by Jessica Hart
As every evening, he was wearing cool chinos and a loose shirt. Tonight, for the first time, she was close enough to feel that it was made of the finest cotton, close enough to breathe in its indefinably expensive smell, mingled with the clean, wonderfully male scent of his skin.
Imogen was so distracted by the feel of him that she almost forgot the threatening storm until the blackness was fractured by a great fork of lightning, followed a few seconds later by an ear-splitting crack that sent her heart lurching into her throat.
Tom felt her jump and tightened his arm around her. ‘Here we go,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Looks like it’s going to be a big one, but you’re safe with me.’
And, incredibly, safe was exactly how Imogen felt, even though the sky was lit up again and again in a spectacular display, and the sound of the thunder ripped through the silence and reverberated all around them. It went on for long minutes before stopping as abruptly as it had begun.
‘Wow,’ she said unsteadily into a silence that still echoed with the crack of thunder. Normally the first hint of lightning had her literally cowering under the blankets, and she had never seen anything like that display of ferocious power. She moistened her lips, very glad of Tom’s massive, reassuring presence. ‘Do you think that’s it?’
But that was only the beginning. Before Tom had a chance to reply, the wind was upon them. Like a wild animal, it snarled through the palms, shaking them in savage fury until they bent like saplings. It thrashed its way into the undergrowth, whipping the foliage from side to side, and hurled itself at the house.
And then the rain hit them.
Imogen had never seen rain like it. It fell like a wall of water, thundering down onto the veranda roof and hammering into the sand. The noise was deafening, brutal, and she huddled closer into Tom’s side.
‘All right?’ He had to shout over the sound of the rain, but she could still hardly hear him.
She had been watching the rain with a mixture of awe and terror, but at his question she pulled away slightly so that she could look up at him. The silvery eyes gleamed back down at her and she realized, to her astonishment, that the corners of his mouth were turned up. He was actually smiling!
‘You’re enjoying this!’
Tom’s smile broadened at the accusing note in her voice. ‘I like storms,’ he admitted. ‘Don’t you think this is exciting?’
Now he came to mention it, that was excitement quivering along her veins, but it wasn’t due to the storm. It was being pressed close into his body, knowing that if she turned her head just a little bit more his throat was only inches away. It would take so little to lean into him and touch her lips to his skin and, once she’d done that, she could blizzard tiny kisses along his jaw to his mouth.
And, if she got that far and he was still smiling, she could find out if his lips were as cool and firm as they looked. She could kiss him the way she had been trying so hard not to think about kissing him all week. She could squirm onto his lap and wind her arms around his neck and perhaps Tom would kiss her back. Perhaps his hands would slide over her, perhaps he would peel off her clothes, perhaps he would take her inside to that big bed and make love to her…
Imogen gulped. Tom was talking about the storm, remember?
‘Exciting isn’t the word I’d use,’ she managed.
Tom laughed and pulled her closer. He hadn’t meant to, but she fitted so perfectly into him, and she was so soft and so warm and so gorgeous that his arm seemed to tighten of its own accord. The storm was awesome, without a doubt, but the millions of volts crackling across the sky were muted compared to the feeling that jolted through him whenever Imogen shifted slightly and the thin material of her dress beneath his hand slithered over her skin.
Even as he looked down into her face, Tom knew that it was a mistake. The muted glow of the lamp inside was just enough for their eyes to meet, and once they’d snared they were both caught. Tom’s smile faded slowly as her gaze held his. He knew just how blue her eyes were, but in this light they were dark and deep and he was drowning in them.
The sound and fury of the storm was forgotten as something undeniable crackled into life between them. Imogen couldn’t have looked away if she had tried. It was as if some irresistible force were drawing them together, and her blood drummed with anticipation.
At last-at last-he was going to kiss her, and she was going to kiss him back, just as she’d dreamed about. She wasn’t going to think about anything except how good it was going to feel. Parting her lips, she lifted her face as Tom lowered his head…
CHAPTER EIGHT
A SUDDEN jagged flash of lightning severed the dark and thunder crashed so terrifyingly close to the house that they both flinched apart in the blinding light. The next moment it was gone and they were plunged into utter darkness.
