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CHAPTER ONE FOR Nick Papaeliou, the evening was beginning to take on a bizarre, surreal air. For starters, he was not a man who enjoyed public scenes. He liked to exercise control over every aspect of his life, not least his emotions. And yet, what had happened less than an hour previously? His girlfriend, now relegated to the position of ex-girlfriend, had drunkenly initiated a confrontation that had heralded the demise of their relationship. Of course, he had known for a while that he would have to break off with Susanna, had heard the warning bells begin to ring when her hints had moved from the general arena of proper relationships to the more specific one of wanting to climb off the merry-go-round and settle down before her biological clock began really ticking. But had he listened? No. The intention to finish with her had hovered on the periphery of his consciousness, but he had been in the middle of a highly complex deal and he had stupidly relegated it to the back-burner. And t
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO NICK HELPED HIMSELF to another drink. He felt restless. The party that had been arranged specifically for the benefit of Lily, though that was something she would never know, was in full swing. He had asked all the movers and shakers in the world of theatre, teased their palates by throwing in a few big names in business, the sort of men and women who were interested in promoting the Arts and were willing to put their money where their mouth was, and the supermodels were really the icing on the cake. Not a single person had declined the invitation, even though it was very much a last-minute affair. Parties thrown by him were few and far between and had enough cachet to attract even the most sought-after celebrities. Unfortunately, the belle of the ball, so to speak, had still not arrived. Nor had her sister. Nick’s gaze strayed once more to the door and he looked at his watch. It didn’t take a genius to work out why they were late. Rose had either decided not to come or els
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE WHEN Rose looked at the screen of her computer terminal she had the strangest sensation. Instead of seeing her programme run, she saw a face. His face. It was infuriating. Not only had the man got under her skin at the party nearly a week ago, but he was continuing to get under her skin when she should be concentrating on her work. She couldn’t figure it out because she had pointedly avoided mentioning him to Lily and out of sight should have meant out of mind. Just as well her office wasn’t the sort of cosy little place where people might notice that she had been staring at the same code for the past fifteen minutes. In fact, the big pull about Fedco, when she had joined it five years previously, had been its size. Squatting like a giant patriarch on a retail site just outside London, it had been easily accessible by car, thereby enabling Rose to avoid the vagaries of the London transport system, and, once inside, she had been able to lose herself in the enormity of the
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR COMPOSING emails to Lily was becoming a combination of subtlety and creative fiction. After Lily had been abroad for three weeks, it had become clear to Rose that life in the fast lane was suiting her sister. She waxed lyrical about the movie she was making, devoted pages to telling her all about the fabulously talented Damien Hicks and the groovy, exciting people she was working with. The flat she was sharing with four other girls, all newcomers like herself, was cheap but apparently called a condo and had a swimming pool. The adjective amazing had become a staple word in her vocabulary. Everything was amazing from the movie to the people to life in general, and Rose was relieved and pleased that it was all working out for her sister. Which, unfortunately, didn’t solve the financial problems that seemed to have been saving themselves for the minute Lily waved her fond goodbye to British soil. The bathroom had sprung a leak, which, as the plumber had ominously told Rose, r
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE NICK told Rose everything there was to know about the timetable for his project and what had inspired him to pick Borneo for its location. Over a bottle of wine and some delivery Chinese food, which they ate in his ultra-modern, rarely used kitchen, he explained his connections with Malaysia, starting with an old university friend with whom the project was to be undertaken, and ending with an impassioned and persuasive belief that Borneo would soon be the rising star as Kuala Lumpur and Penang became overrun with tourists. Rose did her utmost to play down her excitement and treat the whole thing as something that happened practically every day. She asked cool, sensible questions but her mind was running rampant with thoughts of planes and sea and lush green forests and, of course, being sequestered somewhere remote with him. That was the most frightening aspect of the whole thing. How on earth was she going to maintain her sang-froid when she would be with him twenty-four
