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‘I don’t want to talk about it.’
‘Beatrice, she might have been—’
‘Julius, I don’t want your take on things. Alicia got gold earrings pinned to her baby suit. I got nothing.’ She swallowed down her bitterness. ‘I couldn’t give a damn about my mother. Can you leave it, please?’
‘Fine.’
She went to get up.
‘Hey...’
Beatrice took a breath and sat down again.
‘I did think of you this week.’
‘Julius, I overreacted. I was sunburnt, premenstrual...’
‘You should see a doctor,’ he said. ‘You were dropping tampons only two weeks ago.’
That was true. She’d dropped one on the way to the loo and he’d laughed and picked it up and tossed it to her, like a cricket ball. Then he’d laughed again, because she hadn’t been able to catch it.
‘I can’t progress things between us as normal—you know that,’ he told her.
‘Of course.’
‘I have to marry...’
‘Look, I know this can’t be love.’
‘Of course not.’ He dismissed that completely. ‘We slept together once...’ He pointed out. ‘Anyway, I don’t do all that.’
‘No.’
‘I did get you a gift, though—and with great difficulty, believe me. I have asked for an extension before signing the Document of Intent, and once you’re finished here I would like to invite you to join me on Regalsi for a week of...’
‘Of what?’
‘The fun you refuse to have.’
She swallowed.
‘Nowhere to run...nowhere to hide. Apparently there are lots of watersports—which I don’t like, by the way.’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘You’ll be taking your wife there soon.’
‘Don’t play the moral card here. I don’t even know who my wife is going to be. So my bed isn’t out of bounds even though she’s going to be in it? But a whole island is?’
He made a rather good point. ‘I don’t think it’s a good idea...’ Beatrice attempted.
‘So you don’t want romance and a week of just us?’
Oh, she did—so badly, but then the agony would be even greater.
‘There’s no point.’
