So, another free day in Hawaii. We could do anything. We could go anywhere. And all Paige wanted to do was get back into bed.
‘I’m knackered,’ she whined on the way back to the cottages. ‘The caffeine is wearing off and I need to call the magazine and tell them about the changes.’
‘But shouldn’t we do something?’ I looked around at the beachy paradise. ‘Shouldn’t we go sightseeing or something?’
‘You need to go and take some photos,’ she pointed out. ‘Maybe practise taking pictures of actual people?’
‘Fair point,’ I grumbled, my mind having been on something altogether more touristy. I’d read some very exciting reviews about a wolphin at the Sea Life center. He was half whale and half dolphin! When was I going to get a chance to see that again? But she was right. I did need to practise taking pictures of people. ‘But I don’t have a model?’
I batted my eyelashes at her and made an effort to look as pathetic as possible. Not too hard.
‘Tess, I’m tired,’ she replied with a dramatic yawn. ‘I think not.’
‘Please?’ I pressed my hands together in prayer. ‘I really do need the practice. You said so yourself.’
‘I did, but I’m tired and I’m pissy and I need more caffeine before I can do anything,’ she said, pulling her hair up into a high ponytail before letting it fall back down around her shoulders. ‘Actually, that makes me the closest thing you’ll find to an actual model for miles.’
‘Just an hour,’ I promised, rushing inside to get my stuff. ‘We’ll just do an hour and then you can go and have a nap and I can go and see the wolphin and we’ll both feel better about the shoot tomorrow.’
‘Fine – I’ll be by the pool,’ she called after me. ‘Just get me more coffee.’
Behind our cottages there was a great big kidney-shaped pool surrounded by sunloungers and brightly coloured parasols. I had barely registered it before, given that there was an entire ocean only a few feet away, but it was perfect for our faux shoot.
‘So where do you want me?’ Paige emerged from her cottage in a dazzling white bikini and huge sunglasses, her blonde hair loose and shiny. It was beyond me how normal people looked like that in swimwear, but then I remembered Paige wasn’t normal people – she worked for a fashion magazine. That was why she was wearing huge neon-pink wedges and red lipstick to hang out by a swimming pool.
‘Um, over by that wall?’ I pointed towards a short white wall covered with climbing vines and beautiful, colourful flowers. Looking up at the sun, I waited until she was in position, checked my light meter and pulled out an assortment of reflectors, lenses and back-up batteries that I’d nicked from Vanessa. It never hurt to be overprepared. ‘Right, so just stay there, keep your face towards the light, but don’t, like, do any posey stuff for the camera. I just want to do a few test shots.’
‘I really hate having my picture taken,’ she complained, picking a bright pink bloom and carefully placing it in her hair. ‘I look awful.’
‘Yeah, you look really disgusting,’ I agreed, seeing something quite different through my viewfinder. Paige was pretty in real life, but through the lens she was beautiful. Honest to God gorgeous. When I zoomed in, I could see the green flecks in her blue eyes and a tiny smattering of freckles that she had tried to cover up with make-up. I snapped away as she stroked the petals of the flowers and wrinkled her nose self-consciously.
‘Can we start soon? I just want to get this over with,’ she shouted, shielding her eyes from the sun after ten minutes of mindless snapping. I was so in the zone I’d forgotten to tell her I’d already started.
‘You’re brilliant,’ I shouted back. ‘Just carry on doing what you’re doing. I’ve already got loads of shots.’
But as soon as I spoke, she froze. It was as though someone had swapped her for a waxwork. Everything that had come alive for my camera died.
‘Paige, you’ve gone weird. Can you just do what you were doing before?’ I called, trying to work out what was wrong.
‘What was I doing?’ She sounded as awkward as she looked, shoulders stiff and hard, her face a mask of panic. ‘I don’t remember.’
‘You just looked normal.’ I didn’t know what else to say. ‘Just relax.’
‘I am relaxing,’ she replied in a voice that did not support her statement. Turned to face me, arms straight sticks be her side, Paige pulled her shoulders up to her ears. ‘Is this OK?’
It was not OK.
‘Why don’t you sit down on the sunbed?’ I suggested. ‘Give me something else to try.’
Nodding, and clearly relieved, she took herself off to the nearest sunlounger and collapsed on her improbably flat stomach. I consoled myself a little with the fact that she wasn’t fitter than me, just hungrier. After rearranging my equipment, I crouched down on the floor in front of her and started snapping. She still looked about as lifelike as one of the Kardashians. I had to get her to stop thinking about the pictures.
‘Tell me about when you met Nick.’ I shuffled onto my bum and snapped as quietly as possible. I hoped that if I kept her talking, she would be distracted enough to stop worrying. And also I wanted to pump her for information about my one-night stand without fessing up.
‘Oh, it was a couple of years ago.’ She squinted at me and pursed her lips. ‘Well, the first time would have been a lot of years ago, but I was with my ex then. And he was with his.’
So Nick did have a serious ex. Interesting.
‘But then I ran into him at a Christmas party just after me and Stefan broke up and, you know how he is, he just looks like trouble.’
‘Yes, he does.’ I couldn’t have agreed more. I’d had that stupid Taylor Swift song running through my head ever since Amy had mentioned it on the phone. ‘So … you two, what, got together?’
‘Oh no.’ She smiled and her shoulders dropped half an inch. ‘Didn’t quite manage to get that far. Anyway, we were chatting at the bar and he’s all hand on my leg and, to be honest, full disclosure, I probably would have gone home with him, but just when everyone was clearing out, he leans in and he says to me, “Before we go, I should probably tell you I’m a complete arsehole, so you shouldn’t go falling love with me.”’
