by Susan Napier
Luke, who seemed if anything to be more energised by the experience, shook his towel before settling down beside her, leaning back on braced arms, his knees drawn up in front of him, flicking his wet hair back with a sharp toss of his head.
‘Are you talking about the film you’ve just finished?’ His curiosity was no longer constrained by having to pretend ignorance of her background.
Rosalind pulled a wry face. ‘You mean which almost finished me.’
She embarked on her humorously harrowing tale of woman-eating sharks, broken bones and mosquitoes the size of vampire bats. ‘It was the sheer incompetency of the whole thing that I found so infuriating,’ she finished, with an angry twist to her mobile mouth. ‘I wouldn’t have minded the deprivations so much if it had been a cracking script, but by the time the director had done a million rewrites the characters were practically incomprehensible. As a break into films it was not a good career move...’
‘I thought you preferred the stage anyway,’ he said, confirming that he had read the small print of the article, not just the trashy bits. ‘What made you want to do this film?’
She sighed. He had an instinct for innocently framing awkward questions.
‘Impulse. I was looking to expand my horizons. The original script was actually quite good...and the director begged me to!’ She opened her eyes and found him regarding her thoughtfully. She moved her expressive hands restlessly. ‘Trina was a friend of mine. Hell, I didn’t know that since we left drama school she’d only done commercials and music videos!’
‘You didn’t think to check out her credentials before you committed yourself?’ It was the accountant not the jet-ski speed pirate talking, and his incredulous tone put her on the defensive.
‘I told you, she was an old friend. I liked her. It was a loyalty thing.’
‘Misplaced loyalty as it turned out.’
Rosalind bristled at the hint of contempt. ‘Yes, well, that’s the whole point of loyalty, isn’t it—sticking with people through the bad as well as the good? Erina did her best; her ambition simply overreached her abilities. At least she was willing to take the risk and try, and I respect her for that.’
His raised eyebrow was a taunt in itself and she thought that if he had been a calculating man she would have suspected him of playing the devil’s advocate purely to provoke her impulsive retort. ‘Maybe it was the element of risk that attracted you to the project in the first place.’
‘Maybe it was,’ she prevaricated. ‘But at least I came out of it with a minimum wage. The investors must have taken a bath!’
As she’d suspected, the financial red herring was too tempting for him to resist, and they discussed the intricacies of film financing before Rosalind managed gradually to edge the conversation around to a subject of potentially greater interest—Luke’s Harley-Davidson-owning days. However, they turned out to be disappointingly tame... a case of riding the motorcycle back and forth to university and to his part-time job. He had never even belonged to a motorcycle club, let alone a gang. As far as he was concerned, his grunt-machine had been merely a convenient and economical form of transport, with the added advantage of being a classic which would appreciate in value and therefore could be viewed in the light of an investment.
‘A conformist without a cause!’ Rosalind murmured, wistfully relinquishing the illicit vision of a leather-clad Luke lounging astride a sexy hunk of chrome and black, a cigarette and a sneer dangling from his lips.
She delved to find a replacement image but it was tough going trying to get Luke to open up about himself. On general subjects he was capable of being provoked into something bordering on eloquence but when it came to the personal stuff he retreated into his awkward shell.
She did manage to patch together the picture of an orphaned only child who became an adopted only child, then a conscientious student who had set himself a series of goals towards which he had worked with relentless dedication. Not for him the usual wild student frivolities. He had lived at home and, while his adoptive parents had been comfortably well off and prepared to pay generously for his education, they’d believed strongly in the work ethic, so that Luke had had to work at a variety of jobs while he was studying, to help ease the burden of his keep. Rosalind lazily admitted that since she was old enough to do walk-ons she had only ever worked in the theatre.
‘And loved every minute of it,’ she sighed. ‘Up until now, anyway.’
She bit her lip as the self-pitying words slipped out, and Luke rolled onto his side, propping his temple on a loose fist. ‘What’s so different now?’
