The Secret Cove in Croatia

by Julie Caplin

  Nick, too light-headed and sick to the stomach, gave him a curt nod; he couldn’t bring himself to speak. Anything he said before he could speak with Tara would be cementing the whole lie.

  As Simon handed the cases onto the yacht, Tara darted past them, running lightly across the gangplank before Nick had chance to grab her and tell her they needed to talk.

  ‘Siri, Siri,’ she called, running up the stairs to the main deck. ‘Guess what.’

  Grimly he chased after her, but it was too late. Siri was standing looking shocked and horrified, her gaze swinging between Tara and him. Douglas, rising up from behind his laptop, came to stand behind Siri. ‘Nick?’ The disapproving frown made Nick raise his hands in defence.

  ‘Maybe I should ask you to marry me,’ said Cory, appearing on deck followed by Simon, going straight up to Douglas with a sly smile, flicking her waterfall of hair over one bare shoulder.

  Siri stiffened and Douglas took a step closer, putting a hand on her forearm.

  ‘Actually, Cory, perhaps we could have a little private chat.’ Douglas’s kind eyes looked a little sad, despite which, Nick envied him. He was going to make a clean breast of things and handle things properly.

  ‘Why don’t we go up to the sundeck?’ Without waiting for an answer, Douglas turned and went towards the steps.

  As Cory followed him, she glanced over her shoulder to Tara and flashed a triumphant smile, mouthing, ‘Double wedding.’

  Siri folded her arms and glared at Nick; he glared back. He didn’t need her unsubtle reminder.

  ‘Tara, we need to talk.’

  ‘Not now, sweetie. I’m exhausted. Pulling my case in that hot sun. Honestly, why is there never a taxi when you need one? I need a cold drink. Where is that serving girl?’

  ‘I’ll get you one,’ said Simon, jumping in quickly as if keen to escape the strange atmosphere.

  ‘Anyone else?’ he asked with a touch of desperation, looking Nick’s way.

  ‘No,’ said Siri curtly, her eyes trained on the staircase.

  Nick shook his head just as there was a scream of outrage from upstairs and a loud crash. Simon winced and made a hasty exit down towards the galley.

  ‘You bastard,’ Cory’s voice wailed. ‘You can’t do this. You don’t finish with me. You’ll regret this.’

  One of the small side tables sailed past the deck, bumping along the side of the boat, bouncing off the neighbouring boat before landing in the water with a loud splash.

  Siri’s lips pinched together. ‘Oh, dear, someone’s not happy.’

  There was another crash from upstairs. More screeching and the sound of a scuffle.

  ‘What’s going on?’ asked Tara in a way that struck Nick as just a little too innocent and wide-eyed.

  Siri gave her a quelling look. ‘Douglas is calling time.’

  ‘No,’ breathed Tara. ‘Poor old Cory.’ Her face softened in sympathy although there was the briefest flash of something in her eyes which anyone who didn’t know her might have taken for malicious satisfaction.

  ‘And what’s this about an engagement?’ asked Siri, suddenly arch and enquiring, her eyebrows raised at Nick.

  ‘Oh, Siri, darling, it’s so exciting.’

  ‘And so sudden,’ the other woman said dryly.

  Nick closed his eyes. How could everything have gone so horribly wrong in such a short space of time? If only they could have stayed in their secret cove.

  From upstairs the scuffling sounds were more heated.

  ‘I’ll go and give Douglas a hand.’ Siri smiled grimly at Tara and Nick. ‘Perhaps toss her overboard.’

  ‘Tara,’ said Nick as soon as Siri’s foot touched the bottom step. ‘We have to talk.’

  ‘Yes, there’s so much to discuss. Do you think we should put an announcement in The Times?’

  ‘No, I don’t. Tara …’

  Her eyes were suddenly hard, dark and bright. ‘Yes?’ She raised a regal eyebrow.

  ‘We can’t get engaged.’

  The brow sailed a touch higher. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Look, I’m sorry but …’

  Her lower lip began to quiver. ‘You mean you don’t want to. But …’ A sob escaped. ‘But I love you, Nicky.’

  ‘No, you don’t.’

  ‘But I do,’ she wailed.

  Nick felt the pinch of his fingernails in his palms. ‘Tara, it’s never going to work.’

  ‘But … but …’ Tears began to roll down her doll-like face.

