by Liz Fielding
It was ages until bedtime. There was dinner first and having refused food on the plane she was hungry. Terribly, terribly hungry. And then they would have coffee and perhaps a brandy - she rarely drank anything more than half a glass of wine, but anything to spin things out - maybe even a walk along the beach.
There were hours and hours to fill before she had to worry about bedtime. But still, in an effort to forget about sharing a room with the man, about the way his chest was pressed firmly against her back, the way his hands were linked about her waist and his breath was stirring the down on her cheek she said,
‘I think Caroline was crazy to miss out on all this.’
‘You would have given up the offer of a starring role for me? I’m touched.’ That was a tricky one and as if he knew, he laughed at her predicament. ‘Shall we agree not to mention her again, Mel?’ he continued, his voice unexpectedly soft. She turned and looked up at him but his face was in shadow. ‘You really don’t have to constantly remind me that you’re not Caroline. I can see that for myself.’
She stiffened, pulling away from him. ‘I wasn’t,’ she began. Or maybe she was. Maybe she had brought up Caroline’s name simply to remind him of the boundaries to their relationship. But he was probably still smarting from the girl’s attempt to twist his arm. ‘I’m sorry. It was tactless of me to mention her. I won’t do it again.’
‘Thank you.’ There was a certain wry humour in his voice. ‘Apart from anything else it would sound odd, don’t you think?’
‘Odd?’
‘If, every time I touch you, you mention another woman.’ Every time he touched her? ‘It might be noticed, don’t you think?’
‘Are you planning to touch me that often?’ she asked.
‘As often as appears necessary. Taking your arm as we enter the dining room. Your waist as I help you from the boat. And I like to dance up close, don’t you? All in the line of business, of course,’ he added, reassuringly. At least she thought he meant to be reassuring.
‘Of course,’ she repeated. Melanie discovered she was rather hoarse and cleared her throat. ‘It’s just the sea air,’ she explained, when he enquired if anything was wrong and she looked determinedly ahead as they approached the island, turning into a creek formed by two long shoulders of land.
The lights of The Ark were getting closer. The Ark, where she had been hired to play this man’s lover with sufficient conviction to ensure his real reason for being there was not discovered. She had just said that Caroline was crazy to miss out on all this, but she was the one who was crazy, not Caroline.
Had all that hot soapy water she’d been in, up to her neck for weeks, softened her brain?
Suddenly, despite the warmth, the scented tropical air, the gentle swell of the ocean beneath the hull of the launch, she wished she were back in London, wearing that ridiculous outfit and scrubbing someone’s floor. Anyone’s floor.
But it was too late, his arms were fixed firmly about her waist and there was no escape.
She stared numbly ahead as the impressive waterfront entrance drew ever nearer. The central stone building of the hotel, part of an old fortification, glowed in the floodlights looking rather like something that might have been built by Blackbeard to house his plundered treasure. If Blackbeard had been the kind of man to settle down.
Lights picked out small cottages tucked away amongst the hibiscus and bougainvillaea that scrambled everywhere, lights that reminded her that she would shortly be tucked up in one of them. With Jack Wolfe.
How on earth were they going to manage?
She could sleep on the sofa, always assuming there was a sofa, but they would have to share a bathroom, would undoubtedly encounter one another half dressed. Half dressed? She realized with a sinking feeling that she had never seen a pair of pyjamas when she stripped his bed and remade it. But then, he really didn’t look like a pyjamas kind of man.
Oh, pull yourself together, Melanie Beaumont. You wanted a bit of danger. If that’s as dangerous as it gets, what’s your problem? If he so much as lays a finger on you all you have to do is scream and you’ll blow his cover wide open.
But what about the arm, the waist, the dancing? Her subconscious seemed to smile. But Melanie couldn’t be quite sure.
Around them the tropical night enveloped them in warmth, tree frogs chirruped and the rigging of moored yachts chimed a reassuring welcome. Then the launch bumped against the jetty and her Nemesis turned her to face him.