Imogen stiffened, the old fear clutching at her throat.
‘The generator’s gone,’ Tom yelled in her ear. ‘Don’t worry. There’s a flashlight inside.’
He took his arm from round her and she grabbed him in panic, frantic at the thought of waiting alone in the dark with the storm screaming around her. ‘Don’t leave me!’
‘I’m not going to leave you.’ He took firm hold of her hand. ‘Come with me. It’ll be fine once we get some light.’
Without even a glimmer of starlight, the depth of the darkness was disorientating. Hand in hand, they groped their way to the door and then inside. Tom remembered Ali showing them the flashlight and how to light the gas lamps-for just such an eventuality, he supposed-but it still took some time to find it and, when his hand did finally close on it, he exclaimed with relief.
‘At last!’
He clicked it on and they both blinked at the brightness of the beam. To Imogen’s relief, the blackness that had been pressing so heavily around them shrank back instantly.
‘That’s better,’ said Tom, and it was, until he looked down to see that he was still holding Imogen’s hand. ‘Are you OK?’ he asked carefully.
She followed his gaze to their linked fingers and a flush crept up her cheeks. ‘Yes, I’m fine,’ she said, awkwardly disentangling her hand.
Funny, thought Tom. That didn’t feel better any more.
He had been so close to kissing her. If that lightning hadn’t taken out the electricity just then, he wouldn’t have been able to stop himself. And where would that have ended?
Tom knew where. In that bed, and in the very situation he had just managed to convince himself that he should avoid.
Imogen was clearly thinking better of things as well. He had noticed how quickly she had withdrawn her hand from his, and now she was hugging her arms about her nervously. She might still be spooked by the storm, but he thought it was more likely that she was unnerved by the fact that her boss had almost kissed her.
Best to pretend that nothing had happened, he decided.
‘Well,’ he said, a little too heartily, ‘let’s light the gas lamps and then we may as well have something to eat. There are plenty of salads in the fridge.’
Imogen never forgot that meal in the hissing light of a gas lamp while the rain crashed onto the roof and her fingers twitched and tingled where they had been curled around Tom’s. She couldn’t keep her eyes off his lean, solid body, massive and reassuring in the wildness of the dark night.
She tried not to stare, but her eyes kept skittering back to him, only to skitter away again the moment they collided with his pale grey gaze. Not that it mattered where she looked; all she could see were the hard angles of his face, his hands, his mouth. His mouth…Had he always had that mouth?
It was just the shadows cast by the lamp, Imogen tried to tell herself. Just the power of the downpour, the energy of the lightning, that was making her feverish. Just the storm that was raging outside and deep inside her, fizzing like lightning in her blood and making her heart thunder so loudly that if it hadn’t been for the rain, Tom must surely have heard it.
It was almost a shock when the rain stopp
ed as abruptly as it had begun. One moment it was pounding down, the next there was an uncanny silence, broken only by the steady drip, drip from the huge tropical leaves outside, before the insects erupted into frenzy and the whole island steamed in the aftermath.
Imogen knew just how it felt. Leaping up, she made a big show of clearing away the plates and putting the food away. Tom hadn’t said anything but it was obvious that he had changed his mind about kissing her.
It had been too easy to get carried away by the darkness and the drama of the storm, she reminded herself. And put herself in Tom’s position. He was only a man, after all. She had been young, female and alone with him in the dark. Who could have blamed him for being tempted to forget Julia’s rejection with someone who was clinging to him like a limpet?
Or for thinking better of it when the lights came on again?
It was just as well nothing had happened, Imogen decided. It would have made it very awkward. Tom was still her boss, and they were going to have to go back to working together in a couple of weeks.
And even if he had kissed her, it wouldn’t have meant anything. She didn’t want to be just a poor substitute for Julia, did she?
Did she?
