by Jessica Hart
She hated the bleakness in his face, couldn't bear the thought of him hurting like that. 'It'll be all right, Josh,' she tried to reassure him, putting a hand on his knee.
Josh just looked at her oddly. 'Will it?' he said.
The hotel was wedged between a steep mountainside covered in luxuriant vegetation and a curve of dazzling white sand edging the Indian Ocean. The shallows sighing onto the shore were the palest minty green, deepening to an impossible blue further out into the bay. Bella couldn't help gasping when she saw it. After London in November, it was hard to believe that it was real.
The bus from the airport emptied them out into a cool, dim bar furnished in dark tropical wood and open on two sides to catch any breeze from the sea. There they were greeted by a representative from C.B.C. who introduced herself as Cassandra and bustled around the party, ticking them officiously off her list.
'Josh Kingston…?' she echoed when it was Josh and Bella's turn. She ran her pen down the clipboard. 'Kingston, Kingston, Kingston…ah! Here you are. You're down as plus one!' She laughed merrily and looked at Bella. 'This is your wife, is it?'
'My fiancée,' said Josh curtly. 'Bella Stevenson.'
Cassandra swooped on Bella's ring. 'How gorgeous!' she gushed, brandishing a diamond of her own under Bella's nose. 'I'm getting married myself next year. We must get together and compare notes.'
Bella couldn't think of anything she would want to do less, but she smiled politely. 'We haven't started thinking about the wedding yet,' she said. 'We've only just got engaged.'
'Oh, I'll be able to give you lots of ideas,' Cassandra promised. 'I've got a few magazines with me too. You can read them on the beach.'
What could she say? I won't be needing any bridal magazines? 'That would be lovely,' said Bella dutifully.
Delighted at the prospect of long, girly chats on the subject closest to her heart, Cassandra beamed at them both. 'You're going to love your room. It is so romantic!'
It was romantic-or it would have been under different circumstances. Like Josh not pining for Aisling, for instance, thought Bella with an inward sigh. It was all clean wood and crisp linen, and sliding doors opened onto a little veranda with steps down to the beach.
The first thing Bella saw, though, was the big double bed, with frangipani blossoms laid invitingly on the pillows.
'Very romantic,' she said to Josh as she looked at everything except the bed. She was trying to sound light-hearted and amused at the situation, but wasn't quite sure that she was carrying it off. 'Cassandra was right.'
Picking up one of the frangipani flowers, she held it to her nose and breathed in the exotic perfume. 'It's a pity they didn't throw in a free bottle of champagne while they were at it. If we're going to pretend to be engaged we might as well enjoy some of the perks!'
There was no response from Josh, and when she glanced at him under her lashes she saw that he was looking preoccupied and seemed hardly to have heard her. Clearly her attempts to lighten the atmosphere weren't working.
She should just shut up, thought Bella dully. All Cassandra's talk of weddings and romantic rooms must have been all too bitter a reminder of what things might have been like if Aisling had been with him.
She had been hoping that things would be easier once the long flight was over. Sitting so close to Josh but unable to touch him had been a nightmare. Bella hadn't been able to keep her eyes off him. She tried to concentrate on her book but it was hopeless when her gaze kept sliding sideways, skittering over his severe profile, between the creases at the edge of his eye and down the hard, exciting line of his cheek to his jaw and then to the pulse that beat in his throat.
Bella would wrench her eyes away, only to find them wandering hungrily back to his shoulder, down his sleeve to his forearm and his wrist and those strong, square hands, and her stomach would disappear in a sickening lurch of desire. She wanted to snuggle closer, to kiss her way along his jaw and nuzzle his neck. To put her arms around him and cling to the solid strength of him until he kissed her back.
Gulping, Bella forced herself to start reading the same page of her book all over again.
At one point she must have nodded off in spite of herself, because when she stirred and blinked, it was to find that her head was resting against his shoulder. Josh had obviously had no trouble resisting the urge to put his arm around her and shift her into a more comfortable position.
