by Julia James
‘It’s to catch rainwater and channel it down into underground cisterns,’ Nikos explained. ‘There are no rivers here—the island is volcanic in origin, and the big harbours to the west are the remnants of an ancient caldera. So rainwater is essential. The island is lush, but the rainy season is only for a few months in the winter. Overall, the island is very fortunate. There are occasional hurricanes, but by and large it’s clement all year round.’
Mel glanced back at him. ‘Shakespeare is said to have used it as his inspiration for Prospero’s magical island in The Tempest,’ she said.
‘Maybe he did. It was known to Europeans by then, and St George’s was settled early in the seventeenth century. It was a dangerous place, though—the surrounding reefs are full of the wrecks of unfortunate ships.’ He quirked an eyebrow at Mel. ‘Do you fancy trying diving while we’re here?’
Her eyes widened. ‘Can we?’
His smile warm and embracing. ‘Mel, we can do anything and everything while we’re here. This is our time together, and I really, really want you to have the time of your life.’
He did, too. It would be a joy and a pleasure to give her the holiday of her dreams—and he would take pleasure in her pleasure. Take pleasure—oh, such pleasure—in her altogether. Mel in his arms, his embrace, his bed...
Right now, life was very sweet indeed. This was set to be a great holiday—
* * *
‘Oh, this is so beautiful.’
Mel’s exclamation came from the heart. Sun was pouring over the breakfast terrace at the hotel, dazzling on the azure sea beyond. Palm trees waved in a deliciously light breeze, and canvas parasols shaded the breakfast tables.
Mel gazed about her, fizzing with excitement and wonder. Bermuda, the fabulous hotel, the glittering blue sea, the heat, the palm trees, the vivid exotic flowers tumbling everywhere over walls, the glimpse of a sparkling marble pool a few steps beyond the terrace—they were all real. No dream, no mere photo in a travel brochure, but all, all real.
And real, too, was the man standing beside her. Inside the fizzing champagne of excitement in her veins she felt her blood gave a kick, shooting adrenaline through her system.
Nikos was right here, beside her. She’d grabbed the strong, warm hand he’d held out to her and run off with him, winging across the wide Atlantic to land here, on this beautiful, gorgeous island in the sun.
She turned and grinned at him. ‘It’s just absolutely fantastic!’ she exclaimed. ‘I can’t believe I’m really here.’
‘Believe it,’ Nikos assured her, his eyes smiling as they rested on her. Drinking her in.
Her long golden hair was caught back with a scarf, but the breeze was blowing it into a halo around her head, and her face was alight with pleasure as she gazed around, eyes wide. His breath caught at her beauty.
And the hotel was perfect—tucked away on a promontory overlooking the long, reef-fringed south shore beaches to the east and a calm, sheltered bay to the west, perfect for sailing. The accommodation was low-rise, pastel-painted cottage-style rooms, all with sea views.
‘Is this where your banking conference is going to be?’ she asked Nikos.
Nikos shook his head. ‘No, that’s taking place at one of the much larger, more modern hotels, closer to the airport.’ He reached for the jug of chilled orange juice that a server had just placed on the table with a smile. ‘I’ll take a taxi there on the day I have to speak.’ He glanced at Mel. ‘Do you want to come along?’
She gave him a mischievous smile. ‘I wouldn’t miss it for the world,’ she assured him. ‘Seeing you in your natural environment.’
He made a slight face. ‘My natural environment?’ he echoed. ‘Is that what you think?’
She looked at him. ‘I don’t know,’ she answered. ‘I don’t know you well enough, Nikos.’
Her voice was sober suddenly, her expression uncertain. Did she want to know Nikos? Did it matter to her who he was? Wasn’t he just a fantastic, gorgeous man whose company she enjoyed and who could melt her with a kiss? Wasn’t that enough for her?
He reached across the table with his hand, just grazing her cheek with his fingers. The gesture was soft, fleeting. Reassuring.
