Falling Again for Her Island Fling

by Ellie Darkins

  Guy let out a long breath, then came over and sat opposite her.

  ‘We spent a lot of time on Le Bijou,’ he confirmed, letting out another long breath. ‘It was special to both of us.’

  ‘And that’s why you bought the island?’ she asked. He nodded. ‘And that’s why you are intent on destroying it?’

  His head snapped round to look at her. ‘I’m not destroying it.’

  ‘You’re building a hotel on it. It’ll never be the same again. It’s hardly preserving it.’

  ‘Fine, yes. I wanted to destroy it.’

  She sat and looked at him for a long moment, the impact of that statement hitting.

  ‘You hate it that much?’

  Guy sighed, shaking his head. ‘I don’t hate it,’ he said.

  ‘Then why?’

  ‘Because while it’s sitting there, just as I—we—left it, I couldn’t stop thinking about it.’

  Meena felt the silence settle uncomfortably between them before she spoke again.

  ‘It was that bad?’ she asked, her voice soft.

  ‘Bad. Good. I don’t know.’

  Meena was seriously starting to regret pulling on this thread. Answers were meant to be reassuring, but she wasn’t liking the sound of where this was going. She thought again about what Guy had said—how he had kept the truth from her in order to protect her—and wondered if she had made a mistake in pushing for it.

  ‘Did you really leave because your holiday was over?’ she asked, not sure that she wanted the answer. But, now they had started, she wanted everything out in the open. She wanted to know how bad it could get. And then once it was done, flushed out of her system, she could move on. She would move on.

  He nodded, but she could see there was more, so she waited. ‘It wasn’t really a holiday. It was an apprenticeship. I was here to see how the resort worked, before I went back to head office in Sydney to work with my parents. We didn’t have much of a choice about me leaving.’

  ‘Did I want you to go?’ she pressed. He fixed her with a stare, as if he was challenging her. He didn’t want to tell her this, but she wasn’t going to let him off the hook. This was her history too. She was entitled to know it.

  ‘Yes,’ he answered. She thought about that. Thought about where he’d been going back to. Thought about her scholarship to Australia, and her plans to continue her research there.

  ‘Was I meant to come with you?’ she asked.

  It felt as if they were fixed in this space between her question and his answer for days. Until eventually he nodded, his eyes dropping from hers, staring out at the water. ‘Yes.’

  This time, she could forgive him the monosyllable. ‘I never came,’ she said, her voice full of sadness. Sad for him. Sad for herself. Sad for the fact she was having to ask Guy these intensely personal questions; that she couldn’t know the answers for herself.

  He shook his head and shrugged. ‘And now I know why. It wasn’t anyone’s fault.’

  She traced the line of a scar under her hair, almost without realising what she was doing.

  ‘You never knew,’ she said, her voice low. ‘You never knew why I didn’t follow you?’

  No wonder he had seemed so angry with her, she thought. She had assumed all this time that she was the one who had been abandoned. When she’d been working through her recovery and rehabilitation, she had wondered where her lover was. How he could be moving on with his life while she was left with a devastated body and a broken heart, even though she didn’t know the cause. To find out that she had hurt Guy just as badly winded her.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘That must have been hard for you.’

  ‘It was a long time ago,’ he replied, which didn’t really answer her question. ‘Are we going to discuss the dive?’ Guy continued, dragging their conversation back to the professional.

  ‘I’m not sure that this conversation is finished,’ Meena said, sensing his barriers flying back up but hoping that she might get some more information out of him if she trod carefully.

  ‘It is for me,’ Guy replied, his eyes hard.

  Part of Meena bristled, wanting to push back, demand her answers. But she could see that Guy would not be receptive.

  She thought again about how it must have been for him—waiting to hear from her, assuming that she had made up her mind not to come to him. And then he had turned up here and found that she had no memory of him. She decided not to push. Not just now. If she did, he was just going to clam up. And if that happened, and he decided to put more distance between them, she might never find out everything that she wanted.

  ‘Fine, let’s get to work, then,’ she said, pulling up the relevant files on her laptop and talking him through her findings from their dive. He nodded along as she pointed out what she had recorded and the adjustments that would be needed at Le Bijou as a result.

  ‘And once we have an answer about the turtles on the beach, I can finish my reports,’ she said at last.

  He let out a long sigh, and she could practically feel his relief.

  ‘And you’re going tonight?’ he asked. ‘To see the turtles?’

  She nodded. ‘Yes. I’d hoped to see them last night—we’re so close to the end of the possible incubation period—but nothing happened. It’s been sixty days since I found the nest, so I’m hoping something happens tonight. If it doesn’t...’ She didn’t even want to think about what it would mean if she didn’t see any hatchlings.

  ‘You were out there alone last night?’ Guy asked sharply, and Meena didn’t know quite what to make of his tone.

  ‘Of course,’ she replied, trying to keep any hint of annoyance out of her voice, but bristling all the same from his questioning how she did her job or how she took care of herself. Either way, it was none of his business.

