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‘I thought everyone could do with a night off to let their hair down,’ Pascha murmured into her ear.
Startled, she tilted her face to look at him. His arms were crossed over his broad chest but there was nothing defensive about his stance. It was more a look of a man surveying all he owned and taking immense pride in it.
‘What can I do to help?’ she asked.
He gave a brief flash of his teeth. ‘You can help me with the barbecue.’
‘You’re cooking?’
‘We all muck in but the barbecue is my domain.’
‘You’ve done this before?’
He raised a shoulder. ‘A few times.’
He never ceased to surprise her.
It wasn’t long before laughter was the predominant sound, laughter and a whole heap of chatter, the two-dozen staff all determined to forget their worries about family and friends on the battered surrounding islands and mainland for one evening. Plates of food and condiments had been brought out and the wine was in full flow. The balmy weather and black sky with stars glittering like tiny jewels only added to the party effect.
The good humour was contagious and spirits were high. Even Pascha, set apart from the rest of them at the barbecue, had a smile on his face. Emily went backwards and forwards from the industrial-sized barbecue to the tables, delivering trays of ribs, chicken breasts, king prawns, skewer kebabs... The list of food was endless.
So busy did she make herself, and so many conversations did she strike up, that she spent hardly any time with Pascha. That didn’t stop her awareness of him.
For a man desperate to get off the island, he was clearly in his element. No one looking at him would think he wished to be elsewhere.
Noticing his glass of beer was empty, she poured another for him and took it over. ‘Are you coming to sit down?’
‘I’ll get these chops finished and then I’ll be over,’ he promised, taking the glass from her. ‘Thanks for this.’
‘You’re welcome.’ His smile made her belly flip over and her heart soar. She hurried back to the benches with a skip in her walk.
Pascha watched as Emily sat down with his maintenance guys, an animated conversation breaking out.
He wished he could build a rapport with people as easily as she did but he was not one for making friends. He’d missed so much of his schooling due to illness that by the time he’d been well enough to return he’d become an outsider. Five years was a long time in a small child’s life. He’d been an outsider ever since, never knowing or learning how to fit in. If it hadn’t been for Andrei taking him under his wing, giving him confidence enough not to care when peers had parties to which he was never invited, who knew where he would be today? He’d found his own niche to fit into because he’d always been aware there was nowhere else he could fit. Even being tucked under Andrei’s wing had come at the price of Marat’s hatred for him increasing exponentially.
Was that why he’d been so desperate to hold on to Yana—because he’d felt he’d found a niche with her and had wanted to hold onto it at any cost?
He tried to imagine what his life would have been like if he hadn’t, finally, recognised that the cloudy diamond she’d turned into had been a mask for her misery. What kind of a couple would they have been if he hadn’t set her free?
The icy clenching in his guts told him the answer to that.
He looked back at Emily. Had he even stopped looking at her?
That dress she’d made...
His fire opal had come to life, dazzling him with her vibrancy. If she were to tread the same path as Yana, and be emotionally blackmailed into forgoing her most basic desires, would her lustre fade too?
He would never know. He would never allow her to set off on that path.
He took a seat at the end of the table and looked at her anew, watching her be dragged to her feet to dance around the bonfire with a bunch of his younger staff. The skirt of her gorgeous dress swirled as she moved to the music being played by his gardener, Oliver, who was singing reggae songs as he strummed on his guitar. Her delicate arms clapped and swayed, her black curls fanning in all directions. He could feel the warmth radiating from her.
It drew him to her.
An ache formed in his chest and he swigged at his beer, as if the act of swallowing could loosen it. It didn’t.
From the distance of the bonfire where the embers lit her up, making her beautiful face seem almost ethereal, she caught his gaze. She stilled for a moment before one of the girls grabbed her hand and pulled her into a dance that involved lots of hip-shaking.
He could watch her for hours.
His heart seemed to stutter when she scooped up little Ava, Valeria’s two-year-old niece who lived on the island with her parents, who also worked for him.
