Waves of Betrayal (The Isabel Marsh Trilogy Book 1)

by Michelle J. Bennett

  After the speech, the DJ cranks up the music, helium balloons are released and people dance bare-footed around the lawn beneath the trees, twinkling with little fairy lights. If it wasn’t for what happened earlier, this sure as hell would have been every girl’s dream, thinks Isabel.

  Small groups of people help themselves to plates of food from the enormous buffet that has been uncovered. A whole salmon, garnished beautifully, in the centre. There are salads, meats, prawns, cheeses and, at the far end, a spectacular array of desserts.

  ‘I’m so glad we decided to stay Iz, this is too good to miss!! Can you imagine what the wedding will be like... if there’s a wedding,’ says Rachel, leaning in to her friend.

  ‘Well I’m not going to be the one to tell him,’ says Isabel sadly, ‘he wouldn’t believe me anyway and it would just ruin our friendship.’

  ‘So you’d let this farce of a marriage go ahead and let him find out afterwards what a cheating cow she is, would you?’ asks Rachel.

  ‘I don’t know Rach... ohhhh but he’s just sooooo gorgeous,’ she sighs, bringing her clasped hands up to her chest.

  Rachel shakes her head, ‘we have some serious talking to do tomorrow but, for now, you up for a swim?! We’ll have the pool to ourselves for a while, no Leanne. I don’t know about you but I don’t fancy playing water volleyball with her and her bitchy entourage!!’

  Marcos looks down at the party from the balcony of his bedroom. He had given Leanne a while to calm down and then went in search of her, before his father made his speech. He had found her in the summer house surrounded by her friends and had calmly and politely asked them all to leave the two of them alone. Leanne was drunk, unreasonable and hadn’t wanted to be left with him, but her friends did as he asked.

  She sat with her legs tucked under her, looking like a sulking child. She wouldn’t look him in the eyes as he knelt in front of her, lifting her chin gently with his fingers. She was hurt. She had guessed about his involvement with Isabel, he supposed. Maybe it was the body language? He wasn’t sure, but he knew that disclosing the truth now would not help one bit.

  He thinks about how she had gone on to accuse him of sleeping with Isabel. Her jealousy had made her unattractive to him. It was almost physically disfiguring. Her lips, thin and tight, her eyes cold whilst she gathered herself up from the chair, slipped on her shoes and strutted defiantly out into the garden to join her friends. She probably expected me to follow, he thinks. He hadn’t followed, he would not be dragged into her games this evening.

  They stood side by side whilst his father made his speech, but there was an emotional gulf between them. Tomorrow, he hopes, she will sober up and regret her over-reactions and they will talk like adults.

  From the balcony, glass of brandy in his hand, he smiles as he secretly watches everybody at the party. Some of the older relatives are dancing together on the lawn doing a Waltz to Status Quo’s “Rockin’ all over the World”! His parents are laughing and sipping Pimms with a group of friends; a group of teachers from his school are lounging on the grass with plates of food; he sees Leanne talking intensely with her friend Lucy on the sofa until his eyes drift over to the pool. He swallows hard as he realizes that it is Isabel and her friend. Rachel stoops to feel the temperature of the water and they set their glasses down on a table next to the loungers. Suddenly, Marcos feels like a voyeur as he steps back from the balcony and into the shadows of the bedroom. Taking a sip of his drink, he looks back over towards the dimly lit pool area and watches Isabel tip her head back and laugh out loud over something that her friend has said. She unstraps her shoes and elegantly removes them, placing them under the sun lounger. He knows that he shouldn’t be watching but he can’t seem to stop himself. She removes her necklace and then slowly pulls her dress over her head, throwing it carelessly onto the floor. She is even more beautiful than he could have imagined. Petite, flat-toned stomach, the swell of her firm breasts in her bikini, long, slim tanned legs. His breath becomes fast and shallow and he ducks back into the room, torn between trying to forget what he has just seen and the desire to repeat the fantasy endlessly.

  With a deep sigh, he downs the last of his brandy, slams the glass down on the bedside table and runs down the stairs in the direction of the pool. Leanne is angry with him anyway, so he decides to go for a swim. Besides, she can’t see the pool from where she’s sitting.