‘There is no rush,’ he said. ‘We’re here to enjoy ourselves.’
The smile was in his eyes, on his lips. She nodded, relaxing now. He saw it, and was glad.
‘Speaking of which...’ He took a mouthful of freshly squeezed orange juice. ‘What do you want to do after breakfast?’
Mel’s answer was immediate. ‘Hit the beach!’ she enthused. ‘I can’t wait to get into that water. It’s like something out of a travel brochure.’
‘Great idea,’ he agreed. ‘The beach it is. We’ll laze the morning away—and very possibly the afternoon, too.’
Which was exactly what they did.
After a leisurely breakfast, with Nikos regaling Mel with all he knew about Bermuda, they went back to their rooms to change into beach clothes. As she let herself into her room Mel knew she was grateful to Nikos for being sufficiently sensitive to the impulsive nature of their holiday together and reserving separate rooms.
Yes, she knew—oh, she most certainly knew—what she had committed herself to, but to have arrived last evening, jet-lagged as she’d been, and to have been thrust into the immediate intimacy of sharing a room—a bed—would have been too...too... Well, too awkward, really.
And definitely too rushed. When they came together—a little frisson of excitement shimmered through her at the thought—it would be when they were relaxed, comfortable with each other, and with a wonderful sense of anticipation having been built up during the day and heightened to heady passion in the evening...
Then he’ll take me in his arms, kiss me as he kissed me before. But this time...oh, this time it will not be goodbye...it will be the very opposite.
Nikos and me, embracing, entwining, his mouth on mine, his body clasped by mine, only passion and desire between us...
She gave her head a quick shake to clear the image.
Yes, well, that was for later. For now, she had to change into her new swimsuit, which would be christened in the turquoise waters of Bermuda.
Another little quiver of disbelief went through her as yet again the realisation of just where she was impacted. How absolutely gorgeous it all was.
Hurriedly she slipped into her swimsuit, pulling a long, loose, semi-transparent cover-up over her head and pushing her feet into flip-flops. She grabbed her beach bag and headed outdoors via the private patio, separated from Nikos’s by a low grey stone wall that could be hopped over in a second.
Nikos was already waiting for her, lounging back in one of the terrace chairs at the little dining set provided. He got to his feet, and Mel’s breath caught.
Board shorts in deep cobalt-blue hugged lean hips, and his torso was moulded by every square centimetre of a white short-sleeved top bearing a fashionable surfing logo. And he was sporting wrap-around sunglasses that made her want to drop her jaw gormlessly open and gaze at him.
It took a moment for her to realise that he was returning her stare. She couldn’t see his eyes behind the opaque sunglasses, but that was just as well, part of her registered. The other part was trying hard to ignore the insistent fact that beneath the veiling of her cover-up and the sheer material of her swimsuit her breasts were shamelessly engorged, following an instinct that was as powerful as it was primeval...
I want him.
The stark, visceral words sounded in her head almost audibly as she stood, rooted to the spot.
‘Ready for a hard day’s beach-lounging?’ Nikos smiled at her, the corners of his sculpted mouth crinkling.
Mel took a breath. ‘All set,’ she said with determined lightness, and they headed down the path that would take them to the beach below.
/> A line of white sunbeds had been set out along the pale sand that was already too hot to walk on. A beach steward ushered them to a pair with a little table in between them, a parasol overhead for shade, and towels draped over the foam mattresses, with more neatly folded at the end of each lounger. They settled themselves down, and the steward enquired if they would like refreshments from the beach bistro.
‘OJ and sparkling mineral water, please.’
Mel smiled. How blissful just to give a request like that and know that two minutes later it would be served to her as she relaxed back on her lounger, gazing out over the sea, feeling the warmth of the day like a cocoon around her.
‘This,’ she announced feelingly, ‘is absolute bliss.’
‘No question,’ agreed Nikos.
