to that husky voice.
‘In that case,’ he said, smiling to himself as he pressed the lift release, ‘you’d better come right up.’
Simone’s heart lurched as the lift door opened to the small lobby that marked the entrance to the top floor apartment, her mind still reeling with the unexpected success of making it this far, her senses still reeling from the sound of Alesander’s voice. Her research might have turned up his address and told her that Alesander Esquivel was San Sebastian’s most eligible bachelor, but it hadn’t warned her about his richly accented voice, or the way it could curl down the phone line and bury itself deep into her senses.
Yet even with that potent distraction, she’d somehow managed to keep her nerve and win an audience with the only man who could help her right now.
Alesander Esquivel, good-looking heir to the Esquivel fortune, according to her research, but then how he looked or how big his fortune was irrelevant. She was far more interested in the fact he was unmarried.
Thirty-two years old, with no wife and no fiancée, and he’d agreed to see her.
She dragged in air. It was a good start. Now all she had to do was get him to listen long enough to consider her plan.
‘Piece of cake,’ she whispered to herself, in blatant denial of the dampness of her palms as she swiped them on her skirt. And then there was nothing else for it but to press on the apartment’s buzzer and try to smile.
A smile that was whisked away, along with the door, somewhere between two snowy towels, one hooked around his neck, stark white against his black hair and golden skin, the other one lashed low over his hips.
Dangerously low.
She swallowed.
Thought about leaving.
Thought about staying.
Thought about that towel and whether he was wearing anything underneath it and immediately wished she hadn’t.
‘Simone Hamilton, I presume,’ he said, and his delicious Spanish accent turned her name into a caress. She blinked and forced her eyes higher, up past that tightly ridged belly and sculpted chest, forcing them not to linger when it was all they craved to do. ‘It is a pleasure to meet you.’
His dark eyes were smiling down at her, the lips on his wide mouth turned up at the corners, while the full force of the accent that had curled so evocatively down the telephone line to her now seemed to stroke the very skin under her clothes. She shivered a little as her breasts firmed, her nipples peaking inside her thin bra and, for the first time in a long time, her thoughts turned full-frontal to sex, her mind suddenly filled with images of tangled limbs and a pillow-strewn bed and this man somewhere in the midst of it all—minus the towels …
And the pictures were so vivid and powerful that she forgot all about congratulating herself for making it this far. ‘I’m disturbing you,’ she managed to whisper. I’m disturbed. ‘I should come back.’
‘I warned you I wasn’t dressed for visitors.’ He let that sink in for just a moment. ‘You said you didn’t care what I was wearing.’
She nodded weakly. She did recall saying something like that. But never for one moment had she imagined he’d be wearing nothing more than a towel. She swallowed. ‘But you’re not … I mean … Maybe another time.’
His smile widened and her discomfort level ratcheted up with every tweak of his lips. He was enjoying himself. At her expense. ‘You said it was important. Something about Felipe?’
She blinked up at him and remembered why she was here. Remembered what she was about to propose and all the reasons it would never work. Added new reasons to the list—because the pictures she’d found hadn’t done him justice—he wasn’t just another good—looking man with a nice body, he was a veritable god-and because men who looked like gods married super-models and heiresses and princesses and not women who rocked up on their doorstep asking for favours.
And because nobody in their right mind would ever believe a man like him would hook up with a woman like her.
Oh God, what was she even doing here?
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘Coming here was a mistake.’ She was halfway to turning but he had hold of her forearm and, before she knew it, she was propelled inside his apartment with the promise of fresh coffee on his lips and the door closed firmly behind her.
‘Sit down,’ he ordered, gesturing towards a leather sofa twice the length of her flat at home and yet dwarfed here by the sheer dimensions of the long, high-ceilinged room that seemed to let the whole of the bay in through one expansive wall of glass. ‘Maybe now you could tell me what this is all about.’
She sat obediently, absently rubbing her arm where he’d touched her, the skin still tingling as if his touch had set nerve endings dancing under her skin. But then, why wouldn’t she be nervy when she didn’t know which way to look to avoid staring at his masculine perfection; when every time her eyes did stray too close to his toned, bronzed body, they wanted to lock and hold and drink him in?
How could she even start to explain when she didn’t know where to look and when her tongue seemed suddenly twice its size?
‘All right,’ she said, ‘if you insist. But I’ll give you a minute to get dressed first.’