Paige dropped her head onto the sunlounger and laughed out loud. My fingers, not connected to my brain, carried on taking pictures. My brain, not connected to anything, packed its bags, waved goodbye and tried to make a hasty exit out ofthe fire escape.
‘Classy line, isn’t it?’
Thankfully, Paige couldn’t see my face for my massive black camera. It was a classy line. It was also one I’d heard less than twenty-four hours earlier.
‘Thank God I came to my senses, laughed in his face and went home alone. But for some reason I’ve always sort of regretted it. Maybe that’s why he says it – gets girls’ backs up. Makes him a challenge. And of course every time I’ve seen him since, he hasn’t been the slightest bit interested in me.’
‘Yeah, but you wouldn’t be interested in him either, surely?’ I crawled over to the sunlounger next to Paige and sat down for a moment, camera in my lap. ‘You must have loads of blokes wanting to go out with you.’
‘We always want what we can’t have, don’t we?’ She sat up and hugged her knees. ‘Or at least what we know is bad for us. I’ve been more or less single since Stefan. Still can’t believe he did it.’
‘I’m sorry.’ I turned my attention to the screen on the back of my camera. Those last few pictures were so pretty. The ones when she was talking about Nick. ‘Really.’
‘I know you’re pretending to be Vanessa, but you’re not her, remember?’ She rested a hand on my wrist and squeezed. ‘You didn’t shag my fiancé a month before my wedding, did you?’
‘No?’ I probably should have sounded more certain about that.
‘I had my dress and everything.’ She let go of my wrist and wrapped her arms around herself. ‘We’d have been married three years this September. I thought I’d have kids by now.’
I thought back to three years ago and wondered whether or not Vanessa had ever brought Stefan to our apartment. Had I met him? Had I made awkward conversation with him in my kitchen on a Saturday morning? It was more than possible.
‘But who wants babies when they’re trapped in Hawaii with a really hot man and endless cocktails?’ she said, snapping out of her trance and clapping her hands on her thighs. Which did not even quiver. ‘Totally going to bang Nick, totally going to break my curse.’
‘I don’t think that would be a very good idea,’ I choked, wishing we had some of those cocktails to hand. ‘He’s clearly got some problems.’
‘Yeah, and I want to be one of them,’ she replied with a sly smile. ‘Don’t worry, I won’t go falling in love with him. But he might accidentally fall head over heels for me.’
‘Shall we take some more pictures?’ I suggested with forced brightness, scrolling through the terrible posed pictures and deleting them as quickly as I could – anything to distract myself. ‘Just a couple?’
‘Can I have a look at what you’ve done so far?’ she asked. I nodded, nervous. Not only was I dealing with a woman who disliked having her picture taken, I was also dealing with my boss.
‘Oh God, I look awful.’ She screwed up her face and kept clicking through. I knew what she really meant was ‘your pictures are awful’. ‘I look like my mum.’
‘Not a good thing?’ I asked.
Paige shook her head, skipping through the shots too fast to really take in just how terrible they were. Until she reached the ones on the sunlounger. Finally she slowed down.
‘This one is quite pretty.’ She paused on a shot of her laughing, halfway through her Nick story. ‘And I don’t hate this.’
Slowly, she cycled through all the shots we’d taken until we got to the first few, the ones she didn’t know I’d been shooting at all.
‘Oh, Tess, these are beautiful.’ Paige looked up at me with something new in her eyes. It looked strangely like respect. Mixed with surprise. ‘Like, really, really beautiful. The light, the expression you’ve captured. These are great.’
Carefully she handed me my camera and smiled.
‘You’re going to be great at this,’ she said, nodding. ‘I’m not worried at all.’
‘Are you just saying that so you can go and have a nap?’ I asked, blushing.
‘A little bit,’ she replied. ‘But those pictures are genuinely beautiful. They are so hot, I would totally let you tag me in them on Facebook.’
Wow. Now there was a compliment.
‘Aloha, Vanessa,’
A couple of hours later, still bathing in the glow of not quite hating myself as much as I had when I woke up, I opened my cottage door to find Kekipi standing on my doorstep with a giant wicker picnic basket in one hand and a white envelope in the other.
‘Aloha.’ I eyed the picnic basket like a rabid Yogi Bear. I’d been so busy editing Paige’s pictures, I had completely forgotten to eat lunch. ‘How are you?’
‘Since Mr Bennett cancelled once again, there was a suggestion that you might enjoy a tour of the property. The boat is ready and I have a picnic.’ He waved the basket at me and my eyes followed it, tongue almost hanging out of my mouth. ‘Sound like fun?’
‘Sounds amazing!’ I clapped my hands together like a little girl and jumped from foot to foot. ‘Can I just run in and change my battery pack? I want to take my camera.’
‘Wiki wiki,’ he said, handing me the envelope. ‘That means be quick. I’ll wait right here.’
I nodded and wiki wiki’d myself into the house. The note was from the main house and confirmed that Artie would have everything ready for the fashion shoot tomorrow. So things were actually happening. Confidence buoyed by my test shoot with Paige, I left the card on the kitchen top and didn’t think any more about it. The only thing on my mind was how many awesome selfies I could take to post on Facebook with the caption, ‘Hey, Charlie, you wanker, I’m in Hawaii having the best time of my entire life and not even thinking about you at all.’ Or something.
