It seemed to take for ever, and her head was aching again with the concentration and fumbling finger-work, but finally it seemed he was done. Done with the work and done with her. She hit ‘send’ on the set of documents, to the email address he’d dictated, and sat back, her hands falling nervously to her lap.
Behind her, Luke spoke in that remote, impersonal tone she was getting used to.
‘You can clock off now. And you can have the evening to yourself—I’m dining out. Tomorrow, make a start on your initial design ideas. As for any more secretarial work...’ his voice tightened. ‘I’ll use an agency.’
He walked out and, feeling crushed yet again, Talia slowly made her way upstairs to the sanctuary of her bedroom, lying for a long while flat on the bed, staring blankly at the ceiling.
The man she had once known so briefly, so incandescently, who had for a short few hours transformed the world for her, who had looked on her with passion and desire, had gone. Gone for ever.
A bleakness filled her. A sense of desolation. She felt her eyes haze over again, and this time she did not try and suppress her tears...her hopeless, flowing tears...
* * *
Luke was having dinner with one of the senior civil servants in the Department of Business Development, but he scarcely heard what the man was saying. His thoughts were elsewhere, circling round and round in his head like a vulture, and he could not banish them.
I can do this. I can do it and I will do it. I must. I will make myself immune to her and I absolutely will succeed!
But it was proving harder than he’d thought—damnably harder! Being with her again, tormented by all the memories of their unforgettable encounter, he’d felt his eyes constantly wanting to go to her, to drink her in.
It was bad enough when she was looking the way she had on the flight, or at dinner last night, and on the drive to the hotel site—so withdrawn and expressionless. But then—he felt emotion stab at him—at the hotel, when she’d walked out into the garden, her face and her eyes had come alive with delight and pleasure. The radiance in her expression! That brief moment of shared feeling with her.
He’d had to force himself to be terse, to stamp down on her enthusiasm, ramming home to her the fact that he was only interested in the profit he could make—that he did not get sentimental over projects.
Or sentimental about her, either.
That was the message he had to convey. His jaw tensed in recollection. And it was the only message he had allowed himself to convey when he’d come across her cavorting in the pool that afternoon. Harsh displeasure. Because if he hadn’t—
I couldn’t have coped with seeing her glorious figure, so nearly naked, that swimsuit clinging to her lush curves and slim waist.
So he’d made himself speak angrily to her—but the anger had been for himself, at his own weakness. His own vulnerability to her.
His hands tightened on his knife and fork as he made some abstracted reply to whatever had been said to him.
I will not be vulnerable to her—not again. Never again. I will not let myself desire her, or want her, or crave her. I brought her here only to teach myself how to be immune to her. How to feel indifferent as well as to pretend indifference. And I will succeed. I must succeed.
His host was speaking again, asking him about his plans, and he forced himself to focus. There was no point replaying the day in his head...no point letting his thoughts go to the villa, where Talia would be dining alone, going to bed alone...
He reached for his wine and knocked it back. He wanted to gain some strength from it but all he felt was tempted. Unbearably tempted by Talia...
* * *
Talia settled herself down at the table that Fernando and his staff had carried out onto her wide balcony, underneath a shady awning. A light breeze sifted off the sea far below, lifting the heat, and the awning took the blaze of the sun off her. Down in the gardens she could hear birdsong, and occasionally the voices of the villa’s staff as they went about their work.
It was very peaceful.
It was a peace she was trying to find inside her own head—hard though it was. She had slept restlessly, neither comfortable with the air-conditioning nor without it, and had stepped out at one point onto the dark balcony to be enveloped in the balmy warmth of the night, to hear the incessant chirruping of the tree frogs all around her. The moon had sailed overhead and she’d felt her lungs tighten; she’d heard her mother’s voice again, unbidden, talking about the joy of being romanced beneath a tropical moon...
She’d gone back indoors, the words ringing hollow in her head. Luke had returned quite late—she’d heard the car—and had, it seemed, retired immediately. She’d been in her bedroom, where the staff had served dinner—delicious, but lonely—after which she’d spent some time emailing her mother, doing her best to sound cheerful.
She’d told her mum about the site visit, the ideas she had come up with, and how excited she was about them; she’d explained that she would be working on them tomorrow, described the beautiful island, the hot weather, and reassured her that the jet lag was easing.
But that was all that was easing, because this morning had brought no sign of any thaw from Luke. She hadn’t even set eyes on him. Breakfast had been served in her room, and when she had asked after Luke, somewhat tentatively, she had been informed that he would be out all day and he had instructed her to work from the villa.
So now she began to develop her ideas for the hotel refurbishment, reaching for her art paper, her paints and pencils. She got out her notebook with the rough floor plans and measurements, and loaded the copious photos she’d taken the day before onto her laptop.
As she scrolled through them she began to feel the same emotions building up in her that she had felt on site and at lunchtime yesterday. Enthusiasm started to fire in her. The hotel was in such a beautiful situation, its architecture so perfect for its shoreline position between the azure ocean and the emerald rainforest, how could she fail to want to see it restored to beauty? To rescue it from the decay and ruin it had been subjected to?
I’ll make it beautiful again. I’ll make it more beautiful than ever.