by Holly Martin
Isaac nodded. He could respect that. ‘How about twenty-five percent? It will take a while to completely hand over control of both Spark and Blaze and I’m committed to ensuring the Umbrella Foundation is funded from them for at least the next two years or until it is completely self-sufficient. I’m working hard to get them sponsorship and Bella is doing a great job with the fundraising so that might be sooner than two years but I certainly want to help them for as long as they need me. I wouldn’t be able to commit to working for you full time for a while yet. But once the handover of Blaze and Spark is taken care of, I could certainly commit to you for two days a week. You said you needed the help and I’d be happy to give it.’
‘Can your ego handle working for someone else?’
‘My ego can handle it fine,’ Isaac said.
Dougie grabbed his beer bottle and offered it up against Isaac’s. ‘Welcome aboard.’
Isaac grinned and chinked his bottle against Dougie’s. His working life was finally slotting together. He just needed his love life to work out now.
When Bella let herself in to Isaac’s hotel room later that night, Alfie and Rocket came over to greet her and she gave them fuss and attention before standing back up and looking around for Isaac. When she saw him she burst out laughing. He was lying on his side in the exact same position that she had laid in the night before, stark naked, clearly trying to be seductive. He had even gone so far as to have a rose between his teeth.
She wiped the tears of laughter from her eyes. ‘You look ridiculous.’
‘Does this not turn you on, baby?’ Isaac said, clearly trying not to laugh himself.
‘You look like something from an eighties porn film. Did I look that silly last night?’
‘You looked amazing. I’m quite affronted that this doesn’t do it for you.’
‘Ah, don’t be disappointed, I’ll still do you.’
‘I think that’s the most romantic thing anyone has ever said to me,’ Isaac said, sitting up and wrapping a blanket round himself. ‘I’m glad you’re home actually, it was getting a bit chilly lying there naked.’
‘I’ve got the perfect thing to warm you up,’ Bella said, as she stripped off her own clothes.
When she was naked she sauntered over to him. He opened the blanket and she straddled him, before he enclosed her in the blanket again and hugged her close, kissing her forehead sweetly. She leaned her head against his shoulder and wrapped her arms around him.
They had progressed so quickly to this sweet, intimate stage in their relationship. She loved hugging him, holding him close. She’d never had this before with a man. He ran his fingers down her back but it wasn’t sexual at all. It was sweet and loving and he didn’t seem to want anything more than that.
She pulled back slightly to look at him. ‘Do you like hugging me, or do you do it because you know I like it?’
‘I love it. I can’t say I’ve ever been a big hugger, but since I’ve met you I have to say I can see the merits of it. It’s probably up there in my top five favourite things.’
She smiled. ‘Really?’
He nodded, brushing the hair back from her shoulders. ‘I mean making love to you is pretty high up there in that list too but hugging you is pretty special.’
She laughed; he was teasing her. ‘So if I was to say that tonight I didn’t want to make love, I just wanted to spend the night hugging, you’d be OK with that?’
‘Sure I would.’ His eyes shone with a mixture of amusement and sincerity. He cupped his hands round her neck, stroking her cheeks with his thumbs. ‘Just as long as I could hug you while I was buried inside you.’
Bella laughed. ‘That’s some kind of compromise.’
He ran his hands down her shoulders, skimming his thumbs over her breasts. She let out a little gasp. ‘And maybe I could hug you and touch you a little,’ Isaac said, his hands moving lower.
‘I think I’d be OK with that.’
He kissed her shoulder and then her breast, sliding his tongue across her nipple.
‘I’d definitely be OK with this,’ Bella said, her voice high with sudden need.
He grabbed a condom from the nearby table and slid it on. He lifted her hips slightly and slid carefully inside her.
‘Let’s see what else you’d be OK with,’ Isaac said.
As he layered gentle hot kisses down her throat to her collarbone, she thought she’d be OK with pretty much anything Isaac did to her.
Isaac woke the next day with Bella wrapped tightly in his arms, her head on his chest. It was Saturday so neither of them needed to work though he knew he would work on the egg hunt game before he handed it over to the team at SparkStar on Monday.
He glanced down and realised Bella was awake, staring out over the sea, her beautiful green eyes seemed very far away from here.
He was still half asleep but given the choice of going back to sleep and spending time with Bella, he knew which he wanted to do more.
He ran his hand through her hair and she blinked and looked up at him, flashing him that wonderful smile when she saw he was awake.
‘I need to go home today. I only brought a change of clothes for yesterday,’ Bella said.
Isaac nodded. ‘I need to pack ready for my trip to London tomorrow. And I need to find somewhere to store all this stuff I seemed to have accrued over the last few days. Claudia has been super-efficient making sure I have everything I might need delivered here but, without a home yet, I have nowhere to put all this stuff when I leave tomorrow.’
‘Have you not found anywhere to live yet?’
‘Claudia has found me this lovely little house down by the sea, but it won’t be ready until next week.’
‘Why don’t you stay at mine tonight, bring all this stuff with you and I’ll keep it there until you come back.’
