by Ella Hayes
He unzipped his life vest and shrugged it off, shooting her a covert glance. Her swimsuit was low cut, the full swell of her breasts hard to ignore. She was hard to ignore—period—because for some reason she wasn’t leaving and that meant that he was going to have to make conversation, at least until he could figure out what the hell was going on. He stepped towards the boat, glancing at the mast. ‘Do you sail, Emilie?’
‘No.’ She gave a little shrug. ‘I’ve never...’
For some reason, her words trailed away. At the lower edge of his vision, he could see her toe sketching a line in the sand. He raked his teeth over his lower lip, trying to stop his eyes mapping out the ample curve of her hips and her breasts. ‘So—’ he shifted on his feet, clearing his throat so that his voice would actually work ‘—what do you do?’
‘I...erm...’ She folded her arms across her chest, eyes holding his for a long second, and then suddenly a tiny spark ignited in their depths. ‘Oh! You mean here...what do I do here? On the island?’
He nodded.
She smiled hesitantly. ‘I’m the chef.’
Chef?
‘Breakfast... Lunch... Dinner...’ Her smile seemed to be fading. ‘Afternoon tea...?’ Her eyes were widening. ‘Anything you want...’
‘Cool—’ he rubbed the back of his neck ‘—I mean, thanks.’ He forced out a smile, then turned to the boat, mechanically liberating the mainsail. His chest felt tight. His pulse was bounding. Kristus! This was exactly why he needed not to be with people! He was morose and churlish, and...lost. He hadn’t been anticipating a chef and he hadn’t been quick enough to hide it, and now he’d made Emilie feel uncomfortable which was the last thing he’d meant to do. It wasn’t her fault. He was the one who hadn’t read the brochure Nils had given him. He’d just assumed... Skit!
He hefted the sail on to the sand, laying it out ready for folding. Nils had done a nice thing, a very generous thing, but it was suddenly looking as if his private island escape wasn’t going to be that private after all. A sharp ache dug him in the ribs. After everything he’d been through with Astrid, he wanted to be alone, needed to be alone to process his thoughts. He was perfectly able to make his own breakfast, lunch and dinner. He didn’t want, or need, a personal chef!
A sudden gust tore the sail from his hands, carrying it scuttling, crablike, up the beach. He sprinted after it, slipping and scuffling in the soft sand until he was right there, sinking to his knees, laying a hand on it, then somehow Emilie was there beside him, on her knees too, grabbing at the flapping clew, her long, dark hair lifting, billowing around her face, revealing her smooth neck, a tiny gold cuff on the rim of her left ear. For half a beat her eyes held his and in that instant the wind gusted again, carrying the sail off beyond his reach. He rocked back on his heels. ‘Skit!’
‘If that was my fault, I’m sorry.’ She was panting slightly, taming her hair with her hands, twisting it into a rope. ‘I was trying to help!’
If she was sorry, then why was there a smile hovering at the corners of her lovely mouth? He shrugged. ‘It wasn’t your fault. I wasn’t holding it properly.’
Her eyes widened. ‘We can try again...?’
It was hard not to get lost in the sweet planes of her face, in the smooth arc of her dark eyebrows. Those eyes... He pushed a hand through his hair. She was the chef he didn’t need, a distraction he didn’t need, but when it came to runaway sails, two people were better than one. He rubbed the sand off his hands. ‘We’ll have to, because if it gets into the trees, it could get ripped.’ He glanced at the sail, barely ten metres away, undulating softly in the breeze. ‘Just grab whatever you can okay, and—’ it was hard not to stare at her mouth ‘—thanks.’
Amusement twinkled in her eyes. ‘Don’t thank me yet. It could all go Pete Tong.’
‘Pete Tong?’
‘It means wrong.’ She grinned. ‘It’s like rhyming slang.’
