Page 41 of The Forbidden Cabrera Brother
So here he was.
He could have asked Alejandro for her address, but he knew, instinctively, that his brother would have cautioned him against prolonging a relationship with someone he obviously cared about. Deep and meaningful conversations he and Alejandro might not have had, but that didn’t mean that Alejandro was ignorant of Dante’s womanising lifestyle choices. He wouldn’t have understood that he and Caitlin were on the same page when it came to their relationship. She wasn’t going to lose her head over him. She wasn’t going to get hurt. Why else would she have found it so easy to walk away? There hadn’t been so much as a hint that she’d been looking for more than what had been put on the table.
He’d asked his PA to get hold of her address and, lo and behold, it had taken under half an hour.
He hadn’t known what to expect of her living arrangements and was shocked to discover himself standing, now, outside something that looked as though an act of kindness would have been to take a wrecking ball to it. But then, he acknowledged grimly, his background had not prepared him for the reality of living on the breadline.
It was a squat, rectangular block of flats, all connected by outside concrete walkways. Washing lines groaning under the weight of clothes only partially concealed chipping paint. Bikes were leaning in front of most of the flats. The lighting was poor and Dante concluded that that was probably a good thing, because in the unforgiving light of day the sight would probably be twice as depressing. He had never been anywhere like this in his life before and he was shocked and alarmed that she lived in a place like this.
Was she going to be in?
He’d taken a chance. It was after nine on a Wednesday evening. He was playing the odds.
He took the steps two at a time. There was a pervasive odour in the stairwell but he didn’t dwell on that as he headed up to the third floor, then along the walkway, brushing past the washing, dodging the bikes and random kids’ toys and finally banging on her front door because there was no bell.
And then, suddenly nervous, Dante stepped back and waited to see what would happen.
Caitlin heard the banging on the door and assumed it was Shirley three doors down. She had a good relationship with the much older woman. Too good, in some ways, because Shirley was a lonely seventy-something and, for her, Caitlin was the daughter she’d had but who now never visited.
Caitlin slipped on her bedroom slippers, pulled open the door and then stared.
The whole hit her before the detail. She knew it was Dante. Half lounging against the wall, hand poised to bang once again on the door. Yes, she registered that, then she absorbed, numbly, the detail. The faded black jeans, the grey polo shirt, the weathered bomber jacket because summer was morphing into autumn and the nights were getting cooler.
‘What are you doing here?’ she asked faintly, hovering by the door, so shocked that she could barely think straight.
She’d been thinking about him and he’d materialised like a genie from a lamp, as beautiful and as cruelly mesmerising as she’d remembered. She’d stayed those last few days and stuck fast to her insouciantthis-is-fun-but-it’s-got-to-endroutine, but every second had been filled with the wrenching pain of knowing that she would never see him again, and since she’d returned to London the pain had not subsided. He’d filled her head every waking moment, obliterating everything, even the ongoing anxiety about her parents. And now, shockingly, here he was. They’d had a straightforward deal and she’d spent the past weeks reminding herself of that baldly unappetising fact, but now he was here and she felt the electric buzz of awareness zip through her body like a toxin.
Dante lowered his eyes, his long, dark lashes brushing his slanting cheekbones and shielding his expression.
The nerves had gone. She was standing in front of him and the nerves had been replaced by a racing excitement. She was in some loose, hanging-around,who-cares-how-I-look?clothes. Baggy jogging bottoms, baggy sweatshirt, weird fluffy slippers. Her hair was loose, a riot of vibrant curls spilling over her shoulders and down her narrow back.
He’d never seen anything quite so beautiful in his life before.
She’d asked him a question. What was it? His breathing had slowed and when he raised his eyes to meet hers, it was like being hit by a sledgehammer.
He said the one and only thing that came to mind.
‘I’ve missed you.’
If it hadn’t been for those three words...
Caitlin looked at the man sprawled in her bed with the stamp of lazy ownership embedded in the very core of his lean, elegant body. He was as addictive as the finest of Belgian chocolate and she couldn’t peel her eyes away from his reflection in the mirror as she brushed her hair.
It was eight thirty. It was Sunday. They’d been talking about Alejandro and his rapid recovery. He had left the hospital a mere six weeks previously, but only now was he really fit to travel and he was packing up to return to London.
He was a changed man, light of heart and easy of spirit. Friends and family had been so supportive, he had repeatedly told Caitlin, in between preaching to her about the dangers of going out with his brother.
‘Although,’ he had mused only three days previously, ‘he does seem to have changed. Very understanding about the whole work thing. I’m going to be heading up a team overseeing a new direction with the company. Boutique hotels. Three of them. Much more my thing than pretending to be interested in the financial side of things. He seems relaxed and I’m not the only one to have said that. He’s been in touch with our parents several times since he went to London to take over, and off his own bat, which has always, it seems, been a rare occurrence. He’s less stressed out. You’ve obviously removed a couple of his high-energy batteries when he wasn’t looking.’
As a postscript, he had added, mischievously, ‘At any rate, it’s put Luisa fully in the picture. I had no idea she’d been that set on Dante.’
‘Luisa’s spending lots of time with your brother,’ Caitlin said now, standing up and blushing because she recognised the brooding, sensual appreciation in his gaze as his eyes rested on her, naked and fresh from a shower.
‘Poor Alejandro. The woman has always clung to our family like a limpet. Come to bed.’
‘I know you said that that’s because she has no family of her own.’ Why was she worried about Luisa? Caitlin didn’t know and her run-ins with her had been few, but she didn’t trust the woman and her hands were tied when it came to saying anything to Alejandro because he never saw the bad in anyone. Besides, there was no way that she could set her sights on brother number two, bearing in mind that Alejandro had come clean about his sexuality! But the other woman’s name had cropped up time and again, indicating a presence on the scene that felt vaguely threatening.
‘Come to bed...’ Dante repeated, and Caitlin smiled, their eyes still locking in the mirror on the wall.
