Was now the time? She didn’t know how to deal with this. Nothing had prepared her for the way she felt about Max. Why couldn’t she allow herself to look at sex simply as an appetite to slake rather than something special to share between two people who cared about each other? What had she got herself into by agreeing to the no-label fling?
She couldn’t let him read those thoughts on her face. Instead she took the few steps over to the table and took the cover off the tray. ‘What have we got here? Mee goreng—my favourite, thank you.’
He walked over so he was behind her, looking over her shoulder. Too close for her to be able to keep a clear head. All that bare skin and muscle with nothing but the light cotton of her top between them. ‘I remembered you said you liked it,’ he said.
‘And tom be siap, steamed chicken wrapped in banana leaves with a lemongrass salsa. That’s yummy too. So is the tuna bakar—it’s a grilled tuna fillet with a spicy Balinese sauce. You chose well.’
‘They all sounded good,’ he said. ‘I was hungry. All the swimming and kayaking today. I thought the kayaking might have made my damaged arm ache but it didn’t.’
‘That’s good news. I’m glad.’
He put his hands on her shoulders and turned her halfway towards him so there was no escaping his gaze. ‘For the first time in a long time I feel relaxed. Able to think clearly about the decisions I have to make. It’s like I’ve turned some kind of corner. Thanks to you, Nikki.’
She picked up a fork and started to pull apart the banana leaf wrapping from the chicken. Anything but look at him. ‘Any good guide would have done the same,’ she said, purposefully misunderstanding him. She’d felt it too out there with him. The magic. The happiness she’d felt at being with him. At playing at being a couple. Struck in unguarded moments by an inexplicable longing for it to be real.
‘That’s not true and you know it,’ he said. ‘It was more than that.’
Again her heart gave that painful lurch. It would be only too easy to develop feelings for Max. But she couldn’t allow that. He’d made it very clear he wasn’t looking for a relationship. She had only just recovered from the emotional fallout from her failed engagement. She couldn’t let herself fall for a man who only wanted a fling.
She screwed up her eyes in a kind of despair. Don’t let yourself fall in love with him, Nikki. She could lie to herself all she liked but she knew she was in serious danger of losing her heart to this man.
She looked up at him. ‘We’re away from home, in an exotic environment. Both escaping trauma of a kind. It would be easy to think there’s more to some vacation fun than there really is.’ She was trying to talk herself into believing that as much as she was him.
‘You can say that,’ he said, his voice controlled. ‘That doesn’t stop me from believing it was an exceptional day and that the reason it was exceptional was the company of a wonderful woman.’
* * *
Max tried to sound on top of the situation but inside he was in turmoil. Things with Nikki were not going as planned. He had intended a no-strings vacation affair. Something warm and sexy and fun that would help them both heal from the calamities that had driven them in their own separate ways to this island.
It should be something easy to walk away from at the end of his time here. He had his farewell speech prepared—something along the lines of it would be awkward to stay in touch. They both had lives to get back on track. No point in trying to prolong something that had a limited life. No need to exchange phone numbers.
Trouble was, it wasn’t turning out like that. He was falling in love with her. Head over heels and so rapidly he could hardly keep his feet on the ground. Or that was how it seemed.
It wasn’t what he wanted. Not now. Not even in the foreseeable future. Not when he was forging a new post-tennis life. When he got married, he wanted all his ducks to be in a row so he could have the kind of relationship his parents had. One that lasted. Where he would be there for his wife and children. Not absent. It hadn’t just been conflicting training schedules that had ended his relationship with Ellen. It had been what she had called—what she had screamed at him when she’d ended it—his absence both physical and emotional.
Truth was, the career he’d striven for most of his life had defined him. He was used to being a champion. A winner. He needed to be back on top with whatever new path he chose before he could ask a woman to share his life.
Nikki could be the right girl at the wrong time. Perhaps he should back off.