‘Pete Tong! I get it.’ He held in a smile. ‘Right... Let’s go!’ He launched himself at the sail, catching the tack, making sure that he had it in both hands before looking up. Emilie was fighting with the other corner, bending over it, giving him a bird’s eye view of her smooth, full breasts and the dusky hollow of her cleavage. He swallowed hard. Looking was wrong, but it was impossible to tear his eyes away, impossible to stop them wandering over her hips and her narrow waist. She was curvy, like an hourglass, not at all like Astrid—
‘I’ve got the pointy bit under control!’
Flushed cheeks, lustrous eyes. She looked so ridiculously triumphant that, for a moment, he forgot everything. He felt a smile coming and it wasn’t a tight smile, or a forced smile, but the real deal. ‘Great! Keep tight hold, okay, and...for future reference, it’s not called the pointy bit. It’s called the clew.’ He pressed his lips together, watching her face, counting down in his head...
She inspected the piece of sail in her hands and then she looked up, her cheeks lifting into a smile. ‘You mean I’ve actually got a clue? That’d be a first!’
He laughed. ‘Never grows old.’
* * *
So that was lonely Larsson! Emilie walked back the way she’d come, pleased to be putting some distance between herself and the delectable man who’d sailed on to the beach right under her nose. She clenched her teeth, resisting the urge to grind them. What had got into her? She’d marched right up to Buck Island’s newest guest, full of self-righteous indignation, intending to send him on his way. As if she’d even had the right to do such a thing! Thank God she’d realised who he was in the nick of time. And if Joel Larsson hadn’t quite bought into her whole welcome routine, then at least he’d had the good grace not to say anything.
She chewed her lip. Why couldn’t he have arrived on the motor launch with Erris, with luggage, and wearing actual clothes like all the other guests had done? Instead, he’d sailed in on a breeze, out of the blue, and from the moment he’d turned around and fixed his eyes on hers, the sand beneath her feet might just as well have been quicksand. And when he’d taken off his life vest, revealing his broad, smooth chest and those delectable V-shaped muscles arrowing into his bright orange board shorts, God help her, it had been impossible to concentrate on a single word he was saying.
She stopped, suddenly compelled to look back. There was no tall, muscular figure on the beach now, but the catamaran seemed to be further away from the water than it had been when she’d left. He must have dragged it towards the palm trees before heading up to the house, the house that ought to have been filled with twelve people, not one.
She closed her eyes, picturing his... Blue-grey, more blue than grey when the sun struck his irises at just the right angle, and a warm, glinting blue when he’d smiled. Why was he alone, a man like that? It didn’t make sense. And why had he seemed so surprised when she’d told him she was the chef? Admittedly, a swimsuit and sarong didn’t exactly scream Cook, but even so, his reaction had suggested that he wasn’t expecting a chef at all. Bizarre! Who would book an exclusive island escape and not know what they were paying for?
She dropped down on to the sand, sliding her toes into its warm, deep softness. Joel Larsson! Cool as a glacier, but with the sail in his hands she’d seen mischief flaring in his eyes. A lighter side. The way his eyebrows had quirked.
‘Never grows old.’
His chuckle had been deep and throaty. Genuine. It had been a nice surprise...his laughter...hers... The way they’d laughed together, melting all the ice.
‘It’s C-L-E-W,’ he’d explained afterwards, ‘not C-L-U-E.’
And then he’d talked her through the whole anatomy of the mainsail as they’d folded it up—head and foot and tack and clew—but she hadn’t minded. Talking had discharged a little of the static she’d felt crackling between them every time their eyes had locked for longer than a moment or two. Static! She hadn’t felt anything like that for a long time. It was unsettling
.
She scooped up a handful of sand, letting it fall streaming through her fist. Being attracted to Joel wasn’t a crime—he was gorgeous—but he was also a guest on the island. Even if she’d been the type to consider a little holiday romance, which she wasn’t, dallying with a guest was completely out of the question. It wasn’t a stipulation of her contract; it was simple professionalism—and the last time she’d checked she still was a professional, even if she no longer had a restaurant, or a partner, or a best friend...
