She laughed and looked out at the other vehicles fighting the same fight through the traffic as they were. ‘Let’s just leave it at strong, okay?’
Although she wasn’t looking at him, she felt his smile before she heard it in his voice. ‘Strong feelings I can work with. Indifference would be a different matter.’
She wondered if he’d feel so positive about her strong feelings for him if those strong feelings manifested in her throwing vases at his head.
If only she did feel indifference for him. She might have been able to move on in her personal life. ‘Indifference is one thing I don’t think I could ever feel for you.’
‘Good… Music?’
‘Sure.’
Using voice commands, he selected an album of the rock band he’d flown her to Germany to watch perform live.
Glad she had her sunglasses on, Beth closed her eyes and worked at not letting her inner feelings show on her face.
Mercifully, the traffic thinned out, and soon they were out of the city itself and homing in on the airport. Only the blasted music of the band she’d spent eight years avoiding listening to stopped her chest from lightening with relief, and when he pulled up at the express drop-off point, it took everything she had not to throw herself out of the car. It took even more to face him.
He was already looking at her, his shades removed. Wordlessly, he removed her sunglasses, too, and for a long moment simply gazed at her.
Bringing his face close to hers, he gently stroked her cheek. ‘I know you still have doubts about me,’ he said quietly, ‘but I promise you will not regret your decision.’
The surge of emotion that rose so powerfully in her almost shocked Beth into silence. That Xavi could still read her so well despite all her efforts to conceal her true feelings was almost as frightening as the longing to believe him and the depth of her need to cover his hand and press it tighter to her cheek.
Gazing into eyes that were like melted dark chocolate, she whispered, ‘Aren’t you worried that you might regret it, too?’
His gaze didn’t so much as flicker as he brought his face closer to hers. ‘No, I’m not.’
Her lips were tingling with anticipation before she felt his breath on her lips and the tickle of his beard, and then she was filled with the glorious sensation of his tender caress on her lips.
He drew back with the ghost of a smile. ‘You should go.’
Wishing she wasn’t already craving more of his mouth on hers, she nodded.
He clasped the back of her head and nuzzled his nose to hers. ‘Let me know when you’ve landed?’
Unable to resist, she pressed her mouth to his for one last kiss and murmured, ‘I promise.’
When Beth strode into the airport on legs that felt all wobbly, she didn’t have to look back to know he was watching her.
When Beth was out of his sight, Xavi turned the engine back on and drove away, resisting the temptation to abandon his car and follow her back to England.
He’d long wondered what her apartment, orflat, as she referred to it on social media, looked like. All she’d revealed were snippets; nothing that would allow a follower to identify the location or make an educated guess to it.
Her job, though, he knew a lot about, not just because of what she’d told him the few times they’d seen each other over the years or through what she’d posted, but because he owned the company.
Miss Amore was the first fashion chain he’d bought as a personal investment. He hadn’t put it under the Rosbel Group umbrella, and only expert journalistic levels of digging would find his name as the owner.
He’d bought it on a Beth-like whim when she’d posted about starting an internship there. He’d experienced a lot of guilt in those days. Beth had only been expected to spend the summer in Madrid. It was because of Xavi that she’d given up her place at university to stay past the summer, and so when he’d learned that she’d decided to join the fashion world after all, he’d felt he owed it to her to smooth her path into it. It had been at his behind-the-scenes insistence that her internship had become a full-time position. Everything else she’d achieved had been through her own hard work.
She’d excelled without him. Thrived without him, personally and professionally.
Whereas he…
Xavi didn’t like to remember the days when he’d had to bury himself in work just to get through the days without her.
Chapter Four
THE AIRPORT WAS BUSY, but Beth got through security with minimal queuing. After buying a coffee, she found herself a spot at the departure gate near a large, rowdy stag party. She knew it would be more prudent to wait until she was home before making this call, but with Xavi’s kisses still fresh on her lips, she was fired up, almost buzzing with the desperate need to purge the tempest of emotion coursing through her. With her fellow travellers giving the stag party a wide berth, no one would be close enough to hear her side of the conversation.
