Sunlight over Crystal Sands: A gorgeous uplifting romantic comedy perfect to escape with this summer

by Holly Martin

  Clothes were dispensed with very quickly and he started trailing his hot mouth over her body, worshipping her, adoring her, his every touch driving her to the point of insanity. She’d never had intimacy like this before. Sex had always been nice but over fairly quickly. But Nix was taking his time, seemingly enjoying kissing her all over as much as she was. He laid kisses across her stomach and a kick of shock and desire ripped through her as she realised where he was heading. The second his mouth touched her there, every nerve ending in her body exploded with pure need. She arched against him, crying out as that feeling tore through her so fiercely she could barely catch her breath.

  Her breath was ragged as he leaned over to grab a condom and then he was over her, kissing her. She wrapped her arms and legs around him and he slid deep inside her, causing her to moan against his lips.

  He pulled back slightly to look at her and smiled. ‘Hey.’

  ‘Hello,’ Lyra said.

  ‘I missed you.’

  She smiled. ‘You’ve been with me the whole week.’

  ‘Not like this,’ Nix said, kissing her briefly.

  ‘I have to say, I wasn’t expecting this to happen again, not so soon.’

  ‘I knew it would happen again for us. The connection between us is too strong for us not to end up here eventually, and I was prepared to wait.’

  She smiled. ‘You’re so sure of yourself.’

  ‘I’m sure of us.’

  She knew what he meant – this felt so right in every way.

  He kissed her again and started moving against her, every touch, every movement completely flawless as if they were made for each other. She moved with him, their bodies perfectly in sync with each other. She had never felt so completely alive before, every fibre of her body igniting, sensations rushing through her that she’d never felt before. She felt like she was soaring and when she fell over the other side she knew there’d never be any getting over this.

  ‘I still can’t believe you did all this,’ Lyra said, gesturing to the chest that was spilling over with the gold chocolate coins on the bed. They were both hungry after making love but neither of them had wanted to leave the bed to make something to eat, so snacking on the chocolate coins had seemed like a good compromise. ‘You went to so much trouble.’

  She unwrapped another chocolate and broke it in two, giving one half to Nix before nibbling away at her own half.

  ‘It was a lot of fun, but man, you were solving the clues far quicker than I expected. I had to stop you after the first night, because I’d not placed any of the other clues.’

  ‘Did you use tea to stain the paper?’

  ‘Yes, that was Seamus’s suggestion actually. That’s why I had that bag of teabags when I came into the office that day.’

  ‘Seamus was in on this?’

  ‘Yes, we’d planned to meet in Kendra’s bakery that day so he could prime you with a slightly embellished version of the legend behind the treasure.’

  ‘So the whole legend was a lie,’ Lyra said.

  ‘No, the part about the ship getting wrecked on the rocks and the fishermen going out there to steal the jewels is true – well, at least as far as the legend is concerned – but there’s no mention of your house being involved. The stuff about smuggling through the tunnel is true, and your house was involved in that.’

  Lyra thought about it for a moment. ‘Hang on, you brought those teabags into the office when I was still barely speaking to you.’

  ‘Yes well, I had no idea why you were upset on that first day, because in my mind you’d left me. You were so… free that night we met and so serious at work and I wondered if you’d woken up the morning after and regretted losing your inhibitions and done a runner. I know how much you like control and order after your mum did what she did and I wanted to do something for you that would… bring out that adventurous side again.’

  She stared at him. ‘You planned all this when I was being so horrible to you?’

  ‘You weren’t being horrible and I just wanted to make you happy again, even if nothing else could happen between us.’

  She smiled with complete love for him.

  ‘And how did you manage to have time to bury the clues on the islands?’

  ‘I got up early in the morning and went ashore to bury the chest and the key before you woke up. When you said you’d heard me yesterday morning getting up around six, that’s what I was doing. That’s why I made sure we didn’t get to Mermaid Island or Dagger’s Point until after dark, so we couldn’t go ashore to look for it before I’d buried it.’

  Lyra laughed. ‘That’s why the soil around the mermaid was so loose – because you’d only dug it up a few hours before. I’m presuming the mermaid was nothing to do with you?’

  ‘I’m not that good. That mermaid has been there as far back as I remember, there’s no information on her. Although I might have embellished a little about the curse.’

  She smiled. ‘And what about the clue that was in the chimney, how did you get it so high up?’

  ‘I climbed, with great difficulty, but actually there were bigger bricks sticking out the side of the fireplace that made it a bit easier.’

  ‘You could have pointed them out to me so I didn’t have to climb on your shoulders,’ Lyra said.

  ‘I considered it, but you were having so much fun and I was trying to appear a bit clueless about it all, so you could solve the puzzles, rather than me.’

  She shook her head. ‘It’s been so much fun. And thank you for the dinosaur and the ring.’

  She picked up the ring and slid it onto her wedding finger as a joke, but as she did she watched the smile fade from his face.

  ‘It’s OK. I was just joking,’ Lyra said, quickly yanking it off.

  He shook his head. ‘Lyra, I need to tell you. Before we go any further into this relationship, I need to tell you the truth about why me and my wife broke up.’

