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‘Yes,’ he answered. She thought about that. Thought about where he’d been going back to. Thought about her scholarship to Australia, and her plans to continue her research there.
‘Was I meant to come with you?’ she asked.
It felt as if they were fixed in this space between her question and his answer for days. Until eventually he nodded, his eyes dropping from hers, staring out at the water. ‘Yes.’
This time, she could forgive him the monosyllable. ‘I never came,’ she said, her voice full of sadness. Sad for him. Sad for herself. Sad for the fact she was having to ask Guy these intensely personal questions; that she couldn’t know the answers for herself.
He shook his head and shrugged. ‘And now I know why. It wasn’t anyone’s fault.’
She traced the line of a scar under her hair, almost without realising what she was doing.
‘You never knew,’ she said, her voice low. ‘You never knew why I didn’t follow you?’
No wonder he had seemed so angry with her, she thought. She had assumed all this time that she was the one who had been abandoned. When she’d been working through her recovery and rehabilitation, she had wondered where her lover was. How he could be moving on with his life while she was left with a devastated body and a broken heart, even though she didn’t know the cause. To find out that she had hurt Guy just as badly winded her.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘That must have been hard for you.’
‘It was a long time ago,’ he replied, which didn’t really answer her question. ‘Are we going to discuss the dive?’ Guy continued, dragging their conversation back to the professional.
‘I’m not sure that this conversation is finished,’ Meena said, sensing his barriers flying back up but hoping that she might get some more information out of him if she trod carefully.
‘It is for me,’ Guy replied, his eyes hard.
Part of Meena bristled, wanting to push back, demand her answers. But she could see that Guy would not be receptive.
She thought again about how it must have been for him—waiting to hear from her, assuming that she had made up her mind not to come to him. And then he had turned up here and found that she had no memory of him. She decided not to push. Not just now. If she did, he was just going to clam up. And if that happened, and he decided to put more distance between them, she might never find out everything that she wanted.
‘Fine, let’s get to work, then,’ she said, pulling up the relevant files on her laptop and talking him through her findings from their dive. He nodded along as she pointed out what she had recorded and the adjustments that would be needed at Le Bijou as a result.
‘And once we have an answer about the turtles on the beach, I can finish my reports,’ she said at last.
He let out a long sigh, and she could practically feel his relief.
‘And you’re going tonight?’ he asked. ‘To see the turtles?’
She nodded. ‘Yes. I’d hoped to see them last night—we’re so close to the end of the possible incubation period—but nothing happened. It’s been sixty days since I found the nest, so I’m hoping something happens tonight. If it doesn’t...’ She didn’t even want to think about what it would mean if she didn’t see any hatchlings.
‘You were out there alone last night?’ Guy asked sharply, and Meena didn’t know quite what to make of his tone.
‘Of course,’ she replied, trying to keep any hint of annoyance out of her voice, but bristling all the same from his questioning how she did her job or how she took care of herself. Either way, it was none of his business.
Guy narrowed his eyes. ‘Why “of course”?’
‘Who did you think I would take with me?’
‘I don’t care who you take,’ Guy said with a nonchalance that stung. ‘I just don’t think you should be out there all night on your own.’
She crossed her arms and stared him down in a way that was starting to feel familiar. ‘It’s not a big deal, Guy,’ she told him, hoping that he would pick up from her tone that she didn’t care for his input on this matter.
‘I don’t care. I don’t like it.’
The message obviously had not been received. ‘Well, then,’ Meena said, wanting this conversation to be at an end. ‘It’s a good job it’s not your decision, then, isn’t it?’
‘You work for me,’ Guy said, his words eerily cool.
Meena leaned forward and rested her elbows on the desk, fixing him with an equally cold stare and hoping that he couldn’t see how her heart was racing in her chest.
‘When the permits are approved,’ she said, making her words deliberately slow, ‘I will be considering whether to come and work for your company. Right now, I work for the government of St Antoine. I don’t report to you, no matter how much you like to call and demand my presence.’
