And now, lying here in the water with her, I’m intensely aware of the pressure of time ticking away.
Tomorrow is our last day together and then our deal is complete.
I still need to ask her the questions that I’ve been avoiding touching on until I’m satisfied she trusts me enough to answer honestly. But I find now that I’m not so sure I want to know. Or if I want to act on the information any more, whatever it turns out to be. Whatever April’s father did, it doesn’t matter so much to me any more. Though perhaps I should have it, just so I can mentally put the past to rest.
What matters is that we’ve both been given a chance to move on. To wherever that might be.
But I don’t want to ask her about it right now. I can’t bring myself to ruin this feeling of peace I have inside me.
So it’ll be tomorrow, then.
Tomorrow I’ll get out of her what my father wanted me to know.
‘Tell me about your life now,’ I say to her as I run my fingers over her wet, soapy skin—from the magnificent swell of her breasts to the gentle jut of her hip bones. I suddenly can’t imagine not being able to touch this body again.
‘It’s mostly work, work, work,’ she murmurs. ‘The job I do is usually so intense, there’s not a lot of time for fun.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ I mutter against her hair, breathing in the fresh, intoxicating scent of her, committing it to memory.
‘You know, I haven’t had a proper holiday for about five years, so my time here has actually been very welcome.’
‘I’m glad it hasn’t been an entirely horrific experience,’ I say with a wry lilt to my voice.
She turns her head to look up at me, her expression filled with warmth.
It’s so beautiful.
She’s so beautiful.
‘Barely horrific at all. Apart from the terrible, tormenting pleasure I’ve had to put up with from you,’ she says with a frowning sort of grin. But I can tell she’s not really angry about that. If anything, she’s enjoyed it more than she ever thought she would. Because she likes to be challenged and have her boundaries pushed—something no other men have been brave enough to try, I’m pretty damn sure.
I smile and bend down towards her, kissing her soft mouth, loving the unique taste of her.
But I am. I’m brave enough.
Because I understand her. I know what she needs better than anyone else on the planet and I love seeing her reaction when I give it to her.
I love it.
April
I wake up the next day with Jamie lying in bed next to me, his arm slung protectively round my waist.
I feel him stir as I shift a little against him.
‘Morning,’ he murmurs into my hair.
My skin rushes with goose bumps as I feel his hand begin to caress my stomach then move up to graze my breasts, his fingertips playing with my instantly erect nipples.
I’m not sure how he’s done it, but he’s turned my body into an instrument of sexual pleasure and I can’t get enough of him playing with me.
I slowly turn to face him, smiling at his sleep-worn face. He’s such a handsome man, and the memory of his dreams still in his eyes and his jaw rough with stubble takes away none of his appeal.
I could gaze at his face for ever.
As if sensing my thoughts, he reaches up to stroke his fingers over my cheek and down to my lips, where he plays with his fingertip for a moment, leaving a delicious shimmer of sensation in the trail of his touch.
Without a word he rolls on top of me, not breaking eye contact for a second, and slides his thighs between mine, opening me up to the demands of his body. I let him, feeling my pussy pulse with the urgent need to have him inside me again, as if it’s been an age since he was last there. He’s already hard and after a small adjustment he pushes his cock deep inside me, his eyes locking with mine, his mouth hovering above my lips as I draw in a deep, satisfied gasp.
We move together, our bodies and minds as fused as they could ever be, our gazes never leaving the other’s.
It’s such a blissfully complete connection, where our bodies are speaking to each other without us needing to utter a word. We thrust and grind ourselves together, needing it faster and harder as we get closer to our goal of mutual pleasure.
And still we don’t look away.
It’s so intensely intimate, staring into his eyes like this as he brings me to climax, that I experience what I can only describe as a brain orgasm. It rushes through my head, then down, deep through my body, taking my breath away.
He comes a moment after I do, finally screwing his eyes shut as he shudders above me, lost in his own climax of ecstasy.
‘Oh fuck, that was intense,’ he murmurs after a moment of calm, his body still pressed into mine. He leans back and smiles into my eyes and I can’t help but smile back. It’s like an instinct I can’t fight any more.
This is such a perfect moment, I can’t bear to think it might be the last one I ever have with him.
‘I’ve really enjoyed being here with you. It’s been wonderful to have a break from real life,’ I say, though I have to force it through a throat that’s uncomfortably constricted.
‘All those responsibilities seem miles away right now, huh?’
‘They do,’ I say with a pained sigh. ‘But I guess it’s time to get back to them now.’
I rub my eyes, feeling the weight of my life back in England begin to press in on me.
If only I could stay here for ever...
‘Tell me something,’ he says, propping himself up on one elbow and supporting his head with his hand while he gazes down at me, his eyes searching mine as if he’s looking for more of my deepest desires in them.
‘Hmm?’
‘What was it about your mother’s death that meant it had to be you to hold your family together? Why did your father go to pieces like he did?’