  She frowned. ‘You didn’t tell me the truth at the restaurant?’

  He took her hand. ‘I did, I just… left some details out.’

  ‘Go on.’

  He let out a heavy breath. ‘As I said, when we planned our future, we wanted children – we wanted a whole house full of them. When Emily miscarried after we’d tried for so long to get pregnant, she was distraught. Well, we both were, but she was heartbroken. We never had time to grieve properly though, as I was diagnosed with leukaemia the next day. Then it was a non-stop ride of hospital appointments, meetings with doctors and specialists… and everything happened so quick, we had to start chemotherapy straightaway. But one of the things the doctors told me before we started was that… the intensive treatment I’d need, the chemotherapy, the bone marrow treatment, would make it highly likely that I’d never be able to have children.’

  She stared at him in horror. It was safe to say she’d not seen that coming.

  Nix hurried on. ‘Emily was there for me throughout all my treatment but I could feel she was pulling away. I thought it was the stress of the situation – our nerves were fried, we were both exhausted. When I had the bone marrow treatment, things started getting better, health-wise at least – it was a very long road to recovery but there was a point where I could see the light again. But things didn’t improve between me and Emily. She wanted children, she was desperate for them, and in the end that need to have a child far outweighed her desire to stay with me.’

  ‘Nix—’

  He shook his head, obviously needing to finish. ‘I’ve had to live with that decision for the last three years. I’ve had to come to terms with whether I was completely worthless as a man if I couldn’t father a child. And whether any woman would ever want me. And it’s something I’ve never told anyone before, not my brother, my parents, no one, because I felt too embarrassed by it. I know I should have told you before, but it feels so strange to discuss having children with someone you’ve just met. And I was scared of losing you in the same way I lost Emily. But I had to be honest with you. If things
go well for us, and you do see forever for us, then you have to know that our future won’t involve children – or at least none that are mine.’

  She stared at him in shock. The fact he’d been told he had leukaemia and that he could never have children in the same hit must have come as such a cruel blow. And even crueller was that after seven or eight years of marriage his wife didn’t want to stand by him because of that.

  ‘Say something,’ Nix said.

  ‘I understand why you didn’t tell me. That’s a hard topic to broach, especially when the last woman you told decided she didn’t want to stick around.’

  He was still looking at her with hope.

  ‘Nix, I have no idea if I want children. Sometimes I look at my nephew and think, I want that, and sometimes I look at how exhausted Michelle and Ben are, and see how being a parent is non-stop, and there’s a part of me that doesn’t want it. I was mum to five children for eight or nine years. Ethan was only nine when Dad left, Frankie was ten, and I had no idea what I was doing. It was exhausting, physically, emotionally. And being their mum doesn’t stop when they’re eighteen, they still rely on me now. And I love them all to bits but I’m not sure if I’m ready to go through that again. But if I do, if we get two or three years down the line and we decide we want that, then we can adopt, we can use a sperm donor, or we fill our life with lots of little Dexter puppies or several colonies of beavers.’

  He smiled cautiously.

  ‘This is not a deal-breaker for me because I want to be with you more than anything else.’

  He stared at her for a second and then leaned over and kissed her hard. He rolled her back onto the bed and, as the kiss turned to something more, she knew she had a secret of her own. She was pretty sure she was in love with Nix Sanchez and there was nothing that could change that.

  ‘Right, let’s go through this presentation,’ Lyra said, firing up Nix’s laptop after he’d given her the password to unlock it. ‘I know I suggested a treasure hunt before, but all of this has given me an idea for how it could work. We could totally design a treasure hunt for the families to take part in. Write clues that will lead them all over the island to find more clues, just like this treasure hunt. I think perhaps we’ll keep the clues in English only, instead of Latin, but it would be fun.’

  ‘I love that idea,’ Nix said. ‘It’d also be a good way to promote our local businesses if we extend the invite to families who live nearby or are on holiday in the local area. We could direct the treasure hunters to different shops, have clues in the windows and spread out all over the island so people can appreciate the beauty of the whole island.’

  ‘Yes and then we can have the barbeque on the beach once everyone has finished. We can get Angel to promote it as a family day out when he does all of his adverts.’

  ‘Good idea. And then a casino and horse-racing night in the evening,’ Nix said. ‘We can make it classy so people have to dress up a bit, but still invite families along to join in.’

  ‘And fireworks to close the night. Sounds perfect. I’ll get all this typed up and then we can do costings so we can present what kind of budget we would need for the event. The main expense will be the fireworks so they might not agree to that. And then we need to hire a company to run the casino and horse-racing side of things. Everything else, like the barbeque and the evening dinner, can be handled by our own chefs.’

  ‘We’d need a budget for small prizes for the treasure hunt too,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, good point,’ Lyra said as she started writing all this down. She stopped for a second. ‘God, I hope we’re doing the right thing.’

  ‘What are you worried about?’ Nix said.

  ‘It’s just that the brief for the party was two days and we’ve done a plan for one. We were supposed to be working separately and we’ve worked together. The stipulations of the brief were simple enough but we’ve not even managed to meet them. I can’t help feeling that they’re going to be annoyed.’

