Island Fling to Forever

So what could have brought him here now? Were things worse than she thought? Maybe it wasn’t the island that had Sancia panicked. Maybe it was something else. She should have got here sooner...

Her heart raced as all the worst-case scenarios flooded her mind. Rosa grabbed for the memory of meditation practice in India, two years ago, and focussed on her breath until she had it under control again.

No point getting worked up until she had some answers. Which meant asking questions. ‘Where is Mama? And Anna? And the guests, come to that? I was expecting—’

She didn’t get any further, because as she started talking her father’s Scrabble companion turned around and Rosa got a good look at his face, pale and shadowed in the cool of the patio shade but still absurdly perfect, with cheekbones that emphasised the beautiful shape of his face, and the incredible blue of his eyes.

It was too late to run. Too late to hide. And Rosa didn’t even know how to fight this sudden intrusion. Her whole body seemed fixed to the spot as a hundred perfect memories ran through her mind, racing over each other, all featuring the man in front of her.

Whatever she’d been expecting from her return to La Isla Marina faded away. Because there in front of her, on her Mama’s back patio, sat the last person she’d ever expected to see again—and a perfect reason to join Sancia and start panicking.

Jude Alexander.

* * *

La Isla Marina, Jude had decided within a few hours of his arrival, was the perfect hideaway from the real world. It had sun, sand, sangria and—most importantly for him—solitude. In fact, he wasn’t all that bothered about any of the first three items on the list, as long as he was left alone while he was there.

Fame, it turned out, was overrated. Especially the sort of fame that meant he couldn’t go anywhere without being recognised, or do anything without the world having an opinion about his actions. It might have taken him a while to see the downsides of celebrity, but now that he had...well, Jude was experiencing them in spades.

So it was sort of ideal that his main companion on the island was an ageing Oxford professor who hadn’t got the slightest idea who Jude was. Professor Gray was perfectly content to play Scrabble for hours, or talk about events of the last century, or the one before—without ever asking a question about Jude’s own life. The man’s self-absorption—or perhaps his preoccupation with the historical world—made Jude’s quest to escape the person he’d become all the easier. The professor hadn’t even explained why he was there himself, let alone asked Jude what had brought him to the remote Spanish island.

If Professor Gray didn’t know or care who Jude was, his ex-wife, Sancia, and daughter Anna were too busy to even notice. Apparently there was some sort of event happening at the island later in the month—Sancia hadn’t gone into details—and it was all hands on deck to prepare for it. All hands except his and Professor Gray’s. Jude got the feeling he’d been cast in the role of companion, or perhaps nurse, to the professor since they’d arrived together. Whatever the reason, it was all working out fine for him.

Until a voice he’d never dreamed or hoped he’d hear again spoke.

‘Dad?’ He hadn’t realised what he was hearing, at first. That one word wasn’t enough to make the memories hit—which surprised him, given how many other things seemed to trigger them.

‘Rosa.’ That name, spoken in Professor Gray’s cultured tones. That was his first clue. ‘Your mother told us you’d be joining us. Eventually.’

But still, Rosa had to be a reasonably common Spanish name, right? There was no reason to imagine it was his Rosa. Or, rather, the Rosa who’d made it very clear that she’d rather leave the country than belong to him.

The Rosa he’d known, three years before, was probably still thousands of miles away on the other side of the world, chasing whatever dreams he couldn’t be a part of. Dreams she’d never even told him about, even as he’d spilled every one of his to her.

That Rosa couldn’t be here. That was insane. Maybe the latest events in New York had actually driven him mad after all. It would explain the midnight flight to Spain, anyway.

‘Where is Mama? And Anna? And the guests, come to that?’ But as she spoke Jude realised there was no point denying what he was hearing, not any more. Only one person, one voice, had ever made his heart shudder like that.

There was no point hiding. La Isla Marina was his best shot at a hiding place, and she was already here.

Time to face his demons.

Jude turned around.

‘I was expecting—’ Rosa cut herself off, staring. ‘Oh.’

She looked just the same—same wild dark hair, same wide, chocolate eyes with endless lashes. Same sweet, soft mouth. Same curves under her jeans and T-shirt, same smooth skin showing on her bare arms. Same neat, small feet shoved into flip-flops.

Same woman he’d fallen in love with, last time they met.

‘Hello, Rosa.’ Jude tried for a smile—that same smile that graced album covers and posters and photo shoots. The one that never felt quite real, any more. Not since Rosa left. And definitely not since Gareth.