‘Well, we’re in paradise, Mel,’ he said, looking down at her, his eyes unfathomable in the half light. ‘What do you think of it?’
‘It’s... um... beautiful,’ she said, her voice as stiff as her body, which she was holding rigidly as far from him as possible.
‘I’m glad you think so, because very soon it’ll be time to prove just how good an actress you are.’
‘Good?’
‘Perhaps we’d better have a run through. Just to be sure.’
‘What?’ He didn’t give her time to think, breathe, utter the protest that formed on her lips. He bent and kissed her so convincingly that her response required no acting ability. None whatever.
CHAPTER EIGHT
‘WELCOME.’ Broad stretched vowels turned themselves into warm laughter as Mel, reeling breathless and flustered broke free. ‘Welcome to The Ark.’ The face of the man tying up the launch split into a broad white grin as he offered a huge hand to pull her up onto dock.
She seized it before Jack could take it upon himself to further demonstrate his possession. But he was beside her in a second, his hand in hers, leading her along the jetty.
‘Why did you do that?’ she demanded, through her teeth.
‘Just establishing our credentials, darling,’ he said, smoothly. ‘We must start as we mean to go on.’
‘I don’t remember you mentioning anything about kissing. Only elbows and waists.’
‘And dancing. We’re on holiday remember?’
‘You’re on holiday. I’m working. I’ve got a time sheet to prove it.’
‘You can fill it in now. Twenty-four hours a day until further notice.’
‘I get time and half after six o’clock.’
‘Do you? Well, I never expected paradise to come cheap.’
‘You can’t buy paradise, Jack.’
‘No? Just watch me.’
They entered the cool bright reception area, open on one side to the sea to catch the breeze coming in from the ocean and were immediately enfolded in a Caribbean welcome by the smiling receptionist. ‘Come along through to the office, Mr Wolfe. Mr Jameson is waiting for you.’
‘I can deal with the formalities,’ Jack said, turning to Mel. ‘Why don’t you go and settle in? I’m sure you’d like the place to yourself while you unpack and sort yourself out.’
Mel didn’t argue, but gratefully seized the chance he offered her to take a shower and change undisturbed. A maid was summoned, a large woman, with a sense of humour to match and taking a key, she escorted Melanie along a well-illuminated path.
‘I’m Sarah,’ she said, ‘and I’ll be looking after you while you stay here.’
She continued to chatter brightly, pointing out the facilities as she went, while Mel murmured in what seemed like the right places until they reached the cottage. Sarah swept through the sitting room and threw open the French doors that led onto a verandah.
‘You will get the breeze here because this side of the island faces the Atlantic ocean. It’s never too hot.’
Melanie moved across the verandah and looked down at the long white curve of beach frilled with white foam where the waves ran up onto the sand. Out at sea were the lights of distant yachts, and above them the stars. It was bewitching, enchanting. Paradise indeed. She sighed. She wasn’t quite sure why before turning back to Sarah.
‘It’s quite lovely.’
Sarah beamed with pleasure. ‘I’ll leave you to settle in now, but if there’s anything you want, please just pick up the telephone and ask
for me.’
‘I will. Thank you.’
Once Sarah had departed Mel turned to explore the cottage.
The sitting room was furnished in dark gleaming woods and brilliant prints that no doubt in the daytime would echo the garden that it overlooked. There was a fridge containing anything she could think of in the way of drinks. And to her relief an absolutely enormous and comfortable looking sofa. She opened the bedroom door.
‘Oh, good grief,’ she exclaimed, halting in the doorway.
It wasn’t so much a bedroom, as the kind of honeymoon suite that appeared in glamorous movies. Jack had promised a four-poster bed and he hadn’t been kidding. This one had been created from the same dark tropical wood as the rest of the furniture, but the bedroom was not furnished in the brilliant print textiles used in the living room.
The carpet, acres of it, was pale honey and with her recently acquired consideration for chambermaids she hardly dared to step onto it. But it was the bed that continued to hold her gaze. King size, it was hung with exquisite cream lace lined with honey coloured silk.