  ‘I think they will like our initiative and that the plan for the party will impress them,’ he said.

  ‘But they specifically wanted one events manager, someone who can take charge,’ she said.

  ‘And we’re going to show them that we work better as a team. If they decide they don’t want both of us on the managerial team, that’s fine. We’ll continue to report to them as we do now – nothing has to change.’

  ‘OK,’ Lyra said, although she wasn’t convinced.

  ‘They’re not going to fire us because of this,’ Nix said.

  ‘I hope not, or I might be moving in with you on the boat.’

  He smiled. ‘And you’d be very welcome.’

  ‘What if they insist on having an events manager, and they choose one of us? How would you feel if for example they promote me over you?’

  ‘Lyra, you’d make a brilliant manager.’ He kissed her cheek and then trailed his hot mouth down to her throat. ‘And I have no problem whatsoever being under you.’

  She laughed. ‘And if you’re promoted over me?’

  ‘I have no problem being over you either. Look, it doesn’t matter if one of us is the official events manager and we have to report to them in a weekly meeting, because we will carry on working as a team in the office, just as we are now. We’ve worked brilliantly together over the last few days and I have no doubt we’ll continue to do that, regardless if one of us is officially more senior.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Stop worrying about the what ifs.’

  She nodded. He was right. She had to stop worrying about the future and enjoy what she had now. What she had now was pretty bloody spectacular and she didn’t want to do anything to ruin it.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Lyra had a serious case of post-holiday blues as she and Nix walked back up to her little cottage on Monday morning. The adventure was over and they had to go back to work because, sadly, bumming around on a boat for the rest of their lives wouldn’t pay the bills. The reality outside of the perfect weekend was slowly seeping in, along with a whole ton of doubt.

  She had fallen hard for Nix. What she felt for him was so much more than she’d ever felt before and that scared her.

  She mentally shook her head. It was ridiculous to think that after one week and one incredible weekend she had fallen in love with Nix. There was still so much to know about him, to experience with him, before she could tick that box. She had been here before so many times, giving her heart away so easily and then having it broken. And yes, the feelings she had for Nix were so much deeper than anything she’d experienced before but that didn’t mean it was love. They’d had a moment the day before when he’d told her that his leukaemia had ruined any chance of him having a child, and she’d told him that it didn’t matter because she only wanted to be with him, and now her stupid hopeful heart was seeing marriage and a happy ever after. Nix had given her no sign that he wanted that from her – things were good between them but it didn’t mean they’d have forever.

  It was crazy to believe in some kind of fated, written-in-the-stars relationship too. They’d been each other’s first kiss, nearly twenty years before, but that was just a weird coincidence. It would be silly to think that fate or destiny had brought them back together again, that a chance meeting that wonderful night the week before had started the ball rolling down a path that was unstoppable and predetermined. If they hadn’t had that meeting, that one glorious night, would they be here now, holding hands, or would they just be work colleagues, friends, nothing more? That thought was unbearable but Lyra couldn’t let herself believe in destiny either.

  Her mum had decided she wanted to live in Thailand for the rest of her life based purely on a dream she’d had one night, that she was supposed to be there. She’d abandoned her six children on no more than a whim and Lyra never wanted to be that person.

  ‘You OK, you’re very quiet?’ Nix said.

  ‘Yes, fine. Just wish we could have stayed on that boat forever. I’ve had the most a
mazing weekend with you.’

  ‘Well, we can do it again next weekend if you like, and every weekend.’

  She smiled slightly at that thought.

  She opened the door to the cottage. ‘I won’t be long; I just need to throw on some clothes.’

  They’d already had a shower together on the boat that morning, which had turned out to be one of the funniest experiences ever, squeezing into that tiny cubicle. She just needed to change out of Nix’s shorts and t-shirt he’d lent her and dress in something more professional ready for their presentation.

  She ran upstairs and threw on some more appropriate office clothes and then tied her hair up, suppressing the waves that had been loose all weekend. She changed into some sensible footwear and ran back downstairs again.

  Lyra spotted her phone lying on the side where she’d left it on charge Friday night before running out to meet Nix. That seemed a lifetime away now. She picked it up and her heart dropped to see she had seventy-six missed calls. Something must have happened. She scrolled through to see that most were from Michelle, but a fair few from Kitty, Frankie and Max too. Nothing from Ethan, but she suddenly felt sick to see that there were a couple from his fiancée, Naomi as well.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  With shaking fingers she phoned through to her answerphone to discover she had twenty-nine messages. She listened to the first one from Michelle, who sounded very teary. The call had come through early Sunday morning.

  ‘Lyra, it’s Ethan,’ Michelle’s wobbly voice came over the phone. ‘He’s been involved in a motorbike accident. He’s been rushed to All Saints Hospital near his house but apparently the paramedics said he’s in a bad way. Me and Ben are heading over there now, give me a call as soon as you get this message.’

  Lyra hung up. She didn’t need to hear the next twenty-eight messages to know they would be from her siblings, in increasing levels of panic about the fact they couldn’t get hold of her.