He reached across the space between their respective sunbeds and took her hand. It was an instinctive gesture, and he was hardly aware of doing it—except that the moment his fingers wound into her hers he knew it felt right.
Mel turned to look at him, then smiled. A warm, wide smile that seemed to encapsulate everything about what they had done—run off here, to this beautiful island in the sun, to have time to themselves, to have the affair that both of them wanted to have. He knew that with absolute certainty.
He gave a deep sigh of contentment and looked out to sea again. Beside him, Mel gave an echoing sigh—and then a wry little laugh.
‘It’s just so gorgeous,’ she said, ‘to lie here with absolutely nothing to do except relax on the beach. I feel utterly idle.’
Nikos turned his head to glance at her. ‘That’s the general idea of a holiday,’ he said, amused.
She gave a semi-shrug. ‘Well, I’m not used to holidays.’ She glanced away, towards the brilliant azure sea glinting in the morning sunshine, then back to Nikos. ‘I’ve waited just so long to start my real life—to travel as I’ve longed to do—that now I am I can’t quite believe it. I keep feeling I should be working.’
The focus of Nikos’s gaze sharpened slightly. ‘Tell me,’ he asked, ‘why do you feel so strongly that you should be working all the time?’
He cocked an interrogative eyebrow at her, but his voice was merely mildly curious.
Mel’s expression changed. Became thoughtful. But also, Nikos thought assessingly, became guarded.
‘Habit, really, I suppose. Like I say, I’m not used to holidays. Not used to having time off.’
‘I seem to remember you said you did waitressing in the evenings, after the sandwich bar had closed?’ Nikos recalled. ‘How long did you keep that kind of double shift going? It can burn you out in the end, you know.’
He sounded sympathetic, but Mel shook her head. ‘Oh, no, that wasn’t a problem. I was working for myself—building up my bank balance to fund my getaway. It was a joy to work, to be honest, in comparison with looking after my grandfather. That was—’ She broke off, not finishing.
What word would describe that period of her life? Only one—torment. Absolute torment...
Torment to watch the grandfather she’d loved so much become more and more frail, in body and mind. Torment to be the only person who could look after him—the only person he wanted to look after him—so that she could never have a break or even the slightest amount of time to herself.
He was looking at her curiously now, and she wished she’d kept her mouth shut.
‘Was he ill?’ Nikos asked. Again, his voice was sympathetic.
‘Yes,’ she said tightly. ‘His mind went.’
‘Ah... Dementia can be very hard,’ acknowledged Nikos.
A kind of choke sounded in Mel’s voice as she answered. ‘I was raised by my grandfather after my parents died when I was very little—they were killed in a car crash. My grandfather took me in to stop me going into care. That’s why, when he needed care himself, it was my...my turn to look after him, really.’
Her voice was tight, suppressed. She didn’t want to talk about this—didn’t want to think about it, didn’t want to remember.
Nikos was frowning. ‘Surely you didn’t have to cope single-handed? There must have been help available? Professional carers on call?’
Mel swallowed. Yes, there had been help—up to a point. That hadn’t been the problem. It was hard to explain—and she didn’t want to. Yet somehow, for some reason—maybe it was her release, finally, from the long years of caged confinement at her grandfather’s side as he made the slow, dreadful descent into dementia and eventual death—she heard the words burst from her.
‘He didn’t want anyone else.’
Her voice was low, the stress in it audible to Nikos.
‘He only ever wanted me—all the time. He couldn’t even bear to let me out of his sight, and he used to follow me around or get distressed and agitated if I just went into another room, let alone tried to go out of the house. He’d wander around at night—and of course that meant that I couldn’t sleep either...not with him awake and wandering like that...’
Her voice was shaking now, but still words poured out of her, after all the months and years of watching her grandfather sink lower and lower still.
