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He was wearing a pair of light olive-green trousers and a cream shirt and he was, thankfully, alone.
As he approached her, she noticed how the other females strolling through the foyer darted glances at him, as if they couldn’t help themselves. ‘I thought,’ he said, ‘that you might back out at the last minute.’
He was taller than she remembered. From a supine position on a hospital bed, it had been difficult to get a good idea of his height, but now she could see that he was over six feet tall, and already bronzed from the sun, so that his eyes looked bluer and more striking than she remembered.
‘I take it that your leg has now fully recovered from the experience?’ One of the hotel staff hurried up to gather her luggage and she followed him as he checked her in.
‘Yes, it has,’ she said to his profile, watching as he smiled and then turned to look at her. ‘Thank you very much for...this.’ She spread her arms vaguely to encompass everything around her. ‘It was very kind of you.’
He was watching her as she said this, with a small smile on his mouth, and it was a relief when the porter interrupted them to show her to her room, which wasn’t a room at all, but in fact one of the stone cottages with a thatched roof and a marvellous view overlooking the sea. Blue, blue sea and white, white sand.
‘Was your trip all right?’
‘Oh, yes, thank you very much; it was fine.’
‘There’s no need to be quite so terrifyingly polite,’ he said, amused.
‘I’m sorry. Was I?’
‘You were.’ He folded his arms and looked at her. ‘You haven’t been invited along to be thrown to the sharks.’
‘No, I know that.’ She tried a smile.
‘That’s better.’ He smiled back at her. ‘You’re here to enjoy yourself. That’s why you came, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, of course.’ Her replies sounded stilted and she glanced around her for inspiration.
‘I’m surprised that you came at all, I don’t mind admitting. After what you had told me at the hospital about not accepting charity, I thought that you’d run a mile at the prospect of a holiday at my expense.’
She resisted the temptation to apologize once again, but his remark filled her with dismay. Had he been banking on her not coming? Was that it?
‘I...accepted on impulse,’ she admitted, looking down to where her fingers were twined around the handle of her bag.
‘I’m glad to hear it. Now,’ he continued briskly, ‘I expect you’re feeling rather tired. He leaned against the doorframe and stared down at her. ‘There’s absolutely no need for you to emerge for dinner. They will happily bring you some food here if you’d rather just stay in and recover from the trip. Tomorrow morning we’re hoping to set sail.’
‘Yes, of course. Your secretary did list the itinerary. I have it here in my bag somewhere.’ She plunged nervously into the bowels of the tan bag and several bits of paper fluttered to the ground, accompanied by a half-empty packet of travel tissues, several sweets, her traveller’s cheques and her book, of which she had read very little on the plane.
They both bent to recover the dropped items at the same time and their heads bumped. Lisa pulled away in embarrassment, red-faced, cursing the bag, which was much too large really and had somehow managed to attract quite a bit of paraphernalia in a way that her normal tiny one never did.
‘S-sorry,’ she stammered, burning with confusion as he handed her the packet of tissues and the sweets, which she stuffed back into the bag.
‘There’s no need to be nervous,’ he told her gently, kneeling opposite her.
‘I’m not nervous!’ She was kneeling too, her hands resting lightly on her thighs, her face close to his in the twilight which seemed to have descended abruptly in the space of about ten minutes. She remembered reading that about the Tropics. There was no lingering dusk. Night succeeded day swiftly.
‘Of course you are,’ he said, as though surprised that she could deny the obvious. ‘You’re going on a fortnight’s vacation on a yacht with a group of people whom you’ve never seen in your life before. Of course you’re nervous.’
She sprang up as though burnt and looked at him in confusion.
‘Yacht? I thought it was a cruise.’
‘Yacht, cruise, where’s the difference?’ He stood up and frowned. ‘Are you all right? You look a bit peculiar.’
‘Look,’ she said steadily, even though she could feel herself shaking, ‘please could you clarify what exactly this holiday is? Are we or are we not going on a liner?’
‘Liner? What are you talking about?’
‘In your letter, you said that we would be cruising... I was under the impression...’
His face cleared and he laughed. ‘That we were going on a cruise ship? No. I think there’s been a misunderstanding. No cruise ship. As far as I’m concerned, there wouldn’t be much point in getting away from the madding crowd only to surround yourself by the same madding crowd, just with a change of faces. In fact, I can’t really think of anything worse; don’t you agree?’