  Guy narrowed his eyes. ‘Why “of course”?’

  ‘Who did you think I would take with me?’

  ‘I don’t care who you take,’ Guy said with a nonchalance that stung. ‘I just don’t think you should be out there all night on your own.’

  She crossed her arms and stared him down in a way that was starting to feel familiar. ‘It’s not a big deal, Guy,’ she told him, hoping that he would pick up from her tone that she didn’t care for his input on this matter.

  ‘I don’t care. I don’t like it.’

  The message obviously had not been received. ‘Well, then,’ Meena said, wanting this conversation to be at an end. ‘It’s a good job it’s not your decision, then, isn’t it?’

  ‘You work for me,’ Guy said, his words eerily cool.

  Meena leaned forward and rested her elbows on the desk, fixing him with an equally cold stare and hoping that he couldn’t see how her heart was racing in her chest.

  ‘When the permits are approved,’ she said, making her words deliberately slow, ‘I will be considering whether to come and work for your company. Right now, I work for the government of St Antoine. I don’t report to you, no matter how much you like to call and demand my presence.’

  Guy huffed. ‘I do not do that.’

  ‘Then what am I doing here?’ she asked, a false note of sweetness in her voice.

  ‘You’re working.’

  ‘Right, because I couldn’t possibly update you over email. Or the phone.’

  ‘It’s easier this way,’ Guy stated, as if the strength of his opinion could make it fact.

  Meena snapped the lid of her laptop shut and started to gather up her papers. ‘For you, maybe,’ she said, knowing that Guy would get the subtext.

  He stayed silent long enough for her to break her resolve and turn and look at him, wondering what he was plotting. ‘Look, Meena, I’m sorry for annoying you. I was just concerned about you being on the island on your own overnight.’

  ‘You don’t need to be.’

  ‘Well, I am.�
�� He was back to monosyllables, but they were softer than they had been before—less combative—and Meena felt her shoulders relax down from her ears a fraction in response to his change in tone.

  ‘I’m sorry you feel that way, Guy. But there’s not a lot you can do about it. Like I said, I need to get this job done, and this is how I work. You’re not my boss, and you’re not my boyfriend. You can’t stop me.’

  His forehead creased in the way that Meena knew meant he was plotting something. ‘I can come with you,’ he said.

  She laughed—couldn’t help herself. ‘Oh, right, the great Guy Williams camping out on a beach waiting to see turtle babies. I can really see that happening.’

  ‘It’s happening. I already told you, I’ve done it before.’

  She stopped and stared at him for a moment. ‘You’re not serious. That was a million years ago.’

  ‘It was seven years ago and I’m deadly serious. I’m not letting you stay out there alone.’

  ‘Letting me? You wouldn’t have got away with talking to me like that when we were together, Guy. Never mind now. No one “lets” me do anything.’

  ‘How do you know how I spoke to you when we were together?’

  It was a low blow and it hurt—a lot. He was right. She didn’t know. Perhaps when she’d met him she’d turned into the sort of woman who had done as she was told, gone along with what he had wanted. Perhaps that was how she had ended up pregnant. But, even as she had the thought, she dismissed it. That wasn’t who she was. It wasn’t who she had ever been, and meeting Guy wouldn’t—couldn’t—have changed that.

  ‘I just know, okay? I might not remember you, or us. But I know myself, Guy, and I would never stand for that.’

  A small smile betrayed Guy.

  ‘You’re right,’ he said, the smile creasing his eyes. ‘You never did.’

  ‘So stop trying it on now.’ She tried to be cross, but his smile was contagious and she could feel it softening her features even as she tried schooling them into something stern.

  ‘I’m not trying to force anything, Meena. I would love to keep you company on Le Bijou tonight, with the added bonus of knowing that you are safe. Am I welcome to come and watch for the turtles with you?’

  She sat in silence while she considered the proposition. Truth be told, she hadn’t been all that happy about sleeping out on Le Bijou alone and she would have been grateful for some company. More important, if Guy came along tonight, spent more time on Le Bijou, maybe he would soften his plans for the development. If he remembered how special the island was, he might rein in his development plans, so they made less of an impact on the environment of Le Bijou. Perhaps he would even abandon the plans altogether.

  ‘Fine. You can come along,’ she said eventually. ‘But bring your own tent.’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  SHE HAD DECLINED Guy’s offer to bring his yacht to the island. She didn’t want it anchored off shore, not knowing what impact it might have on the marine life. Her little boat had been puttering around Le Bijou for so long that it felt like part of the ecosystem, and it was perfectly capable of getting them to and from the island, even if it lacked a bit in the luxury stakes. She had half-expected Guy to pull a face when she had insisted that they both use it, but if he had been annoyed he hadn’t shown it.

  Instead he had turned up at the marina wearing a casual pair of cargo shorts and a polo shirt with a stuffed rucksack on his back. She could see a tent and a sleeping bag, and was glad that he had taken her instructions seriously. She’d meant what she’d said about not sharing.

