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The path climbed u
pwards and soon Lauranne was breathless in the heat. ‘Slow down.’
He stopped immediately and shot her a rueful smile. ‘I’m sorry—I wasn’t thinking. We’re here.’
Where was here?
He slowed his pace and the path curved to the right and suddenly she found herself staring down at a perfect crescent-shaped beach. The soft golden sand curved in an arc around a clear blue sea.
‘Oh.’ Lauranne stopped dead in surprise and delight. ‘It’s totally idyllic. So gorgeous. Like something out of a travel brochure.’
Next to her Zander was silent, a strange look in his dark eyes. ‘Yes.’ His voice was slightly roughened and she sensed a tension in him that hadn’t been there before. ‘It’s called Blue Cove Beach because the colours are so intense. The island is named for this beach.’
‘I’ve never seen anywhere so lovely. And look at the house.’ She gazed in awe. ‘What a fantastic position. I wonder if anyone lives there now.’
‘No one lives there.’
Something about his tone made her hold her breath. ‘But they used to?’
‘Many years ago.’
And then she remembered what he’d said in the car. ‘This is it, isn’t it? The house you used to stay in as a child—’ It was a wild guess but the instant tension in his powerful frame told her that she was right.
He didn’t speak, a strange look glittering in his dark eyes as he stared at the pretty whitewashed house.
The silence stretched and stretched and Lauranne held herself still, feeling as though she was intruding on something intensely private.
‘That’s why you want the island, isn’t it?’ She spoke softly, as if whispering would give him the choice of ignoring her words. ‘That house is the reason.’
A muscle flickered in his rough jaw. ‘Yes.’
She bit her lip and glanced first at him and then at the house. ‘Do you want to go down there? To the beach?’
The change in him was barely perceptible but she sensed his indecision. ‘No. Not today.’
Lauranne looked at the house again and then took his hand. It was a gesture of comfort, of closeness, and for a tense moment she wondered whether he’d reject her. Reminding herself that what they shared was physical not emotional, she braced herself for the inevitable withdrawal on his part.
But it didn’t come.
After a brief hesitation his fingers tightened on hers, locking her against him.
‘Who lived there, Zander?’
She thought he wasn’t going to answer her and then he inhaled sharply, his eyes fixed on the house. ‘My grandmother. She lived here all her life.’
‘The house belonged to her?’
‘The whole island belonged to my father, but he lost it in a divorce settlement,’ Zander said harshly, and then he turned and started walking back along the path without uttering another word.
The fact that he kept an almost painful grip on her hand gave her a flicker of hope. At this moment in time he needed her, and for something other than sex. The fact that he’d shared even a tiny bit of what was in his mind felt like an enormous step forward. She felt as though she’d managed to open the door to his mind just a crack and been rewarded with a tantalising peep of what lay inside.
Why had they never once discussed his background before? Why had he kept so much of himself a secret from her?
It occurred to her that she’d never really known him at all.
‘Did your grandmother lose her home?’
He slowed his pace and shook his head, his expression bleak. ‘She would have done, but in the event she died before she was forced to move out.’
