by Leah Ashton
But Da Nang airport served a tourist centre and here life already felt slower. Although when she walked into the terminal Lanie quickly realised that slower was relative.
She’d expected something smaller. She’d been told by friends of a single baggage carousel and walls plastered with posters for local hotels and the tailors that Hoi An was famous for. Instead she was greeted by what seemed like acres of shiny tiles and high raked ceilings. Very modern, very international—not at all the regional Vietnam she’d expected.
‘The new terminal opened about a year ago,’ Gray explained as they waited to collect their bags. ‘You could say that this area has well and truly been discovered by tourists. It’s no longer a closely guarded secret.’
‘That’s why we’re here,’ Lanie said.
‘Exactly.’
And although it was silly—after all, she didn’t know any different—she felt a little disappointed that she hadn’t been here earlier—before tourism and investors just like Manning had swooped.
Once they had their bags they headed outside into another wall of heat, and a crowd of neatly dressed men touting their taxi services. Many came right up close, offering to take their bags, wanting to know where they were staying, and insisting they could offer ‘a very good price.’
Everyone was smiling, and no one touched her—and yet it wasn’t what Lanie had expected. She found herself shifting nearer to Gray as they walked—close enough to bump into him.
‘Oh!’ she said, stepping away. ‘Sorry.’
But a moment later she bumped into him again, just as Gray told yet another extremely keen driver that they already had a car organized. This time as she went to apologise she felt Gray’s hand on the small of her back.
Not wrapped around her. Not pushing her or directing her. Just there.
In the heat his touch was—of course—warm. Very warm. It went right through her thin T-shirt to her skin, and his hand felt strong and reassuring.
She let out a breath she’d had no idea she was holding,
His hand didn’t move until they arrived at their car—which was low and white and expensive-looking.
A man in a crisp shirt—who did look completely unbothered by the weather—opened the rear door for her just as Gray’s hand fell away.
‘Thank you,’ she murmured.
He just smiled and shrugged in response. Not a problem.
Gray walked around to the opposite side of the car as Lanie slid onto the creamy leather back seat.
When Gray joined her, the driver—who introduced himself as Quan—presented them both with small, chilled white towels and bottles of icy cold water. The car slid away from the airport almost silently as Lanie and Gray took advantage of both.
‘So, what do you think so far?’ Gray asked.
Lanie twisted the cap onto her water bottle and placed it back in its little tray between the front seats.
‘Overwhelming,’ she said, then grinned. ‘Although it is kind of silly to be, I guess. I’m taller than all the drivers.’
This had only occurred to Lanie as she’d stood directly beside Quan—who was clearly inches shorter than her.
Gray tilted his head as he looked at her. ‘Why would that make any difference?’ he said. ‘It’s overwhelming for everyone the first time they come here—me included. I’m a lot taller than you and, trust me, I almost turned around and went back into the terminal the first time I visited.’
The image was so unexpected—tall, strong Grayson Manning hightailing it back into the glossy new terminal—that Lanie laughed out loud. ‘Right. Besides, you aren’t that much taller than me.’
Gray shifted in his seat to face her. ‘What are you? Five-eleven?’
She nodded, surprised he’d noticed. ‘Exactly.’
‘So I’ve got three inches on you. I win.’
There was a mischievous hint to his tone that was new, and Lanie couldn’t help but laugh again. Normally her height triggered comments like Wow, that’s really tall!—and not in a good way. During her swimming career her body had been her tool, and the breadth of her shoulders and lankiness of her limbs a positive. She’d made herself look at her body objectively and monitored her weight, her skin folds and her lung capacity as if she were a racing car engine.
Yes, she had moments where she envied her more petite sister—when she went clothes-shopping, for instance. Sienna was more reasonably tall, at five foot eight, but with long, narrow feet like flippers and a freakishly good technique. Sienna had an elegance and a normality to her—no one ever made jokes about the air being thinner up there, or guessed that she must play basketball or something.
But overall she’d always seen her height as a good thing, and had told herself—firmly—that her moments of self-consciousness were a total waste of time.
More recently she was finding that more difficult. Now she was tall, quite frankly not a small person, and she wasn’t even an athlete any more. Her size didn’t make her special, and it didn’t make her a potential champion. It just made her different.
And Gray didn’t seem to think it was all that unusual. At all.
Lanie, for the first time since she’d arrived, felt the tension ease from her body. She settled back into her seat, and watched Da Nang city fly past her.
Growing up in Perth, she’d travelled to nearby Bali before, and to Singapore—and her swimming had taken her to Rome a few years ago, and to China. But as the car whisked them through the city the architecture was like nothing she’d ever seen before.
In pretty pastel shades the buildings were sandwiched together—the fronts tall and narrow but their structure stretching out long behind. Above them, power lines criss-crossed each intersection, looking rather alarmingly messily arranged and remarkably copious—as if every home’s appliance had its own personal power supply.
