by Anne Fraser
As if he’d read her thoughts, he went on, ‘One thing I’ll never regret is my son. But I am sorry that he doesn’t see his mother as often as he should. A child needs his mother.’
‘And his father,’ Meagan added. She paused, feeling the familiar stab of pain. She shook it off. As Cameron had said, you took the hand you were dealt.
The wind had driven the last of the clouds from the sky. The breeze had dropped suddenly and the boat was barely moving. Without the wind and the clouds the sun was hot. Meagan removed her waterproof then, as the sun continued to toast her shoulders, unzipped her dry suit and peeled the top down over her hips. She was glad she’d thought to put her bikini on underneath.
Cameron watched her through lidded eyes before he too removed his waterproofs. He carried on stripping down to his jeans and T-shirt, then with a last look at Meagan removed his T-shirt. Meagan held her breath. Surely he was going to stop there. She averted her eyes from his muscular bronzed chest, but was unable to stop herself remembering the feel of his skin on hers, the strength of his arms as he had held her all these years ago. She wondered what it would be like to find herself in his arms again. She forced her thoughts away from the image. It was too dangerous—and pointless—to let her mind go in that direction.
‘Do you fancy a swim?’ Cameron said. ‘See that island to your left? It’s not too far. The wind is unlikely to pick up for a couple of hours yet. We could anchor here and swim across.’
Thinking that a dip was exactly what she needed to cool her overheated imagination, Meagan grinned as he dropped the anchor. Removing her dry suit completely, she stood on the side of the boat poised to dive. ‘Race you,’ she said as she plunged into the water.
She gasped as the cold water enveloped her. Without waiting to see if Cameron was following, she struck out for shore. She was almost there when she felt a hand on her ankle. She trod water.
‘Do you think I’m going to be beaten by a woman?’ Cameron said. He set off again with sure strokes, leaving her in his wake. He beat her easily, and was waiting for her just offshore.
‘Hey, you cheated,’ she said. ‘What kind of gentleman does that?’
‘I never said I was a gentleman,’ he said, grinning.
Meagan splashed him and soon they were tussling in the water. Meagan felt his hands around her waist as he lifted her into the air. He held her there for a moment and they looked into each other’s eyes. Cameron’s darkened with desire. He lowered Meagan until he held her in front of his body. Although Cameron was standing, it was too deep for Meagan’s feet to touch the bottom. Still holding her firmly by the waist, he lowered his head and covered her mouth with his. Meagan felt a flame of desire shoot through her body and before she could help herself she wrapped her legs around his hips.
She could feel his response through his jeans and it heightened her own desire. They were kissing frantically as Cameron walked Meagan still wrapped around him towards the beach. She could feel his hands on her back, on her bottom, searching—feeling—sending shock waves of pleasure through her nerve endings. He dropped his mouth and pushing aside her bikini top with his lips found her nipple. As he licked and nibbled her breast Meagan arched her back, allowing him better access.
As he lowered her onto the damp sand, his thumbs reached under her bikini bottom, touching and teasing until Meagan could almost bear it no longer.
‘Please, Cameron,’ she gasped.
‘What about protection?’ he said.
‘It’s all right,’ she replied. ‘You don’t have to worry.’
He pulled away from her, and she watched him remove his saturated jeans, which clung to him and revealed the full extent of his desire. Then he was beside her and her bikini was off. As his hands explored every inch of her body, Meagan moaned with pleasure. It felt as if every nerve in her body was on fire. Desperate to feel him inside her, she raked his back with her nails, pulling him on top of her, opening her legs to allow him easy entry. He pulled back, enjoying her surrender, before he plunged into her. As Meagan climaxed with a shudder he flipped her on top of him and within moments had her riding the top of the wave once more. This time they came together. They collapsed in each other’s arms, gasping for breath. But Cameron hadn’t finished with her yet. Once again Meagan felt her body respond to his touch. This time he was slower, bringing her almost to the point of no return before stopping then waiting a couple of seconds and then starting again. Just as she thought she’d have to beg he took her once more and with a couple of deep strokes took her with him once more to orgasm.