  Even with separate tents, though, this was probably not one of her best ideas, she thought as she steered them up to the little jetty and tied up her boat. Guy scrambled out first and held out a hand to help her up, and she hesitated before she took it. But it was just a polite gesture, she told herself as she made herself reach out for it, trying to ignore the zing that she felt when his fingers touched hers. They walked over to where she had set up camp the night before and pitched the tents quickly. The sun was setting fast, shadows growing long around them as she knocked tent pegs into the earth and tightened the lines. She was unrolling her sleeping bag when she felt Guy’s eyes on her back and turned to find him watching her.

  With the setting sun behind him, she couldn’t make out his expression. He was just a dark silhouette against the bleeding orange of the sun dipping into the water.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked as the last rays of sunlight streaked around them.

  ‘It’s...’ Guy hesitated, as if he was making up his mind whether to speak. ‘It’s just strange, being back here again,’ he said eventually, coming round to the front of the tents and spreading a blanket on the ground. ‘We spent so much time here before. And I’ve had this place in my mind for so long.’

  ‘It’s so strange not being able to remember it,’ Meena said, sitting on the blanket and wondering whether this conversation would have been different if she’d had her memories. If Guy would even have talked about the past at all if she hadn’t been reliant on him to fill in the missing parts for her.

  ‘It’s strange for me too,’ Guy said, lit now only by the full moon as he dropped down beside her. Darkness had fallen fast, and Meena didn’t want to risk interfering with the natural instincts of the turtles by turning on a torch or lighting a fire. ‘It’s hard to know what to tell you.’

  ‘I want to know it all,’ she said, glad of the darkness that hid her expression, letting her ask questions she’d never have dared to if she’d properly had to look him in the eye.

  ‘I know...’ Guy said. ‘I know you think that you do, but...’

  ‘But what? But you know what I want better than I do?’

  ‘But me telling you isn’t the same as you remembering.’ He explained his thinking. ‘Would it really change anything?’

  ‘It might,’ she countered. He could never know what it was like for her to live with this hole in her memories. To feel as if she didn’t know herself. ‘I want to know everything I can about that time when my memories are missing.’

  He sighed, shaking his head. ‘Why does it mean so much to you? It all happened such a long time ago. Why can’t we just leave it all in the past?’

  How could he ask that? Had their relationship meant so little to him that he could just pretend that it had never happened in the first place? Had she meant so little to him?

  She could see why it wouldn’t matter to him. He was clearly a womaniser who picked up women and dropped them with barely a thought for what came next. But she wasn’t like that. Had he known, then, that she’d been a virgin? She couldn’t think of anything more mortifying to ask. If he hadn’t known, it would be mortifying telling him now. That he had been so special to her when she had clearly meant nothing to him.

  ‘Because I deserve to know my own past,’ she told him. ‘You’re hoarding these memories like it’s your decision only. But I helped make those memories, and I think I’m entitled to have them back. Perhaps not everyone with amnesia feels this way. But what I’ve pieced together of that summer doesn’t make sense. The Meena that I see through those memories doesn’t make sense to me. I want to understand her. Want to understand who I was.’

  ‘I don’t remember you changing,’ he said, as if that was the end of the matter. How could it be? How could she have been pregnant with his baby if she hadn’t become someone else over those months?

  ‘That’s not possible,’ she said eventually. ‘I know that I changed. I want to know why.’

  ‘Is this because—?’ Guy stopped himself, and that was all she needed to hear to know that he was about to tell her something important.

  ‘Just say it,’ she told him.

  He hesitated, but she knew that her tone hadn’t given him any choice but to answer. He must remember something of her, to know that. ‘Is it because of me? Because of our relationship. Is th
at what you’re confused about?’

  ‘Partly,’ she confirmed, though she couldn’t tell him about the baby. Assuming that he didn’t already know, of course. It was impossible trying to pick through these conversations when both of them were hiding so much. Surely if he had known then that she was pregnant he would have asked about it by now?

  But even if it hadn’t been for the baby she would still have been confused about what had happened. The Meena that she remembered wouldn’t have slept with Guy. So she must have been someone different those months.

  ‘I just don’t understand...us,’ she said at last, not sure that it was a good idea mentioning their relationship, but unsure of how else to get the answers that she needed. ‘The me that I remember wouldn’t have...’ She was grateful for the dark hiding her expression. If she’d done it, she should be able to talk about it. But as she didn’t even remember having sex with him—having sex with anyone—she figured that it didn’t count.

  ‘Wouldn’t have slept with me?’ Guy asked outright.

  The blood rushed furiously to her face and she could feel her skin burning even as the evening was starting to turn cooler.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, forcing out the word to break the awkward silence.

  ‘I know that you hadn’t before,’ he said after a long pause. ‘That I was your first.’

  She kept thinking that it wasn’t possible to be any more embarrassed than she already was, and then Guy would go and open his mouth and suddenly she was dying all over again.

  ‘It wasn’t a casual thing,’ he went on when her silence continued. ‘If that’s what you were thinking. It was important to you. To both of us.’