CHAPTER ONE
HEENTEREDTHErestaurant at the front. The young backpacker rushed in from the alley at the back. They met in the middle at the bar.
More accurately, she crashed into him.
‘Sorry!Sorry!’ she exclaimed, bouncing off him with a yelp.
‘No need to apologise.’
He took stock of the new arrival. Bright eyes, firm chin and a face smudged with dust from her travels. It was an interesting face full of character and not unattractive. The impression of soft curves yielding to his muscular frame stayed with him as he stared into eyes the colour of an emerald ocean on an uncomplicated summer’s day—which this should have been. But when was anything as straightforward as it appeared?
‘I’m gagging for a drink of water,’ she gasped to no one in particular. Turning to study his face with engaging frankness, she added, ‘Do I know you?’
‘I don’t believe so.’
‘Are you sure?’
He thumbed twenty-four hours’ worth of stubble. ‘As I can be.’
She continued to stare at him intently, as if his face rang a bell but her brain refused to yield the required information.
This break in proceedings allowed him to inhale her wildflower scent, and to appreciate more than a sweet rosebud mouth pursed in thought. Though, sweet was not a word he would use to describe her, he decided, noting the stubborn set of her chin and narrowed eyes as she ran his features through some internal search engine.
‘I’m sure I know you from somewhere,’ she insisted, still frowning. ‘I just can’t place you yet. But I will,’ she warned with a smile that lit up her face. ‘You’re as out of place here as me, and yet you’re totally relaxed...’
‘Okay, Sherlock Holmes. Anything else?’
‘You’re obviously more used to eating in swanky eateries than I am...’
Undaunted by his silence, she turned to take stock of their surroundings. And gasped. ‘Paint me staggered—I must have stumbled into Oz. Do people really drink magnums of champagne at midday?’
‘It would appear so.’
She had freckles on her nose, he noticed as she wrinkled it with amusement. Having strayed off the alleyway behind the restaurant, she had landed in Babylon, where vintage wines were discussed in hushed tones, as if they were the answer to all the world’s woes, while waiters served delicacies to clientele who, for the most part, couldn’t care what they ate, so long as it was expensive enough to brag about. They were standing in a temple to excess on what was arguably the most stylish marina on the planet. He guessed the staff had left the rear entrance open to allow for the non-stop arrival of stock, as no place on earth could hope to keep sufficient food and booze on the premises to satisfy the appetites of the super-rich.
‘Water and a job are what I need, and in that order,’ the young woman announced, appearing to look to him for the solution. ‘Do you know of anything going?’ Chin angled to one side, she studied his face with brazen interest. Keen intelligence blazed from emerald eyes, and she had an eminently kissable mouth, he mused as she smiled again. ‘Maybe I could get some work on board one of those huge boats in the marina...’ She waited, and when he said nothing, she admitted, ‘I’ve run out of funds. This trip has lasted longer than I expected. There’s just so much to see, and so little time to fit everything in.’
‘You’re on some sort of deadline?’
‘Not exactly,’ she replied, ‘but I do have to get back to work eventually—don’t we all? I can’t spend my entire life roaming. Though, I’d like to.’ A wistful look crept into her eyes. ‘At some point I’ve got to stop travelling and make a go of things again...’
‘Again?’ he probed as she stared off into the middle distance.
‘Oh, you know what I mean,’ she insisted with a careless flip of her wrist.
‘I’m not sure I do. Have you travelled far?’
‘From London, originally.’
‘Where you live and work?’
She didn’t answer his question, her gaze sweeping the marina. ‘I adore the South of France, don’t you?’
As attempts to change the subject went, that was clumsy. ‘The Riviera’s one of many places I like to visit.’
She pulled him up on his apparent disinterest right away. ‘Like?How can anyonelikethe South of France when it’s so obviously gorgeous and fabulous? Don’t you feel doubly alive when you’re here?’ Her face lit up, and all the tension he’d detected when she’d first burst into the bar dropped away. ‘Music, food, heat, blue skies and sunshine—the way everyone throws back their shoulders and speaks out clearly instead of mumbling. People walk tall here with confidence and optimism, instead of huddling beneath raincoats in a grey, chilly drizzle—’
‘You put forward a good case,’ he conceded, shaking himself out of his black mood. ‘Are you a lawyer?’