Rosalind looked straight up at the cloudless sky. Her mouth went dry at the thought of saying it...as dry as it had felt the last few times she’d been on stage, in those awful moments when her mind had gone totally blank, so that she hadn’t even been able to remember what play she was in, let alone what her next lines were. All she had been conscious of was those eyes trained on her from the darkened auditorium—the eyes of friends, fans, strangers—and one stranger in particular who might be out there, watching, waiting for a word or gesture or a look which his psychosis could interpret as an invitation to fulfil his frightening fantasies...
‘Oh, just a slight crisis of confidence. I’ll get over it,’ she forced herself to say lightly, with mote optimism than she felt.
‘Did you say confidence or conscience?’
She turned her head sharply. In spite of the increasing heat he hadn’t replaced his hat or sunglasses, but the palm fronds stirring overhead dappled his sun-burnished face with fluttering shadows that made his expression difficult to read.
‘Confidence,’ she articulated, deciding to give him the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps he still had water in his ears. ‘I was talking about my stage confidence. When you’re out there in front of an audience you have to be able to submerge yourself in the role. Once you start letting other things intrude you’re in trouble. And worrying about whether you’re going to have a panic attack in the middle of a performance can become a self-fulfilling prophecy—’
She broke off. She hadn’t meant to reveal so much. She hadn’t even spoken of her career concerns to her twin. She was tough, determined, a seasoned professional. She had expected to bounce back from adversity with her customary swift resilience. But what if she didn’t?
She rolled over onto her stomach, burying her face in her folded arms to conceal the fleeting self-doubt which might be evident on her expressive features. She forced herself back into the role of carefree companion, her voice muffled as she said lightly, ‘Speaking of confidence, you seemed to have plenty out there on the water. Now you’ve got to build on that image.
‘The time-honoured ploy of the beach flirt is offering to rub sunscreen onto a woman’s back. It gives you the chance to sound sexy and caring, and if she accepts then you can practically guarantee she’s interested. But don’t make the mistake of groping. The first time should be sensuous yet brisk. Your aim is to show her you’re a man she can trust...’
There was a silence, several heartbeats long.
‘Are you asking me to apply your sunscreen for you?’ he said, in a distinctly edgy tone.
Rosalind grinned into her towel, her spirits revived. ‘Well, I’m sure you need the practice and I’m prepared to sacrifice myself for the greater good of womankind,’ she mocked. ‘I’ll even give you a critique when you’re done! For a start you could show some enthusiasm. Try and sound eager to get your hands on my body...’
‘Does your throat count?’ he delighted her by muttering.
She turned her head to the side and, sure enough, found his eyes on the tender sweep of her neck, exposed in all its delicate vulnerability by her pixie haircut. ‘Why, Luke, do you harbour erotic fantasies about being a vampire?’
His colour had darkened, although it could have been the heat of the sun on his bare head that was making him look flushed. ‘I was thinking of strangling rather than biting!’ he growled, reluctantly picking up the tube of suns
creen that was poking out of the top of her beach bag.
‘Pity. Vampires are much sexier than common-or-garden stranglers!’
His subsequent wordless application of the sunscreen was far more brisk than sensuous but Rosalind didn’t take him to task because she discovered the sensation of those firm hands massaging across her sun-warmed skin too disturbing for comfort. This time there was nothing to blame for the faint buzz that vibrated through her nerve-ends but her own bio-electrical system. Wherever Luke touched her it was as if a static discharge occurred—one that seemed to grow rather than to fade with continued contact. Rosalind was literally live to his touch!
Her amusement was mixed with chagrin at the unexpected physical attraction, especially as Luke gave no sign of being similarly affected. He was supposed to be an entertaining holiday distraction, not an added complication to her life. Still, as long as she kept that firmly in the forefront of her mind there could be no danger of her behaving like a real-life Pygmalion and falling in love with her own creation. She had made a promise to Luke, and she couldn’t let him down. She would shake him up and turn him loose and in the meantime rely on her strong self-discipline to control any inconvenient pangs of lust!