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX THE beach was uncrowded. Too early, Rose guessed, for most of the guests. The same large canopied umbrellas that adorned the sides of the pool were in evidence along the beach, dotted here and there, and closer to the glassy, lake-like sea similar-coloured padded deckchairs were interspersed. Further along, she could see that a thin finger of land projected into the sea and from a distance might have passed for a jetty were it not for the coconut trees growing along it. It was a breathtaking sight. Really a vision of paradise, from the white powdery sand dappled with shadows cast by the overhanging coconut trees, to the still, dazzling azure of the sea. Rose paused and savoured the scene through the protective lenses of her very dark sunglasses. She had decided to maintain her inclination to conceal her shape by wearing a knee-length, flimsy beach dress and she could already feel the rising sun burning through it. Along the beach, a couple of the deckchairs were occupied by
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN THIS was as overwhelming as the first fantasies of a teenage boy, although Nick was careful not to mention that to Rose. His body didn’t fail to remind him of the fact, though, as he led her into the bedroom and onto the wide, king-sized bed, still rumpled from where she had been lying, with a gap in the mosquito net through which she had slipped out, presumably on her way to the veranda. His loose cotton trousers couldn’t begin to hide the urgency of his erection, but he was going to take his time, make love to her slowly and thoroughly. ‘Are you sure about this?’ He parted the mosquito net and looked to where she was sitting primly on the side of the bed. ‘Yes, you’re right. Everyone needs a little madness in their lives now and again.’ ‘In which case, why do you look scared to death?’ Rose flushed and looked away quickly. ‘Do I?’ Nick, on the verge of slipping off the trousers, hesitated and then joined her on the bed, pulling the mosquito net behind him so that they w
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT ‘NOW that you’ve been back nearly two weeks, I think it’s time we went out and had a good time. I’m heading back to America next Wednesday and I can’t bear the thought of leaving you alone here when you’re so miserable.’ Rose looked at her sister and tried to imagine whether she was capable of ever having a good time again. Not a word from Nick since they had returned to England. Not a phone call, not a message left on the answering machine, nothing. It was as though she had never existed in his eyes. For Lily’s sake, she had played down her feelings, but her talents as an actor must have been less successful than she had thought because here was her sister now, looking at her worriedly, in fact the way she had looked at Lily many a time in the past. The shoe was very securely on the other foot. ‘I’m not miserable, Lily. I’m tired. And, besides, I haven’t got time to have a good time.’ Rose looked at her sister over the rim of her mug. ‘That doesn’t make sense.’ ‘Sure it
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE THE advantage to the cheap and cheerful pizza place lay in its size. It was vast and, at eight thirty on a Saturday evening, brimming with families. Nick hadn’t intended to end up there. In fact, for the better part of the week he had told himself that he had more important things to do than to waste time on one highly infuriating woman. If, he piously concluded, she wanted to hurl herself into the party scene, then she could damn well live with the consequences, and consequences there most certainly would be. If she paraded her body with a type like movie producer Ted, then she might just as well have Available stamped across her forehead in large neon lettering. Especially with this Ted character, about whom he had managed to source some information. The man had been in and out of rehab like a yo-yo, which was not exactly a notable event in the world he lived in, but Nick could not think of Rose seriously dating a guy like that. In fact, he had discovered that he couldn’
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN ROSE was on her way up to see him. Right now. At three in the afternoon. Right here. In his office. Nick had no idea what she wanted. It had been nearly two months since he had set eyes on her and he had daily told himself that her disappearance from his life was the best thing that could have happened. He told himself that he had offered her the unthinkable and she had turned him down, proving his theory that women, each and every one of them, were out to change the men they purported to care about. He had replayed countless times in his head that moment when she had told him that she was in love with him. If she were in love with him, he thought, why couldn’t she have accepted what he had offered? Because her aim had been to turn him into the domesticated animal that he was not and never would be. It was a source of constant and relentless frustration that he still couldn’t dismiss her from his head, where she had taken up residence and refused to budge. He knew that his
CHAPTER TEN
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