Around them, the traffic mingled indiscriminately—luxury cars amongst rusted old overloaded vans—and everywhere, motorbikes. No one, including their own driver, appeared to pay too much attention to the road’s lanes, or to progressing in single file. At each stop sign multiple scooters would surround their car and then shoot off ahead, two or three abreast.
And then, just occasionally, Lanie spotted a glimpse of the Vietnam she hadn’t even realised she’d been searching for: a man walking along the footpath balancing two baskets from a pole across his shoulders, a woman on a pushbike in simple clothes of beige and brown, her face shaded by a traditional conical hat.
‘Oh, did you see her?’ she said enthusiastically, when she first saw the woman on her bike, and Gray leant across to see where she was looking. Soon she was asking him questions as Gray pointed out some of the French influences scattered throughout Da Nang—from the red-roofed architecture to the baguettes for sale at cafés alongside traditional Vietnamese pho soup.
Soon they’d left Da Nang and joined a busy road towards Hoi An. To their left was the ocean—China Beach—and to the right the marble mountains. More like hills than mountains, they thrust out abruptly from a flat landscape, covered in greenery and dotted with colourful pagodas visible even as the car zoomed past.
The traffic had thinned—not that that stopped the driver of every car or motorbike that came anywhere near them from leaning heavily on his horn. It seemed in Vietnam the horn was more about Here I am! rather than Watch out!
But soon their car was escaping the noise and the glare of the sun as it turned from the main road down a grand cobblestoned driveway, lushly shaded with towering palms.
Moments later the car came to a stop before a sprawling double-storey building—and here the French influences that Gray had mentioned were immediately apparent. Painted in shades of cream, the red-roofed building boasted elaborately moulded columns and a balcony that stretched across the entire second floor.
The hotel reception
area was open-sided, with oversized wicker fans spinning languidly overhead. They were greeted by two women in traditional attire and handed seriously exotic-looking juice concoctions, and watched as their bags were unloaded and silently whisked away.
Gray’s phone rang almost immediately. He answered it, making vague hand gestures as he disappeared outside that Lanie could only guess meant he’d be a while. She already knew she had the rest of the afternoon free, so she checked in and then followed another crisply shirted hotel employee to her villa.
It was one thing for Lanie to be familiar with this development through her work with Gray back in Perth—on paper, multi-million-dollar pricetags for a luxury beachside villa weren’t all that meaningful—but here, surrounded by this opulent reality, it was something else altogether.
From Reception they passed the main pool area—a series of infinity pools built on different levels, each with uninterrupted views to the private beach. No one swam today, or lay in the canopied daybeds. The hotel was not yet open for business, and none of the private residences had been sold.
Beyond the pools was the beachfront, and here Lanie was deposited at one of the smallest villas—after all, she had no need for multiple bedrooms. Entry was through a private courtyard, lush with thick grass and edged with palms. Inside, the open-plan space was dominated by a raised central section topped with an extravagant four-poster bed. Bifold doors opened out from a small, exquisitely decorated living area to a private deck and then to perfect white sand and the ocean beyond.
It was absolutely beautiful.
Although it had only been a short walk from Reception to her villa, the car’s air-conditioning felt like a forgotten memory. Lanie’s skin felt over-warm again, despite the cool sanctuary of the villa. There was an obvious solution to that, so she unzipped her suitcase and pulled out a bikini.
With the two pieces of fabric in her hands, she paused.
The swimsuit was new, purchased with Teagan on their shopping trip. The violet-coloured fabric was gorgeous, and it flattered her now slightly less than super-fit shape. It was the perfect bikini to wear at a place like this, but when Lanie thought of the perfect, untouched, unused pools she’d just walked by it didn’t feel right at all.
Not the bikini’s fault—but she didn’t want to laze by a pool, she realised. She didn’t even want to simply splash around in the shallows or order a cocktail while she relaxed in crystal-clear water.
She wanted to swim. For the first time in ages. And a bikini simply wasn’t going to cut it.
Minutes later she’d changed into the plain black one-piece suit she’d packed almost automatically. It was one of her training suits—built for efficiency, not glamour. But it wasn’t about to worry her with the possibility of parting from her body at an unfortunate moment, so it was definitely the right suit for today.
She grabbed a fluffy white towel and hit the beach. To her right she could see activity in the distance, but here, on the resort’s own beach, there was not another soul. Even the lifeguard’s tall white chair was empty. She dumped the towel but resisted the temptation to hit the water immediately—instead she stretched, as she had every morning prior to training for as long as she could remember.
But then—finally—she was in the water. It was warmer than she’d expected, and shallower, so she ducked beneath the water and put further distance between herself and the shore with strong, easy underwater breaststrokes.
Breaking the surface, she treaded water momentarily, looking back towards the shore and the perfect white sand to her beautiful villa.
Lanie grinned. This was surreal—this was not where she was supposed to be right now. She and Sienna had had plans to travel together through Europe after the championships—but now it was just Sienna doing the travelling.