I stiffen, my heart suddenly racing a mile a minute, and I swallow hard as my throat tightens in panic. I wasn’t expecting that question right now and I feel blindsided by it.
‘He was in shock for a long time. A loss like that can affect people in very different ways,’ I bluster, but I can tell from the look in his eye that he knows I’m lying.
Suddenly I’m too hot, my skin is burning and lungs no longer seem to be able to take in as much air as they need. I try to shuffle out from under him so I can breathe again.
He resists me, but only for a moment, before letting me go.
I slide out from under him and sit up, but the edgy heat doesn’t recede.
‘Was he more involved in what happened to her than he’s ever admitted?’ Jamie says, sitting up too.
‘What do you mean?’ I ask, trying to keep my voice breezy, as if I genuinely have no clue what he’s talking about, as I get out of bed and reach for my underwear, pulling it on with fumbling fingers.
‘I mean, I get that it was a terrible shock to lose her so suddenly, but was there more to her accident than was made common knowledge? What made your father shut down like he did? It seems odd for a man like Maxim, someone who’s so emotionally cold and always in control of everything he does, to react in that way.’
‘What are you trying to imply?’ I’m shaken, unnerved. There’s a new, cunning look in his eyes that I’ve not seen before. I’m sure I’m not imagining it. And it’s scaring the hell out of me.
‘I think there’s more to the story. And I think you know what it is. But you’ve kept it from everyone. What are you protecting your father from? Jail time? Or social condemnation?’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ I say, but there’s a giveaway tremble in my voice.
I feel trapped now, panicky. What the hell is going on here?
Jamie seems to sense my anxiety because he gets up from the bed and comes towards me,
taking my face between his hands and looking into my eyes, his gaze steady and determined.
‘Tell me what really happened to your mother.’
‘I can’t.’ I shake my head loose from his hold and turn away from him to grab my dress, which I pull over my head with trembling hands.
‘I know there was more to it,’ he says forcefully behind me.
I spin round to look at him. ‘How do you know?’ I demand. He can’t know. Who would have told him? Only three of us know what really happened and I know for damn sure my father would never have said anything to anyone.
‘My father sent me a posthumous letter alluding to the fact there was more to the story and that you know about it.’
So Cliff had finally decided to let Jamie in on the dark, shameful secret we’d all been carrying around for the last decade but he hadn’t told him himself—oh, no—he was leaving it up to me. The selfish bastard.
‘I need to know what it is, April, so I can put him to rest. Your father is a cold, callous bastard. We both know it. So stop trying to protect him.’
A pulse beats hard in my throat and my whole body rushes with unwelcome, prickly heat, as if I’m being stabbed all over with pins.
I can’t tell him, though. I can’t do it.
I’ve spent ten long years burying my memories of that horrific day. I don’t think I’m capable of facing them again right now. Not when I’m feeling so vulnerable here with him, on his territory.
‘You don’t want to know, Jamie. Trust me,’ I bluster.
‘Trust you? How the hell am I supposed to do that?’ He’s angry now that I’m still resisting him, refusing to give him what he wants. ‘You’ve been lying to me for ten years! I want to hear the truth, April. You owe me that much. I know my father was involved in some way and I want to know how. Stop being such a fucking coward and tell me.’ His face is a mask of frustration. ‘Tell me!’
I can tell from the determined look in his eye that he’s not going to leave this alone. He’s going to hound me for the rest of my life until I tell him what he wants to know.
I feel sick at the thought.
It’s suddenly clear to me that he’s brought me here to his island on false pretences to seduce me into telling him what he wants to know. It’s all been a game, a performance, in order to get what he wants from me. To trick me into trusting him so I’ll give away my secrets.
And I fell for it.
How could he do that to me after what we’ve shared here? It felt so special, so real. But it wasn’t. It was all just a lie.
Anger surges through me.
‘Is this what this seduction has been about? You’re trying to get some damning information about my father out of me so you can destroy him?’
He has the good grace to look a little shame-faced. ‘Maybe at first. And why not? He had no problem destroying my father. And our relationship.’ He shakes his head. ‘I can’t believe you’re still defending him after all this time. After everything he made you do.’
‘He didn’t make me!’ I shout, my control snapping. ‘He begged me not to see you any more. He couldn’t stand the thought of it after what your father did!’
There’s a ringing silence in the air after I shout this when we stare at each other in shock.
‘What are you talking about? What did my father do?’ Jamie asks quietly, his voice dangerously low and incredulous, as if he thinks I’m lying.
I suck in a breath, attempting to centre myself. Okay, then. I guess it’s out now. If he really has to know the sordid details, I’ll tell him. If it’s so important to hear the truth, no matter what it costs him. No matter how much it’s going to hurt him to hear it.
I’m through protecting him from it.
‘If you really want to know, it was your father’s fault that my mother died,’ I say in a shaky voice.
His face pales and he shakes his head, his brow furrowed in angry confusion. ‘What? No. Don’t be ridiculous. How could it have been?’
I draw in a shuddery breath, feeling it catch painfully in my throat. ‘They were having an affair, Jamie. Your father and my mother.’