I was already suffering from sunburn so I pulled on a long black T-shirt over my bikini, but abandoned my shorts. There was nothing more disgusting than sitting in damp denim – I’d learned that lesson the hard way after one too many turns on the log flume as a kid. It was Amy’s favourite ride. The T-shirt wasn’t fooling anyone into believing it was a dress, but I figured Kekipi wouldn’t be that offended by the sight of my arse. Or at least he’d be too professional and polite to say otherwise. Piling my hair on top of my head and grabbing my camera bag, I was ready to go. Just as I was about to leave, my phone started beeping. I yanked it out of my bag and stared at the screen, frozen to the spot.
Charlie Wilder.
I looked at the screen for a moment, looked at the letters in his name, looked at the tiny photo that had popped up, the whole situation so unwelcome. Unable to take another second of it, I pressed answer and felt three days of progress disappear.
‘Hello?’
‘Tess?’
‘Who else would it be?’ Well, perhaps I had managed to hang on to a touch of attitude.
‘I … I just wanted to call you. It’s been ages.’
‘Right.’
Standing in the middle of a kitchen that wasn’t mine, on an island in an ocean that was far, far away from the island and the ocean I had grown up on, I didn’t know quite what to say. If I’d been in my kitchen, on my island, in my ocean, I had a feeling I’d be crying by now. But something was stopping me.
‘You wanted to call me to say what?’ I asked, reaching out to steady myself on the kitchen counter.
Even though I knew the smart thing to do would be to hang up, there was a sickly softness in my stomach that was begging him to tell me he loved me. No matter where I was or what I was doing, ten years weren’t that easily undone. If he would just say that he needed me.
‘Just to say, you know, hello and everything,’ he said, laughing with nerves. ‘I think this is the longest we’ve gone without speaking since we met.’
‘It is the longest we’ve gone without speaking since we met,’ I replied, picturing him rubbing his eyebrow, biting his lip. ‘I’m sorry, I’ve got to go.’
‘But I wanted to tell you …’ he said hurriedly. ‘I meant to say …’
‘Meant to say what?’ I asked, holding my breath and hoping.
‘About work. I’ve heard the company is in loads of trouble. Apparently it’s not the economy or anything; it’s just that Michael has pissed loads of money away and we’re going under. Or something. And they didn’t have the budget for the job he’d promised you any more. Anyway, that’s what I heard.’
‘That’s what you wanted to say?’ I couldn’t quite believe it. My grip on the kitchen top tightened and I watched my knuckles turn white. ‘That’s all you wanted to tell me?’
‘Yeah?’ He didn’t sound quite sure. ‘I know you’re really upset about your job and stuff and I don’t want you to be. Upset.’
‘Charlie?’ I squeezed my eyes tightly together and ignored the prickling tears. ‘Please don’t call me again.’
‘But I miss you,’ he said in a broken whisper. ‘I miss my best mate.’
And that was enough to make me hang up. I unclenched my fists and placed my palms on the cool kitchen counter. Leaning forward, I fought the sick feeling in the back of my throat. I fought the desire to get into bed and never get back out. I was better than this. The things he was talking about were Old Tess problems. New Tess didn’t care. New Tess had better things to do. Like eat loads of cheesy snacks on a boat.
Confused and close to tears, I stumbled out of the door, slipping my sunglasses over my reddening eyes and hoping Kekipi wouldn’t mind if I went in for a hug. But instead of finding my presumed boat buddy, I found Nick. Holding the picnic basket. And a huge bag of Cheetos.
‘Can’t have a picnic without crisps, can you?’ he asked.
‘Where’s Kekipi?’ I asked, glad I’d grabbed my sunglasses. ‘You’re not coming?’
‘Kekipi has gone back to do whatever it is Kekipi does, and, yes – yes, I am,’ he said, looking impossibly pleased with himself and dangling a set of keys from his thumb and forefinger. ‘You’re with me, kid.’
‘Because you know how to drive a boat?’
He nodded.
‘And you know your way around Hawaii?’
He nodded.
‘There’s no way I’m getting in a boat with you.’ I crossed my arms and gritted my teeth. ‘I saw Shirley Valentine.’
‘Then you’ll know exactly why you should get in a boat with me,’ he said, slipping the keys into his pocket and holding out his hand. ‘For fuck’s sake, Vanessa, I’m not going to feed you to the sharks.’
‘There are sharks in there?’ I eyed the ocean suspiciously, pushing all thoughts of Charlie, of Donovan & Dunning, of the Old Tess right out my mind. ‘Now I’m really not sure about this.’
‘I am and you’re coming.’ He grabbed my hand and started to pull me along the beach. ‘Because I need some company and you need a shag.’
‘I do not need a shag,’ I replied, trying to shake off his hand and ignore the way my skin burned as soon as he touched me. ‘And if you need company, why not take Paige?’
‘Why would I take Paige?’ he asked, seeming genuinely nonplussed, as he dragged me along to the little pier beside our cottages. At the end, the world’s smallest motorboat bobbed up and down on the ocean. ‘Can’t think why I’d take her.’ I couldn’t take my eyes off his arse as he leaned over to drop the picnic basket into the boat. He looked so big and manly as he unravelled the rope that tied the boat to the pier I was worried my ovaries were going to burst. Traitors. ‘I’ve got a feeling she might be mad with me anyway.’