Fighting the temptation to press closer to him anyway, Bella willed herself not to move. At least this way she was touching him. But when she lifted her eyes cautiously, she could see that Josh's jaw was clenched, and that he was staring blindly at the seat back in front of him, his mouth clamped shut in a rigid fine, and she straightened abruptly to move away from him.
Whatever Aisling had said had touched him on the raw. This was no time to be snuggling up to him, Bella told herself. She would have to give Josh time to come to terms with losing Aisling, and it would probably be easier for him if she kept her distance rather than constantly reminding him that he was with the wrong woman.
Bella cast a doubtful look at the bed. She wasn't sure how she was going to keep her distance tonight. It wasn't that big.
She sighed. She would just have to worry about that when the time came. There was no point in wishing that he wanted to be with her, or imagining what it would be like if they were lovers, if they had been able to fall laughing onto the bed as soon as the door was closed, kissing as they undressed to make love with the sound of the ocean shushing onto the beach beyond the veranda.
In the meantime, she should just leave Josh alone.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Josh had barely glanced at the bed. He had opened the sliding doors and was standing watching the sea through the coconut palms, and something in the set of his shoulders made Bella's throat ache. She couldn't bear him being this unhappy.
Quietly she went out to join him and for a while they watched the sunlight rippling over the shallows in silence. 'It looks beautiful, doesn't it?' said Bella at last. 'Do you fancy a swim?'
'Not right now,' said Josh. 'I think I'll have a shower instead.'
'OK,' she said brightly. 'Well…I think I'll go.'
It was almost as if he was deliberately trying to avoid her. Bella told herself that it was stupid to feel hurt as she changed into her bikini and slathered on sun cream. It was so long since she had seen the sun that she would burn to a crisp if she wasn't careful.
For the first time ever she felt self-conscious about her body. Josh had seen her in a bikini loads of times, and in the past she wouldn't have given a moment's thought to sashaying past him down to the beach just as she was.
But that was then and this was now, and everything seemed different. Bella dug around in her case until she found a sarong, and wrapped it tightly around her, knotting it under her arms before she went back out onto the veranda.
'See you later then,' she said as casually as she could. 'OK.' Josh's voice was tight. He watched her disappear past the coconut palms onto the soft, white sand, and reappear a few moments later through another gap in the trees. She had unwound her sarong and was wading into the shallows in her bikini, while the light bounced off the water and over her skin.
He looked down at his hands. They were shaking. God, how was he going to get through this week?
It was all Aisling's fault. If she had kept her mouth shut, he could have carried on as he had before, confused and unsettled by this new and intense physical awareness of Bella, but able to tell himself that he was just upset about Aisling's rejection and not thinking clearly.
He couldn't do that now. Everything was too clear. Until Aisling had pointed it out, he hadn't let himself question the depth of his feeling for Bella, but of course she was right. Of course he was in love with Bella, and probably always had been. As long as he could tell himself that he loved her as friend, everything had been fine, but now that the truth was out there he couldn't deny it any longer: he didn't just love Bella, he needed her a
nd wanted her and his hands itched to explore her, unlock her, and make her properly his.
Only he couldn't even let himself think about that. Bella had been very clear that she had come to support him as a friend. He couldn't turn round and take advantage of her now, especially not when he knew how she still felt about Will.
And even if he could tell her he loved her, why would she believe him? He had to be pretty fickle to be engaged to one woman on Friday morning and in love with another on Monday, Josh reminded himself ruefully. If Aisling hadn't decided that her love for Bryn was too strong to resist, he would have married her.
Or would he? Their engagement had always had an air of unreality about it for Josh. Aisling's suggestion that they marry had seemed to make sense at the time. Now he could see that Aisling had merely been desperate to put Bryn behind her, but at the time the way the whole thing had ballooned out of control had been alarming. Josh didn't resent her. He was just glad the truth had come out before it was too late.
