Except now—right now, right here—with the windows to the cabana flung open on a view of lush, breathtaking, Technicolor beauty, she could feel dissatisfaction creep up on her. Dissatisfaction and melancholy at where her life was going. She would never experience this again—this feeling of simmering excitement because she was looking forward to a day out. With a guy who...
She turned away abruptly from the full-length mirror and flung her towel, her sunblock, a tee shirt and a pair of shorts, her book and her hat into the colourful canvas beach bag she had been tempted into buying from the hotel shop.
Her foot was completely fine and she had removed the bandage and replaced it with a strip of plaster. It felt odd to leave her laptop behind, charging on the desk in the little sitting room. She had so far managed to tote it along everywhere with her, like a solid, tangible shield against personal contact with Leandro. Fat lot of good it had done her.
Here she was with her hair swinging down her back in a plait, dressed in shorts and a tee shirt like a teenager, with her sensible swimsuit underneath and a simmering sense of excitement when she should have been feeling apprehensive and resentful at spending the day in his company.
She had eaten breakfast in her bedroom and spotted Leandro as soon as she entered the reception area of the hotel. Everyone was gearing up for the big photo shoot. There was a general air of excitement. The casual clothing of the staff which had been in evidence previously had been jettisoned in favour of uniforms: crisp white and mint-green. Amidst all this Leandro cut a commanding figure, surrounded by some of his employees who were hanging onto his every word.
Her heart skipped a beat as she stood at the side and looked at him. After all this time working for him, spending hours upon hours in his company, she marvelled that she could have kidded herself into believing that he had absolutely no effect on her—that she was immune to his looks. It would seem not. Images of him had obviously been stored in her memory bank, and now there was no need to be near him to know the way his eyes crinkled when he smiled, the curve of his sexy mouth, the imperious set of his features.
She took a deep breath and walked confidently towards him as the little cluster of dark-skinned, smiling people greeted her and broke away, scurrying off in different directions.
‘They’re thrilled with all of this, aren’t they?’ Emily asked politely.
She had to stop herself from staring at him. He was wearing a pale blue polo shirt and khaki shorts that showed off the length and strength of his muscular legs, liberally sprinkled with dark hair.
‘Wouldn’t you be?’ Leandro looked down at her—at the impossibly fair hair, the long, slender legs, the sexy, boyish physique. She looked incredibly young without the suit, without make-up, without the severe hairstyle.
‘I guess so.’ Emily laughed, eyes carefully averted, shielded with one hand against the blinding glare of the camera flashes. ‘How long will they be here?’
‘Wrapped up in a day. We should miss the thick of it. Unless, of course, you’d like to be photographed for the spread?’
‘Absolutely not!’
‘Why not?’ Leandro drawled. ‘Are you camera-shy? No need, you know. I imagine you’re incredibly photogenic...’
Emily reddened and wondered whether this was a flirtatious remark—then immediately chided herself for being over-imaginative. This was just how he was. Innately charming. It was why women found him so irresistible. It was why...
The natural conclusion of this train of thinking should have been her being led down a well-trodden and familiar path. Innately charming, irresistible—hence womaniser and general player whose modus operandi involved breaking hearts.
However, she lost the thought before she could follow it through. She was too busy playing with the idea that he found her photogenic.
She tripped along behind him towards a buggy which was only slightly bigger than a motorised golf cart and handed him her bag, which he tossed into the back seat, where it joined a massive picnic basket and a cooler containing, she assumed, an assortment of cold drinks.
‘Do you know how to drive this thing?’ She hesitated as he held the door open for her.
‘If I can fly a plane then I can certainly drive this little motorised tin can. Besides, there’s no traffic to speak of around here, and you have my word that I will protect you as though my life depended on it.’
Emily felt another quiver of something—something that made her feel hot and flustered and a little bit scared.
‘I hope you’ve brought your sunblock?’ He glanced across at her as he swung himself into the driver’s seat and reversed the buggy at alarming speed, sending up a little flurry of gravel. ‘You look like you burn easily.’
‘I’ll be fine, thank you.’
‘You’re already a little sunburned on the bridge of your nose.’
Emily automatically rubbed her finger along her nose and kept her eyes firmly fixed ahead of her.
‘So, tell me what you think of the hotel—how you’re enjoying your stay here...’
Having tuned in to those barely visible reactions she had whenever she was in his presence—reactions which he now concluded had always been there, cleverly hidden underneath a polished professional exterior, Leandro now found that they were all he could notice. The way she blushed whenever he surprised her with a remark that was non-work-related, even the most innocuous. The way she looked away, nostrils slightly flared, at the faintest whiff of a double entendre.
She fancied him—and where did that leave her so-called fiancé? His curiosity had been aroused and, like an itch, he was determined to scratch it, determined to get to the bottom of the enigma. And playing at the back of his mind was the tantalising notion that if she fancied him—and he was certainly having trouble stamping down his suddenly hectic libido—then where might that lead?
If she figured she was in love with this guy she had jacked her job in for, then wouldn’t he be doing her a favour in showing her that that was certainly not the case? Wouldn’t he be sparing her a lifetime of unhappiness and regret by demonstrating the unavoidable truth that if she was attracted to other men, specifically him, then hitching her wagon to some guy out of desperation was not a solution?
‘It’s the most beautiful place I’ve ever been to in my entire life,’ Emily answered truthfully. ‘The scenery is amazing. So unspoiled. I wonder if the island will remain that way once it’s discovered.’
‘The minister for tourism here—or for such tourism as exists at the moment—seems to be a very discerning guy.’
Leandro was still caught up in his thoughts, still acutely aware of her sitting so close to him that the smallest shift in his body weight would bring their thighs together.
‘He appreciates how important it is to keep the flavour of this island. It’s a fine line. Over-development would kill the tourist industry faster than civil war, and he gets that.’
‘You’re very lucky that you were the first to stamp your mark here...’
‘I prefer to think of it as being astute rather than lucky.’
He slid his eyes along to her and inhaled sharply. She was trying and failing in an attempt to keep her hair from flying all over the place as they sped along the small empty road parallel to the sandy strip of coastline. On one side acres of coconut trees meandered towards the town and the outlying suburban areas. On the other more coconut trees separated the road from the beach, and the striking blue of the water could be glimpsed through their slender spiralling trunks. The sky was a perfectly cloudless milky blue. Sea breezes kept the temperature just right, preventing the tropical heat from becoming unbearable. He had chosen the spot for this hotel very carefully.
‘Were you always like this?’
‘Like what?’ Leandro asked, raising his eyebrows in a question.
‘Astute when it comes to business?’
‘You mean was I doing deals at the age of ten? No. But I inherited the hard-working gene from my father and grew up with the belief that an expensive education was not a right but a privilege—one to be appreciated and used well. And what about you, Emily? Was it always your ambition to be a personal assistant?’
‘You say that as though it’s something to be...ashamed of.’ She turned to him and glared.
‘Far from it. Behind every successful businessman there’s always a personal assistant, making sure that all the nuts and bolts are taken care of.’
‘I wanted to be a vet,’ Emily admitted, because somehow, despite his qualification, he had still managed to make her job sound pedestrian. And there was a part of her that wanted him to know that she had once fancied herself as destined for all sorts of things—grand things.
‘A vet...’ Leandro murmured, and saw her give a curt nod from the corner of his eye. ‘That’s a far cry from being someone’s personal assistant...’
‘Yes, it is.’
‘Demands high grades...’