My brain and my vagina hadn’t quite reconciled on where I stood with the whole Paige thing. Nothing had happened between them and it really didn’t seem like anything ever would. But I still felt as though I should have told her about this. Whatever this was. Obviously, because I was a massive wimp and didn’t want her to hate me, I hadn’t, so the natural conclusion would have been just not to hang out with Nick again. That was easier said than done. ‘Maybe because you were a complete cock at breakfast?’
‘I don’t like being messed around.’ A brief darkness crossed his face before it was replaced with his annoying grin. ‘Hope you don’t get seasick.’
‘How come you’re suddenly in such a good mood?’ I let him take my hand and help me into the boat, trying to ignore the sudden flashbacks to the night before. ‘Forget to take your meds this morning?’
‘I never forget to take my meds,’ he replied, and I had no idea whether or not he was joking. ‘I lost my temper earlier, I know. It was unprofessional, but it’s been a pretty stressful few weeks. I didn’t need Baby Bennett’s shit.’
‘He was actually quite nice about you after you flounced off like a little girl,’ I said, remembering, after my bottom hit the wooden bench, that I wasn’t wearing any shorts. Oh cock. ‘So you might not get fired after all.’
‘And if they fire me, who’s going to do their interview?’ He jumped behind the wheel of the boat and slipped the keys into the ignition. I hated the fact that both his arrogance and ability to operate a small seafaring craft were epic turn-ons. Maybe he didn’t just look a little bit like Daniel Craig; maybe he actually was James Bond. ‘Not that I give a shit. When I’m done here, I’m going home to do a real job.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ I grabbed hold of the side of the boat as the engine sputtered into life.
‘Don’t talk to me while I’m driving,’ he said, Wayfarers down, eyes on the horizon. ‘Unless you want to end up in an episode of Lost, I need to concentrate.’
Staring at him from behind my sunglasses, I narrowed my eyes and fought the urge to kick him in the back of the knee. Why had I got into the boat? Kekipi was going to pay for selling me out. We pulled away from the pier and away from the beach and headed out onto the clear blue seas, but instead of looking out at the beautiful, breathtaking scenery, I couldn’t take my eyes off the captain. I quietly wondered if Amy would fancy him. He was definitely more her type than mine. Stocky, solid. Not so much buff as just really well put together, like he played a lot of sport rather than worked out. And he wasn’t terribly tall – maybe five ten, five eleven if he was lucky – but he did definitely have that rugged, hot blond thing going on. There weren’t many men who could get away with being so impossibly arrogant. Maybe Michael Fassbender, possibly Bradley Cooper, but that was it. But still, really not my type. So why was I imagining repopulating the world with him after a zombie apocalypse and simultaneously resisting a strong urge to kick him in the balls so badly that he turned into a lady? With a resigned sigh, I reached over to the picnic basket and grabbed the Cheetos. If in doubt, cheese was always the answer.
We were only on the water for fifteen minutes or so, but it was quite long enough. I peered over the edge of the boat pretending to be absorbed in the sealife under the waves. In reality I was just trying to avoid an embarrassing vomming situation. It turned out I did get seasick. I really was learning something new about myself every day. Thankfully, Nick barely acknowledged me while he captained our teeny vessel, though to be fair to him, sitting together in silence was a lot more companionable than any conversations we’d had so far.
Eventually we slowed down and began to head inshore. I leaned over the edge, hoping Nick wouldn’t push me in and sail away. The water was crystal clear, just like on TV, and I could see tiny fish darting around the sides of the boat. Brighton never looked like this. My bath water never looked like this. Further out, the ocean was dotted with smaller, rocky-looking islands jutting upwards and occupied by an assortment of interesting-looking birds. Back towards the mainland, the huge green mountain behind Bennett’s estate dominated the skyline, towering above the coconut palms and banyan trees. I couldn’t believe how breathtaking Hawaii looked from the water, and every time I blinked or wiped away some spray, I was slapped in the face by the soft, sweet smells of the island. The edge of saltwater just made the delicate floral breeze that much more wonderful, like sea-salt caramel ice cream. It smelled so clean. I wanted to bottle the scent and wear it for ever. Or bottle it, sell it and make so much money I could come and live here for ever.
‘Do you actually know where we’re going?’ I asked Nick as he jumped out of the boat, barefoot, into ankle-deep water and dragged us both onto the beach. Manly. Hot. ‘Because I saw that film where Madonna got cast away on a beach for ages.’
‘No one saw that film,’ Nick replied. ‘And yes, of course I know. I’m not about to get stranded on a deserted beach with you, love.’
It took me a moment to decide which insult to deal with first.
‘Lots of people saw that film,’ I grumbled and held out my hand for him to help me out of the boat, but instead he just grabbed me round the waist and hauled me onto land without getting my feet so much as damp. My heart pounded and my knees felt weak. Colour me a lost cause. ‘Why did you bother bringing me in the first place?’
‘That,’ he said, wading back to the boat and recovering the picnic basket. And the half-empty bag of Cheetos. Two-thirds empty, ‘is a very good question.’
‘Just fancied having someone around to take the piss out of?’ I suggested. ‘Or maybe there’s something heavy you need me to carry?’
Nick stood three feet in front of me and frowned. ‘I wanted to come here. I thought you would like it. Zero ulterior motive. Why did you get in the boat?’
‘Vitamin B deficiency?’ I suggested from the safe place behind my sunglasses. ‘Jet lag? Morbid self-hatred?’
He took a step closer. I took a step back.
‘Are you always like this?’
‘Like what?’
‘An unrelentingly cynical bitch?’