No, she wanted to shout in frustrated panic, I most certainly do not agree! And I can think, offhand, of one thing that’s infinitely worse. It involves a group of friends, on a yacht, none of whom I know, and me!
‘I—I would never have come...’ she stammered in horror.
‘If you’d known? You coward.’
‘I really don’t think that I can... There’s been a mistake... It’s not your fault... I should have asked, but I didn’t think... I’m sorry, but...’
‘Don’t be foolish.’
‘I am not being foolish!’ Now she was beginning to feel angry as well as horrified.
‘Look at me.’
She did. Reluctantly.
‘Do I look like someone who is thoughtless enough to invite you out here, throw you into the deep end and watch you struggle with a smile on my face?’
Pretty much, she thought to herself.
‘No, no, I’m sure you’re not, but really...I don’t relish the thought of... I shall be an intrusion...’ Her voice was beginning to fail her under the sheer horror of the enormous misunderstanding that had landed her out here, a million miles away from home, like a stranded fish out of water. She tried to remind herself that she was capable of enormous self-control, a legacy of having spent much of her childhood living in her own world, but something about his commanding, powerful presence made it difficult.
‘Nonsense. An intrusion into what?’ He didn’t give her time to answer. ‘Let me have the key. It’s ludicrous to be standing out here having a lengthy discussion when we could be inside.’
She handed him the key and barely glanced around her as they entered.
‘An intrusion into your privacy,’ she explained in a high voice that bordered on the desperate. ‘You will be with your friends...’
‘What do you think of the cottage?’ He turned around from where he had been standing by one of the windows, looking out into the black velvet night, and faced her.
‘Super. Wonderful,’ she said miserably.
‘You’ve never had a holiday in your life before, Lisa.’ His voice was soothing and gentle, the voice of someone dealing with a child, a child whose wits were just a little scrambled, and who needed to be taken by the hand and pointed in the right direction. ‘You told me so yourself. When I booked this holiday, I thought about that. Why don’t you put aside your reservations for a moment and try and see the next two weeks for what they are? An eye-opener.’
‘You invited me along because you felt sorry for me.’ She spoke flatly, acknowledging the suspicion which had been there at the back of her mind from the beginning.
He shrugged and stuck his hands into his pockets.
‘That’s putting it a little strongly.’
‘But basically that’s it, isn’t it?’ She could feel tears of anger and humiliation springing to her eyes and she tightened her mouth.
‘I felt that I owed you something for having deprived you of a holiday abroad. I wouldn’t call that a crime, would you?’
He had a seductive way of talking. Great intelligence and great charm could be a persuasive combination. She sighed and suddenly felt overwhelmingly tired.
‘Not a crime, no. But you must understand that...’
‘You’re apprehensive.’
‘I wish you’d stop finishing my sentences for me,’ she said crossly. ‘I’m quite capable of finishing them myself.’
He smiled, not taking his eyes off her. ‘You’re scared stiff at the thought of mixing with a group of people you’ve never met in your life before.’
‘Wouldn’t you be?’ she flung at him.
‘No.’
‘Well, excuse me while I just fetch out my medal for bravery from my bag!’ she snapped, and he moved towards her, which she found, inexplicably, so alarming that she had to make an effort not to retreat to the furthest corner of the room.
‘That’s much better,’ he drawled, standing in front of her.
‘What’s much better?’
‘A bit of fire instead of passively assuming the worst before you’ve even tested the water. Now, tomorrow,’ he continued, before she could think that out. ‘We normally breakfast in our rooms. Less effort than trying to arrange a time to meet in the restaurant area. We’re going to meet at the yacht at twelve-thirty. Shall we come and collect you or would you rather have a look around here and make your way to the boat yourself?’
‘How many will there be?’ she asked, frowning.
‘Just six of us. One of my clients who also happens to be a close personal friend, his wife and their daughter, and a cousin of sorts.’
‘A cousin of sorts?’
‘We’re related somewhere along the line but so distantly that it would take for ever trying to work the link out.’
‘Oh.’
‘And you still haven’t answered my question.’