‘It’s what the dementia did to him. He was lost in his dark, confused mind, and I was the only thing in it he recognised—the only thing he wanted, the only thing he clung to. If I tried to get a carer from an agency to sit with him he’d yell at her, and he’d only calm down when I was back in the room again. It was pitiful to see. So no matter how exhausting it was, I just couldn’t abandon him—not to outside carers—nor put him into a nursing home. How could I? He was the only person in the world I loved—the only person in the world who loved me—and I was absolutely adamant I would take care of him to the end.’
Her expression was tormented.
Nikos’s voice was quiet, sombre. ‘But the end did come?’ he said.
She swallowed the hard, painful lump in her throat. ‘It went on for three years,’ she said, her voice hollow. ‘And by the time the end came he didn’t know me—didn’t know anyone. I could only be relieved—dreadful though it is to say it—that he was finally able to leave his stricken body and mind.’
She shut her eyes, guilt heavy in her heart.
‘I’d started to long for the end to come—for his sake, and for mine, too. Because death would finally release him—’ She swallowed again, her voice stretched like wire. ‘And it would finally release me, too...let me claim my own life back again.’
She fell silent—horrified by what had poured out of her, shutting her eyes against the memory of it, haunted by the guilt that assailed her. And yet she remembered that terrible, silent cry of anguish at the captivity his illness had held her in.
She’d never said anything of her anguish before—never said anything of those heartbreakingly difficult, impossible years she’d spent as her grandfather’s carer. And yet here she was, spilling her heart to a man who was little more than a stranger still...
Beside her, Nikos had stilled as he heard her out. Now, slowly, instinctively, he reached across for the hand that she was clenching and unclenching on her chest as she relived those tormented years she’d spent at her ailing grandfather’s side. She felt his palm close over her fist, stilling her.
‘You did your very best for him,’ he said quietly. ‘You stayed with him to the end.’
He took a breath, the tenor of his voice changing.
‘And now you deserve this time of freedom from care and responsibility.’ His voice warmed and he squeezed her hand lightly, then let it go. ‘You deserve the most fantastic holiday I can give you.’
She felt her anguish ease, and took a long, deep breath before opening her eyes to look at him.
‘Thank you,’ she said, and her eyes were saying more than mere words could.
For a moment their gazes held, and then Nikos deliberately lightened
the mood. He wanted to see her happy again.
‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘would you like to take a boat out sometime?’
Her expression lit as she followed his cue. Glad to do so. Glad to move away from the long, dreadful years that were gone now. Her grandfather, she hoped, was in a far better place, reunited with his long-lost family. And she was free to live her own life, making her own way in the world, enjoying her precious, fleeting youth untrammelled by cares and responsibilities. Revelling in all the new experiences she could.
Like skimming across the brilliantly azure sea that lay before her.
‘Yes, please! I’ve never been on a boat.’
His eyebrows rose. ‘Never?’
She shook her head. ‘No, never,’ she confirmed. ‘My grandfather didn’t like the water. It was as much as he’d do to go on seaside holidays when I was a child. He would sit in his deckchair, in long trousers and a long-sleeved shirt, and wish he were elsewhere while I played, merrily building sandcastles and splashing around in the freezing cold English Channel.’
She spoke easily now, far preferring to remember happy times with her grandfather. Then her expression changed again.
‘When I was older I used to gaze across the water and long to see what was on the other side.’ She smiled. ‘And now I know. It’s this—this blissful, gorgeous place.’
Instinctively she reached for his hand, squeezing it lightly. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Thank you for bringing me here. I shall treasure the memory of this all my life!’
Nikos lifted her hand and grazed her knuckles lightly, so lightly, with his mouth. Little flurries of electricity raced along her skin at his touch.
‘It is my pleasure to bring you here,’ he said, the husk audible in his voice.
Mel could feel desire pool in her stomach. Then, with a little laugh, she dropped his hand.
‘I can’t resist the water any more,’ she cried, and got to her feet. She peeled off her cover-up and glanced down at Nikos. ‘Last one in is a sissy!’ she taunted wickedly, and hared across the hot sand to where the azure water was lapping at the beach.