It was fair to say I was a little stunned. Nick just stood there waiting for an answer. His blond hair was all mussed up from the water and I badly wanted to smooth it down. Sailing hair looked a lot like sex hair and it was incredibly distracting, but he had just called me a cynical bitch so I wasn’t feeling quite so weak at the knees any more. Just inches apart, I stared at him. No one had ever called me a bitch before in my entire life. Not even Amy. Doormat, yes. Walkover, on occasion. Regularly a martyr. Admittedly I was hardly Pollyanna, but a cynical bitch? Me?
‘Sorry, that was out of order,’ he grunted, breaking off the awkward stand-off, and started down the beach and into the trees beyond. ‘It’s this way.’
Smiling, I followed.
For as long as I could, I trailed Nick in silence. It was easy to be distracted – the valley was breathtaking and I kept stopping to touch everything. Flowers, leaves, trees, birds that were too slow to get away from me. After getting my wrists slapped twice, I stopped running my fingers through the bougainvillea and plumeria and stayed close to my stoic tour guide. We wandered through some beautiful trees, down a beautiful path, up some less beautiful rocks and finally down a desperately unbeautiful mud bank that tested my ability to hike in flip-flops.
‘Nick?’ I called as I faltered halfway down the path, flapping around like a drunken mountain goat. I clawed at the slippery stones either side of me and felt my feet slipping further and further apart. ‘A little help?’
‘Oh, shit.’ He darted back, took hold of my wrist and hoisted me down the path. Once my feet were on solid ground, he didn’t let go. ‘I’m sorry.’ He looked as though he meant it. ‘I get carried away.’
‘I’m not really an experienced hiker,’ I said, annoyed with myself at having to ask for help when I was so enjoying giving him the silent treatment. ‘If I’d known we were climbing mountains, I’d have worn proper shoes.’
‘That was hardly a mountain.’ Nick’s fingers slid down my wrist until we were holding hands. ‘And did you even bring proper shoes?’
I looked down at our hands and blushed.
He smiled and reached behind me to pluck a soft pink flower from a tree and tucked it behind my right ear.
‘Wearing a flower behind your right ear in Hawaii means you’re looking for a mate,’ he said, fingertips trailing from the flower down my cheek. ‘On the left side it means you’re already spoken for.’
Without saying anything, he pulled it out from behind my right ear, combed out my hair with his fingers, and placed it behind my left ear.
‘You cheesy bastard,’ I said, gingerly touching the soft petals and threatening myself not to blush. Nick gave my fingers a squeeze and then turned away quickly, dropping my hand.
‘Come on.’ He started walking faster. ‘It’s right around here.’
‘What’s right here?’ I was trying to watch where I was going, not lose my flower and work out when was the last time I’d held a boy’s hand, all at the same time. It was not easy. ‘How do you know where we’re going?’
‘This is right here,’ he said, standing back and gently pushing me in front of him. ‘And I know because I’ve been here before. And when you’ve been here once, it’s very hard to forget.’
I turned a corner at Nick’s nod and pushed my way through a thick, rubbery bush, following the sound of running water.
‘Oh. Oh, wow,’ I whispered, grabbing his hand again, squeezing it tightly. ‘Oh, Nick.’
In front of us was a small pool about the same size as the mill pond back at home. But that was where the similarities ended. The blue-green water was surrounded by tall cliffs that stretched up so high, covered in green vines and trees, and sheltered us with a canopy of trees. Sunlight found its way through the branches and dappled the water, making it sparkle and glitter, and directly opposite us a narrow white waterfall danced down the black rocks from somewhere unseen up in the sky. It was too much.
‘How did you know this was here?’ I asked, my voice low and reverential. I was waiting for mermaids to come out and tell me to be quiet or at the very least start singing a Disney medley.
‘I spent a summer in Hawaii a few years ago,’ he said, leading me down the gently sloping pebbled shore to the water’s edge. ‘Me and my girlfriend were travelling, and one day I went out exploring the island and found this place.’
I tried not to flinch at the use of the word ‘girlfriend’ and the distinct lack of a qualifying ex in front of it. He said he was single, didn’t he?
‘Can you believe we’re still on Bennett’s property?’ Nick set the picnic basket down on a large, smooth stone and kicked off his shoes to paddle into the water, never letting go of my hand. I followed, abandoning my flip-flops, and followed suit. The water was so cool and refreshing, the horrors of the hike were immediately forgotten. Dozens of tiny tadpoles darted around my feet in the shallows, disappearing as we got deeper. ‘Technically, you could say I was trespassing the last time.’
‘Technically?’
‘I was trespassing.’ He was up to his knees in the water and I watched as the edges of his shorts darkened. Tess would have pointed that out, but Vanessa kept her mouth shut and concentrated on his story. ‘It’s one of the reasons I took this job, actually – I’ve wanted to come back for so long but never had the chance. It seemed fortuitous.’
We stayed where we were, knee-deep in the water, holding hands and staring up at the waterfall.
‘You didn’t want to come back with your girlfriend?’ I asked with as light a voice as I could conjure up. ‘Wouldn’t this be a “you and her” place?’
‘We broke up just after we came here,’ he replied just as casually. ‘And she didn’t come with me to the waterfall. I tried to get her to come back after I’d found it, but she was more of a lie-by-the-pool girl than a walk-through-fifteen-minutes-of-beautiful-forest-to-see-something-extraordinary kind of a girl.’
Somewhere in my cold, black little heart, a spark flared for just a second, warmed by the fact that Nick had chosen to share this special place with me and only me. Not that he’d told me there was going to be a fifteen-minute walk. If he had, there would have been no guarantees I would have done it.