  He sat down beside her and took her hand. ‘I’m really sorry.’

  With a dainty sniff, she tried to control her tears. ‘You … y-you m-mean y-you d-don’t l-l-l …’ She buried her face in her hands and began to sob. Reluctantly, he put an arm around her.

  ‘Shh, Tara, don’t cry. I’m sorry. Please don’t cry.’ He’d never felt so inadequate in his life. It was a shock to realise that she felt like this about him. Most of the time, he’d felt he was the one running after her and trying to keep up.

  But Tara was in full flow, weeping with her hands over her face, sobbing incomprehensible sentences. ‘You don’t l-love m-me … W-what will I do without you? Can’t b-bear it. P-please don’t break up with me. W-we can carry on. P-pretend I never asked you. It w-was t-too soon.’

  He held her in his arms, feeling the sobs rack her frail body, guilt gnawing a hole in his stomach. Stroking her hair, he tried to comfort her. ‘Hey, it’s all right. Shh.’

  Finally she stopped crying and turned up to face him, her eyes full of sadness. ‘I know I jumped the gun but … oh, everyone is going to know.’ Her face crumpled again. ‘Everyone will know.’ She began to cry again. ‘I’m going to look such a fool. Everyone is going to laugh at me.’

  ‘No one needs to know,’ he said, rubbing her back in what he hoped was a soothing way.

  ‘Everyone is going to know. That paparazzi, Jack Flynn, he knows who I am. He’ll have already filed that photo.’

  Nick sighed. ‘Maybe we can tell him it was a mistake.’

  Tara shot him an angry stare. ‘A mistake. And what sort of story would that make? You turning me down. The papers would love that. All those jealous people seeing me making a fool of myself.’ She swallowed, lifting her face to his. Although it was hard to resist the terrible sadness filling her big soulful eyes, he had to tell her.

  ‘Tara, I’m sorry. It’s over.’

  She burst into a fresh gale of tears and he patted her hand, feeling totally ineffectual.

  ‘P-please don’t do this to me, Nick. It will ruin my reputation. And once that picture goes public all the paps will want pictures of us. They’ll be swarming around. P-lease. P-lease. I’m begging you, don’t finish with me.’

  Nick closed his eyes, swallowing hard, hating that he was the cause of her pain. She clutched his forearms, her hands like tiny talons gripping the bones.

  He sighed, his stomach turning itself inside out.

  ‘P-please.’ Somehow she’d found her way onto his lap.

  ‘Tara, I can’t. I don’t want to hurt you, but … we’re too different.’

  ‘Nooo!’ she wailed, winding her arms around his neck, staring earnestly up into his face. ‘You’re perfect for me. Everyone says what a great couple we look.’

  And that was it, the words that made him realise that they’d never stood a chance. Her distress had surprised him; he’d half expected her to treat him with icy reserve and snub him, this clinging desperation made him feel guilty and an absolute bastard. But Tara’s affection for him was skin-deep; she didn’t care about him in the way that he cared about Maddie. It was all about looks and appearance.

  ‘No, Tara, it really is over,’ he said gently, once again trying to peel her limbs from his and firmly putting her arms down by her sides.

  ‘At least wait until we get home,’ she pleaded, immediately putting her arms around his neck again. ‘Pretend to be engaged to me until we go home. Then we can just allow things to fizzle out, as far as the press and social
media are concerned. In a few weeks’ time I can be heartbroken … but no one needs to know the details.’

  He sighed. He could give her that much, if it meant helping her to save face, but he needed to speak to Maddie as soon as she got back to the boat. Explain things.

  A creak made them both look up.

  Too late.

  Maddie was silhouetted by the sun behind her, the rays spreading out like a halo around her body. Nick couldn’t see the expression on her face. He didn’t need to. He had all the answers when she swung round and stomped off down to the galley.

  ‘Honestly, that girl, she’s like an elephant, so big and ungainly, crashing about all the time.’

  Chapter 29

  Maddie rammed bottle after bottle into the fridge, satisfying crash after satisfying crash. Bastard. She stuffed the lettuce into the salad drawer, heedless of the crushed leaves, imagining she was mashing Nick’s head in there. Fifty-eight minutes. Fifty-eight pitiful minutes. That was all it had taken for him to go back to Tara. Not even a full freaking hour. She pushed her fists hard into her eye sockets. She. Was. Not. Going. To. Cry.

