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She could so easily fall in love with Saif, Antonia acknowledged, taking care not to wake him as she stirred, but loving each other wasn’t an option for them. She still had a job to do—a job she was determined to finish, and to finish well. She couldn’t settle for giving up now and going home. If anything, meeting Saif had only inspired her to do more, to achieve more.
‘You’re awake,’ he said, shifting his powerful frame in lazy contentment.
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb you.’ Or to do anything to hasten the day, Antonia thought wistfully.
‘I want to be disturbed,’ Saif assured her, drawing her close.
She shivered with desire at his touch and didn’t have the heart to bring what must end soon to an abrupt finish now. ‘You’re dressed?’ she said, tracing the lines of the top he must have tugged on some time during the night. He was wearing shorts too, she noticed.
‘I had to go and check on the progress of the search,’ he reminded her.
‘Of course.’ She relaxed. But even as they entered into this most normal of conversations she knew the spell was broken. The look in Saif’s eyes had changed. He was already thinking about bringing the pirates to justice, which required a speedy return to the mainland.
He confirmed it, springing up and shrugging his massive shoulders. ‘No time to waste,’ he said, staring out to sea as if to assess the weather. ‘Things look good.’
She had been expecting this, Antonia told herself firmly, but it didn’t make the pain go away. It hurt to know the magic had vanished, only to be replaced by the cold chill of unease—something she must shake off when she had promised to help Saif in every way she could. ‘I’ll go below to freshen up and dress.’
She wondered if he even heard her as he began the process of preparing the yacht to sail.
Saif sailed with the total mastery with which he did everything else, and it would have been a pleasure watching him at the helm had Antonia not been dogged by the same dragging sense of dread. Of course things could never be the same again between them; she knew that. And of course she accepted the fact that everything must change when they reached the mainland. But the cloud hanging over her refused to budge. It was as if the same fate that had engineered their meeting now decreed that she must suffer for it.
She had been tested quite a few times on this trip and come through, she reasoned in an attempt to reassure herself.
But who knew if she could do it again?
Antonia looked at Saif, who obviously didn’t share her concern. If anything, he seemed to have gained new purpose. It was as if with every nautical mile they travelled he was slowly changing back into the man he must really be.
They shared the rhythm of the sea beneath their feet and little else now, Antonia reflected. He didn’t need her help to sail the yacht, he’d told her, and so she was consigned to the role of passenger, a chance acquaintance who was being given a lift to port on a fabulous racing-yacht. ‘Is that Sinnebar?’ she said excitedly, catching sight of a coastline. She already knew it was. What she’d really wanted when she asked the question was for Saif to connect with her one last time.
‘Yes,’ he said briefly, but his focus was all on the coast.
They had sailed past the lighthouse guarding the entrance to the harbour before Saif spoke to her again. ‘You’ll have to get changed,’ he said. ‘And clean yourself up.’
In a phrase, Saif had turned her back into a much younger girl who needed his direction. ‘You can use the hose to get rid of the salt,’ he went on. ‘And you’ll find some robes under the bunk below. They’ll be too big for you,’ he added as he swung the wheel hard to line the giant yacht up with its berth, ‘But you can’t disembark in Sinnebar dressed like that.’
Like what? In a few words he had made her feel ashamed. What did he mean about the way she was dressed? She was dressed like someone who had escaped a pirate attack—the same way she had been dressed all the time they had been together. Had Saif even looked at her? Had he even realised what he’d said? He made her feel like a piece of flotsam that had washed up on his deck and now had to be swept away. She had hosed herself down with the fresh water, and she had tied her hair back. She’d done everything possible to make herself look respectable.
What Saif was actually saying, Antonia realised, was that she must never refer to what had happened on their desert island again. What they had shared had been great, but as far as Saif was concerned it was over now, and she was a potential embarrassment to him. ‘I’ll cover what I’m wearing with a blanket,’ she offered. ‘No one will expect me to be smartly dressed.’ She was willing to show her respect for tradition in Sinnebar, but had no intention of making a bigger fool of herself than necessary by stumbling over some over-large robe when she disembarked.