And here she was—in Vietnam for work, no less.
She was not supposed to be here, but she was unexpectedly glad she was.
Then, with one last look, she turned in the water and with a sure stroke and a powerful kick began to swim.
* * *
Gray swiped the phone to end the call, then placed it not entirely gently on the small writing desk in his villa.
Then he swore.
An investor who’d been booked in for the weekend had cancelled.
It should be okay—after all, the personalised tour of the residential properties that Gray had planned for this weekend involved a group of investors. Losing one was no disaster. He knew that, and yet it still bothered him.
Not that the guy had cancelled—it didn’t even matter why—but because it had rattled Gray.
On the flight over he’d busied himself on his laptop while running through in his mind exactly how this weekend was going to proceed. In itself, that was not unusual. What had been unusual was his demeanour—he’d been tense and fidgety. Fidgety enough to be irrationally annoyed at how Lanie had so obliviously read a paperback for the entire flight, as if she had no idea how much was riding on this trip...
Which, of course, she didn’t. And she’d offered numerous times to help during the flight. He’d assured her that she couldn’t.
The fact was he’d had nothing to do on the flight either. Everything was sorted. Everything was planned to the nth degree. It would go off without a hitch.
There was absolutely no reason why it wouldn’t.
He realised he was pacing the floor of his villa from one side of the room to the other, his gaze directed blankly to the limestone tiles.
This was a waste of time.
He needed to go for a run.
* * *
Gray’s chest heaved as he slowed to a walk. He leant forward, his hands just above his knees, as he took in great, big gulping lungfuls of air.
His body was coated in sweat thanks to the still intense humidity even now, as the sun was just beginning to consider setting. The solution to that problem was obvious, and he’d turned to step towards the welcome waves...when he noticed her.
A long way out a woman was swimming. Her arms moved in confident, practised freestyle movements, her feet kicking up a neat stream of bubbles.
It must be Lanie, he realised—it could be no one else.
He watched her for a few long moments, surprised. Maybe he shouldn’t be. She had such a tall and athletic frame it really shouldn’t be unexpected that she swam—and swam well.
Not for the first time since that morning after he’d arrived back from Singapore he wondered about her. What did he know about Lanie? She’d shocked him that day with her forthrightness. No one had ever questioned him at work before—at least, not so blatantly. He realised it didn’t reflect well upon him—and Marilyn’s damn words again came to mind—but, honestly, people didn’t say no to him. Ever.
But Lanie had. And that intrigued him.
She’d worked for him for weeks. And she’d always been obliging.
Although maybe she hadn’t always been. He had a sudden flash of memory of just slightly narrowed eyes, a glint to her gaze. Subtle, but there.
Yes, she’d been obliging. But maybe she hadn’t always been happy about it. Or with him.
Actually, that was disingenuous. He knew she’d been unimpressed with him at times—the days when he was particularly busy or distracted—and he knew—normally some time later—that he’d been less than polite.
But he hadn’t really cared.
He’d figured she was being paid to do a job and that was that.
But now...now he was wondering what she really thought.
And as he watched her swim he wondered who she really was.
She’d told him that morning in his house that they’d shared the beach many a time. He hadn’t realised. Even now, considering it, he couldn’t remember seeing her. But then, even if pressed, he probably couldn’t describe anyone he saw at the beach e
ach day. When he ran, he used the time to think. And the times when he couldn’t face thinking he’d focus on his breathing. Or the thud of his feet on the sand.
It was just him and Luther and his thoughts—or lack thereof.
It wasn’t personal that he’d not noticed her, which is why when he’d seen her reaction that morning—her shock and, hurt—he’d dismissed it.
Gray straightened and ran a hand through his damp hair. Lanie was pretty quick, he’d give her that—she cut through the water effortlessly.
As he watched her he wondered how he couldn’t have noticed her.
Yes, he’d been focussed on the business. Entirely focussed on the business—it was all he did and all he thought about. Except for running.
He prided himself on his focus. Honed it, in fact.
But Lanie somehow—at least momentarily—had him questioning it.
He was intrigued.
In a single movement he pulled off his soaked T-shirt, dumping it on the sand, and—given he ran barefoot—he was instantly ready to swim. He didn’t mess around with wading into the water. He simply dived into the shallows, the cool water a welcome relief to his heated skin.
Then he surfaced, spotted Lanie, and began swimming in her direction.
SEVEN
Her strokes were easy. Relaxed.
She wasn’t training today. She certainly wasn’t racing.
She was just swimming.
Stroke, stroke, stroke, breathe. Stroke, stroke, stroke, breathe.
Slow. Easy. Effortless.
She wasn’t wearing goggles so she kept her eyes shut in the water—besides, there was no blue line for her to watch at the bottom of the ocean.
Every now and again she’d remember to look up between strokes, to check where she was going. But really—aside from the risk of accidentally swimming too far—she was safe. She wasn’t about to swim into a stray surfer or a boat.