No, Imogen told herself firmly. Absolutely not. She had narrowly escaped making the most enormous fool of herself, and it wasn’t going to happen again. From now on, there would be no holding hands, no pressing herself against him, no fantasising about kissing him. They had agreed to be friends and a friend was all she would be.
Imogen woke the next morning to a bright blue sky. The air was rinsed and sparkling and when they set off for the reef as usual, the water was so still and so clear that it was hard to believe in the ferocity of the storm the night before. If it hadn’t been for the intensity of the island scents, heady and lush after the rain, Imogen might have thought it had all been a dream.
She was hoping that excruciating awareness of Tom would turn out to have been a dream too, but if anything it was worse in the diamond-bright light, when every line around his eyes, every crease in his cheek, seemed extraordinarily clear, and when the severe planes and angles of his face were etched against the blue sky.
Remembering her vow, though, Imogen chattered brightly all the way to the reef, and gave what she thought was an excellent impression of a girl too inane to harbour lustful thoughts about her boss.
It was a relief to put on the mask and snorkel, to hide her face in the water and lose herself in the absorbing world beneath the surface. The silence was soothing. There was just the coolness of the water and the sound of her breathing and the fish drifting below in a spectacle of colour, and by the time Tom indicated that they should go back, she was feeling much more herself. She was able to be really normal as the little boat skimmed over the water, and her spirits lifted.
See, she could do this, she congratulated herself as she settled onto the lounger in the sun a little later and opened her book. Last night had been an aberration. She would blame it all on the storm. All she had to do was carry on treating Tom as a friend and enjoy the holiday. She would have to worry about how they got back to a working relationship when they got home.
One thing was sure, she couldn’t see them being friends in London. Their lives were just too different. Tom wouldn’t be happy slobbing out on the sofa while she and Amanda gossiped, dissected the latest celebrity mags and tested each other on developments in the latest soaps. He wouldn’t offer to ring for a takeaway when it turned out there was nothing in the fridge, or want to lie in bed until lunchtime on a Sunday.
And he would never be able to cope with their messy flat, Imogen realised, remembering his need for order and control. He needed someone like Julia-gorgeous, glamorous Julia, who probably drifted around art galleries looking intelligent on Sundays and no doubt lived in an immaculately tidy apartment.
No, they might be friends on Coconut Island, but there was no point in thinking that it could be the same in London.
When Tom appeared with a glass of fresh lime juice a little later, she put her book down with a cheerful smile.
‘You make a great barman,’ she told him. ‘I’ll owe you lots of coffees at your desk when we get back to the office.’
No harm in reminding him that she hadn’t forgotten reality, no matter how much it must have seemed it the night before when she had clung to him and her eyes had been crawling all over him.
‘Actually, it’s Ali you should be making the coffee for,’ said Tom, sitting sideways on the lounger next to hers. ‘He made these. He was just finishing tidying up after the storm when I was checking my email.’ He swirled lime juice around his glass with a faint frown. ‘Does tonight mean anything to you?’
‘No. Should it?’
‘He was trying to tell me about something that had been arranged for tonight, but I couldn’t get what he was talking about.’
Imogen pulled a face. ‘No idea. Perhaps there’s a party or something at the resort? He could have been asking if we wanted to go.’
‘God, I hope not,’ said Tom in dismay. ‘I said yes, OK, just because it seemed easier than trying to understand. But maybe you’d like to go and meet other people?’ he added belatedly.
Normally she would have loved the idea of a party, but there was nothing Imogen wanted to do less right then. There were only two weeks left, she had remembered earlier, and she didn’t want to share Tom for even a minute of it with anyone else. But she couldn’t tell him that in case he thought she was needy and reading too much into what had-or hadn’t-happened last night.
‘It might be fun,’ she said as casually as she could. ‘Let’s see what happens tonight.’
‘Are you dressed?’ Imogen heard Tom call from the veranda that evening as she put on her lipstick. ‘Ali’s here with the boat.’