  Oh, dammit, she was.

  Why was she even surprised? Tiny Tara versus her. What had she been thinking? A handy rebound while Tara was away. God, she was so, so stupid. That was all it had been and she’d been so desperate for Nick to like her she’d fooled herself into thinking it could be more. What an idiot.

  The sight of Tara curled up in his lap like a tiny fairy, her golden head on his shoulder and him stroking her long hair down her back made her feel as if she’d run full tilt into a brick wall.

  ‘Hey, stranger, good to see you again.’

  Maddie whirled round to find Simon standing on the threshold of the galley. For once he seemed subdued.

  ‘Hi,’ she said, ducking her head with an unladylike sniff. With the exception of Nick, he was one of the last people she wanted to see right now.

  ‘You OK? I’m guessing that lettuce has upset you somehow.’

  ‘I’m just busy,’ she said with her back to him. Couldn’t he see she just wanted to be left alone to mistreat salad?

  ‘You don’t want any company?’ His question sounded a little on the plaintive side.

  Maddie didn’t bother hiding her exasperated sigh. ‘I’m just sorting dinner. What’s the matter?’

  Why the hell didn’t he get the message and bugger off?

  ‘Everything has just gone tits-up. Did you know that Douglas was planning to dump Cory?’ There was a touch of accusation in his voice as if he should have been part of the decision-making process.

  ‘Not … specifically.’ She was irritated with his lack of awareness. He was supposed to be Douglas’s friend; surely he thought Cory had behaved badly. ‘I guessed something was on the cards. What with him leaving her at the party and all that.’

  Simon shook his head. ‘I never thought he’d do it. I suppose she did behave abominably at the Ellinghams’.’

  ‘You suppose.’ Maddie whirled round to face him. What was wrong with these people?

  Simon looked puzzled and lifted his shoulders in an indifferent shrug. ‘She’s very naughty, but even so I’m surprised he’s called her bluff while we’re still out here. Going to make things very uncomfortable.’

  ‘She’s a grown woman, not a toddler,’ snapped Maddie. ‘And what do you mean, called her bluff?’

  ‘He’ll take her back. She’ll be nice to him for a few days, behave herself, and it will all be back on.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be so sure about that,’ replied Maddie with a brief sense of satisfaction, thinking of the rumpled, rather shy figure of Douglas that had emerged this morning with a bubbly, very pleased Siri. Oh, yes, she’d looked like a woman who’d bagged her man.

  Thinking of them also made her think of her own start to the day … Her heart pinched at the memories that flooded insensitively into her head. The early morning sun slanting across the pillow picking up the natural highlights in Nick’s hair. Play-fighting over the shampoo in the shower. Him with a teasing smile, wrapping her up like a mummy in a towel and holding her fast while he kissed her.

  ‘And have you heard the other news?’

  ‘What other news?’ Maddie pulled open the dishwasher and began to unload the plates, wishing he’d go away.

  ‘The Neanderthal and Tara are engaged.’

  ‘What?’ A plate slipped out of her numb fingers, hitting the floor with a ching before rattling in reverberating circles on the floor and coming to a full stop halt.

  Simon rolled his eyes and looked heavenward. ‘Precisely. You’d have thought she has better taste.’

  ‘Engaged?’ Maddie repeated dully.

  ‘Yeah, engaged.’

  ‘When?’ Maddie could barely choke the word out. Engaged. Engaged. Engaged. The word lost meaning as it rattled around inside her head. Engaged, like a toilet or as in otherwise occupied, or to be married?

  ‘This afternoon. Surprised she hasn’t dragged him off ring-shopping yet. I got the impression it was all very spontaneous.’

  ‘Spontaneous?’ she repeated, her words barely above a whisper.

  ‘Yeah, overcome by passion. Down on one knee and everything.’

  Nick had proposed. The pain in her chest bloomed hard and fast and kept growing bigger and bigger and bigger until she thought she might suffocate with it. She had to press her hand to her sternum to try and stop everything bursting out.

  ‘Absence making the heart fonder, clearly.’ Simon’s mouth turned up into a sneer. ‘I thought Tara would grow out of the novelty, but clearly not.’