‘No rush,’ he said, dashing her hopes of any relief while he poured coffee from a freshly brewed jug. He didn’t ask her how she wanted it or even if she wanted it, simply stirred in sugar and milk and handed it to her. She took it, careful to fix her gaze on the cup, equally careful to avoid brushing her fingers with his and all the while wondering why she’d ever been crazy enough to think this might work. ‘So tell me, what’s wrong with Felipe?’ he asked, reminding her again of the reason why she was here, and she wondered at his ability to make her forget what should be foremost in her mind.
Giving Felipe a reason to smile.
She’d made it this far. She owed it to Felipe to follow through. She’d return to Melbourne one day after all. The humiliation wouldn’t last for ever …
So much for wondering if she matched her husky voice. Instead she looked like a waif, he thought, lost and lonely, her grey-blue eyes too big and her mouth almost too wide for her thin heart-shaped face, while her cotton shirt bagged around her lean frame. She stared blankly at the cup in her hands, whatever fight she’d called upon to secure this interview seemingly gone. She looked tiny against the sofa. Exactly like that mouse he’d imagined her to be when she’d first spoken so hesitantly on the phone.
‘You said he was dying,’ he prompted. And suddenly her chin kicked up and she found that husky note that had captured his interest earlier.
‘The doctor said he has six months to live. Maybe twelve.’ Her voice cracked a little on the twelve and she put the cup in her hands down before she recovered enough to continue, ‘I don’t think he’ll last that long.’
She pushed honey-blonde hair that had fallen free from her ponytail behind her ears before she looked up at him, her eyes glassy and hollow. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, swiping a rogue tear from her cheek. ‘I’ve made a complete mess of this. You didn’t need this.’
He didn’t, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t a little bit curious about why she thought it so necessary to knock on his door to ask for his help. He had his suspicions, of course—but he had to admit that the whole granddaughter turning up on his doorstep to plead her case was unexpected. ‘Why do you think Felipe won’t last that long?’
She shrugged almost impatiently, as if the reason was blindingly obvious and there was nothing else it could be. ‘Because he’s given up. He thinks he deserves to die.’
‘Because of the land?’
‘Of course, because of the land! It’s about losing his wife and daughter too, but don’t you see, losing the land on top of everything else is killing him faster than any disease.’
‘I knew it.’ He padded barefoot to the window, strangely disappointed, regretting the impulse to let her in, and not only because his curiosity about Felipe’s long lost granddaughter with the husky drawl had been satisfied with one look at this skinny, big-eyed waif. But because he’d been right. Of course it had to be about the land. And yet for some reason being right gave him no pleasure.
Maybe because he knew what would come next, and that any moment now she’d be asking for the favour she’d obviously come here to ask—for him to either return the land out of the goodness of his heart, or to lend her the money to buy it back.
He should never have let her in. Felipe should never have sent her. What had the old man been thinking, to send her to plead his case? Had he been hoping he’d feel sorry for her and agree to whatever she asked? A coiling anger unfurled inside him that anyone, let alone his father’s old nemesis, would think him so easily manipulated.
‘So that’s why he sent you, then? To ask for it back?’
Maybe his words sounded more like accusations than questions, maybe he sounded more combative than inquisitive, because she flinched, her face tight, her eyes clearly on the defensive. ‘Felipe didn’t send me. He doesn’t even know I’m here.’ She hesitated before saying anything more, before she glanced at the watch on her slim wrist and looked up again, already gathering herself, her face suddenly resolute, as if she’d decided something. ‘Look, maybe I should go—’
He stalled her preparations to leave with a shrivelling glare. ‘You do realise it wasn’t me who gambled the property out from underneath him, don’t you? I bought it fair and square. And I paid a hefty premium for the privilege.’
‘I know that.’
‘Then surely you don’t expect me to hand it calmly back, no matter how ill you say your grandfather is.’
Her blue eyes flashed icicles, her manner changing as swiftly as if someone had flicked a switch. ‘Do you think I’m that stupid? I may be a stranger here, but Felipe has told me enough about the Esquivels to know that would never happen.’
He bristled at her emphasis on the word ‘never’. It was true, Felipe and his father had had their differences in the past, and yes, the Esquivels took their business seriously, but that did not mean they did not act without honour. They were Basques after all. ‘Then why did you come? Is it money you want?’
She gave a toss of her head, setting her ponytail lurching from side to side, the ends she’d poked behind her ears swinging free once more. ‘I don’t want your money. I don’t care about your money.’
‘So why are you here? What other reason could you possibly have for turning up on my doorstep demanding a private hearing?’
She stood up then, all five feet nothing of her, but with her dark eyes flashing, her jaw set in a flushed face and an attitude that spoke more of bottled rage than the meek little mouse who had turned up on his doorstep.
‘All right. Since you really want to know, I came here to ask if you would marry me.’