Romantic Getaways Collection. Liz Fielding
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by her side.
Gaudi’s mesmerising art nouveau Casa Milà building was only a couple of streets away from Caleb’s apartment, fortuitously in the right direction for her hotel near the Nova Icaria beach, so they strolled past it, Elena admiring the strange, cave-like curves and outlandish quirks of the architecture. The whole building looked as though it had been hand-carved out of an enormous piece of rock by prehistoric man, looking truly anachronistic next to its more modern neighbours.
‘He really was a genius,’ she said in wonder, gazing up at the breathtaking façade. ‘Such a visionary.’
‘Unparalleled,’ Caleb agreed, using his hand to shield his eyes against the bright glare of the sun as he squinted up at it. ‘You know, I’m a little embarrassed to admit this, but I barely notice it’s there any more. It’s become part of the street furniture to me after all my years living here.’
‘That’s terrible,’ Elena said, frowning up at the building.
‘I’m so busy getting from one place to another I forget to look up,’ he murmured.
She glanced at him. ‘I do the same thing in London,’ she said, feeling a little rush of poignancy that their lives had followed such a parallel path, despite the distance between them. ‘It’s very easy to take beauty for granted,’ she added.
‘Yes.’ He paused then said, ‘It’s funny, but losing big chunks of my past seems to have brought the present into sharper focus.’
When she looked round at him she experienced a little frisson at the intense way he was looking at her.
‘Are you happy with your life?’ she blurted, her nerves getting the better of her.
His brow furrowed as he thought about this. ‘I’m satisfied with the way my business is growing and I enjoy living in Barcelona.’
There was a heavy pause while she waited for him to continue. ‘And, for the purposes of our dinner this evening, I’m very happy with my love life.’ He flashed her a wolfish grin, making her tummy flip over.
He gestured for them to start walking again and she fell into step with him as they made their way along the pavement, feeling even more jumpy now than when they’d first started out.
‘Speaking of which, I guess we ought to decide how long we’ve been an item, for the purpose of tonight’s charade,’ Caleb said, a wry grin turning up the corner of his mouth.
Elena took a breath, feeling her pulse jitter. ‘Yes, I guess we should get our story straight. How about we tell them that we met at university but were just friends then, and bumped into each other again a year ago at a business conference and things progressed from there.’
‘Dull, but believable, I suppose,’ Caleb said with a thoughtful nod.
A coach had parked a little way down the street and as they approached it the pavement suddenly became overrun by a large tour group that filed off to look at the famous building they’d just left.
She felt Caleb slip his arm protectively around her as they began to be jostled by the crowd moving past them and she allowed herself to sink against his strong body for a moment, her heart beginning to race as she breathed in his zesty, familiar scent.
Once they were clear of the crowd he let her go and she dazedly rubbed at her arm where his hand had gripped her, her skin feeling tingly and sensitive where their bodies had connected.
‘You’re going to have to get used to me touching you,’ Caleb said in a low voice, looking at her arm where she was rubbing it. ‘Or they’re not going to believe we’re a couple.’
Elena swallowed hard, balling her fists. ‘Yes, of course. You just took me by surprise then, that’s all.’
He looked at her with one eyebrow raised. ‘Were you always this jumpy around me?’
‘No, no! I’m just a little off balance today. This is all a bit strange, to be honest.’ She flashed him a strained smile. ‘You have to admit, we’ve got ourselves into a rather odd situation here.’
She tried not to notice the puzzled look he gave her and strode on confidently, looking deliberately around her, at anything but him, to give her some time to pull herself together.
Good grief, if she couldn’t even act normally around him when they were on their own how was she going to manage it when they had an audience tonight?
She needed to get herself into a more relaxed and friendly mindset.
A little further on they walked past Gaudi’s Sagrada Família, which rose majestically into the sky like a discarded giant elf king’s crown.
‘It makes me think of something from the Lord of the Rings,’ Elena said in wonder as she took in the arresting quirkiness of it. ‘We spent a whole weekend at university once, working our way through the trilogy of films. I could barely keep my eyes open at the end of it and I dreamt about it intensively for the next few nights.’ She glanced at him speculatively. ‘Do you remember?’
He shook his head, agitation flashing in his eyes. ‘I have no recollection of ever seeing those films.’
Her heart went out to him. It must be so distressing for him to lose so many of his memories—though, now she thought about it, the hard shell she’d witnessed at their initial meeting had definitely softened a little since they’d been gone. Perhaps the absence of deep-seated anger that had driven him for most of his life was finally allowing his true nature to emerge from the dark place where it had been hiding.
‘Well, perhaps you should think of it as a good thing,’ she said with forced jollity, in an attempt to lighten the sombre atmosphere that seemed to have fallen between them now. ‘You get to experience the excitement of watching them afresh. I wish I could do that.’
His eyebrow shot up. ‘Losing the first twenty-five years of your life is a high price to pay though, don’t you think?’
She shrugged. ‘I think it’s worth taking every positive you can out of an experience. Even if it is a testing one.’
‘You’re quite the optimist,’ Caleb drawled, raising a derisive eyebrow.
Her skin prickled with annoyance. ‘And you’re a cynic! Life’s too short to dwell on the negative.’
Although perhaps she should learn to take her own advice, she thought wryly, considering how much anxiety she seemed to be carrying around with her at the moment.
Caleb looked taken aback at her outburst, but after a moment his features softened and he let out a low laugh. ‘Maybe you’re right,’ he said. ‘I have little enough “life” outside of the business as it is; I guess I should spend it enjoying what I work so hard to have.’
They walked on again in silence for a minute, their arms swinging at their sides.
‘To be fair, I’m just as bad about spending too much time working and not enjoying all life has to offer,’ Elena said after a while. ‘I can regularly spend up to ten hours a day at work and sometimes carry on into the evenings if I need to. I’ve lost count of the number of parties and get-togethers I’ve cried off recently. My friends despair of me.’
‘You don’t go out much?’ he asked.
‘Not as much as I should. There’s no wonder I’m single; my personal life could definitely do with some TLC.’
‘Why have you really been on your own for so long?’ he asked in such a casual tone she felt sure he’d been waiting for the right opportunity to broach that question.
So this was it then—time to be totally honest with him.
‘Well, the thing is, I nearly got married some years ago, to a guy called Jimmy,’ she said, bracing herself in case the mention of his name jogged Caleb’s memory, but he didn’t react, just looked at her with interest. ‘And I needed some time on my own after the relationship finished