She swallowed hard. That was what she’d been turning over in her head before Joel appeared. All the things she’d lost: all those years with Tom, all that time... And she’d been worrying that if she wasn’t run off her feet, if she wasn’t too busy to think, then those memories and thoughts would torment her. As the catamaran had touched the beach, she’d been simmering with all that hurt and anger and it had bubbled up inside her, sent her marching up to Joel, because in that moment, letting those feelings breach the surface, doing something with them, even if it was only ordering a trespasser off the beach, had seemed better than pushing them back down. But Joel was innocent. He wasn’t the problem.
She closed her eyes, listening to the waves spilling on to the shore. If only she could view the prospect of having time to herself more positively. After all, this was paradise island! Green and golden, and turquoise. Warm and peaceful, and... Lonely. Her stomach clenched, then churned slowly. Before she’d even met him, she’d christened Joel ‘Lonely Larsson’, but maybe that said more about her than it did about him. He might well have come to the island by himself because he liked solitude, whereas she never had. For her, solitude meant loneliness. It meant being the odd one out. It meant being unwanted...
She trailed her fingers through the sand. It was how she’d felt at home, growing up. Her older twin sisters had always been locked together in a way that had excluded her. The seven-year gap that separated her from them hadn’t helped... She bit her lips together. It was obvious that she hadn’t been planned. Her friends had all had siblings who were closer in age, siblings they could hang out with even if they didn’t always get along. She’d asked her parents about it once and they’d said that of course she’d been planned, then they’d laughed, said that she was the evidence of a healthy relationship. That had definitely been too much information, even if, on reflection, it was true.
Her parents were one of those couples who’d always seemed to live in one another’s pockets. They’d been on parent–teacher committees together—chair and vice-chair. They’d been members of the same hiking club. They liked the same food, the same bands, the same movies, and, now that they lived in Abu Dhabi, they were golf partners and bridge partners.
Pairs! Partners! That was what she’d known, growing up. It could have moulded her differently, made her fiercely independent, but it hadn’t. Instead, it had given her a map to follow. And she’d followed that map religiously, hadn’t she? Attaching herself to anyone who gave her the time of day. Always needing a best friend. Safety in numbers, better together—those were the pillars she’d clung to. It was why what had happened between Tom and Rachel felt like the ultimate betrayal.
She stabbed her fingers hard into the sand, recoiling as a something sharp pricked her fingertip. She felt around it, excavating. It had to be a conch! These islands were famous for them. She’d read that conches were signifiers of optimism, courage and hope, all things she desperately needed! She freed it, brushing the sand off. It was lovely. Pale and ridged on the outside with little spurs sticking out, curving upwards. She turned it over, dipping her fingertip into the smooth, pink space that was once the creature’s doorway. A doorway to optimism, courage and hope...? She closed her fist around it, felt the spikes impaling her palm.
‘We need to talk...’
She swallowed hard. At least she wasn’t crying. Tom’s voice, in her head, saying those words, usually tore her heart in two, but now, for some reason, she was thinking about the shell and the solitary creature that had lived inside it. She opened her hand. The little soft-bodied creature had built itself quite a fortress. She chewed her lip. Maybe she should do the same. She’d started going out with Tom when she was seventeen. She’d never stood on her own two feet, steering her own course. Perhaps Joel Larsson’s solitude was a blessing! With a dramatically reduced workload for the next three weeks, she could use the time to reset...to try find out who she was, who she could be... She’d have time to grow her own shell and learn how to be alone. Not lonely, but alone and happy!
She scrambled to her feet, clasping the little shell tightly. For a dizzying moment, Joel’s steady blue-grey gaze filled her head, but she pushed it away. She liked Joel, but she couldn’t allow herself to think of him in a romantic way. She was done with men, done with love. It was time to put herself in the centre.
CHAPTER TWO
JOEL SLID HIS empty suitcase into the closet and closed the door, turning to look at the vast, airy bedroom that was going to be his for the next three weeks.
It was larger than their—correction—his bedroom in Stockholm, which was painted in shades of grey and cream. This room was white, with dark glowing furniture and a mellow wooden floor. The upholstery and curtains were a lively, tropical green, but it wasn’t overdone; there was just enough colour to brighten the canvas. It was all very pleasant, with its mingling scents of clean bedlinen and warm wax polish.
