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This was not part of the plan. Dylan had escaped the few relationships that had looked like they might get serious with the excuse that he needed to focus on the company, yet here was a woman whose list of good attributes grew daily and who made him feel like he could do anything. Maybe even leave the corporate world and keep dancing.
Don’t be a fool.
Long-term love was impossible. Lily and Brian, his mother and father—everyone he knew in a long-term relationship had ended up unhappy. Someone always loves more, and someone always gets hurt, he reminded himself.
Michaela would never hurt me.
When he was with her, he experienced a glimmer of something new. His heart felt lighter, his shoulders less tense.
But it was the three-month break, wasn’t it? His break from reality.
What if it’s something more? he wondered more than once.
So what if it was? Three months was three months. He’d deal with what else this was—if anything—at the end of that time.
No promises, no commitments. They’d both agreed on that.
Chapter Ten
A week later, the ship stopped at Norfolk Island. Few cruise ships visited the Australian protectorate, and even the Pacific Empress had trouble making it into port because of rough seas and shallow waters. But one sunny morning Michaela found herself strolling hand in hand with Dylan next to the ruins of old Australian penal colony buildings. With someone to enjoy exploring with, she now made time to get ashore more often.
“Wow,” she said. “Imagine being locked up here. What a view they must have had—and what a wicked temptation to escape. The water is like blue glass.”
Dylan smiled. “I can lock you up if you like. Is that what you’re really saying? You’d like to be my prisoner with only a view of the sea and me to look at?” He pinned her against the warm sandstone wall with her wrists spread wide and pressed his body up against hers.
“Dylan, the passengers,” Michaela said, struggling ineffectively against his strong grip and the solid form of his body.
“They’ve all gone on the tour buses,” he said, not even bothering to look behind him.
Michaela looked around quickly and discovered he was right, but she only allowed him one deep, delicious kiss before she wriggled so much he set her free.
“I don’t think they would have had much time to appreciate the view,” he said as he took her hand again and they continued walking, this time toward the small beach. “They would have been working every hour possible.”
“You think?” Michaela tried to picture what life might have been like on this isolated island a hundred years ago.
“I know. I read up about it before we came. It would have been a hard slog out here. The island’s not very big, and its resources would have been limited. Even now they have to rely on a generator to provide power for the whole island, and there’s not enough grass to farm cows or much livestock. Food must have been pretty hard to come by back then.”
“Except for fish,” she stated, pointing toward the spectacular spread of ocean and the many fishing boats dotting in the sea in front of them.
“Yep, except for fish,” he agreed. “But I think I’d go mad if I only ate fish. You seem to like them, though. Maybe you are a fish.” Smiling, he lifted her up and deposited her in the ocean, drenching the shirt she’d thrown over her swimsuit.
They spent a leisurely morning in and out of the crystalline water, Dylan stealing kisses, Michaela constantly aware that a passenger could come across them at any moment. After they’d had their fill of the water, they walked up the hill and strolled through the small town, enjoying lunch at one of the many cafés before renting bikes and cycling out to the headlands on the other side of the island.
“Oh, look, a wedding.” Below them, a small party stood on the beach. The bride’s white veil flew dramatically in the wind, and the groom laughed, helping with her skirts. “Don’t they look happy?” she asked, turning to Dylan. His stony gaze was not what she expected.
“I wish them the very best,” he said.
“Do you know them or something?”
Dylan looked down at the couple and their friends. “No.”
“Then what’s wrong?”
He looked at her with all the wild energy of the ocean in his eyes. “I don’t believe in marriage.”
“At all?”
“At all.”
She remembered him saying something along those lines when she’d overheard him talking to Brian. “Is there something else you haven’t told me?” Michaela put a nervous hand to her mouth. “You said you weren’t married—that you’d never been married.”
“No. Don’t worry, it’s nothing like that. I haven’t lied to you.” He took her hand away from her mouth and kissed it.
“What, then?”
He took a breath and released her. “It’s nothing. I just don’t believe in marriage. Someone always loves more, and someone always gets hurt. Look at my brother and Lily. She’s always loved him, and what has it gotten her? Heartache and frustration.”
“What about your parents?”
“My father died when I was young. That’s why we’ve been involved with the business. When he died, it almost killed Mom. No. I don’t do marriage.”
Michaela bit her lip. Okay, she didn’t really need the white frock. But what about long-term? What about love?
“Besides, you know I have to leave.”
She nodded, and the pause lengthened.
“There’s more to life than running a cruise ship, anyway,” he said gently. “What do you want to do next? You could live here if you wanted to. You’ve said how beautiful it is about a dozen times.”
She tried answering his question with one of her own. “What do you want to do? Are you sure you want to run your family company for the rest of your life?”
“I’m not sure. After this experience, I’d love to dance more. But I can’t at the moment. I’m needed back home, and until that changes I’m stuck there.”
The concrete reappeared in Michaela’s chest. He’d never promised more than three months, and the longer she was with him, the more she was at risk. Everything was changing for her, but not for Dylan. She wanted to yell at him, to open her chest and show him the mess he was making of her heart. Even her head couldn’t help getting swept away with dreams and fantasies—and all the while Dylan Johns was simply having fun.