‘If you’re sure? I probably won’t be back for two weeks.’
Bella’s face fell. ‘Wait, two weeks? I thought it was only a week?’
‘I have some stuff I need to take care of.’
‘But you’ll miss the funfair next weekend.’
‘I know, but as you quite rightly pointed out, I hired you to organise the fundraising events. I don’t need to be at every event when you are more than capable of representing the charity for me.’
He watched the disappointment wash across her face.
‘If you want help I can make sure there are other people from the charity there to help you.’
‘No, it’s not that. I can take care of it and Roger and Elsie have said they’ll come down and help too. The funfair will pretty much take care of itself; the company have done this many times before. I just thought it would be fun if we could go together. It’s OK, I understand. You have more important things to do.’
He frowned. ‘You’re important to me. I’m just trying to finish up my life in London properly so I can start my life here with you.’
That hadn’t come out right. If he had been more awake he would have said that differently.
Bella picked up on it straight away, panic flaring in her eyes. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I’m resigning as CEO of my technology companies. I’ll still be a shareholder but I have a brother and sister team that will take over as company directors. It’ll mean that my involvement with those companies will be reduced to next to nothing and I can stop travelling backwards and forwards to London all the time. Which will mean I have more time to spend with you.’
‘You’re doing all that for me?’
He recognised fear in her voice. What was the right answer here? ‘No, well, partly for you, mostly for me.’
‘We’ve known each other a week, you can’t start giving up everything for me. You love London.’
‘I love this place more. That part of my life is over now. I’ve worked at a job which I’ve hated for the last ten years and the worst thing was it was my company. I couldn’t just leave. But being with you over the last few days has made me reassess what I want in my life
.’
Bella sat up, her eyes wide, and shook her head. ‘This thing between us, it’s been fun and I love spending time with you but you’re suddenly making it sound a lot more serious than it is. You can’t change your whole future, your whole life, because of one incredible week together. What happens when it ends?’
When? Not if but when it ends. That was a worrying distinction. In her mind she was expecting it to end. She didn’t see a future for them. It was too soon to start thinking about marriage and children, he knew that. It was way too soon to even think about living together, even though he had no home and they had spent every spare second in each other’s company since they’d met. But he did see a future with her and she was panicking because he was talking about that.
He sat up determined to diffuse the situation. There was no way he wanted to scare her off when she was only just getting used to the idea of being with him.
He rested his hands on her shoulders, sensing she was in flight mode. ‘Bella, I’m not doing this for you. I’m not changing my whole life because of you. This has been on the cards for a very long time. I started to plan my move to Hope Island many months ago before I’d even met you. I’ve been taking more and more steps back from Blaze and Spark partly because I wanted to focus on the charity for a while and partly because I wanted to do something else but I still held back from leaving them completely. They’re my companies, I built them from the ground up, and I’m proud of what I’ve achieved even if I don’t particularly enjoy it. It was what you said the other day that made me think that things in my life needed to change. You said that I’m doing something wrong if I haven’t got time to have fun. And that stuck with me. What’s the point of having all this money if I never have time to enjoy it? Do I really want to get to the end of my life and look back on it and say, “Yes I earned a hundred million pounds but I was bored out of my head my entire working life”? You said I need to delegate more. That I need to have people to take charge so I can do more things I enjoy, like making your game. And I do have excellent people in charge of my companies while I’m here and while I’m working with the charity, so why not let them take charge all the time? I have loved making your game over the last few days and I’d forgotten how much. I want to do more of that.’
He tucked a curl of red hair behind her ear. ‘When I said that being with you has made me reassess what I want in my life, I meant that what you said hit home for me. You inspire me to want more. I am doing this for me and if this thing between us ends tomorrow I would still be resigning as CEO of Blaze and Spark. I would still be moving here for good. This is not me proposing to you or buying a seven-bedroom house for you and our six kids. I am simply trying to build a better life for myself and I hope, in time, that you will want to be a part of that life, but if not, then that doesn’t change any of my plans.’
He could see his words had calmed her down. ‘OK.’
‘OK?’
‘Yes, sorry. I just didn’t want you to regret being with me.’
‘I could never regret that. If this ends between us, I would never regret this wonderful time we’ve spent together.’
‘I’d never regret it too.’
‘Good. Now let’s stop talking about the end of our relationship. I’m having way too much fun with you to even think about letting you go.’
She smiled and he leaned forward and kissed her. She hesitated for a moment then wrapped her hands round the back of his neck and kissed him back.
He wasn’t going to push any more now but it worried him that she didn’t see a future for them. Was this really just a bit of fun for her? Because if it was, then he needed to get out soon before he fell further in love with her.
Chapter Twenty-One
Bella woke to an empty bed on Sunday morning and when she snaked her hand across the sheets and felt how cold they were, it was evident the bed had been empty for some time. Had he left without saying goodbye? That hurt more than it should for two people who were just having a bit of fun. She tried to ignore the voice in the back of her head that told her this was a hell of a lot more than that.