They lay in each other’s arms, sated. The breeze licked Meagan’s skin and she was aware of the tiny grains of sand that seemed to be hiding in every crease of her body. She didn’t want to move, scared that she’d break the spell. Cameron raised himself on his elbow and looked at her.
‘Cold?’ he said softly. ‘Come on, we’d better think about getting back,’
‘Can’t we just stay here?’ Meagan replied. ‘Forget about the rest of the world? Anyway, I don’t think I could move—my muscles feel like jelly.’
He pulled her into his arms. ‘Just for a few more minutes then we’d better be getting back.’
Meagan trailed a lazy finger across his chest.
‘Tell me about you and Rachel,’ she said softly. She could feel the tension in Cameron’s body as soon as she mentioned his ex wife’s name.
‘There’s not much to tell,’ he said slowly. ‘I met Rachel when I was studying in London. We dated, but eventually we—I broke it off. I think I realised that we didn’t really have that much in common.’ He looked into the distance, his eyes bleak.
‘I met you shortly after Rachel and I broke up. I was spending the summer with my family on Uist.’
Meagan felt a surge of relief. So he hadn’t been with Rachel when he had met her. She would have hated it if he had been with her while involved with someone else. It would have cheapened that night for her for ever.
‘But you must have changed your mind about breaking up with Rachel,’ Meagan persisted. ‘You married her. Had a child together.’ A sneaking suspicion was forming in Meagan’s mind.
‘I meant what I said when we met. I planned to contact you just as soon as I could.’
‘But you didn’t,’ Meagan said flatly. ‘I never heard from you, not a word. I even wondered if something had happened to you.’ She drew a painful breath. At least that was what she had thought at first. She had been so sure he would contact her that she had imagined the worst. She had wondered if he were ill, or even—she shuddered at the memory—dead. And she’d had no way to get in touch with him. She hadn’t known much about him apart from the fact that he worked in London. That was all. And then, just when she’d been going out of her mind with worry and about to phone every hospital in London to ask if they had a Cameron working there, she had caught a glimpse of him one weekend when she had been visiting friends. Just the briefest sight, but enough to know he was perfectly well. It was then she had realised that her dream of being with him had been just that.
Cameron pulled her closer. ‘I’m sorry. It didn’t occur to me that you’d think something had happened to me. I just assumed you’d think me a bastard and move on with your life.’
‘You still haven’t told me why,’ Meagan said. However painful it was, she needed to know. ‘Was it because you’re titled? Were you expected to marry someone more appropriate than a doctor?’
‘There was an element of that,’ Cameron said slowly. ‘I expected some opposition from my father, but I never have and never will do anything except follow my own path. That wouldn’t have stopped me. Besides, my parents always knew that the title in itself means little to me. It’s the responsibilities of the title that go with it. Looking after the estate for everyone, not least the community, is what is important. The social status of having a title, means nothing to me.’
‘Go on,’ Meagan said.
‘The day after you and I met, Rachel flew up to Uist. It was
a shock. She hadn’t told me she was coming. I thought it was a last-ditch attempt to try and get back together and I was about to tell her it was useless, that I had met someone else, when she dropped her bombshell. She was pregnant—with my child.’
Meagan squeezed her eyes against the familiar ache.
‘And so you did the honourable thing?’ Meagan said softly.
‘I had no choice, She said if I wouldn’t marry her, she would terminate the pregnancy.’ Cameron’s voice held the echo of the anguish he had felt.
‘She wanted to marry you despite not really wanting your child?’ Meagan said. How could any woman think like that? If Rachel had loved Cameron enough to want to marry him, surely she would have wanted his baby?
‘I don’t think Rachel ever truly loved me,’ Cameron went on, answering Meagan’s unspoken question. ‘It was the idea of being Lady Grimsay she loved.’ He laughed but there was little humour in the sound. ‘I think she assumed when we got married we would live in London and spend all our time socialising.’