There’s an agonising silence in the air that throbs with tension.
‘What makes you think that?’ Jamie asks eventually, though I can tell he’s having trouble accepting such a preposterous suggestion.
I walk back over to the bed and slump down onto it, forcing myself to look at him so he’ll know I’m telling him the truth.
‘Your father was at the hospital with her when my father and I arrived after her accident,’ I say. ‘He was sitting outside her room in a terrible state. He was drunk and distraught. He admitted to us that he’d found her passed out in her hotel room. He’d gone there to apologise for a row they’d had the day before. Because he and my mother had been lovers for years, even before we were born. They were supposed to be going on that skiing holiday together. My mother’s friend was going to cover for them—the one my father made go to France to pick up Maya and tell her that her mother was dead as punishment.’
I twist my fingers together in an attempt to stop my hands from shaking. It’s so unbelievably hard for me to talk about this after burying it so deep for so many years, but I know now I’ve started I have to get it all out.
‘Maya had messed up their plan to be together by getting expelled so my mother felt forced to take her instead,’ I explain. ‘Your father had been angry about this—that she was putting her selfish teenaged daughter’s needs before his—and he’d followed her there. She’d told him to go home and they’d had a terrible row.’ I take a breath, steeling myself to continue, even though my chest feels as if it’s folding in on itself.
‘He’d been drinking heavily in a nearby bar when he spotted first Maya then my mother go up to one of the dangerous black slopes later that day and had followed them up there. Apparently my mother was about to take the lift back down to meet Maya at the bottom instead of skiing down the slope that she wasn’t experienced enough to handle—until she saw Cliff. They had another row and he threatened to tell my father about their affair. Apparently, in her anger and desperation to get away from him, she skied down the slope—and he chased her. That’s when she fell and smashed her head. That’s why she died. Your father hounded her to her death because he was jealous and selfish.’
Jamie has remained standing rigidly in the middle of the room, staring at me with angry tears in his eyes as I’ve told him all this, but now he shakes his head, his jaw set. ‘I don’t believe my father would do that.’
‘It’s all true, Jamie,’ I whisper with sad exasperation. ‘I was there at the hospital. I heard it from his lips. He told us all about it while she was fighting for her life in the room next to us. There was no reason for him to lie.’ I sigh as I remember the terrible aftermath that followed his confession. ‘I had to forcibly restrain my father from beating the shit out of him.’
The unrestrained dismay on his face makes my stomach turn. He can’t believe he’s hearing this. It clearly isn’t what he was expecting to find out about the father he’s worshipped for all these years. But he asked for it. He forced me to this point of honesty, even after I warned him he should let it go.
Still, I experience a stab of guilt as I see pain and confusion flash through his eyes. It’s a devastating blow and he’s having trouble standing up straight now, as if he’s been belted in the stomach.
‘That’s why I could never tell you the truth,’ I say shakily, suddenly feeling the need to soften the blow in any way I can. Because I know how painful it must be to hear this—I’ve been through it myself.
I stand up and move towards him, but he backs away from me and leans against the wall behind him, holding out a hand to stop me from coming any closer.
‘How could we have stayed together at that point, both knowing your father was responsible for my mother’s death, Jamie?�
� I plead, desperate for him to understand how much it’s affected me. To get why I felt forced to act the way I did.
‘Our relationship wouldn’t have survived it. But I couldn’t tell you that because I didn’t want to put you through the same pain and anguish I’d gone through. I cared about you too much to hurt you like that.’
His face is a mask, rigid and unreadable, but I sense his anger simmering beneath.
I wrap my arms around my middle and hug myself tightly, desperate for any kind of comfort. ‘It was all so messed up. I could barely look at you after that, knowing what your father had done. It felt so icky and wrong knowing that your father and my mother had been lovers. So screwed up. It tarnished everything we’d had, made it feel seedy. I was terrified we’d all be treated like lepers socially. Everyone would have been whispering and laughing at us behind our backs. Wondering whether we were actually related.’
He looks at me sharply. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’
‘Did you not hear what I said? The affair had been going on for years.’
He looks absolutely floored.
‘That’s why I broke things off so sharply and wouldn’t see you. I wanted to wait until I had the DNA test results back, just in case.’
‘And are we?’ he asks, his voice a deep growl.
‘Are we what?’
‘Related.’
‘No. My DNA test came back as a match to my father.’
‘Well, that’s something at least,’ he says with a cold, cynical smile.
I hesitate, but now the truth is out I know I’ll have to tell him the other thing that’s played on my mind for the last decade.
‘I strongly suspect Juno might actually be your half-sister, though—as does my father, I think, though neither of us have ever said so out loud. I’m sure my father believes it because of the way he acts around Juno. He’s either cold with her or he acts as though she’s not even present in the room. It breaks my heart to see it, but I can’t do anything about it. Thank goodness Juno is so grounded and mostly able to shrug it off. I’ve seen her literally do that many a time.’
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