  Maddie turned her back on him, her vocal cords too tight to speak. The white plates in the dishwasher were blurry and out of focus. When she tried to pick up another, her finger and thumbs missed. Like her brain, they didn’t seem to be working.

  Simon was still talking.

  Why wouldn’t he just leave? Maddie grasped the cutlery tray, the rack shaking in her hand. The forks were tempting. She might stab him if he didn’t shut up.

  ‘Maddie … are you listening?’ Simon’s petulant voice pierced her thoughts.

  ‘I’m a bit busy,’ she snapped, grasping at anger in protection.

  ‘Fine,’ he said, as sulky as a toddler, and thankfully disappeared.

  Maddie slumped against the counter; her stomach felt hollowed out, everything numb. How did you go from … from whatever she thought they’d had … to engaged? Was she really that gullible? Nick owed her an explanation but at the moment she couldn’t bear the thought of speaking to him.

  She took her time in the galley, putting all the plates away with determined, methodical precision, cleaning the range top even though it didn’t really need doing. She rearranged a few shelves in the cupboard before emptying the fridge and giving it a thorough clean, putting everything back in careful order.

  And still Nick didn’t come. She curled her lips, glancing to the doorway. You’d have thought she deserved some explanation. Perhaps even an apology. An acknowledgement at least. Sorry, I changed my mind.

  When she slipped out of the galley up the back stairs to her cabin, she cast a quick glance towards the deck area. Tara was on Nick’s lap, her arms wrapped around him like a limpet doused in superglue.

  Up in her cabin, Maddie sat on the edge of the bed dry-eyed, gripping the sheets with both hands, still hoping that Nick would come and find her. Come and tell her that it was all a big mistake.

  She waited for two hours.

  Quite how she got through dinner, Maddie wasn’t sure. Conversation at the dinner table seemed heavy and leaden. On one side of the table Cory and Simon kept up an exclusive low-voiced conversation between them, Cory every now and then throwing spiteful, narrowed-eyed glares at Douglas. Opposite them, Siri and Douglas chatted in their usual easy-old-friends way, although both of them kept slipping her apologetic guilty smiles. Maddie steadfastly refused to make eye contact with either of them. She couldn’t bear to; it might loosen something inside her
and it was taking everything she had to hang onto her dignity.

  Every time she came back to the table with another dish: the salad, the grilled fish fillets, the basket of bread, she was horribly aware of Tara’s lean yoga-bendy limbs staking their claim on Nick. One vine-like arm linked through his, while one of her legs draped indolently across his lap and her head leaned against his shoulder. She couldn’t seem to leave him alone, one minute stroking his neck, the next playing with his hair. Maddie took a certain amount of satisfaction in seeing Nick squirm a little; he didn’t look particularly happy with all the over-the-top PDA. Served him right. He’d got what he deserved, although she was aware of his pleading eyes on her.

  Well, he could forget it. She absolutely refused to look his way. He wanted forgiveness, did he? Wanted her to make it easy on him?

  As she brought up the coffee, grateful that in another few minutes she’d be off-duty, she allowed herself another quick glance towards the couple. The sight of Tara’s smooth coffee skin side by side with Nick’s golden tan punched at her gut, leaving a visceral sharp-edged pain that almost made her double over. Clearing the last of the plates from the table, she headed back down to the galley, determined to keep herself busy, but within half an hour she’d tidied everything away. Now what? She looked around the spotless kitchen and, unable to help herself, closed her eyes, blinking back threatening tears. She had to get out of here. Without stopping to grab a bag or purse, she stuffed her phone in her back pocket and walked as quickly as she could towards the stern, praying that none of the guests would hail her. If they asked for anything, she might just tell them where to go.

  As soon as she stepped off the boat she felt something lift, not a weight but more the constriction around her chest. Not that she felt any better. The leaden numbness still encased her, along with heavy-hearted resignation, but the constraint of having to hide it had gone. She laughed, a mirthless bitter sound; now she was free to be totally miserable.

  Grateful for the anonymity of the busy town, Maddie walked along the promenade, in and out of the dappled patches of light, through the throngs of people intent on their own happiness. Hvar, it seemed, was full of beautiful, happy people and everywhere she looked there were couples: arms linked, fingers interlaced, stealing sly kisses or hip to hip, perusing restaurant menus. She scowled. Like she’d been with Nick in Stari Grad.