‘But you married her nevertheless? Knowing she didn’t love you? Knowing that she was the kind of woman who would end a pregnancy because she didn’t get her own way?’
‘I told you I had no option. I couldn’t take the risk that she’d carry out her threat. I wanted my child.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me at least?’
‘There was no point. I could have come to you and told you. I couldn’t have done it over the phone, but I knew if I saw you I might not be able to go through with the marriage.’
‘So you married a woman you didn’t love. Someone who was more suited to the role of being Lady Grimsay?’ Meagan couldn’t help keep the bitterness from her voice.
‘I was fond of her. I thought it was enough to make the marriage work. I thought that once we were a family, it would be different.’
‘Then what happened?’ Meagan said into the silence.
‘Rachel wanted us to live in London. So we moved there. I completed my specialist training and started looking for a consultant post. But then she started getting modelling jobs. Eventually she was travelling all over the world, and I was looking after Ian with the help of a string of nannies. It was hopeless. My son was hardly seeing either of his parents. I missed being here but more importantly I was missing seeing my son grow up. Then Rachel met someone else. I could hardly blame her. I was never at home and when I was I was too tired to go out to parties with her. And I thought that we should be spending any spare time at home—together—as a family.’
Gently Cameron disengaged himself from Meagan and started pulling on his jeans. Mutely Meagan started getting dressed too. She shivered and it wasn’t just from the gathering coolness in the air. Cameron stood apart from her as if he was already beginning to regret making love to her.
‘The final straw came before her affair. I told her I wanted us all to move back here. My mother had died and my father was getting frailer. He needed my help. Rachel was furious. She wasn’t prepared to give up her city lifestyle to live here. Then I found about the affair.’ His mouth twisted. ‘He was very rich, much richer than an impoverished Scottish lord whose main income came from his salary as a GP. We agreed to divorce and that I would move back here with Ian. It made sense. He’ll be Lord Grimsay one day, with all the responsibilities that entails. We agreed that Rachel would come and see him whenever she could. But in the meantime he’d have stability in a community that knows and loves him.’
He moved towards Meagan. ‘Rachel’s lover never did marry her, and she discovered that there were elements of being Lady Grimsay that she missed. She wanted us to give it another go. So, you see, It’s all a bit of a mess. But there is one thing I’ll never regret—and that’s my son. He’s the most important thing in my life.’
How lucky Rachel was and she seemed to have no idea. Meagan would have given anything to have had a child and had she been given the chance, she would never have allowed anything or anybody to take that child away from her. The pain she felt at losing her chance of a baby was still intense. Would it ever fade? she wondered.
Cameron must have seen something in her expression. ‘What about you?’ he asked. ‘Did you and your husband not want children—or were you not ready yet?’ Meagan looked up at the sky and watched the clouds for a moment.
‘I fell pregnant,’ she said ‘but at eight weeks I had to have emergency surgery for an ectopic pregnancy in one of my Fallopian tubes.’ Cameron stepped closer, drawing her into his arms.
‘I was devastated—we both were. And what was worse was they discovered my other tube was also damaged. So I am unlikely ever to have children.’ She felt her voice break as she remembered how she had felt when they had told her the news.
‘Charlie always wanted a big family. Although he said it didn’t matter, I knew it did. And then I…’ She broke off and took a breath before continuing. ‘I threw myself into my work. I guess from then on we just drifted apart. We spent hardly any time together. We were like strangers.’
She stopped for a moment letting the memories wash over her. She remembered coming into their empty flat, leaving before Charlie was up, how their sex life had dwindled away to nothing. They had hardly spoken. Oh, he had tried at first, but she had been too wrapped up in her own pain to notice his.