Although it was hardly likely that she reciprocated any deeper feelings. In fact she’d just given him a nice little lecture about how he shouldn’t mistake a vacation fling for anything more significant. He should take heed of her advice. Hope like hell she hadn’t read anything deeper into his compliments about how much he’d enjoyed her company.
And stop speculating whether that was a pink bra or a pink bikini giving him tantalising glimpses of the top of her breasts through her lacy white cotton uniform top.
‘This dinner will be getting cold if we don’t eat it soon,’ he said. ‘Do you want to eat inside or out in my courtyard? There are citronella candles to keep mosquitoes at bay.’
‘The courtyard, please,’ she said. ‘Do you mind if I change into my swimsuit first?’
No, I’d rather you stayed completely covered up so I’m not tempted by your lovely body. ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘Whatever is most comfortable for you.’
Would she do a striptease in front of him? If so, might he offer to help her undress? First that lacy blouse slid over her shoulders and breasts, then the long skirt, sliding it down over her legs and—
‘If you’ll excuse me for a moment, I’ll pop into the bathroom to change,’ she said, heading in that direction.
He suppressed a groan of frustration, turned it into an awkward cough.
‘You okay?’ she said, turning back.
‘Chilli fumes wafting up from the food, making me cough.’ He faked another cough. ‘Nothing to worry about. You just go.’
‘Are you sure? I’ve seen how chilli can affect you.’
‘I’m okay with the chilli,’ he said, tight-lipped. Would he ever live down that earlier incident? ‘You go. I’ll unpack the food.’
Just minutes later she came out wearing just a pink bikini top and an orange-and-white-striped hotel towel wrapped around her waist. It stopped short of covering her legs. ‘I hope you don’t mind if I borrowed a towel,’ she said.
Lucky towel. ‘Of course not,’ he said through a suddenly choked throat that had nothing to do with chilli fumes. Did she realise how artlessly sexy she looked?
‘I feel much cooler now,’ she said, stretching up her arms so her breasts threatened to fall out of her bikini top. ‘That long-sleeved blouse is actually quite warm when it’s this hot.’
She was hot. He hadn’t seen her before with so little clothing—she wore a sun protective swim shirt out on Wayan’s boat. In the kayak she’d worn leggings and a life jacket. Now, the triangles of the bikini top drew attention to the swell of her breasts as much as covered them, emphasised the shadow of her cleavage. Her body was lithe and strong—her slender waist, the flare of her hips, her firm, finely muscled arms in perfection proportion. The more he saw of Nikki, the more he wanted her.
But that was all it was. A healthy sexual attraction. A friendship of sorts. Not anything more. Of course he wasn’t falling in love with her.
She sat down in the chair opposite him at the outdoor bamboo table and served herself her favourite noodles. ‘You didn’t order dessert?’ she asked.
‘Nothing really appealed,’ he said. ‘I’ve ordered the caramelised bananas a few times already.’
‘I told Maya what you suggested about spectacular desserts. She agreed. In fact she’s organised a meeting with her chefs to discuss a new dessert menu. She said to say thank you for the suggestion.’
‘She’s so welcome,’ he said. ‘Can you tell her I’m volunteering to taste any new dishes?’
Nikki laughed. ‘I’ll pass that on.’ She sobered. ‘Although it’s likely that will be happening after you go home.’
‘Shame,’ he said. Truth be told, he hadn’t been thinking that far ahead. Without being consciously aware of it, he had abandoned timetables completely and given in to ‘rubber time’.
‘Don’t worry, I’ll send you photos to drool over and...’ Her voice trailed away. There had been no mention of any future contact between them after the eight remaining nights. She flushed and looked embarrassed. ‘Or...er...not.’
‘I’d like that,’ he said. But he knew his voice came out sounding half-hearted.
The sudden silence between them stretched out too long to be comfortable, even taking into account that they were eating a meal. She was the first to break it. ‘I have news,’ she said. ‘A very good friend of mine might be coming to the island tomorrow.’