So from then on Rosalind threw herself wholeheartedly into the task of making Luke seem irresistible to members of the opposite sex while quietly maintaining a discreet physical distance herself. She deliberately gave him no rest, filling every moment with activities which she hoped would so focus his concentration that he would forget the awkward self-consciousness that seemed to afflict him around other people.
Following their jet-skiing success, Rosalind took him snorkelling later the same afternoon and was relieved to find that he was as sleek as a seal in the water, though he regrettably seemed more interested in the teeming marine life on the reef than in the occasional eligible human female who drifted in his direction. They joined a dozen or so others in one of Tioman’s distinctive, long wooden bumboats which plied for hire around the coast, to travel to a tiny, rocky off-shore island a scant few minutes from the hotel jetty.
Rosalind marvelled at the vivid fans of waving coral, and the iridescent colours of some of the fish that darted in and out of the rocks. There were gliding mantas and creeping crustaceans, flowing sea anemones and rocking sea urchins with jewel-like blue spots glowing between their long spines.
As they floated face down in the shallows around the island Rosalind was tempted by the idea of booking a scuba-dive and exploring the deeper riches of the sea, until Luke drew closer to her side and motioned towards the seabed, pointing out a young shark sleeking between the rocks. She decided then that perhaps she wasn’t ready yet for another close encounter with any denizens of the deep!
The next day they took a three-hour guided walk through the forested valleys to the village of Juara, on the other side of the island. It was hot and still in the depths of the interior, the trunks of massive trees bearing such evocative names as sandalwood and camphor soaring skywards from the forest floor, their distant green canopy almost obscured by the lacy foliage of the palms and shrubs of the undergrowth through which they walked, and Rosalind was grateful to their guide for his frequent pauses on the banks of cool, boulder-strewn streams.
The steamy heat seemed to have little effect on Luke, who chafed at Rosalind’s tendency to fall back amongst the stragglers and linger over every new orchid spite, every small lizard or exotic butterfly she spied.
In the afternoon they caught a bumboat back around the south coast, stopping off at Mukut village, from which they trekked up to the famous waterfall. Luke had never seen South Pacific and had been slightly contemptuous of the reason for Rosalind’s eager pilgrimage, but he couldn’t deny that the scenery itself was spectacular and Rosalind had her revenge for his sarcastic remarks about cultural imperialism in general and the silliness of musicals in particular by singing him every song from the show that she could remember, much to the amusement of others they passed on the walk.
Washing men out of her hair seemed particularly appealing, and she sang that one several times with special emphasis on their way back down to the boat, accompanying it with jaunty dance steps that criss-crossed in front of Luke’s stride until he was goaded into begging her to stop.
Lake got his own back the next day, however, when Rosalind offered to teach him to windsurf. When he appeared ready to protest she overrode him with her usual bossy enthusiasm, stressing that everyone was clumsy at first but it was just a matter of persistence. She very kindly didn’t say that she expected him to be a more clumsy beginner than most, but the message was subtly delivered by her condescending grin. And so it proved.
She made Luke walk parallel to her on the sand while she sailed the board along to the secluded end of the long beach to show him how it was done. The breeze was gentle but steady and the sea glass-like in its smoothness, so the conditions were as perfect as they could be for a beginner.
Given Luke’s seal-like grace in the water, Rosalind was confident that once he got over his nervous fear of making a fool of himself he would soon pick up the basics, but to her frustration he proved so fumblingly inept that it took her ages merely to get him standing upright on the board. In the process she became his waterlogged sea anchor, her arms and hands aching from holding the board steady while he tried to find his elusive sense of balance.