‘And then,’ she went on in a rush, wanting to tell him everything, ‘one day I got a phone call. Charlie had been driving to a conference and his car had swerved to miss a car on the wrong side of the road. He was killed instantly. I never got the chance to say goodbye, that I was sorry.’ She felt her eyes fill with tears and her throat tightened. ‘He wasn’t alone in the car. He was with a colleague—a nurse—who was going to the same conference. She escaped with a few minor injuries. She came to see me after the funeral, told me they had been in love and that he hadn’t known how to tell me. It was the deceit of his affair that almost destroyed me. Why couldn’t he have told me the truth? I would have let him go. I knew I didn’t love him and I would have wanted him to be happy. I felt so guilty. It wasn’t fair. Just because I couldn’t have children, I shouldn’t have made both our lives a misery. I should have encouraged him to leave.’
Cameron pulled Meagan back down on the sand and she buried her head in his shoulder.
‘After the funeral I ran away. I wanted to be where no one knew me. Oh, I loved my time with Médecins Sans Frontières but I’m not proud of the reason I took the job.’
‘And now?’ Cameron prompted gently. ‘How do you feel now?’
Meagan closed her eyes as she thought for a moment. How did she honestly feel now? she wondered. She had spent the last few years feeling torn by Charlie’s affair, and the happiness he had missed out on. Now with sudden clarity she realised she had been burying her grief—for her lost child, for the babies she would never have, for the failure of a marriage that had begun with so much love and promise—behind a wall of anger and resentment. Putting all the blame on Charlie, when she was just as much to blame for the breakdown of their marriage. It had been easier for her to keep the anger simmering rather than acknowledging the pain and grief she feared would overwhelm her.
‘Charlie thought it would break my heart if I found out he was with another woman. But he was wrong. I would have been glad for him. I realise that now.’ She turned to Cameron. ‘Isn’t that so sad? How we think that by not being honest with people we’re protecting them when all we’re doing is hurting them and ourselves more.’ She sat up and hugged her knees, suddenly feeling as if a huge weight had been lifted off her shoulders. Charlie had been denied a happy ending, and for that she’d always feel partially responsible, but that didn’t mean she should deny herself one too. ‘I feel as if I have the chance to start my life over,’ she said. ‘Coming here, meeting you again. It’s as if fate—’
‘Meagan, don’t.’ Cameron interrupted softly, disengaging himself from her embrace. She looked up at him. Something seemed to shut down in his eyes.
Oh, God, why
had she said that when it was obvious he didn’t feel the same way about her? For a moment they sat in silence, lost in their own thoughts.
‘If we stay much longer, they’ll send the coastguard out looking for us.’ He held out his hand and pulled her to her feet. ‘I don’t know about you, but I have spent too much time in their company already this week.’
Was that all he was going to say? Meagan wondered. But, then, what else had she expected? A proposal? Just because they’d had the most amazing sex, it didn’t mean they were getting married. They should take things slowly. Get to know each other. See if they had more in common than just lust. But even as she thought the words, Meagan knew she was kidding herself. She had never stopped loving him. She found her bikini and pulled it on. She loved Cameron. Against her better judgement. But it was too late. For better or worse, she knew she would love him until the breath left her body. But how did he feel about her? He had said that Rachel wanted him back. Was she going to have her heart broken again? This time Meagan knew there would be no way back.
Cameron turned to her. ‘There’s one more thing I have to tell you,’ he said. ‘When Rachel agreed to get a divorce and let Ian come back here with me, she made me promise her I’d never get married again.’
‘But that’s ridiculous,’ Meagan burst out. ‘She had no right to make you promise anything of the sort.’
‘The trouble is she swore that if I ever did, she would fight me for custody of Ian. She knows that I would never allow anyone to take him away from me.’
‘But she’d never win custody,’ Meagan protested. ‘He spends all his time with you.’
‘That’s just it. He doesn’t spend all his time with me. He spends a large part of his time with Mrs McLeod and Jessie. You know what kind of hours I work. And she would have no compunction about using my domestic arrangements to argue that custody should be given to her. So you may be right,’ he said, ‘but I’m afraid that is a risk I am just not prepared to take.’
And as they made preparations to leave the beach, Meagan knew that she could never make him choose between her and his child.