He breathed in slowly, felt his shoulders loosening, a vague sensation of unfurling. Jetlag kicking in, he decided, fatigue claiming him at last. Maybe he’d overdone it a bit, hiring the catamaran straight from the airport and sailing himself to the island. But the two flights he’d taken to get here had felt interminable and he’d been desperate to breathe fresh air, to feel sunshine on his face and a breeze on his skin. And of course then, on the beach, there’d been the unexpected additional exertion of capturing the runaway sail: going after it, catching it, losing it again because of...
He crossed to sit on the ottoman that hugged the foot of the wide bed. Emilie! She was the reason he’d fumbled the sail. When she’d caught his eye for that tiniest of moments, he’d felt something shuttling between them, something that had skewed his senses and turned his bones to rubber. And then the sail had flown up the beach again, and they’d caught it together...and she’d been laughing about the clew. After that he’d had to keep on talking, telling her about the sail as she’d helped him to fold it, because otherwise he’d have lost himself completely in her sparkling hazel eyes and her luscious mouth, those sweetly curving lips...
He blew out a long breath. He hadn’t been expecting Emilie, the chef, or Melinda, the housekeeper, for that matter. Melinda had given him a tour of the place shortly after he’d arrived. Full of smiles, she’d shown him the sitting room with its shuttered picture windows that could be slid back, giving access to the sweeping deck outside, the cinema with its sumptuous leather recliners, the library, the games room, the gym, the dining room, then she’d taken him outside so he could see the infinity pool and the terrace, and the panoramic views. Finally, she’d led him up the stairs and into the master suite, offering to unpack his suitcase if he wanted—as if—and then she’d said that when he was through with unpacking and freshening up, there’d be drinks and appetisers waiting for him on the terrace.
He bent to pick up the battered loafers he’d kicked off earlier. When Nils had told him that he’d booked a house on a private island he’d pictured something smaller, less luxurious, not a place like this, with rooms for everything and a speedboat for his personal use. He shook his head. He might have guessed! Nils lived extravagantly and was generous to a fault. It wouldn’t have crossed his mind to find a more modest set up. He sighed. Melinda had definitely picked up on his incredulity. She’d barely been able to hide her amusement as she’d been showing him around. If only he’d read that damn brochure, he’d have known what to expect. He wouldn’t have looked like such an idiot!
He toyed with his loafers, fingering the faded leather. But he was an idiot, wasn’t he? Stupid enough to have thought that his life as a husband had been about to start.
Astrid... Pale-lipped in the doorway. ‘Joel, we need to talk...’
He felt his pulse fading, then thudding on thickly, filling his ears, filling his throat. Eight weeks! Astrid had called off their wedding just eight weeks before the big day, throwing away eleven whole years together—no—more than that, because he’d been with Astrid from when they were teenagers. And her reason? He felt the sudden drag of dizziness. Johan! His own brother!
He gritted his teeth, swallowing hard. Way to capsize the boat! Way to dislocate the bones of a life! No wonder there was a humming black space where his heart used to be. Maybe his body was protecting him somehow, releasing an anaesthetic hormone into his bloodstream to stop the pain. But it was going on too long and he was sick of waiting for the pain to shred him. He wanted to feel it because he deserved to. He hadn’t paid enough attention to Astrid, or to their life together. He’d been lazy, taken everything for granted. It was as if the diamond ring he’d slid on to Astrid’s finger all those years ago had absolved him from thinking about love.
Instead, he’d dedicated himself to building his business and then when he’d felt it was time, he’d nudged Astrid into setting a date for their wedding. And she had. She’d booked a wedding planner, bought a dress, booked their honeymoon. It had all been going so well and then... Tightness clawed at his chest. He’d always been the quiet one, the middle child of five, the lone wolf. He’d always felt separate, and he’d been happy to be separate, but now it wasn’t his choice. He was stranded. On the margins. Even if he’d wanted to talk to his family, he couldn’t, because Johan was his family and he couldn’t find the words anyway, couldn’t make sense of his feelings and the numbness. He was lost...unable to focus on anything.