âCould you please return those?' she asked, opening her hand.
âI dislike talking to people when they're hiding behind dark glasses.'
âI. Am. Not. Hiding. Behind. Anything,' Jessica said stiffly, thoroughly unnerved, which of course had been his intention as she well knew. âThe glare from the sun makes my eyes water.'
âRubbish.' He stretched out on the towel next to her, and out of the corner of her eye she could see a few curious looks coming their way. Mary and Elizabeth had both stopped reading their booksâwhat a coincidenceâand were staring across in their direction, attempting to look as though they were admiring the general scenery.
âYou are going to start rumours,' Jessica told him in a low, furious voice. He had shoved the sunglasses behind him, firmly out of reach.
âWhat kind of rumours?'
âRumours...that...that...' She spluttered into silence, and he gave her a slow, lazy smile.
âI'm merely sitting down to have a chat with one of my employees.'
Jessica ground her teeth together in sheer frustration.
âSo...what do you think of this little slice of paradise?' He lay down with his hands behind his head, and her eyes reluctantly followed the long, athletic lines of his body.
âIt's beautiful. You're very lucky to have this as a bolt-hole. Do you come here often?'
âWhen I need to unwind.'
âGood. Well.' Making her mind up, she stood up and he promptly yanked her back down in such a smooth, unhurried gesture that she half toppled onto him, but managed to straighten herself with the speed of light.
âNot so fast. I'm enjoying our little conversation.'
âGlad one of us is,' Jessica muttered indignantly.
âAnd so are you. Why pretend? You might want to scurry away like a terrified rabbit...'
âMe? A terrified rabbit?'
âOh, yes. Once you're dragged away from your workâ'
âI am perfectly controlled, inside and outside the working environment!' she snapped, cursing the heat that had flooded through her.
âYou mean, you'd dearly like to be. Your face lets you down, though,' he murmured thoughtfully. âIt's too expressive.'
âThat's never been a problem before I met you!' she blurted out truthfully, horrified into sudden silence by the admission. âYou...you...'
âYes? I'm all ears.'
âAre absolutely insufferable. And I'm going to swim.'
She stood up and headed down towards the water, burning with embarrassment.
She shouldn't have worn the bikini, though she actually looked better with fewer clothes. She had the sort of long, slender body that was rendered shapeless by too many layers. She should, she thought, finally reaching the water's edge with relief, have stuck to the one hideous one-piece she had brought with her, but then how on earth could she have known that he would turn up like a bad penny?
She would simply remain in the water, splashing about in an aimless fashion, until he vacated her towel. Every so often she glanced in his direction, half expecting him to come in for a dip while she was there, but eventually he eased himself off her towel, gave her a brief wave and strolled down the beach, stopping to talk for quite some time to Mary and Elizabeth, then further along to the remainder of the crowd whose high-spirited activities had become progressively more sluggish in the heat.
Jessica watched from the water, alternately floating on her back, then ducking and swimming under the cool, clear sea, then when the coast was clear she emerged with relief.
Why had he decided to come? Was it because he knew that his presence would throw her into a state of turmoil, and he found the condition highly amusing? He had said as much. He saw her as an object of curiosity and that thought stung. It made her feel like a freak and perhaps to him she was.
When she strolled back into the house an hour later it was to find an impromptu buffet laid out on the extensive back lawns, and Bruno holding court.
Ronnie, clad only in her bikini top, which had clearly been designed as a cleavage enhancer, and a colourful sarong skirt, was flirting in a kittenish manner, which involved lots of giggling, and even Carla, who was engaged and rarely strayed from the topic of her fiancé, was laughing at something Bruno was saying, and looking rather coy.
Jessica, having thrown some baggy shorts and an even baggier tee shirt over her bikini, helped herself to a plate of food and positioned herself on the sidelines, politely listening to Bruno's amusing accounts of trips he had taken abroad and still burning from what he had said to her earlier on.
âSheep's eyes,' he was saying now, to an audience that appeared to be hanging on to his every word, âI assure you, are most definitely one of life's more acquired tastes.'
He glanced in her direction, his eyes lingering momentarily on her outfit, which left everything to the imagination, and she feigned an interested look in what he had been saying.
âAnd have you any unpleasant experiences to recount from trips abroad, Jessica?'
Of course, he
would
involve her in the conversation, wouldn't he? Knowing that that would be the very last thing she wanted.
âWell...there was the time I very nearly had my leg chewed off by a school of barracuda while swimming in the Indian Ocean,' she said to no one in particular. âFortunately I was rescued in the nick of time by a passing helicopter, which airlifted me to safety. The perfect rescue if it weren't for the fact that we immediately flew into a freak storm and very nearly crashed. As it was the pilot lost control and fainted and I had to take over.'
âNo!' Ronnie cried in amazement, and Jessica grinned at her.
âYou're right. No. My trips abroad have all been spectacularly uneventful, I'm afraid.' At which point, with lunch out of the way, the party broke up, going in different directions, mostly indoors to recover from the effects of the morning sun.
Jessica retired to a bench under a tree to finish eating, and gave a little sigh of resignation as Bruno approached her and then proceeded to sit down next to her.
âThis will start the rumour mill going,' he said with amusement. âIf this house had net curtains, then I'm sure a few of them would be twitching.'
