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“I don’t know, grieve my grandfather perhaps?” I replied sardonically.
“He died months ago and you weren’t even that close.” I winced. Sydney had this way of saying exactly what she was thinking without pausing to consider whether anyone else wanted to hear it. I usually found it refreshing.“I’m sorry,” she said right away.“That sounded awful. I shouldn’t have said it like that.”
“Then what should you have said?” I didn’t try to hold back the bite in my voice. It was close to a million degrees in my bedroom last night and I’d slept maybe an hour. I was cranky as hell.
“That your grandfather wouldn’t want you throwing away your career for the sake of misplaced guilt.”
Was that what I was doing? Throwing away my career?
My career had been smashed to pieces by someone I thought I could trust, and I’d spent years trying to cobble it back from the rubble. The idea that I no longer cared incensed me. It was possible to caretoo much. Caring too much had consumed every part of me. I was just starting to get those pieces of myself back.
I paused at a divot in the path facing the water and sat down on a boulder pushing up from the overgrowth. Tall grass parted under my weight, long-stemmed thistles with their purple bulbed heads reaching out to brush my bare arms. My eyes fell closed against the sun’s warmth, flashes of yellow through translucent eyelids.“This isn’t guilt—it might have started that way, but I’m happy here, Syd, I feel like I can breathe properly for the first time in years.”
It was funny, for months after I moved to London, I would stroll down to Oxford Street or Trafalgar Square and stare in wonder at the city lights, at the people rushing about their busy lives.This is living,I’d think,everyone has a purpose, a place to be. Now I felt that here, as I never had as a child. It held a different kind of buzz, less thrilling but more… right.Like a river converging to bring me to this place at this precise moment.
“So… you’re never coming home?”
“Of course I’m coming home, I can’t stay here forever.” For the first time, the declaration held less weight.“Angela said she would—” Movement in the water caught my eye, a dark head rising beneath the waves and dipping down again. Strong, tanned arms cut through the current like a knife through butter. And there on the shore was Boy, dozing in the shade of a rock beside a pile of dark fabric. My eyes cut back to Mal, the cerulean water just clear enough to make out his solid form beneath.Holy shit.
“She said she would…?” Sydney prompted down the line.
Right.“Sorry—” I blinked.“The line is bad. Angela said she’d send any scripts of interest my way.”
“Has she sent any?”
“Not yet.”
“She will, she’s a fantastic agent.”
“I know, I trust you.” As though attached by an invisible thread, my eyes sought Mal out again. With impressive speed, he swam as far as the rocky outcrop where the waves foamed and spat with ferocity, turned beneath the water, and cut back before repeating.“Look, Syd, I have to go, but I’ll call you tomorrow, yeah? I want to hear all about the movie.”
She snorted.“Of course you do, love. Perhaps luring you back with dazzling set stories will be my new tactic.” I laughed too, thinking that might be the only one to work because it was the one thing about my old life I missed. The feeling of a new script and the first tingle of excitement at the table read. Costume fittings, long hours in a makeup chair. The inevitable wrap party and the emotion that came with creating something you cared about.ThatI missed.
Hanging up, I climbed to my feet, dusting off the bottom of my short pink summer dress. The slope became easier from here on out, a soft incline where dry earth gave way to sand and flat pebbles perfect for skimming. I set Dudley on his feet and he gave a wobbly prance, adjusting his uneven weight to the terrain. The waves were louder down here but Boy still heard him, climbing to his feet and trotting in our direction.
I bent, running my hand down his damp fur, suddenly feeling awkward. I wasn’t confident enough to swim very far out, but I’d worn my bikini beneath my dress, planning to take a quick dip to cool off. With Mal here, I didn’t know how to proceed. I walked further onto the beach, feet sinking until soft sand covered my skin. Thanks to the curvature of the rocks, no breeze flowed down here, and the air was humid and sticky. Sweat pooled on the back of my neck and between my breasts.
I didn’t know if Mal had seen our arrival or simply finished with his swim, but suddenly he was there, strolling from the water like Daniel Craig inJames Bond. I knew I was staring. I also knew my mouth was open.
It was the same as most bodies, muscle and skin, a smatter of chest hair and two nipples. But on Mal… I’d always known he was big. Wide-shouldered with biceps that unintentionally strained the fabric of every shirt he wore. But this… well, it bordered on ridiculous. Water sluiced down his chest in rivulets, glistening beads getting caught in the small clefts between muscles not gained from hours in the gym but by rugged, physical work. He wasn’t even wearing swim shorts, simply tight black boxers that clung toeverything.
I didn’t know if it was his continual blushing or that his shoulders often curved in on themselves as though apologising for taking up too much space in the world, but either way, I hadn’t ever pictured him like this. I had imagined him.Often. Only it was more sexy-country-farmer than rippling Adonis.
I had to look away, Ihadto, before I begged him to throw me over his shoulder. The whimpering noise I was making must have warned him he was currently starring in his very own strip tease, because he looked right at me, eyes widening with surprise.
I whirled, and took off running. The sand made the soles of my shoes slippery, and as soon as I hit a large flat stone, my feet flew out from under me. I landed hard, smacking my elbow.“I’m sorry,” I called over my shoulder.“I didn’t mean to…” Pain flared up my arm and I clutched it to my chest. I was panting. Stuttering. I never stuttered. The heat must have melted my brain.“I mean… I should have announced myself.”
He was at my side in a heartbeat.“Are you all right?”
I couldn’t look at him.“Yes, I’m fine.” I shook my arm out and hissed.“Ouch,shit. No—” Seizing my shoulders in his hot grip, he lifted me to face him, taking my forearm into his calloused hands. I looked down at it purely so I wouldn’t look at his chest again, and noticed the skin was red and inflamed. Heat was rolling off of him in waves. I could smell him, sweat and salt and sea mixed with something citrusy. As if hypnotised, I swayed into him and he steadied me again.
I couldn’t be this close to him right now. I extracted myself, moving my arm tentatively for him to see.“It’s fine.”
At the action, he seemed to become aware that he was nearly naked. His cheeks and ears flooded crimson and he fumbled for his pile of clothes, forcing wet legs into dark blue jeans and drawing green plaid over his top half, unevenly fastening the buttons. As beautiful as his body might be, it was that missed button hole that made me want to throw myself at him and lay kisses over every speck of exposed skin.
Clearly Mal wasn’t feeling whatever insane pheromones I currently drowned in, because he assessed my arm again with a frown, his scar turning a stark white.“It looks like it might bruise, we need to get some ice on it.”
I needed to end this interaction.“I will.”