Her news came from left field. ‘A friend?’ Male or female?
‘Yes. Sammie and I go way back to high school. She’s friends with Maya too.’
Suddenly his wariness about being seen with Nikki returned in full flood. ‘Why might she come to the island?’
‘First and foremost to catch up with me and Maya. But she wants to write a profile on me. She—’
Max got up from the table, pushed his chair back so hard it fell over, clattering on the paving. ‘She’s a journalist? You’re inviting a journalist here? After all we went through with the media?’
Nikki got up too, not one to let herself be put at a disadvantage. ‘She’s not that type of journalist. Sammie writes for one of the weekend newspaper magazines. She’s in Bali for a short holiday. But Sammie being Sammie never switches off. Her boyfriend is a photographer, he’s here with her and—’
‘A journalist and a photographer? What are you thinking?’
Nikki frowned. ‘Sammie is one of my oldest, dearest friends. Another of my bridesmaids. I trust her implicitly.’
‘What if she sees me here? What if she puts two and two together? Is that what you intend to—?’
‘No! Sammie is writing a feature about me as an Australian female entrepreneur. About how one of the biggest cosmetic conglomerates in the world purchased my company that was born as a little, underfunded start-up in Sydney. About what my next venture will be. Her boyfriend also works for the magazine. It’s absolutely nothing to do with you.’ Her eyes flared, the green flecks sparking.
‘But if she sees me—’
‘You could stay in your room. Or leave early and spend the afternoon elsewhere. Go way out to sea with Wayan—’
‘Why should I have to hide?’
She put up her hand in a halt sign. ‘I haven’t finished yet. I was going to say you could do all that but you don’t need to do anything. Because the alternative is that I go in the morning to Sanur to the hotel where she’s staying, for the interview and photo shoot. Then Maya will go over in the afternoon and we’ll both stay in Sanur for a girls’ night out with Sammie. I really want to see my friend. I haven’t seen her for more than six months. But I don’t want to put you out either. So that might be the best decision all round.’
In the face of her annoyance Max felt petty and mean. And gutted he wouldn’t see her for all the time she was in Sanur. But the fear of media exposure of his affair with Nikki was still very real. Not that you could call it an affair yet. And the way she was glaring at him made him doubt an affair would ever eventuate.
Perhaps this would be a good opportunity to cool things down between him and Nikki before they ever really heated up. Before anyone—he was thinking of her—got hurt.
‘You go to Sanur and do what you have to do. I hope the interview goes well for you.’ He sincerely meant it.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘It will be good PR for my new business. And for me. A positive feature should help re-establish my image as a serious businesswoman after the “runaway bride” scandal. Sammie has promised to completely avoid that term in her profile.’
‘Good,’ he said. ‘Let’s sit down and finish our meal.’
Nikki remained standing. ‘Sorry. No can do.’ She stood there in a revealing pink bikini top with a hotel towel tucked around her waist, her feet bare, yet he could see her morphing into Nikki the businesswoman. Could almost see her thoughts veering away from him and towards her goals for the next day. ‘I have to go,’ she said, with what seemed to him to be only the merest trace of regret.
How could he have forgotten? Nikki Lucas was a high-powered businesswoman who had admitted to him she’d put dating on hold in favour of her work. She had been as driven to make her company a success as he’d been in his career as a sportsman. The odds of a young woman succeeding so spectacularly in the international market as she had were probably the same as of him winning the US Open.
‘It’s still early,’ he said.
She shook her head. ‘Not for all I have to do this evening. I have to call Sammie and tell her I’ve decided on the Sanur option. Let Maya know—Kadek will look after Putu for the night she’s away but she might have to rearrange some staff shifts.’
‘I get that, but it won’t take long. Surely you don’t need to go just yet.’ Was he begging? Max swore under his breath. He never had, and never would, beg for a woman’s company.