‘I thought, since Bennett cancelled on us again, he owed us this,’ he said, turning towards me and peeling off his T-shirt. Fuck a duck, he was so handsome. And romantic. Maybe he was something special after all. ‘And I thought, after last night, you owed me round two.’
And then I remembered that he was an arrogant twat and this was just a one-week sexathon, nothing more, nothing less.
Not that I was about to stop him. There was something about Nick’s hands on my body that made me lose all sense of myself. They were big and strong and hot and they made me feel small and weak in the best way. I had had a lifetime of liaisons that had been awkward at best. There hadn’t been a single sexual encounter where I hadn’t spent at least half the foreplay desperately trying to manoeuvre myself into a flattering angle or, better yet, under the covers. Even with Charlie I hadn’t been able to banish the thought of the gargantuan size of my arse from the back of my mind, but with Nick I was too busy revelling in the sensation, the firmness of his touch, the intention behind every move, to worry whether or not he thought I could stand to lose half a stone from my rear end. Everything about the moment – his tight, tense breathing, his half-closed eyes, his warm lips pressing against my neck as he coiled my hair into a knot around his fist – said he didn’t give a shit. He wanted me. He made me feel desired, and nothing had ever turned me on so much in my entire life.
‘Are you sure there’s no one around?’ I whispered as I watched my pink flower float away towards the waterfall. I barely recognized my own voice when I was with him. I barely recognized myself when I was with him.
‘Do you really care?’ he asked, one hand disappearing into my bikini bottoms.
‘No.’ I breathed in and clung to him, my lips on his lips, my thighs on his thighs, and my knees very close to giving way. ‘Just don’t stop.’
And he didn’t.
‘So, are you excited to get to work tomorrow?’ Nick asked afterwards. I basked in the afternoon sunlight and the warm afterglow of ridiculous sex, stretched out on a beach towel like a happy copper-haired walrus. I’d managed to keep my bikini about my person, but my T-shirt, soaked through, was drying on a large, flat rock across the way, along with all of Nick’s clothes. ‘Are you dying to take some pictures? Are you desperate to put some six-foot mutant in a five-thousand-quid dress and tell her how to pout for half an hour?’
‘Can’t wait,’ I moaned, burying my head in the sand. Literally. ‘Are you excited to meet the elusive Bertie Bennett?’
‘After everything we’ve put up with so far?’ Nick lazily traced figures of eight around my bare lower back. ‘I can’t wait. If it actually happens, it’s either going to be one of the most interesting interviews I’ve ever done, or he’s going to be one of those absolute bastards who won’t say a word.’
‘Isn’t that hard?’ I kept my eyes closed and tried to concentrate on asking sensible questions. I had a very hard time keeping my wits about me immediately after sexytimes. ‘When people don’t want to talk to you?’
‘Is it hard when people don’t want you to take their picture?’ he bounced the question back.
‘That’s never happened to me,’ I replied. Brilliant, another thing I hadn’t thought to worry about until now. Just add it to the list.
‘Lucky you,’ Nick said, sitting up and rummaging through the picnic basket. ‘You must be a better photographer than I am a writer.’
I hoped he was right. I worried he was not.
‘When you came to Hawaii the first time,’ I asked, rubbing my finger and thumb over a big green leaf that hung right above my head, ‘with your girlfriend …’
‘Yeah?’ He pulled out a Tupperware box of pineapple, frowned and put it back, rifling around for something else.
‘Was it for work?’ I wasn’t sure what I was trying to find out, but I figured I’d know when I heard it.
‘No, we were on holiday,’ he answered, placing a bottle of water in the sand beside me and twisting off the cap. ‘She lived in LA, I’d been working in Australia for a few months, we met here. It’s in the middle.’
It all sounded so jet-set and romantic to me. Three years ago I had decided I was going to get over Charlie and fall in love with an accountant from Wimbledon, but after three dates, the thought of forty minutes on the District line was enough to dampen his ardour. Not quite Romeo & Juliet.
‘What happened?’ I asked. I couldn’t imagine Nick sending sweet text messages or whispering sweet nothings down the phone to his long-distance American lover, but I wanted to know more. I needed all the details so that I could accurately obsess about it later. And possibly Google-stalk the shit out of his ex. ‘With the two of you?’
‘Nothing exciting.’ He nudged the water towards me. I took the bottle and sipped. ‘I loved her more than she loved me. It happens.’
‘Yes, it does,’ I agreed, the familiar stab of pain and betrayal threatening to ruin a perfectly shagtastic afternoon. ‘So she’s still in LA?’
‘I don’t know where she is,’ he shrugged. I stole a look at him, at the droplets of water in his hair, the crinkles around his blue eyes as he squinted at me. Eurgh. It was like seeing him again for the first time. ‘Don’t see a lot of point in keeping tabs on someone who didn’t give a shit about me.’
I nodded, making a mental note to stop checking Charlie’s Facebook page every night before bed. And when I woke up. And whenever I looked at my phone. The phone call. He missed me. No, he missed his best friend.
‘Was she your last girlfriend?’ I wondered how many questions I could get away with before he clammed up. I shifted slightly on my towel, tugging at my bikini bottoms. I wasn’t sure, but I thought my bum might be burning, and that couldn’t be a good look.
‘Why?’ He pulled sunscreen out of the picnic basket and squirted it directly onto my backside. Impressive mind-reading techniques. ‘Does it matter?’
‘I’m just asking,’ I replied, defensive, realizing that it totally mattered. ‘Was she?’
