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‘Is this okay?’ Guy asked breathlessly between kisses.
‘Very okay,’ she whispered back. This time it was her hands that went exploring, skimming over his skin, tracing out the shape of his shoulder blades, the bumps of his spine down the centre of his muscled back.
She had never imagined that she could want this so much. That she could want more—but she did. She couldn’t imagine anything any more that would make her want to stop touching Guy, that would stop her wanting him to touch her. Guy’s hands had stilled when she had drawn away before, but she wanted his fingers back on her skin, showing her everything that he had once known about her body. Things that she herself couldn’t remember.
She reached down for the hem of her shirt and pulled it over her head. She soaked in the desire in Guy’s eyes for a moment as he drank in the sight of her, and she was amazed by how powerful that made her feel. How intoxicating that feeling was. And then his eyes dropped to the scars that criss-crossed her stomach and she tensed.
‘From the accident,’ he murmured. It was more a statement than a question as he traced one scar from the curve of her waist down towards her navel and the waistband of her shorts.
She bit her lip and nodded. ‘Uh-huh,’ she muttered, not capable of forming words.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Guy said, dipping his forehead to rest on hers, his fingers never stilling on that scar, tracing up and down, up and so slowly down. ‘I wish I had been here,’ he said, and Meena held her breath, because how different would her life have been if that had been the case? ‘I would have kissed these better,’ he whispered, and then the sun was dazzlingly bright in her eyes as his head dipped lower, kissing her neck, collarbone, then the soft curve of her belly, his lips replacing his fingers, tracing over the bumps of her scars, lower and lower and lower.
CHAPTER TEN
HER BODY HAD never felt so heavy. Her limbs were jelly; her eyelids were a rockfall across the entrance of a cave. Who cared? Meena thought. She didn’t need to move. To see. She’d just exist here, with the sun heating her skin and Guy’s breath still stuttering in her ear.
She groaned as he rolled away from her, but he grabbed her hand and squeezed, then pulled her closer, so she was tucked under his arm, her cheek pressed against the hot, damp skin of his chest.
So, finally, she understood.
This was who she had been that summer she had first met Guy. This was why she had made the decisions she had. And this was how she had got pregnant. Because the pull of this was irresistible and, now that she knew these sensations existed, she wasn’t entirely sure how she was going to get anything done ever again.
And yet, the feelings weren’t entirely new. There was something comfortingly familiar about the warm heaviness that weighed down her limbs. About the way that her body and Guy’s fitted together. There was something so right about being tucked up beside him that made her think that perhaps her body remembered him, even if her brain didn’t.
It made her wonder if her memories were still in there somewhere, just waiting for her to find the right route back to them. But perhaps they weren’t, and for the first time that thought didn’t frighten her. Frankly, how could she care if it meant that she got all these firsts again? First kiss. First love...
She smiled, listening to the gentle crash of the waves, soaking in the rays of the sun filtered by the coconut trees swaying above them. Grateful for the touch of a gentle breeze over her damp skin. She couldn’t imagine anything more perfect.
Couldn’t imagine a memory that she would choose over this one.
And that was when it hit her. Any day now, this perfect scene would be destroyed when the builders moved in and started to dig up this island. All because Guy wanted to destroy the place that had been so special to them. She shuddered as real life filtered through her fantasy. She couldn’t lie on his chest any more with that knowledge burning through her. And she couldn’t even look at him.
So now she really knew. Knew what it was like to be so blinded by her desire for Guy that all sense was forgotten. Knowing that she’d repeated the same stupid mistakes she’d made when she’d been much younger and more naïve burned in her chest. She pushed herself upright, looking around for her clothes, scrambling into her shirt and underwear.
Guy pushed himself up on his elbows, his expression the definition of confusion. ‘Meena?’ he said, watching her battle with her clothes in a belated attempt at dignity. ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked, his eyes narrowing as he took in the change in atmosphere.
‘Everything,’ Meena replied. ‘This is wrong. A mistake. We never should have...’
‘I don’t understand what just happened,’ he said, pulling on his shorts while Meena gathered up the blanket, her papers and started throwing everything into her bag.
‘What just happened is I realised I’ve made a huge mistake.’
Guy frowned. ‘Is there any way to take that other than as an insult?’
‘Probably not,’ she conceded, keeping her focus on tidying their things rather than seeing the censure she knew must be waiting for her if she looked at Guy.
‘Are you going to explain it, then?’ he demanded.
‘I don’t believe I have to, Guy. You already know—you want to destroy this island. The only reason you were here in the first place was to try to make sure that I approve your environmental report and help make that happen. I can’t believe that I forgot that, even for a second.’
He stood watching her in silence, and any hope that they could somehow rescue this situation fled. There was no way around it. She would do anything to protect this island. He would do anything to destroy it. Th
at had been the situation when he had first walked onto this beach and found her flat on her back on the sand, and nothing had changed since then. The fact that she had fallen for him somewhere along the way—again—meant nothing. It meant less than nothing.
‘If that’s the way you feel,’ Guy said, every word a violent slash at her heart. It wasn’t the way that she felt. It was the truth. It was his truth. ‘I should go.’
‘You probably should,’ she agreed. ‘Get your revised plans to me by the end of the week. I’m sure we can find a way to put the application through, now that we know the nest was empty.’