When, finally, after more than an hour of careful coaching, he progressed to actually pulling the sail upright, he would invariably lose his stability before the wind had time to fill it and topple off again, usually in her direction, smacking down in a tangle of splayed limbs, sending yet another shock blast of salt water shooting up into her eyes, nose and mouth.
She couldn’t lose her temper because each time it happened Luke was so very apologetic, so desperate to master the simple skill, so insistent that if she would just bear with him he would eventually succeed. She didn’t have the heart to tell him that he might as well give it up as a lost cause, not after she had stressed the importance of persistence.
Even worse, his body seemed to be constantly bumping and rubbing up against hers as they struggled with the board and the wet sail. She had to help boost him up onto the deck and guide his legs into position and reach around him to show him the handholds. Every time she moved, his cool flesh somehow got in her way. Her hands slipped and slid against his smooth, wet skin, sometimes skidding off into dangerous territory, and the water proved a wonderful conductor for the zinging electrical awareness that intensified each time their bodies made contact.
Oh, for the temperate waters of New Zealand where most windsurfers wore demure wetsuits! Rosalind inwardly wailed as Luke took another tumble, one slick thigh fleetingly thrust between hers, its slight roughness rasping the highly sensitive skin and catching on the silky fabric of her bikini, giving it an intimate little nudge that, for Rosalind, was the last straw.
She faked, very professionally, standing on something sharp and painful. Just painful enough to necessitate her limping ashore to check the wound, not painful enough to require his assistance.
‘It’s not as if there’s any blood. I’ll be fine...you carry on with what you’re doing,’ she said, hastily wading beyond his long reach. ‘Maybe you just need a bit of time fooling about on your own to get the hang of it, anyway...’
She limped up the beach to their towels in a masterful piece of underplaying, conscious of Luke’s eyes boring into her back. She sat down and made a show of inspecting the sole of her foot before giving him a reassuring wave and relaxing back on her elbows with a grateful sigh. She watched him broodingly. This was ridiculous. Why was she running away? He was a perfectly nice man. Why on earth shouldn’t she conduct this phony flirtation for real?
Her eyes drifted closed as she contemplated the idea. Although Luke might be inexperienced with women he was intellectually mature, a full-grown, well-educated adult holding down a highly responsible job. It wouldn’t be as if she were seducing an innocent boy for h
er own amusement. And there would be no question of exploring the attraction if it didn’t prove to be mutual...
She must have dozed off because when next she opened her eyes Luke was nowhere in sight. She sat up in alarm, her anxious gaze sweeping the bay, visions of finding him floating face down in the water dancing in her head. And it would be all her fault for pushing him beyond his physical capabilities!
Her jaw dropped when she finally spotted the distinctive green sail emblazoned with the hotel’s palm logo breezing out towards the open sea. As she watched, Luke shifted his weight, swinging the sail around and moving back towards the shore, tacking to take best advantage of the light off-shore wind.
Hmm!
By the time he beached the board and strolled up the sand her suspicions were simmering.
‘That was a pretty good run for an absolute beginner.’
He picked up his towel and mopped down his body with distracting thoroughness. ‘Actually you were right-it was a lot easier without you there pointing out every mistake and making me nervous.’ His face disappeared into the towel as he rubbed his hair.
‘Oh, really?’ she drawled, relaxing back on her elbows, dipping her head so that the straw brim of her hat concealed her study of the way the concave plane of his stomach flexed with his movements.
‘Yes, once you figure out how to stay upright the rest just seems to fall into place!’
Her suspicions were unappeased by his muffled words. ‘Luke James, is that the first time you’ve been windsurfing?’
His face emerged from the folds of the towel. ‘Surely you should have asked me that question before we started? How’s the foot?’
‘Fine,’ she said absently, trying to figure out whether his answer constituted a confession of exaggerated ineptitude.
‘Is it? May I see?’
Before she realised what he was doing he had dropped to his knees in front of her feet, his buttocks resting on his heels, his fingers gripping her ankle.