The coverlet and curtains had been made to match.
She took a deep steadying breath and decided there and then that she would certainly surrender it to Jack and stick to the safety of the sofa.
She didn’t stop to examine the luxury of the honey-veined marble bathroom, or to dwell on the slightly disconcerting discovery that the shower was open to the dark tropical sky. Instead she plunged gratefully beneath it to wash away the grime of travel. And aware that Jack would be close on her heels, she didn’t linger much as she longed to. Instead she wrapped herself in one of the bathrobes provided by the hotel and returned to the bedroom, determined to be dressed for dinner by the time Jack returned.
She was too late. Having discarded his jacket and shoes, he was already stretched out on the bed, legs crossed, hands clasped behind his head, eyes closed.
‘I didn’t hear you come in,’ she said, accusingly, clutching at the front of the bathrobe.
He opened one eye. ‘Would it help if I whistled?’ He began to whistle tunelessly.
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘Then stop twittering about like some virgin schoolgirl, Mel. This is business.’
He rolled off the bed in one smooth movement and suddenly the room didn’t feel anywhere near as huge as he stood over her, daring her to contradict him.
‘You could have fooled me,’ she retaliated, glaring up at him. She was making a fool of herself. She knew she was and yet she couldn’t stop. ‘I’ve been carried off here without so much as a ‘by your leave’.’
‘If you didn’t want to come, why didn’t you tell Mrs Graham the truth?’
‘What is the truth? That you’re a liar? A financial Assyrian hunting down defenceless -’ Mel stopped, a little vague on the subject of the Assyrian’s intended victims.
Jack appeared unmoved by this attempt to shame him. ‘Why didn’t you tell Mrs Graham the truth?’ he repeated.
‘Mrs Graham wouldn’t have believed the truth.’ She shrugged. ‘And she wouldn’t listen when I tried to get out of taking the job you were supposed to be offering.’
‘Don’t tell me she threatened to fire you if you didn’t take it? The woman seems hell-bent on self-ruination.’
‘Hardly. There are always women desperate for work.’ But although the threat had hovered, it had remained unspoken and since Melanie had just accused Jack of lying, it would be hypocritical to do it herself. However, she could hardly tell him the truth. She was, she realized, the unhappy possessor of any number of explanations, explanations that no one in their right mind would take seriously. ‘Actually, because of you I’m her blue-eyed girl at the moment, but I don’t kid myself, Jack. If she found out about this little side trip, I’d be out on my ear.’
‘Would you? Poor Cinderella. Never mind, there’s always the co-operative.’
‘Once we’ve got suitable premises.’ She stared up at him. ‘How could you tell her that your mother had insisted on me working for her? Your mother has never met me.’
‘No, but since she’s living in Connecticut with her third husband she’s not about to tell.’
‘You are impossible,’ she said, sternly.
‘Oh, I’m much worse than that.’ And hooking his thumb beneath her chin, he deposited a searing kiss on her upturned lips. ‘But then you already know that.’ Then he released her and before she could think of something suitably cutting to say in reply, the bathroom door had closed firmly behind him.
Subsiding onto the stool in front of the dressing table, Melanie admitted that it was true. She knew it. She’d always known it.
And, as she applied her makeup, she tried to remember why, when Paddy had rung her last night to tell her that Mrs Graham had gone to the extraordinary lengths of calling at her house to ask her to take on a new job as a special favour, it had all seemed such a very clever idea.
What had been so clever about it?
She could have found Paddy a job herself if she’d put her mind to it? And who could say whether Jack Wolfe could help with the lease for the co-operative? Whether he would even try? If he said he hadn’t been able to do anything, who could challenge him?
Clever. Ha!
It was perfectly obvious that her brain cells refused to work properly when in close proximity to Mr Jack Wolfe. They behaved like a compass put too close to a magnet and her thought process became confused, distracted, out of focus. And it wasn’t just her thought that went haywire.