And now he couldn't think about anything but Bella, about the way she smiled and the way she moved, about the soft warmth of her body and the tantalising sheen of her skin and the silky, spun-gold hair. About the allure of her eyes and that wonderfully dirty laugh and the scent that drifted in the air long after she had gone.
It had taken an heroic effort of will not to put his arm around her when she was sleeping against his shoulder in the plane, and even worse torture to have to stand out here and let her walk past him in that damned sarong that was just asking to be untied so that he could spin her free of it and pull her back into the room and down onto the cool, inviting bed.
And tonight he had to get in there beside her and pretend that she was just a friend. How was he supposed to do that?
The contract. Josh told himself to focus on that. He was here to work and that was what he would do. If he concentrated hard enough on winning the contract then maybe he would get his thoughts back under control. He would stop thinking about lying next to Bella at night and what it would be like to reach for her, and he would start remembering that she was just a dear friend who was only here because she felt sorry for him.
Maybe.
When Bella found him later, he was sitting in the bar with Aisling, papers spread out on the table in front of them. After realising that he was hanging around like a besotted fool waiting for Bella to come back, Josh had made himself go out, where he bumped into Aisling. Since she was on her own, too, they taken the opportunity to go through their strategy for the week and decide the key points to be made and which executives needed to be targeted particularly.
Josh was feeling better. Having a shower and getting back to work had been just what he needed. Luckily Aisling was keen to get on with things too and it had taken no time at all to re-establish a good working relationship. In fact, it was already hard to remember that they had ever had any other kind of relationship.
Josh was just congratulating himself on getting a grip when Bella walked barefoot into the bar. The sarong was tied around her waist now, and her hair hung damp and tangled from the sea down her bare back. Inevitably, she had collected a group of friends on the beach, and they were laughing as they headed to the bar without noticing Josh and Aisling in the corner.
Josh didn't recognise any of the people she was with, but he recognised the lustful expression on the men's faces when they looked at Bella all right, and he scowled. She ought to go and put some more clothes on.
'Sorry,' he said to Aisling, 'what were you saying?'
They tried to carry on working, but it was hard to concentrate when the others were obviously having such a good time. When they all had a drink, they headed over to a table in the shade looking out over the beach, and it was only then that Bella saw Josh and Aisling.
She stopped, murmured something to her new friends and then padded over in her bare feet. 'Where's Bryn?' she asked coolly.
'Sleeping,' said Aisling. 'He's used to travelling business class, so he couldn't get comfortable in those economy seats.'
'How terrible for him,' said Bella, who had never been in business class and had still found the seats incredibly uncomfortable. 'I'm surprised you didn't upgrade if things were that bad.'
'One of the purposes of this week is to build team spirit,' Aisling pointed out with equally insincere sweetness. 'Obviously Bryn could see that as one of the senior executives here it wouldn't look very supportive if he didn't travel with the rest of the group.'
Bella was unimpressed by Bryn's sacrifice. She glanced at Josh. 'It looks as if you're working, so I won't disturb you,' she said as she turned to go. 'See you later.'
Josh followed her with his eyes as she carried her glass over to join the others on long rattan sofas arranged around a low table. Two of the men shifted along to make space on the sofa between them when they saw Bella approaching.
They probably couldn't believe their luck, thought Josh sourly. One of them was short and balding, the other had a distinct paunch. Weren't these guys all supposed to have wives with them?
Beside him, Aisling sighed. 'Why don't you just tell her how you feel?' she asked in a resigned voice.
'What do you mean?'
'Look at you, you can't take your eyes off her!' said Aisling with an edge of exasperation. 'Just tell her that you love her.'
'I can't,' said Josh as if the words were wrenched out of him. 'She's in love with someone else, and even if she wasn't, I don't want to risk our friendship.'