âHa, ha, I'm glad you find the thought of that funny.' She stabbed a piece of tomato and stuck it in her mouth.
âDid you have a nice swim this morning?' he asked, and she threw him a sidelong glance.
âVery nice, thank you.'
âI must say, I was impressed by your exciting anecdote about avoiding death by barracuda in the Indian Ocean. Well, until you said that you'd fabricated the whole thing.'
âWhich you had known from the start anyway,' she said, sticking her empty plate on the bench next to her and wondering whether it was her imagination or whether he was flirting with her. It was hard to tell with a man like Bruno because he was intrinsically charming. He had the ability to invite the illusion that you were somehow special, simply because when he conversed he had the knack of making you feel as though every pore in his body were focused on whatever you might be saying.
You'd be a fool, of course, to be taken in by any such illusion.
âTrue,' he said lazily, stretching one arm along the back of the bench, and tilting his face up to the sun, which speckled through the leaves of the tree.
âBecause,' Jessica said coolly, âhard-working career girls like me who have no time for anything exciting in their lives couldn't possibly have exciting adventures, could we?'
Once the words were out of her mouth, she couldn't quite believe that she had said them. What had possessed her? She sounded like a teenager suffering a fit of pique, instead of a mature adult who had her life totally under control.
It was just...that he made her feel, somehow, as though she had missed the boat somewhere along the line. As though there was a huge, exciting life out there, happening to other people, while she remained locked indoors, too scared to venture out. She wasn't sure why she felt that way, but she knew that she never had until he had come along. He was just so
damned charismatic
. She had watched all the faces at lunchtime, focused on him, alight with enthusiasm.
âThat remark,' he told her, not bothering to look at her when he spoke, âhas absolutely nothing to do with anything I said, and everything to do with how you feel about yourself.'
âThat's utter nonsense and you know it,' Jessica muttered uncomfortably. Rather than risk going down this route of personal confrontation, from which, she knew, she would emerge the loser, she decided to change the topic of conversation altogether. She even managed to inject a note of cheeriness in her voice when she asked him about the island and the house.
âWho maintains it when you're not around?' she asked. Aside from the house, there were extensive grounds, and they were well tended. She suspected that, in the tropics, foliage grew at a rate of knots. He would need a full-time gardener just to stop the place from becoming a jungle.
âI employ three gardeners, who work all year rotund.' He yawned, which made her feel like yawning as well. It was the heat. âAnd when I'm not here, Vicky and Sandy, the housekeepers who are here at the moment, come across twice a week by boat to make sure that everything's ticking over nicely with the house. But it's used frequently. Friends, family, et cetera.'
âThis heat is sleep-inducing, isn't it?' she said politely, already making her excuses for leaving, and he turned to look at her, reading her mind.
âI always think there's something particularly time-wasting about sleeping during the day, don't you?'
âNo.'
âWhy don't we go for a little walk? Something I want to show you.'
âWhat?' Panic.
âCome on.' He stood up and waited for her to follow suit, which she didn't. âYou make remarks,' he said mildly, âabout being thought of as unexciting, but you refuse to stray from your carefully monitored path, don't you?'
âAnd what is
that
supposed to mean?' She looked up at him, shading her eyes with her hand.
âI tell you that I want to show you something and your immediate reaction isn't one of curiosity, it's one of wariness. You act as though anything you aren't familiar with is necessarily going to be unpleasant. Isn't that why you didn't want to come over here? Too scared to try anything out of the ordinary?' He began walking away, and Jessica sprang to her feet and stumbled behind him, matching her pace to his, arms folded, with a look of tight-lipped defensiveness on her face.
âI don't think that's fair!' she panted, wiping her forehead with the back of her hand. Over her bikini, which she had kept on, the tee shirt was clinging to her body like a second skin.
âNo, but it worked.' He raised his eyebrows tellingly. âThat's the problem about the truth. Gets a person running around after it, hell-bent on proving it's a lie.'
âThat's a ridiculous, homespun piece of amateur psychology!'
âWell, you
could
always retire for a siesta,' he said mildly.
âI never said I wanted a siesta!'
They were inside the house now, which was thankfully much cooler, and she glanced briefly around to see whether anyone was lurking nearby, but wherever they were it wasn't in the sprawling bowels of the living area.
âWell...' he stuck his hands into the pockets of his khaki-coloured shorts and appeared to give the matter some thought â...you could always retreat to the very furthest corner of the house with a book.'
âYou are...impossible!'
âBecause I'm doing you the great disservice of making you think? Truth hurts. Isn't that how the saying goes?'
âBecause you think you can swan around making sweeping assumptions about other people! Because you think you have a right to air your views, whether someone wants to hear them or not!' She started to turn away, and he reached out and caught her by her arm, spinning her around to face him.
âTell me something, has
no one
ever criticised you in your life before?'
Jessica stood absolutely still, red-faced and trembling. âIn abundance,' she heard herself say. âAbout the way I looked and the friends I never had because I was never allowed them, and the grades I got which were never quite good enough.'
âYour father?' Bruno asked quietly.
âHe was never satisfied. With any of us. I...I...' Jessica bit her lip and told herself that if she cried, if she did the unthinkable and burst into tears, she would take a vow of silence and retreat to the nearest convent.
âWhich makes sense.' He took a strand of her hair and pushed it away from her face. âLook, you go relax. I'll see you later, I'm sure.'