  ‘How’s the water?’ Marcos laughs, looking down at the two friends chatting, holding onto the edge of a lilo.

  ‘It’s perfect!’ smiles Isabel, kicking backwards off the inflatable, her wet hair forming a shroud around her shoulders.

  Both girls watch, unashamedly, as Marcos unbuckles his belt and steps out of his trousers. He is wearing fitted speedo shorts. Isabel clears her throat and squeezes Rachel’s hand under the water as he unbuttons his shirt, revealing his tanned torso and shoulders that ripple when he slips his arms out of the sleeves. He is most definitely the most beautiful man Isabel has ever seen. Paul is fit but... now is not the time to think about Paul!

  Rachel makes a move to leave the water, but Isabel grabs her wrist under the water with a pleading look on her face. As much as she would love to be left alone with Marcos, she is very much aware of how totally inappropriate that would be. God knows where Leanne is or when she could come sprinting out from behind some bush. At the moment, at least she can rest assured that she hasn’t done anything wrong. I am innocent, she thinks and dips her head under the water, sweeping her hair back off her face.

  Marcos dives quietly from the deep end emerges a few feet away from them. He pulls his chest up onto the lilo next to Rachel as Isabel treads water happily, smiling up at them both.

  ‘You like to keep fit then?’ observes Isabel shyly.

  ‘Triathlons! Bit of an obsession really. I never win or anything, but I do enjoy the training! You?’

  ‘I love to run,’ says Isabel, ‘although I haven’t for quite a few weeks now. I had a bit of an accident,’ she adds, holding up her wet bandaged fingers and lifting her chin where he could just make out a faint scar.

  ‘What happened?’ he asks, concerned.

  ‘Long story. But to cut it very short, I found out that my boyfriend was having an affair with our neighbour so I lost the plot a bit and ended up running into a moving car!’

  ‘Dios mío!’

  ‘You could say that,’ Isabel laughs, ‘I had everyone very worried!’

  ‘So, I agreed to accompany her here to Spain, to recover,’ adds Rachel, ‘such a sacrifice!’ she laughs, raising the back of her hand to her forehead theatrically.

  ‘And what about Leanne? How did you meet her?’ Isabel asks with genuine interest.

  ‘She was a student actually,’ he laughs, meeting Isabel’s eyes.

  ‘Hmmmmm, what a surprise!’ Isabel giggles, floating on her back. ‘You still teach then?’ she asks, lifting her ears above the water.

  ‘No, not any more. I suppose you could say that I run my schools from a distance. I employ managers for them all.’

  ‘All??’ asks Isabel, assuming that he was a teacher and still lived at home with his parents.

  ‘I have ten, across Spain. Doing really well actually. I have a villa similar to this one, bit smaller, about a fifteen-minute drive away. You’ll have to come and see it one day whilst you’re here,’ he says, sliding off the edge of the lilo and ducking underneath it so that he’s treading water next to Isabel.

  ‘I’d love that,’ she says simply.

  ‘Sorry, Marcos, are there any towels?’ interrupts Rachel, feeling like a big fat gooseberry all of a sudden.

  Marcos snaps out of his reverie and turns towards Rachel, ‘Oh, yes, yes of course. Just there in the little pool house at the edge of the garden,’ he begins to swim towards the steps but Rachel stops him, ‘no, no, I’ll go. I’m getting a bit cold now. You two stay in for a bit longer.’

  Isabel swims over to the side and rests one arm out of the water as Marcos approaches, mirroring
her position, one muscular arm supporting him as he reaches out underwater and encircles Isabel’s waist with the other, pulling her closer with such urgency. Their bodies touch and Isabel lets out a moan of pleasure, her skin alive with a sensitivity so intense that it threatens to overwhelm her. He studies her face with such longing, such passion. ‘Oh shit Isabel, I know this is wrong, but I want you so much.’

  He is so close that she can feel his breath on her face. She reaches up and strokes his face leaning in towards him, his lips are parted, a faint scent of brandy and aftershave making him, somehow, even more masculine and irresistible. The moment their lips touch, all inhibitions are forgotten. Kissing deeply, running their fingers through each other’s hair as if it is impossible to be close enough. Isabel wraps her legs around his waist and he pins her firmly against the side of the pool, kissing and exploring each other with a ferocity that Isabel has never experienced.