‘She was.’ As he leaned over me I felt his shadow block the sun overhead and shivered, very, very slightly. ‘After her, I realized I’m not cut out to do the girlfriend thing. Any more searching questions?’
‘I’m not the professional question asker,’ I said. ‘As we’ve already established. I’m just curious.’
‘About me?’ He took the bottle of water back and sipped thoughtfully. ‘What do you want to know?’
‘I just think it’s weird that we’re, you know, doing this –’ I felt myself blushing as I spoke – ‘and we hardly know each other.’
‘What is there to know that you don’t already know?’ Nick shrugged. ‘What do you need? Middle name? Parents’ occupations? Blood type? You don’t need to see someone’s birth certificate to enjoy having sex with them, Vanessa.’
‘You’re not curious to know more about me?’ I asked, trying not to let his answer sting. It was just sex. He’d made that very clear. We’d both made that very clear. ‘I mean, in general. I don’t have my birth certificate on me.’
‘I find the more you get to know about a person, the more disappointed you end up,’ he replied. ‘Right now, I like you, you like me, we’re having a good time. A very good time. I say we leave it at that before someone finds out something they don’t want to know.’
I nodded, but really he was just making me want to ask more questions. This was just bravado – it had to be. No one was so incredibly nonchalant about these things. And he was so full of contradictions. One minute he was putting flowers behind my ear, telling me he wanted to share his special place with me, and the next he wasn’t ‘cut out to do the girlfriend thing’? Mixed messages, anyone?
‘I just feel like I should know more about you,’ I said, trying to sound as flippant as possible. ‘Since this keeps happening.’
‘Should is a terrible word,’ he muttered, running a finger across my collarbone. ‘Never do something just because you think you should.’
‘What about doing something because you know you shouldn’t?’ I asked, the last four days flashing in front of me, my skin burning in the wake of his hands.
He was quiet for a moment, his expression reflective before it transformed with a wolfish grin. ‘I only do the things that I shouldn’t. Like you.’
Now it was my turn to be quiet. I knew I wasn’t playing fair, but it was one thing for me to choose to have a fling and quite another to have your chosen lover rub the fact that he had no emotional interest in you in the slightest right in your face.
‘What was the last thing you did that you shouldn’t have?’ Nick asked, lying back down beside me, allowing the sun to cover my body again in a warm glow. He looked like he belonged there in paradise. And that only served to remind me that I didn’t. ‘Aside from me.’
‘What makes you think I count you?’ I pulled the leaf from the tree and watched it snap back. I refused to look at him. I didn’t want him to know I was upset. ‘What makes you think this is a big fat tick in the mistake column? Maybe I think it’s a brilliant idea.’
‘Oh, I’m definitely a mistake.’ His voice took on a shade of self-importance and arrogance that I didn’t especially enjoy. I’d heard it before and it didn’t suit him. ‘I’m just a really fun one.’
‘You’re adorable,’ I replied. ‘Do you genuinely feel better about yourself when the women you’re sleeping with think you’re a complete tosspot?’
‘Yes, I do.’ Nick looked at me closely. ‘You haven’t answered my question. What’s the last thing you did that you shouldn’t have?’
I took a deep breath and turned onto my side so that I could see him properly. His handsome face and solid, tanned body were so close, the warmth radiating from his skin was hotter than the sun overhead, but I couldn’t quite make out his features – the bright mid-afternoon light silhouetted him against the waterfall.
‘The last thing I did that I shouldn’t have done was sleep with my best friend,’ I said, quickly and loudly. ‘I should not have done that.’
‘Best friend?’ He perked up immediately. ‘Female?’
‘Male.’ I gave him my best wry smile. ‘Sorry.’
‘Why shouldn’t you have slept with him?’ he asked, not a trace of jealousy or concern on his face. ‘Was he in love with you?’
‘No.’ I shook my head and stared at my fingernails.
‘Were you in love with him?’
Staring at my nails, I realized I should have given myself a manicure. Vanessa would never go out with nails like this. I imagined Paige was tweeting about the state of my cuticles at that very second.
‘Oh, you were.’ He leaned forward and pushed my hair out of my face. ‘Are you still?’
I looked up but I couldn’t look him in the eyes. Instead I focused on the tiny patch of grey that was starting on his temple.
‘Are you still in love with him?’ he asked again, more softly this time, looking directly into my eyes.
‘It doesn’t matter either way,’ I said, shaking my hair out of his hands. ‘He doesn’t love me.’
‘Oh, now I get it – you’ve never been in love before. You’re an emotional virgin.’ Nick made a clucking noise and rolled his eyes at me. ‘Or worse, you’re an emotional eunuch and you’ve cut off your own balls. Which is it?’
‘Neither, knobhead.’ Sometimes he said the most ridiculous things. The most ridiculous, accurate and hurtful things. ‘I have feelings. I’ve been in love.’
I had. I knew I had. So why did the words sound hollow even to me?
‘Why did you sleep with him then?’ He looked away for a moment before leaning back on his elbows and looking back at me with professional interest on his face, the muscles in his arms bulging just enough to make me want to give them a gentle squeeze. ‘Did you think it would make him feel differently about you?’
‘I thought he did feel differently,’ I replied, suddenly uncomfortable. ‘This is weird, talking about this with you. Do you work out?’
‘I run a lot, and no it isn’t,’ he replied without missing a beat. ‘So you slept with him thinking it would make him fall in love with you when presumably you’ve known him for years and he hasn’t shown any interest before?’
