He’d been a coward. He hadn’t been man enough to admit to himself that he’d fallen in love with her, but subconsciously he had recognised those feelings, and had reacted by running away because to love was to love control of your life.
It had been safer to escape.
Fact was, he had fallen in love with Mia almost from the start. He’d told her that she was refreshing, but not once had he stopped to consider how much he adored that, how little he’d minded her consistently trampling over the barriers.
At every turn he had made excuses for feelings that had grown and grown until he had been forced to confront them on that last day together.
Izzy’s decision to stay on in California was the catalyst he had used to propel him back to London. His time in Hawaii was at an end and he had to return to his wonderful life in London—which, he’d discovered, wasn’t worth living because the one person he wanted in it was thousands of miles away.
Thing was…did she love him?
She did. Didn’t she? So much tenderness… And when she’d looked at him…
He’d never asked, never implied that he felt anything for her at all except lust. He’d promised nothing and had reminded her on more than one occasion that what they were having was a holiday fling. He’d encouraged her at every turn to look forward to walking away, even if he hadn’t always come right out and said so, because he would return to London and that would be the end of them.
He’d been a fool, but even fools deserved second chances. They at least had to try and get them.
He finished his drink and it took less than an hour for arrangements to be made to take him back to Hawaii.
He’d surprised her once. He would surprise her again.
The sun was fading but it was still very hot. Mia could feel the stirrings of a headache. Nothing new there. For the past two and a half weeks, she had felt under the weather, as though somehow all the energy had been sucked out of her and, just like that, she’d deflated. A slowly leaking balloon, lifeless and drifting on the wind.
Out here, the beach was packed with people. Tourists, locals, old, young, fat, thin—all out enjoying the sun and the sea and the surf. She could smell all different kinds of food in the air, their aromas blending and mixing and vibrant. Music was playing. The kids she had just finished teaching were babbling and laughing, and she knew that she was going through all the right motions but her heart wasn’t in it.
Her heart had been left behind on another island, broken up into pieces when Max had calmly told her that what they had was over. Things had been settled with the hotel in Hawaii and there was no longer a reason for him to remain.
She’d smiled and smiled and smiled, and told herself that she should have been braced for this, because it was always going to end, and it wasn’t as though she hadn’t had ample warnings. They’d made love, had breakfast together and carried on talking, both adults, cool and composed—but for her every minute spent in his company had been a shard of glass piercing her heart.
Somewhere deep inside she wished she’d had the courage to say what she was thinking, to tell him how she felt, but in the end what would have been the point?
She would have to carry on with her life, just as she’d carried on with her life after her marriage had crashed and burned. Only with Max…
She could never have foreseen how deeply she would fall in love with him. Nothing had prepared her for that because he was so unlike the kind of guy she had ever imagined herself falling for.
Just went to show—life had a nasty habit of throwing curve balls.
She was a million miles away when she knew, sensed, that someone was behind her.
The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end but she kept on walking away from the beach and back towards her bicycle, a good ten-minute walk away.
She only felt a tug of apprehension when she realised that whoever was following her was speeding up, moving alongside her, ignoring the fact that she was walking fast, eyes down, body language rejecting any attempts at conversation.
Her fists were clenched, and she wasn’t expecting it when suddenly someone’s hand was on her arm.
She swung round, absolutely enraged that anyone would dare lay a hand on her, try to stop her. Basically, that was called assault, and in her frame of mind, with all the unhappiness and misery pent up inside her, she was ready to punch.
She raised her eyes and stopped dead in her tracks and her mouth dropped open and she stared at the last person she had ever expected to see.
He’d accosted her once before on this very beach and she had to blink to make sure her eyes weren’t deceiving her.
They weren’t. He was standing right there in front of her, his back to the sun and as tall, dark and gloriously, sinfully handsome as she remembered.
She recognised the grey-and-white-striped polo shirt. She recognised the slim, grey Bermuda shorts that accentuated the muscular length of his legs. She recognised the loafers. He’d worn them on the last day they’d spent together, when his bags had been packed and he’d been ready to go.
Most of all…oh…how she recognised the depth of those navy eyes, the curve of his sensual mouth, the proud symmetry of his beautiful face.
‘Max!’ Something must have happened with the hotel. She’d limited her time there to working furiously on the acreage, having sections cleared for the plants on order so that everything would be ready and waiting when the time came. She hadn’t been near the hotel at all, although she knew that it was coming along in leaps and bounds now that Izzy’s original designs had been approved.