  ‘Marcos!!’ Isabel manages to say his name in a husky whisper, ‘please! I want you so much but we have to stop...’

  Ignoring her plea, Marcos continues to kiss her neck passionately, ‘we could go somewhere... into the house, anywhere you like. Please Isa...’ he begs her with gruff desperation in his voice, ‘I need you.’

  Isabel takes his face in both hands so that they are staring into one another’s eyes. ‘Please don’t think that I don’t want you, but not now, not here. What about Leanne...’ her voice comes out in a jagged, pleading whisper, ‘and no matter how she behaved towards me tonight, I just can’t do that to her. It wouldn’t be right. You’ll feel differently in the morning and, Marcos, I don’t want it to be a one-night stand... I don’t want to lose your respect.’

  ‘Oh shit Isabel, shit... I’m so sorry...’ he says desperately, trying to control his hammering heart, fighting against his overwhelming desire for this girl, ‘it’s just seeing you again. Maybe if Leanne hadn’t acted like such a total bitch tonight, we wouldn’t have gone this far,’ he says, calming his breathing and moving slowly and reluctantly away from her.

  ‘Or maybe we would have anyway!’ she laughs, trying to lighten the tension between them, ‘I suppose we had, sort of unfinished business, you could say!!’

  ‘It’s not finished yet, Isa. I’m going to talk to Leanne tomorrow. I’m going to be honest with her’ he says seriously.

  ‘Honest?? About what?’ She asks worriedly.

  ‘About why I left your home all those years ago. It’s up to her to think what she likes after that. I’m so embarrassed with how she behaved tonight and I won’t marry someone if we have secrets from each other.’

  ‘I’ll see you again while I’m here though, won’t I? As friends I mean?’

  All of a sudden, they hear a rustling through the trees and they both look up, startled, instantly worried about who it was and what they had heard or seen.

  ‘Here we go, fresh towels!’ shouts Rachel from the garden.

  Their bodies are still fizzing with a lust that is almost a physical pain, as they smile up at Rachel innocently. She needs no explanation. Isabel slowly pulls herself up out of the water, allowing Marcos one last look, before she wraps herself in a big soft towel. She feels a little light headed and Marcos does a few fast lengths before joining them on the loungers.

  ‘What is that noise?!’ asks Rachel. She jumps upright and looks over the pool, down onto the lawn. ‘Sounds like a fight or something,’ she says, looking concerned.

  Marcos is on his feet instantly, slips on his shirt and strides over to the lawn to see what is happening. It doesn’t take him long to see the cause of the disturbance. Leanne and her friends are dancing around, screaming and laughing, spraying each other with champagne, much to everyone’s amusement. The male guests seem to find it particularly entertaining. The girls’ thin summer dresses become practically transparent the wetter they get! Marcos glances over at his mother but, fortunately, even she seems to find it funny. His heart sinks as he sees that they are heading for the pool and Leanne has spotted him.

  ‘There you are gorgeous! Want some champers?!’ Waving a bottle in the air, she laughs and staggers drunkenly towards him. ‘Too bad, this one’s empty...’

  ‘Lea, I think you might have had enough. Come on, let’s go back to the house,’ he says in a patronising voice.

  ‘Nooooo’ she shouts at the top of her voice, ‘I want a swim!! Come on girls, I thought this was meant to be a pool party?!’

  Before he can stop her, Leanne, followed by her group of friends reach the poolside and see Isabel and Rachel sitting in their towels, their discarded dresses on the ground next to them.

  ‘Oh what a bloody surprise! Look who beat us to it!’ she says bitterly, ‘Fucking Pocahontas and her Best Buddy!’ Leanne shouts, ‘well fuck you girls, we’re going to show you how to party. Come over here darling and let’s show them!’ She beckons Marcos towards her and he reluctantly follows, shaking his head. ‘Now, let’s get rid of this shirt,’ she teases as she pulls it down off his shoulders and runs her fingers roughly through his dark chest hair.

  ‘Lea, come on, let’s go inside, eh?’ Marcos pleads with a hint of pity in his voice.