They had spent the whole day together the day before, walking their dogs over the hills, having lunch in town, making love and talking, and it was wonderful and lovely. She couldn’t remember ever being with a man who made her so ridiculously happy. But why did she feel like she had to hold back? Why did she hold her breath in fear every time he looked at her fondly just in case he decided to tell her he loved her? In truth, she wasn’t that scared about Isaac loving her. She had been let down in the past by people who loved her. Isaac would walk away just like everyone else and she was prepared for that. What scared her was falling in love with him. She had never felt this way about anyone before and she knew if she fell in love with him, and it ended, it would break her heart all over again. She didn’t think she could go through that pain again.
These two weeks away from him would help put things into perspective. A break would be a good thing. Life would return to normal, as it had been before she met him instead of spending every spare second with him. And she would see that she didn’t need him to make her happy.
Isaac suddenly walked into the room and her body betrayed her when a huge smile spread across her face when she saw he was still here. He was dressed in trousers and shirt and a wonderful waft of his spicy clean aftershave reached her nose.
He was carrying a mug of tea and he placed it down on the drawers next to her bed.
‘I need to go soon,’ Isaac said.
Bella lifted the duvet for him and, without hesitation, he climbed into bed with her fully clothed and pulled her into his arms, kissing her head as he held her.
‘Don’t go. Stay here in bed with me. We can call in sick at work and spend the whole week having mad passionate sex.’
‘Seriously tempting but I can’t,’ Isaac said.
She ran her hand down his chest. ‘Can I tempt you to stay for a quickie?’
‘You say the most romantic things to me. But sadly not. The taxi will be here in a minute. I need to take my boat to St Mary’s, fly from there to Exeter and then catch another plane to London and there’s only one plane a day. So I can’t miss it.’
‘I can’t believe you’re going to be gone for two weeks. I’m going to miss you,’ Bella said then suddenly reprimanded herself. What was wrong with her? She wasn’t going to miss him. She was perfectly fine on her own. She would miss the sex. That was all. So why did her chest hurt at the thought of not seeing him?
‘I’m going to miss you too. But we can call each other and text and Skype. Plus there’s always phone sex.’
She looked up at him and laughed. ‘I’ve never done that before.’
‘I can’t say I have either.’
‘What will it involve?’
‘I don’t know but from the films I’ve watched, you’ll tell me what you’re wearing—’
‘Mickey Mouse pyjamas?’
‘Yes, that will work.’
‘That will turn you on?’
‘You turn me on, it doesn’t matter what you wear.’
She grinned. ‘Good answer.’
‘It’s the truth.’
‘OK, so we’ll try phone sex and I’ll marvel you with how good I am at seducing you over the phone.’
Isaac laughed. ‘Yes, as the last time you tried to seduce me ended so well.’
‘Hey. It ended with us having sex so I can’t have done too badly.’
‘Pretty much any time you’re naked is going to end with us making love.’
‘I’m naked now,’ Bella said, stretching herself against him.
‘I know and if the taxi wasn’t going to be here in thirty seconds, I would be happy to oblige.’
‘The taxis are always late round here.’
A horn beeped outside.
‘Damn it.’
Isaac rolled her over, pinning her to the mattress under his glorious weight. He kissed her deeply.
He pulled back sligh
tly to stare into her eyes. ‘I promise when I come back, I’ll more than make it up to you.’
‘You better.’
‘And I’m going to continue in my mission to get you to fall in love with me.’ He winked so she knew he was teasing but there was something in his eyes that hinted he was being serious.
Bella decided to play along. ‘Bring me back those chocolate-covered strawberries from Godiva and I think that might just seal the deal.’
He smiled. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’
He dropped a lingering kiss on her forehead and with a groan he climbed out of bed. As the horn sounded again, he quickly pulled his shoes on. ‘Are you sure you’re OK to have Rocket for me?’
‘Of course. She’d only be sitting in your hotel room getting bored if you took her to London. At least Alfie can keep her company while I’m at work.’
‘Thank you.’
He leaned over, gave her another peck on the cheek as if he couldn’t tear himself away and then he left the room.
Bella quickly got up, grabbed a robe and rushed to the window. A few moments later she saw Isaac leave dragging a suitcase behind him. He instinctively looked up and gave her a wave and she watched him get in the taxi and disappear down the hill.
God she really was going to miss him and that worried her.
Monday morning, Bella was already sitting at her desk by half past eight. There was so much to do and so little time to do it in. She took a sip of her coffee that Elsie had made her and looked down the list of people she needed to call that day. The funfair was going to start arriving this week and she knew that she would have to spend most of the day down there on Thursday to make sure everything was set up for the grand opening on Saturday. Although the fair would be there for a little under a week, she knew the biggest day would be Saturday and she wanted everything to run smoothly. She also hoped to be able to launch the egg game by the start of the next week in the lead-up to Easter the following weekend.
Her computer beeped with an internal message and she looked up and saw it was from Isaac.