‘Question? What question?’
He grinned with amusement and shook his head slightly. ‘My God, woman, will you take me there some time?’
‘Take you where?’
‘To the world you live in. It certainly isn’t Planet Earth.’
‘Thank you very much,’ Lisa said stiffly, her face burning.
‘And that’s not meant to be an insult,’ he told her, still grinning. ‘I do wonder how you ever manage to stand on your own two feet, though.’
Had he, she thought, remembered every word she had told him all those months ago?
‘I’ll meet you at the yacht,’ she said, ignoring the grin which was now getting on her nerves as much as his fatherly, soothing manner had earlier on.
‘Fine.’ He gave her directions, told her how to get there, asked her again whether she wouldn’t be happier if he came to collect her, so that she wondered whether he thought that she would abscond the minute his back was turned for too long, and then gave her a reassuring smile before strolling out of the cottage.
She sat heavily on the bed and contemplated the suitcase on the ground. Why had she come here? What had possessed her? She had wanted to put to rest, once and for all, the gnawing suspicion she had always had that she was dull, unexciting, too willing to settle for the safe path in life. Her parents, her vibrant, roaming parents who’d somehow landed themselves with a daughter who had never shared their wanderlust, would have smiled at her decision. Was that why she had done it? Yes, she thought wearily, of course it was. Except that a few vital things hadn’t been taken into the equation.
Now she was here, the guest of a man whose ability to reduce her to a nervous, self-conscious wreck she had forgotten, a man who felt sorry for her, who saw her, even though he had not said so in so many words, as someone who needed a little excitement, someone whose eyes needed opening. From the fast lane in which he had been travelling, he had seen her standing on the lay-by and had reached out and yanked her towards him.
It was a gesture her parents would have appreciated, but, sitting here, she realised that the fast lane was not for her. Yes, he had been right; she was afraid. It was something which he could never in a million years understand because she sensed that fear of the unknown was not something that ever guided his actions. He was one of those people who saw the unknown as a challenge.
Whereas for her, she thought, running a shower and letting the water race over her skin, the unknown was always equated with anxiousness. The anxiousness of leaving one school for another, of meeting new people, of tentatively forging new bonds only for the whole process to be repeated all over again. And every time it had seemed worse.
How could an accident of fate have thrown her into a situation like this?
The following morning, after she had had her breakfast, which, as he had advised her, had been brought to her in her room, she removed herself in her modest black bikini to the beach, selected a deserted patch and lay in the sun, covered with oil.
She would just have to make the best of things. She had decided that as soon as she had opened her eyes and seen the brilliant blue skies outside.
It was impossible to have too many black thoughts when everything around you was visually so beautiful. The sea was crystal-clear and very calm, the sand was white and dusty and there was a peaceful noiselessness about it all that made you wonder whether the hurried life back in England really existed.
She stretched out on her towel, closed her eyes, and was beginning to drift pleasurably off, safe in the knowledge that she wasn’t due to meet the yacht for another four hours, when she heard Angus say drily, ‘I thought I’d find you here. You’ll have to be careful, though; the sun out here is a killer, especially for someone as fairskinned as you are.’
Lisa sat up as though an electric charge had suddenly shot through her body and met his eyes glinting down at her seemingly from a very great height.
He was half-naked, wearing only his bathing trunks, and a towel was slung over his shoulder.
Reddening, she looked away from the powerfully built, bronzed torso and said in as normal a voice as she could muster, ‘I know. I’ve slapped lots of suncream on.’
‘Very sensible.’
He stretched out the towel and lowered himself onto it, then turned on his side so that he was looking at her.
‘What are you doing here?’ she asked, keeping her face averted and her eyes closed behind her sunglasses. He was so close to her that she could feel his breath warm on her cheek when he spoke. It was as heady as breathing in a lungful of incense and she hated the sensation.
‘I came to your room and you weren’t there. I assumed that you’d be out here. Beautiful, isn’t it?’ He reached out and removed her sunglasses. ‘There. That’s better. I like to see people when I’m talking to them.’
‘May I have my sunglasses back?’
She looked at him and found that he was grinning at her.
‘Don’t put them on.’
‘Is that an order?’ she asked primly, and he laughed.
‘Would you obey me if it was?’