Just in case it turned out that they were going to a party, Imogen had put on her only smart dress. It was a pale creamy yellow and made of a gorgeous silky material that slithered coolly over her skin and was perfect for putting on after a day in the sun. She had tried to be sensible and sit in the shade as much as possible, but even so the sun had turned her skin to a warm gold and her hair was streaked with blonde. The dress set her new sun-drenched colouring to perfection.
‘I wonder what’s going on,’ she said to Tom, fixing in her earrings as she joined him on the veranda.
‘Let’s go and see.’
Barefoot like Imogen, Tom led the way down to the jetty. He was browner too, and his silver eyes made an even more startling contrast than usual with his tanned skin. Following him along the jetty, Imogen found her eyes resting hungrily on his back, and she squirmed at the guilty desire that swirled deep inside her like liquid gold.
Stop it, she told herself sternly. Don’t look at him. Don’t even think about it.
Ali was waiting for them in a dinghy at the end of the jetty. All smiles, he gestured out to a beautiful wooden boat waiting beyond a reef.
‘For you,’ he said.
‘It doesn’t look like a party anyway,’ said Tom in relief.
Imogen was watching the boat. ‘Isn’t it lovely? It’s called a dhoni, I think. I remember reading about them when I was booking the island. Apparently they’re fabulous for a sunset cruise. I wonder if that’s what this is?’
‘You didn’t book it?’
‘No, but it’s possible Julia did,’ she said slowly. ‘She asked me for all the details of the resort at one point. Maybe she was planning a surprise for you?’
‘Well, we may as well find out.’ Tom pointed at himself and Imogen, and then at the boat with a questioning look at Ali, who nodded vigorously.
‘Yes. Come, come.’ He waved them towards him.
‘He seems to be expecting us,’ said Tom. ‘What do you want to do? I can tell him there’s been a mistake, or we can go along and see what happens.’
‘Let’s go,’ she said. ‘It’ll be fun.’
The dhoni rocked gently as they climbed on board. Tom and Imogen were shown to
the prow, which had been laid with luxurious cushions, and they settled down, feeling self-conscious as the crew pulled up the anchor and hoisted the square sail.
Once the sails were up and filled, the engine was cut and there was just the slap and rustle of the waves against the wooden hull. The sea breeze lifted their hair and filled their nostrils with an ocean tang, while the water deepened to a dark, beautiful blue and the setting sun turned the light to gold.
‘I don’t know whose idea this was, but it was a great one,’ said Imogen, thrilled by the lift and fall of the boat.
Tom watched her smiling with pleasure, and his throat ached. She was all warmth and light in the sunset. Her skin was honey-coloured, her hair bleached with sunshine, and the pale yellow dress clung enticingly to her curves and fell in soft folds around her bare legs.
The urge to reach for her, to slide his palm up over her smooth knee, beneath her skirt to explore her thigh, was so strong that he got abruptly to his feet to lean on the side of the boat.
‘Dolphins,’ he said, pointing, relieved at the distraction.
‘Where?’ Imogen jumped to her feet to join him. ‘Oh, yes! Oh, aren’t they wonderful?’
Face alight, she leant beside him, her arm only inches from his. She wasn’t looking at him. She was watching the dolphins with delight as they played in the frothy wake from the prow, leaping and rolling with effortless grace through the water. A warm breeze blew her hair around her face and she held it back as best she could with one hand.
‘This is all perfect.’ She sighed, turning to him with a smile.
‘Yes,’ he said, but he was looking at her rather than the dolphins. ‘It is.’
That was when Imogen made the mistake of looking into his eyes, and her smile faltered. It was just like the night before, when at least there had been the excuse of darkness for gazing back at him. Now she had dolphins to watch, the boat to discover, the thrill of the deep, dark ocean and the beauty of the sunset to distract her, and yet she still couldn’t wrench her eyes from Tom’s silvery-grey ones. They held an expression she had never seen before, one that she couldn’t identify but which made her heart kick into a new, slower, reverberating rhythm that sent the blood humming along her veins and lit a tremble of heat deep inside her.