Her body seemed to take on a life of its own too. That kiss for instance. Nobody ever kissed her unless she wanted them to. She paused in her application of mascara to stare at her reflection. Had she wanted him to?
Her cheeks were slightly pinker than usual, her eyes had an extra sparkle. Was that what he had seen and responded to? If so, she was in serious trouble.
And if she was in that kind of trouble, why was she smiling from ear to ear?
But she already knew the answer to that, recognised the perilous excitement of not being totally in control. It was as if Jack exerted some power over her. Maybe he was an alien.
Her reflection grinned idiotically back at her from the mirror and she finally gave in to the impulse to giggle. He was working for an intergalactic holiday company who were planning to take over The Ark and use it for package holidays for wealthy interstellar travellers.
Still laughing she turned to her suitcases and began to unpack, wondering what to wear for her first dinner in paradise. With the serpent. She’d just have to make sure she avoided apples. And used a long spoon.
It was all very well coming over all giggly, but it was quite obvious that clothes were the least of her problems.
Then she held up the oversized purple t-shirt that was her favourite sleep wear. She didn’t go in for glamorous nightwear and she hadn’t given it a thought when packing, but this garment was certainly not the stuff of honeymoon suites. More the kind of thing worn by the average virginal schoolgirl.
Then she stopped worrying about her nightwear as a sudden silence warned her that the shower had stopped. She stuffed the t-shirt under a pillow and began to scramble into her clothes.
*****
Melanie was sitting on the sofa, idly turning the pages of one of the magazines Jack had provided for her entertainment at the airport and making a brave effort to appear totally at ease with the world when a shadow across the doorway indicated that she was no longer alone.
Assuming what she hoped was a bored expression she glanced up. Jack Wolfe, wearing nothing but a towel slung about his hips and rubbing vigorously at his hair with another was standing in the doorway, watching her.
The corded column of his neck, the naked expanse of tanned shoulders bedewed with water from the shower, the dark cruciform of hair that grizzled his chest and dived disconcertingly in an arrowhead beneath the whiteness of the towel were disturbing enough. But as he roughly towelled his hair, the towel knotted carelessly at his h
ips worked looser and looser and she stared at it with fascination, the tip of her tongue against her upper lip, quite unable to avert her eyes in spite of the inevitability of what was about to happen.
She blinked as Jack retrieved the towel the moment before it finally unravelled, tucking it more tightly about him and she looked up to discover that he was regarding her with the kind of smile designed to make maidens blush.
Her cheeks flamed obligingly.
‘Are you going to stand there all night parading yourself,’ she demanded, irritably. Irritation was as good a disguise as any to keep her true feelings to herself, to deny that for a moment she had wanted the towel to fall, to see this man who had haunted her thoughts ever since she had first set eyes upon him in all his naked glory. ‘I’m hungry,’ she continued, in an effort to blot out the disturbing emotions that trickled through her veins, making her go first hot, then cold. It didn’t work.
‘Is that why you were in such a hurry to dress?’ he asked, sliding his fingers through his hair in an effort to tame it. Her fingers itched to do it for him. ‘In my experience it usually takes women hours.’
‘Does it?’ She didn’t want to hear about his experience with women. ‘I’m sure your experience is extensive, Mr Wolfe, but frankly, the length of time some women take to get dressed baffles me.’ Her shrug was so casual, so dismissive that it deserved a curtain call of its very own. ‘I mean, what is so difficult about putting on a dress?’ She glanced down at the exquisitely simple scarlet gown she was wearing. ‘You just step into the thing and zip it up.’ Her gesture, like her dress was an essay in elegance. ‘Ten minutes. Tops.’ She smiled up at him. ‘Why don’t you see if you can beat it?’
‘If you insist, but to be honest I don’t think red is my colour.’ His smile was slow and oddly seductive. She should have quit while she was ahead.
‘Very funny.’ She waited but he seemed to be in no hurry. ‘Do you think you could put a move on?’ she encouraged.
‘Perhaps you should show me how it’s done.’
