Island Fling to Forever

‘Have sex?’ Rosa’s voice came out squeaky, even as she realised that of course that wasn’t what he meant.

‘Talk about it. What happened between us.’ He turned his head to look at her, and his bright blue gaze seemed to see right through her clothes, her skin, deep into the heart of her.

That was the problem with Jude. He always saw too deep.

‘Why you left,’ he added, and Rosa broke away from his gaze.

‘Do we have to?’ she asked, kicking at the sand with the front of her flip-flop.

Jude’s cool fingers came under her chin, lifting her face so she had to look at him again. ‘Rosa... I can’t help but think that I’m here on this island for a reason. To find closure, on all kinds of things—starting with what happened between us, and everything that happened afterwards. And if you want us to work together on this wedding, I think we’re going to have to, you know...’

‘Have the talk.’ Rosa sighed. Why couldn’t she have fallen for one of the roadies, or even one of his bandmates like Jimmy, three years ago? Most men she met would run a thousand miles rather than talk about their feelings—which suited Rosa just fine, thanks.

But no, she had to go and fall for the sensitive artist. The one person who wanted to understand her.

Even if she didn’t want to be understood. Even if she didn’t understand herself, sometimes.

‘I’ll do you a deal,’ Jude said, his voice more normal suddenly—as if they weren’t talking about sex and love any more. ‘You tell me what happened that night—why you left, and why you never came back. You help me understand that, and we never have to talk about it again, okay? We can just be acquaintances—friends, even—spending time together on a holiday island. Okay?’

‘Okay,’ Rosa said, slowly. It sounded good, she had to admit.

The only problem was, for all her brave words, she couldn’t imagine ever being friends with Jude Alexander. Not after what they’d shared.

But she was willing to try if he was.

Taking a few steps forward towards the sea, she kicked off her flip-flops and sat on the edge of the sand, letting the waves lap over her toes.

Leaning back on her hands, Rosa shut her eyes. The warm sun on her skin felt like home. Like love.

‘So,’ she asked, her eyes still closed. ‘What do you want to know?’

She felt rather than saw Jude settle beside her, and wondered if he’d taken off his shoes, too. Maybe even rolled up those dark linen trousers. He might have a slender, rock-star frame, but his shoulders were broader than you’d think, and there were muscles on that frame, too, she remembered. Could almost see through his thin white shirt if she didn’t concentrate on not looking...

She opened her eyes. Jude had his bare feet in the water, just like her. Rosa smiled. Good. He needed to relax more.

‘Was it something I did?’ he asked, staring out at the sea. ‘Or did you just not feel the same way I did?’

Rosa swallowed, tasting regret in her mouth. ‘How did you feel?’

‘Like magic had walked into my life, the moment I met you,’ Jude said, simply. ‘Like I’d been waiting for you for centuries.’

Guilt pierced through Rosa’s heart. She knew exactly what he meant, and of course she’d felt it, too. But how could she tell him that was the whole problem? That sort of perfection wasn’t meant for the mess that was her. She’d screw it up sooner or later, and sooner was better, in her experience.

‘And that’s why you’re the songwriter of the two of us,’ she joked, her heart breaking as she said it. ‘You can take a tour-bus fling and make it into poetry.’

‘Is that all we were?’ Jude shifted on the sand so he could look at her, almost lying down on his side as he spoke. ‘A tour-bus fling?’

God, but it was so tempting to curl up there with him, safe in his arms. But Rosa knew she might not have the strength to leave them twice.

‘We knew each other for four weeks, Jude,’ she reminded him, gently.

‘I knew all I needed to in the first day.’

She remembered. Remembered the way their eyes had met and she’d just known. Known that this man was going to be important.

Rosa didn’t believe in love at first sight, but if she had...

She shook her head. What difference did it make if it was love or not? That didn’t change everything else that it was.

A burden. A chain. A prison.

She’d seen what happened when a woman fell in love—so deeply in love that she gave up all her own dreams and moved to Oxford to live his life, instead of hers. She’d seen her mother live it, so she didn’t have to. Twenty years of frustration and bitterness, followed by her finally leaving for her island refuge.

Rosa had known, even then, that she wasn’t willing to live that life. Wasn’t willing to compromise her own dreams one bit to live someone else’s.

She needed to end this now. She needed to tell Jude enough to get him to stop asking—to give him his closure. Then they could both move on, and she’d be as free of him as he was of her.

That was what she wanted. It was all she ever wanted: freedom.

‘I told you why at the time,’ she said. ‘I had to come home for my abuelo—for my grandfather’s—funeral.’

‘Except you didn’t tell me where home was,’ Jude reminded her. ‘Or that you weren’t coming back.’

And there was the sticking point. She hadn’t really known that, at the time. It was only once she was out of Jude’s sphere, without his smile or his hands or his eyes influencing her decisions, that she realised the risk. When she knew that she had to stay away.

That, and a terrifying two weeks when her body told her she might have made a monumental, life-changing mistake, that first, impulsive night she’d spent with him.

As she’d waited, too scared to even buy a pregnancy test and know for sure, too distraught dealing with all the funeral stuff to even really think about it, one thing had been abundantly clear to her.

If she went back to Jude when she left La Isla Marina, that would be it. If four weeks in each other’s company, in his bed, could have this kind of impact on her life, her heart, then going back would be a life sentence.

She’d fall irrevocably in love with him, and never be able to break away. She’d live her mother’s life—following him around the world as he toured, always being his plus one, and never finding her own life, her own self. Her own happiness.

Or wor

se, she’d be Anna—managing Jude’s personal life as Anna managed Dad’s, giving up her own opportunities and possibilities to him.

She couldn’t do that. Couldn’t sacrifice all her dreams for his dream of stardom.

And she’d had no doubt that Jude would be a star—anyone who’d heard The Swifts play had known that it was only a matter of time before they made it big. And Jude and Gareth, they’d made a pact, when they were barely teenagers, that one day they’d be famous together. They’d escape all the people who told them they’d never make anything of themselves, the families and schools who told them it was impossible. They were going to conquer the world together—and they’d already been so close, when Rosa met them. She knew it wouldn’t be long until the name Jude Alexander was on everyone’s lips.

Would he even want her around, then? When beautiful women were throwing themselves at him, and every door was open to him?

By the time her cycle had returned—delayed by stress, rather than her carelessness in bed with Jude, it seemed—the funeral was long over and Rosa had made a decision.

She needed to find her own life, her own happiness. She wouldn’t make her mother’s mistakes all over again, falling for a man whose career would always come first, who would forget she existed for weeks at a time.

And so she’d run as far away as she could—and ended up back here with him three years later, anyway.

Looking at him, Rosa knew the risk was still there. If she let herself get too close to Jude, let herself hope, she could fall anyway, despite all the distance she’d put between them. And if she gave him a hint that she still felt that way...

So she had to lie. Or at least, not tell the whole truth.

‘Honestly?’ she said, knowing she was being anything but honest. ‘I hadn’t decided when I left what I was going to do next. But then an opportunity came up for a new commission out in the Middle East, and it sounded interesting so...’ She shrugged. ‘You know me. I like to keep moving, finding new experiences, seeking out the next big thing.’

Jude grabbed her hand suddenly, making her turn to face him, staring into her eyes as if he could see the truth behind them. Rosa held her nerve, ignoring her heart beating too fast in her chest, and let him look. Nothing she had said was technically untrue, after all.