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‘Lydia…?’
Cristiano turned back, wondering why she was being so quiet.
”This is…this is a ship,’
she breathed, in what he took to be a tone of excitement.
‘boat-my yacht Lestara.’ For the very first time Cristiano was proud of his floating palace. They would cruise in total peace and privacy. He would choose some places that she would enjoy seeing, and the yacht would dock there for them to go ashore. There would be no set itinerary. The paparazzi would never be able to track them.
She would love that freedom. She would relax and unwind and stop talking nonsense about hating him. His veiled gaze gleamed with satisfaction.
Lydia forced herself inch by inch closer and peered sickly through the terrifying gaps in the rails. It was a long, long way down, but there it was, the substance of her worst nightmares: water in perpetual motion, and beneath its surface the terrifying churning dark depths that had claimed the lives of her father and her brother. Her skin was turning clammy, perspiration breaking out on her brow.
‘1 don’t like boats,’ she whispered cockily.
Cristiano laughed.
‘lt’s a very big boat, Lydia.’
‘1 feel sick…’
”You couldn’t possibly be feeling seasick,’ he told her wryly.
”We haven’t even sailed yet.’
While Cristiano watched in frank disbelief, Lydia threw up over the side of the yacht. He went immediately to her assistance, pressing an immaculate handkerchief on her and urging her away from the railings.
‘Let’s get you inside…’
But Lydia didn’t want to go inside. All she wanted was to be off the boat and back on to dry land again. She was attempting to withstand a hysterical desire to throw herself back into his helicopter.
‘1 don’t like the sea,’ she confided tautly.
‘‘Then don’t look at it,’ Cristiano countered, as if he was dealing with a fractious child.
”You must have eaten something that disagreed with you. 1‘11 ask the doctor to check you over’.
‘1 don’t need a doctor.’
When he wasn’t looking at her, Lydia crammed a fist against her wobbling mouth, tears standing out in her eyes.
Cristiano took her straight to a huge and opulent state room, but she was only interested in the washing facilities. From a window she saw the sea, seemingly so tranquil, with the summer sunlight shining on the water, and she was sick again.
‘Go away,’ she told him wretchedly, her teeth chattering together with misery.
Ignoring her feeble remonstrations, Cristiano carried her out of the superb marble bathroom across to the wide bed, where he rested her down and pressed a cool cloth to her pounding brow.
‘The doctor will arrive at any moment, care mia.’
‘Don’t you understand? ‘I’ll be fine if you take me off this boat’
”When did you last eat?You slept through breakfast on the flight from Italy. Did you have any lunch’?’ ‘l must sick with fear! ‘ she gasped strickenly.
‘But there’s nothing to be afraid of …’
Suddenly it was all too much, and she burst into floods of tears, sobs racking her slight body where she lay on the bed. He cradled her in his arms and pulled her against him, urging her to calm down. He didn’t understand, and she knew he didn’t. Running away, surrendering to fear, was anathema to him. He could not comprehend her irrational terror. She fought that suffocating darkness in her mind long enough to say,
‘My father and my brother drowned… ‘
Cristiano was suddenly still. He looked down at her pale tormented face and read the truth of those desperate words in her haunted eyes.
‘1 don ‘t like boats…1 don ‘t like the sea’.
He wrapped his arms tightly round her.
‘l’m sorry…1’m very sorry,’
he intoned half under his breath.
‘We’ll leave as soon as the doctor has seen you.’
A knock on the door announced the doctor’s arrival.
The two men spoke in low voices and Cristiano returned to her side.
‘Will you accept an injection to ease the sickness’?’ ‘And then we’ll leave…immediately’?’ she pressed frantically.
‘1 promise.’ He gripped her hand.
She was so overwrought that she was supersensitive to everything, and she flinched from the tiny prick of the injection in her arm. A miasma of drowsiness crept over her.
Her sense of time ebbed. Her frantic thoughts were dulled, her limbs increasingly heavy. She pressed her cheek into Cristiano’s jacket, the achingly familiar scent of him washing over her like a soothing balm, and fell asleep.
Lydia dreamt that she was trapped deep under water.
Her lungs burning, she struggled frantically to break free and find her little brother. She was calling his name and only bubbles were coming out.
‘Lydia…’
Her terrified eyes flew wide on a softly lit room. She was sobbing for breath, hopelessly disorientated, her skin damp.
‘That was some bad dream.’
Cristiano was hunkered down by the side of the bed so that their eyes were level.
‘1 could hear you yelling from next door.’
‘lt’s always the same dream,’ she whispered shakily.
‘1 hate ill’
”You need something to eat.’ Vaulting upright, he picked up the phone by the bed.
She pulled herself up against the pillows. Registering that she was naked, she anchored the sheet below her arms. Her eyes had adjusted to the dim light and she knew where she was: back in the master bedroom of the penthouse apartment in London. She reached for his hand and turned his wrist to check the time on his watch.
‘For goodness’ sake,’ she exclaimed, when she realized it was one in the morning.
‘That injection really knocked you out, but you needed the rest,’ Cristiano contended.
‘1 don’t remember flying back-‘
”We travelled by limo. With you fast asleep, it made more sense.’
He was wearing cream chinos that sat low on his lean hips, and a black shirt. Even though it was the middle of the night, and he was badly in need of a shave, he still looked drop-dead gorgeous.
‘l’m sorry…you must’ve thought I’d gone off my head or something,’ she muttered in a mortfi|ed rush.
‘But I haven’t been on a boat since…well, since the accident. 1 suppose that’s pretty gutless of me, but until today 1 was always able to avoid it.’
‘You were with your father and brother when they died’?’ Cristiano queried in surprise.
”What age were you’?’
”Eleven. Robert was only six,’ she framed unevenly. ‘We were on holiday in Mallorca. Dad used to take us down to the beach to watch the motor boats racing about. 1 asked him to take us out on one, and we went on the last day. He took us round the headland because the bay was so busy.
He said it would be safer, but it meant we couldn’t be seen from the beach. And before you ask, no, we weren’t wearing linebackers…”
‘What happened, care mia-‘
Cristiano used the question to break the heavy silence that had fallen.
‘A couple of other boats passed us, and then this big wave came over the edge of the boat and water came in. It happened so fast 1 couldn’t believe it. Robert was screaming, Dad was panicking, and the boat capsized. Apparently Dad hit his head on something and was knocked out. All 1 know is that 1 n-never saw him alive again.’
Cristiano closed both hands round the fingers she had tightly knotted together.
‘You…? Your little brother… ?’
‘lwas thrown clear…but he was caught under the boat. 1 was a good swimmer…1 went underwater but couldn’t find him. It was so dark, and there was a strong current. A fishing boat came, and they got Robert out, but it was too late.’
‘It’s a miracle you survived.’
A sob was wreste
d from her and she pulled her fingers free of his to cover her face, for the recollection of that tragic day still haunted her.
‘lt was my fault… If 1 hadn’t begged, we’d never have been in that boat.’
”That’s nonsense.You were a child. It was an accident’. Nobody should be allowed to go sailing without life pre-servers. What was your nightmare about’?’
And she told him. It had been a very long time since she had talked about that day, or its repercussions, and he was a surprisingly good listener. So she told him about how her mother had gone to pieces after the boating accident, and how her father’s business had gone belly-up within months.
When it had all been aired, she felt a surprising sense of relief, and the past settled back into the recesses of her memory. Only then did she put a hand up to brush her hair from her brow and register that, after hours of sleep, it was a tangle of tousled waves and she probably looked a real mess.
‘l could do with a shower.’