I gave him a sharp, stern glare. ‘Your point being?’
‘You’re not the first.’ He cocked his head to one side and gave me a standard-issue condescending smile. ‘You won’t be the last. Have you talked to him? Asked him why it happened? I’m assuming you didn’t march up to him in a bikini on the beach in Hawaii and stick your tongue down his throat.’
‘He said he didn’t know.’ I ignored the burning in my cheeks and his adorable reference to our first kiss. ‘And now he says he wants to be friends again. I just can’t work out why he did it at all.’
‘Why did Hillary climb Everest?’ he shrugged. ‘You were there. Men are explorers. Once you’ve got to the top of a mountain and put the flag in, why would you bother climbing the same one again? There are a lot of very exciting mountains out there – there’s always a bigger one round the corner.’
‘I don’t want to be a mountain,’ I said, trying not to whine and failing. ‘And that’s bollocks. If that was true, no one would ever get married.’
‘Well, climbing mountains gets tiring after a while,’ he reasoned, his expression perfectly even. ‘I think one day you find one that’s got a really good view, you end up hanging around for a bit and before you know it, you’ve set up base camp and you’re going nowhere. Doesn’t mean you don’t look at the other mountains, though. Mountains are pretty.’
‘None of this is reassuring,’ I replied. ‘And you’re not exactly making me feel good about myself.’
‘If it helps, you’re one of the most fascinating mountains I’ve ever met.’ He rested a hand on my knee and stroked my skin gently. ‘Sometimes blokes are just blokes, even if they are your best mates. He’s clearly an idiot.’
‘For sleeping with me?’ I asked in my quiet voice.
‘For not setting up camp,’ Nick replied.
We sat in silence for a moment, Nick’s hand on my leg threatening to burn a hole right through my flesh. I was so confused. How could I be sitting here, heart hurting like hell for Charlie, and desperately wanting Nick to throw me down and shag me senseless? I shook my head and looked down at the sand again, feeling silly. Feeling like the old Tess.
‘Maybe he wasn’t man enough to get all the way to the top of your mountain,’ Nick said, breaking the quiet and taking away his hand. I missed it immediately. ‘Maybe he realized you were too much of a challenge.’
‘What, and you are man enough?’ I asked with a laugh that was slightly more bitter than I liked the sound of. ‘I thought this was just sex, Nick?’
‘It is,’ he said. ‘But you are giving me more pause for thought than I’d anticipated.’
I hopped up off my towel and brushed away the sand along with his words. He wasn’t helping. ‘Swim?’ I asked, turning towards the water before I got a reply.
It was posed as a question but it was definitely more a statement. I wanted to wash away the conversation and pretend it had never happened. This split personality of Nick’s was getting to be too much. One minute he was the devil-may-care playboy, the next an insightful sweetheart. He was funny, then he was crass. He was sweet, and then he was arrogant. And talking about Charlie, stirring up genuine emotions, only made it harder for me to sort through what was real and what was fake. I was having a hard enough time remembering what my name was supposed to be.
I walked into the water, ignoring the shock of the cold as it crept up my legs. Baking in the sun had warmed me through, and now the lagoon that had been so refreshing before felt icy. Without looking back, I swam towards the waterfall and looked up. I wondered where the water came from, where it went, how it stayed so clean and fresh. Nick gave me a whole two minutes’ peace before I heard him swimming over to me with a strong, straight stroke.
‘What happened with your ex?’ I asked as he reached me. ‘Really?’
‘Shall we just agree exes are off the agenda?’ he suggested. The fact that he wouldn’t tell me only convinced me that there was something to tell.
‘I’m just curious.’ I bobbed up and down in the water, starting to enjoy the freshness again. ‘Sorry.’
‘Maybe we just shouldn’t talk at all,’ Nick said. ‘Stick to what we’re good at.’
‘Maybe we should just stop everything altogether,’ I suggested, kicking my legs underneath me. ‘You do your interview, I’ll take my pictures, and then we all go home.’
‘And what happens after we go home?’ he asked, wiping his face and treading water.
‘After we go home?’ I was confused.
‘Yeah.’ Nick swam closer and our feet touched under the water. ‘When this is over. What’s on the agenda for you when you get back to reality next week?’
‘Oh.’ I smiled sadly and ducked my head. ‘Reality.’
Home. London. Amy, Charlie, Vanessa. Tess again. Of course. I glanced around at the lagoon, the vine-covered cliffs, the palm trees, the golden sand, the blue-green water and cascading waterfall that almost drowned out his words. It was all too good to be true. This wasn’t reality for someone like me.
‘Wake up, realize this was all a dream,’ I said. ‘Find my dead husband alive and well in the shower. You?’
‘New York,’ he replied. ‘Maybe Hong Kong the week after. Still waiting to confirm.’
‘Don’t you ever stop?’ It all sounded like such hard work. ‘Don’t you get tired of moving all the time?’
‘I don’t like to stay in one place too long,’ he said, kicking backwards towards the waterfall, away from me. ‘Don’t like to let the grass grow under my feet.’
I waded towards him, just a half-step, and stopped. ‘How do you have any sort of life if you’re always on the move? How do you cope?’
‘When you’ve only got yourself to worry about, it’s not so difficult – I’m fine,’ he called back as he swam away. ‘You worry too much.’
I watched him vanish under the crashing water, my heart in my mouth until the moment he reappeared. He was fine, of course he was fine, and of course he was right – I did worry too much. But for the first time, while I was sure he was fine, I was starting to think he wasn’t entirely happy.