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His eyes returned to Cara. She had on a bright T-shirt and a pair of lightweight trousers. Travel clothes.
A hoot went up in the water and he turned back to see a silhouette bottom turn into a perfect tube and suddenly his feet were carrying him swiftly up the steps to the bungalow.
Cut loose, she’d challenged him. He’d show her cutting loose!
Startled by his sudden appearance, Cara turned and gripped her hands together. ‘I’ve packed and—’
‘We’re not leaving right away.’
‘We’re not?’
‘No. I thought I might catch a few waves first.’
‘You surf?’ The look of surprise on her face almost made him laugh and he felt lighter than he had in days.
‘Sweetheart, I used to compete.’
Well, locally anyway, but she didn’t need to know that.
An hour later Aidan felt invigorated and alive, the blood pumping through his veins and the water streaming off his back as he pulled his board out of the shallows and headed onto the beach.
He knew exactly where Cara was. Hell, all the guys did. With her pink hair and gold-bikini-clad body standing on the edge of the shore she’d managed to distract the others enough that Aidan had caught some ripping waves—and missed some others when she’d stretched her hands over her head and waved when she had spotted him.
With adrenaline surging through his veins he loped towards her.
She scowled up at him, her hands on her waist, her legs apart. She looked like a veritable fishwife only so absolutely stunning a man would put up with anything just to be able to feast his eyes on her. ‘I thought you were going to be killed out there.’
He grinned. ‘I told you I used to compete.’
She shook her head, returned his grin. ‘Is it fun?’
Oh, yeah. It’s fun.
‘Why don’t you come and find out?’
Her eyes flew to his. ‘Out there?’
‘No. It’s too big out there.’ He shook his head. ‘There’s a little cove on the other side of the island that’s protected. There shouldn’t be too many people there on a day like today. Are you game?’
She gave a little quick step of glee. ‘Really?’
Spluttering salt water, Cara groaned disgustedly as she fell off the surfboard for the hundredth time. Aidan’s powerful arms caught her against him in an effort to prevent her from going under and she tried not to marvel at his strength. Tried not to enjoy his slick flesh sliding against her own.
‘This is harder than it looks,’ she complained tiredly.
Aidan’s eyes locked with hers. Heat sizzled along her cheekbones and arrowed straight to her core.
‘Try just feeling the push of the ocean and the sound of the wave behind you and don’t worry about getting to your feet.’
‘No, I want to stand up!’ And this time she vowed to concentrate and not to get distracted by the way Aidan looked in board shorts and nothing else. ‘Buff’ wasn’t quite the word. The man had not an ounce of fat anywhere on his body and his muscles were hard and primed. And yes, she thought on a rush of air, he had hair on his chest. A light smattering that arrowed down to a fine line that bisected the middle of his washboard abs and thickened just before it disappeared beneath the low-slung shorts.
‘Okay, but you need to paddle harder.’
What she needed, Cara thought, was to close her eyes and forget all about how she had confided in him yesterday afternoon so that she didn’t feel quite so embarrassed by it.
She’d locked herself in her room after he had walked away from her and continued packing. She’d even picked up the phone to ask Dinesh to organise a speedboat to the mainland, wanting to get as far away from her horrible meltdown as possible.
Only, she’d gone for a long walk along the sleepy beach track and realised that if she left she’d be running away again. Running away without a plan. Because once she left the island the farce of her relationship with Aidan would be over and they hadn’t even discussed how they were going to ‘break up,’ and once she was back to her real life the press would descend on her like wolves going in for the kill.
Lost in thought a wave caught her unawares and she went under, the board rolling over the top of her as it got caught in the white wash. Kicking out from under it she burst to the surface as Aidan reached her.
God, she was never going to get this!
‘Are you okay?’
‘Ugh.’ She pushed her sodden hair out of her eyes and made a face. ‘Salt water really doesn’t taste that good, does it?’
He laughed. ‘You won’t make much of a surfer with that attitude. Have you had enough?’
Somehow she felt that if she were to give up now without having stood up just once on the board it would be a reflection of her whole life. A reflection of every other time she had failed to stand up for herself when people had judged her unfairly. Wondering if she wasn’t being a little bit dramatic she gritted her teeth anyway and gripped the rails of the board. ‘One more.’