‘Sadly I do,’ she said. ‘Because the shoot won’t be happening here, I have to pack and take over stuff I might need in Sanur. I’ll need to get an early boat, organise a hairdresser, then grab the opportunity to shop in boutiques in Sanur for a more businesslike outfit for the shoot than I brought with me when I came here. If we’d shot here, Sammie would have brought clothes with her for me but this way is better because I can choose my own outfit. I always like to have control of the image I present.’
‘I was the same in my tennis career,’ he said. Though in fact it had been his manager who had insisted on control over his image. Max had just wanted to play tennis. To win.
‘Really? I suppose you would,’ she said without any real interest.
The stiff set of her shoulders told him she was not happy with his reaction to her news about her friend’s visit. But it wasn’t just that. Her thoughts were racing away in a direction that led away from him. And Max wasn’t sure he liked it.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
NIKKI HAD STRETCHED out her time in Sanur with her friends, delaying her return to Lembongan for as long as she could. Maya had left on the earliest boat in the morning. But it was late afternoon by the time the speedboat transporting Nikki back to the island was nearing the beach at Jungut Batu.
Nikki was oblivious to the beauty around her, the aquamarine waters, the tree-lined shore coming into view, the excited chatter of first-time visitors to the island. Despite the fun of seeing her friends, the challenge of the interview and photo shoot, she was too preoccupied.
She’d endured some emotional pain in her life, but few things had hurt like the shaft of pain that had stabbed her at Max’s response to her thoughtless comment about sending him photos of desserts from the kitchens of Big Blue once he was back in Sydney. Of course she knew the score for a no-strings fling—don’t expect anything more. Just walk away and pretend it doesn’t hurt. But the obvious discomfort that had flickered across his face that she should dare to presume any ongoing contact with Max Conway, the celebrity sportsman, had made her cringe. Then his instant suspicion of her because she was seeing a friend who was a journalist—someone she’d known since they were fourteen years old—had driven the blade in deeper.
No more Max. She wasn’t cut out for no-label flings, one-night stands, or whatever she chose to call them. He was a celebrity used, no doubt, to picking up and putting down women when it suited him. She, for all her business success, was just a girl who’d been wounded by th
e men she’d misjudged while looking for love and the not unreasonable expectation of marriage and a family. She wasn’t good at pretending to be something else.
She liked Max. She liked him a lot. Thought he was the hottest man on the planet. But that closed-over look had told her she was in way above her head when it came to pretending she could easily cope with the aftermath of how she would feel when what Max was offering came to an end. She simply couldn’t deal with it.
How could she endure these remaining nights with him on the island? She didn’t want to let Maya down but she might have to decamp over to Sanur for the duration.
Not that Maya had expected her to stay as long as she had. They’d talked about that with Sammie on their girls’ night out at a restaurant in Sanur. How Nikki had stretched her time on Lembongan for as long as she could—or should. That an exciting new venture awaited her, one that would continue her links with Maya and Frangipani Bay. But her life was in Sydney, not here. Sammie had asked her about her love life, concerned that she might not be getting over the Alan debacle. But Nikki had reassured her friend she was okay. Not ready to date okay, but okay just the same.
Neither Maya nor she had breathed a word to Sammie about Max being at Big Blue. Privately, Maya had voiced her concern that Nikki might be heading for heartbreak. Which was perceptive of her as Nikki had not even confided in her how she felt about him. She had denied that she and Max were anything other than friends. But Maya’s expression told her she knew better but wasn’t going to interfere with further advice.
Perhaps, when it all boiled down to it, she should be thinking of flying back home rather than skulking in Sanur until Max checked out of Big Blue. Maybe she’d needed a kick in the butt like this to get back to face her real life.
Nevertheless, as she hitched up her dress above her knees to wade through the shallow water to the shore, it was with a heavy heart. Despite it all, she missed him. Every minute she’d been away from him, she had ached for him. There was something about her connection to Max that went beyond the physical, that called not only to her heart but to her soul.
Best Man and the Runaway Bride Page 13