  ‘But we’re just getting started,’ she laughs as, in one liquid movement, she drops the straps from her shoulders and wriggles, letting the white dress slip to her ankles. She is wearing nothing but a thong and heels. She rubs her breasts provocatively. ‘This is the body of a real woman. Take note girls!’ she shouts over at Isabel as she gyrates her hips, continuing her vulgar routine, not noticing that Marcos has turned and walked abruptly away from her.

  ‘With any luck she’ll drown,’ whispers Rachel, through gritted teeth. And, as Leanne plunges naked into the pool, followed by the rest of her drunken posse, Rachel and Isabel slip away quietly into the shadows of the garden.

  Chapter 26

  The morning light streams in through the thin curtains as Marcos slowly opens his eyes, aware of the faint snoring of somebody in the bed next to him. He turns his head and comes face to face with Leanne, her hair knotted, spilling over the pillow behind her. She has dried mascara streaked down her cheeks and her breath has an acrid smell of stale alcohol and cigarette smoke. I wasn’t aware that she smoked, he thinks. She is wrapped in a towel and there is no sign of her clothes or shoes that she was wearing the night before. He assumes that he will find them by the poolside. The memory of her shameful behaviour fills him with disgust. He has never been the sort of man who finds strippers or prostitutes a turn on. He likes to think of himself as a romantic. The way that Leanne flaunted herself last night has really made him reassess the relationship that they have. Could she even be trusted? He’d never even considered that she would be unfaithful before, but the alcohol fuelled performance that he was forced to witness last night makes him think.

  He remembers the way that she had teased him and played with him in front of her friends at the beginning of the evening. That was also a real eye-opener. He starts to think that maybe she had taken some drug or other before the party? Or maybe this is what she is like when she is with her friends? He realises that he wouldn’t know, because he is rarely invited out with them. She always uses the excuse that it’s “not his scene” or that he would be bored.

  He watches her as she sleeps. Her mouth open, her red polished nails cracked, her hair matted and damp. At this moment he begins to see through the innocent Elf-Queen exterior and begins to wander if he really knows her at all.

  Marcos decides to get up and face his parents. There will be a lot of tidying up to do and he is also a little bit nervous about how much of Leanne’s antics they had witnessed or heard about last night. He closes the bathroom door quietly behind him and steps into the shower, not wanting to wake Leanne and have to have a conversation just yet. As he enjoys the warm powerful jet of water on his shoulders, his thoughts take him back to Isabel. What must she think of him? He is momentarily ashamed by his behaviour as he leans back and rubs his face clean with both hands but, as much as he tries,
he cannot seem to get the image of her out of his mind. Thank goodness she had the restraint to stop them in time, he thinks.

  As he steps out of the cubicle onto a towel he is surprised to see Leanne standing in the doorway, wrapped in her dressing gown, looking pale and very sorry for herself.

  ‘Marcos, baby, I don’t know what came over me last night. I don’t remember everything but I think I must have had a bit too much to drink. I feel awful,’ she says in a husky voice.

  ‘Leanne, I really don’t feel like speaking to you at the moment. If I’m totally honest with you, I’m worried about what I may say,’ he frowns, grabbing a clean towel from the cabinet and rubbing his hair dry.

  ‘Why don’t you just get back into bed and I’ll send a cup of tea up for you. I’m going downstairs to see what I can do to help. I’ll also find out whether my parents are still speaking to you,’ he adds and runs a comb through his hair before he pushes past her into the bedroom.

  Leanne follows him, pulling her dressing gown tightly around her, ‘what do you mean?’ she asks in a worried whisper.

  ‘I mean when you were running around naked and accusing me of sleeping with my friend Isabel who has, by the way, already forgiven you. God knows why!’

  Leanne stands in stunned silence for a few moments, watching him pull on his clothes angrily, then she perches on the edge of the bed and looks up at him with tears in her eyes. ‘But baby, please, it was just the drink talking.’

  ‘I’ll leave you here to sleep off your hangover or call your venomous friends or whatever you want to do. We’ll talk later when you’ve sorted yourself out.’ Marcos tucks in his shirt and turns and leaves her sitting on the bed. She has never seen him this angry with her before. She is suddenly aware that he may not be as easy to wrap around her little finger as she had once thought.

  Chapter 27

  ‘Right, I’ll get us another cuppa and you can explain the sordid details that you failed to expand on last night, young lady!’ says Rachel, tightening the belt on her dressing gown.