There was no answering smile on Rosa’s face though, only shock. Who could blame her? It wasn’t as if he’d planned this, either.

He might have done, three years ago, if he’d known about this place—or rather, known that this was her home. Because now, too late, all the pieces were falling into place. She’d left him to go back to her mother’s family home, for her grandfather’s funeral—and never come back again. La Isla Marina must have been where she’d run to.

If he’d known that then, would he have followed?

Or would he have accepted that she’d not told him where she was going for a reason?

Oh, who was he kidding? Even if he’d known where she was, he’d have sat there waiting for her to come back because he’d had faith in her. Something that had turned out to be seriously misplaced. And the day he’d realised that was the terrible day that everything had happened with Gareth, and he wasn’t going anywhere for a while. Except down, in a despair spiral he almost hadn’t made it out of. And then, suddenly, up the charts, for all the wrong reasons.

After Gareth, how could he have let himself see her again, anyway? He’d broken every promise he’d ever made for this woman, and she’d walked out anyway, leaving his world destroyed and empty.

Of course he hadn’t chased her across the globe. Even if he’d wanted to, and hated himself for that.

So many conflicting emotions tied up in the curvy, petite woman standing in front of him, all tangled and tight around his heart. Would he ever escape those bonds?

Rosa was still staring at him, stunned, and Jude hunted around for something to say. For some of the many, many words he’d wished he could say to her over the last few years. The accusations, the questions, the declarations, anything. But nothing came out.

‘You two know each other?’ Professor Gray was looking between them, confused.

Something about his voice seemed to snap Rosa out of her shock, as she gave them both a lopsided smile that never quite reached her eyes. ‘Oh, Dad, everyone knows Jude Alexander. He has possibly the most recognisable face in the world, right now.’

Professor Gray turned his curious gaze onto Jude, as if searching for fame in his features.

‘Your daughter photographed me for a publication a few years ago,’ he explained, blandly. No hint of the true story between that four-week study when Rosa travelled with them on tour, capturing every moment of their rise to fame. Of Gareth’s last tour. ‘I’m in a band, you see.’

‘A band?’ Rosa scoffed. ‘Jude is the frontman of The Swifts, Dad. Hottest band of the decade, some are saying.’ She raised an eyebrow at him, and Jude tried not to squirm under it. Not just because of the inevitable uncomfortableness that always came when someone referred to him as the frontman, instead of Gareth.

But because he had so been enjoying not being that Jude Alexander for a while.

‘You know I don’t follow popular culture, Rosa.’ Professor Gray dismissed his daughter’s words with a wave of his hand. ‘But Jude here is an almost competent Scrabble player, at least.’

Jude watched as Rosa’s gaze flicked over to him at her father’s words, meeting his for just a second. Just long enough for him to feel the same connection he’d experienced the night they’d met. It hit him deep, inside those tangled threads around his heart, a piercing guilt tied up with want and need and lust.

Still. Nice to know he hadn’t imagined it, that connection. Even if it clearly never had the same effect on Rosa as it had on him.

‘I’m so glad you’ve found a playmate, Father,’ Rosa said, her tone scathing. ‘But Jude’s Scrabble abilities don’t answer any of my questions. Where are Mama and Anna? And what on earth are you doing here?’ She glanced at Jude again as she asked the last question, leaving him uncertain as to whose presence she was most baffled by.

Jude didn’t blame her.

Now the initial shock of her arrival had passed, he found himself watching her more closely, looking beyond the familiarity of the woman he’d known so intimately—if, apparently, incompletely—three years ago. There were changes, ones he hadn’t initially spotted. She was leaner now, he realised, harder even. Her mass of long, dark curls had been tamed back into a braid that hung over her left shoulder, and her dark eyes were far more wary than he remembered. Even in her relaxed jeans and fitted T-shirt, her sunglasses dangling loosely from her fingers, she looked poised to run at any moment. As if this beautiful island resort was more of a trap than her home.

What had made her look that way? And why, after all this time, did he even care?

‘Your mother is talking with the cook about dinner, I believe,’ Professor Gray said. ‘And as for your sister, I have no idea.’

‘She went to Barcelona with Leo,’ Jude put in, since apparently he was paying more attention to the professor’s family than he was.

‘Leo?’ Rosa’s nose crinkled up as she said the name. ‘Who on earth is...? Never mind. Dad, why are you here?’

Professor Gray observed his daughter mildly. ‘Why, is it such a crime for a man to wish to spend time with his family?’