Aisling looked at him curiously. 'Odd,' she commented, 'you've spent most of your career putting yourself into dangerous situations and taking risks when you had to. I wouldn't have said you were an emotional coward either. You were prepared to take a risk on me, weren't you?'
'It's not the same.'
'Isn't Bella worth a risk?'
Josh stared out at the pool where an energetic game of water polo was in progress. 'She's too important to me to risk anything,' he said, and knew that it was true. 'I don't want to lose her.'
'Maybe she feels the way you do,' said Aisling. 'Have you thought of that? She certainly doesn't like me one little bit. I think she's jealous.'
'That's just Bella being protective. She thinks you've hurt me,' he told her. 'No, she's told me how she feels about Will. She has to get over him first, and I have to help her do that, not throw our whole friendship into question just when she needs it most.'
It was time to change the subject. Josh picked up one of the papers in front of him. 'Let's run over that last point again…'
But it was impossible to concentrate with all the hilarity at Bella's table, and eventually Josh had to give in. Aisling was distracted and every time he heard Bella's laugh he lost track of what he was supposed to be saying.
'Come on,' he said, stacking the papers neatly together with a sigh. 'We might as well join the others.'
He bought Aisling a drink at the bar, and they made their way over to the table, where he glared at one of the men whose thigh was a little too close to Bella's for comfort until he shifted over and asked if Josh would like to sit next to Bella. Clearly Josh was expected to say no, he was fine where he was.
'Thanks,' said Josh, squashing himself determinedly in beside her. Then he wished that he hadn't. Her body was tantalisingly close and warm. She had a glow from the sun already and he could see where the sea salt had dried on her back.
The sarong covered her legs, which was something, Josh supposed, but her midriff and arms and shoulders were bare. Next to him in his conventional trousers and short-sleeved shirt she seemed lush and exotic and practically naked. Not a thought which Josh needed to have right then.
She was leaning forward, her face animated and her smile burning at the edge of his vision. Josh found his hands clenching. He wanted everyone to disappear, to leave him alone with her so that he could ease her down onto batik cushions and make love to her…
'Hi, everybody! Sorry, Josh, did I make you jump?' Cassandra patted him on the shoulder from behind, a
mused by the way she had broken into his thoughts. 'Are you all having a lovely time?
'I'm glad I've got a few of you together,' she went on without waiting for an answer, and waved her clipboard vaguely. 'I need to let the diving instructors know who wants to sign up for their course. That starts first thing tomorrow for those of you who are interested. I can arrange deep-sea fishing as well if anyone wants that, and later in the week we'll be organising some boat trips out to other islands.'
Pausing for breath, she looked expectantly around the group. 'So, who's for diving?'
'Not me,' said Bella firmly. 'I'm happy on the beach with a book.'
Cassandra winked. 'I'll bring you some more mags tomorrow,' she promised. 'What about the rest of you?'
'I know Bryn's keen to go deep-sea fishing,' said Aisling, 'but I'd like to learn how to dive.'
'Great!' said Cassandra enthusiastically, scribbling down Aisling's name. 'Anyone else?'
Josh hesitated, but at that moment Bella shifted to reach for her drink and her bare arm pressed against his for a moment, which made him make up his mind abruptly. The further away he was from Bella at the moment the better.
'I'll go diving, too,' he told Cassandra.
Bella swung round to stare at him. 'But you know how to dive!' she objected. 'You don't have to go on a course.'
'I haven't done it for a while,' he said. 'There's no harm in a refresher course.'
'OK, so I've got Josh and Aisling,' said Cassandra. 'Any more takers?
Most of the others opted to relax on the beach like Bella rather than sign up for any strenuous activity.
'I get enough of that at home looking after the kids,' sighed one weary mother.
'So that's just Josh and Aisling for diving,' Cassandra concluded, having been round them all. 'We'll see if we can find some others as chaperones so you and Bryn don't need to worry, Bella!' she added with an extremely irritating laugh.
