Island Fling to Forever

* * *

Jude was instantly aware, the moment that Rosa appeared on the patio again. Once, he’d have believed that was a sign of their cosmic connection. Now, he knew it was merely a sign that Rosa was unhappy, and her stamping feet made her flip-flops slap against the tiled floor noisily.

Apparently, questioning her mother hadn’t gone well.

‘Mama’s bringing out food and wine.’ Rosa threw herself back into the chair opposite him, the one her father hadn’t come back to claim, and tossed a clipboard on top of the Scrabble board between them. ‘I couldn’t stop her.’

Apparently they were ignoring the tension and difficulties their first conversation in three years had raised, forgetting all about their past connection, and moving on. Well, Rosa always did like to run away from things; maybe he shouldn’t be surprised.

And really, it was probably for the best.

‘Why would you want to?’ Jude asked, following her lead and focussing on the present instead of the past. ‘Sancia showing up with food and wine periodically is basically my favourite thing about the island.’

Rosa shrugged. ‘Principle, mostly.’ He gave her a confused look, and she laughed. ‘Let’s just call it my contrary nature. Someone tells me I have to go and sit down and make nice with Melody Magazine’s Most Gorgeous Man of the Year, while drinking good wine and eating delicious food, and I instantly want to do anything but that.’’

‘That must make life interesting,’ Jude said, drily. But a part of him couldn’t help wondering if that ‘contrary nature’ of hers explained a little of their history.

He’d always felt, right from the first, that Rosa was a bit like a wild animal—not one to be tamed, exactly, but one he needed to avoid spooking if he wanted to keep her near.

He just wasn’t at all sure what he’d done that had scared her off so much that she’d run away without leaving a forwarding address—and stayed as far away as possible thereafter. His ex, Sylvie, had regularly told him that he was a disaster with women, and she didn’t even know about Rosa. He just wished that someone would explain to him what he was supposed to be doing differently.

Except, maybe it wasn’t him. Jude leant back in his chair and surveyed Rosa as her gaze flickered from the clipboard on the table, to the archway where Sancia would probably appear from, to him—ever so briefly—then back to the clipboard again. She chewed on the edge of a nail as she did so, and her knee didn’t stop jiggling as she sat, sprawled across the chair.

Anyone not watching her carefully might think, from her posture, that she was as laid-back as it was possible to be. But Jude, looking closer, saw more.

Rosa was coiled as tight as a spring, and he was pretty sure that wasn’t his doing. Maybe her running away that night wasn’t entirely his fault, either.

But right now, whatever was eating her up was making him tense just watching.

‘So, what’s got you wanting to flee in the opposite direction right now?’ He regretted his turn of phrase the moment he said it, and he could tell from the way that Rosa’s gaze flew to his that she had the same, instinctive memory at the words—of her, disappearing from his bed and running off into the night, without so much as a goodbye.

She didn’t mention it, though. Jude couldn’t quite decide if he was glad about that or not.

‘This wedding Mama has agreed to hold on the island.’ Rosa waved a hand towards the clipboard. ‘Apparently Anna has run off with her new lover, and left me with all the grunt work.’ She dragged out the word ‘lover,’ as if she didn’t really believe that was what Leo was.

Jude had seen Anna and Leo together—not intentionally, but they weren’t exactly subtle—and he had absolutely no doubt that ‘lover’ was the right term.

‘Who’s the wedding for?’ he asked, idly. Sancia had mentioned it in passing, when he’d checked in, and he knew Anna had been stressing about it. He’d assumed a family member, or something, but that clipboard had an awful lot of names on it. How big was this thing?

He looked a little closer, and froze as a familiar name caught his eye. Sylvie Rockwell-Smythe.

‘Valentina.’ Rosa sighed. ‘Internet sensation, supermodel, millionaire and all-round beautiful person, by all accounts. God only knows why she wanted to hold her wedding here.’

Jude knew why. Because he suddenly remembered who told him about La Isla Marina in the first place. Who was responsible for his late-night Internet-searching and his decision to escape to the island.

He’d only met Valentina a handful of times, usually at the sort of event his label loved for him to attend and he tried everything in his power to get out of. But she was a friend of Sylvie’s, so when they were in the same place they tended to spend time together. Valentina hadn’t been anything like he’d expected her to be—of course, she was beautiful, but so were all the other women at these events. And of course, she was successful, but any suspicion that her fame had been acquired by chance or luck had been dispelled within a few minutes of talking to her.

Valentina was a shrewd businesswoman with a good eye for opportunity. She was curvier and shorter than supermodels were expected to be, but by building her brand online, and tapping into the hashtag, instant-photo-update world, she’d gathered a following that businesses would spend a fortune to access. And they did.

But what had surprised him most, he remembered now, was the night he’d ended up alone at some party with Valentina, late on, when most of the other partygoers had passed out or given up. And she’d spoken, for the first and only time—to him at least—about her childhood in Spain. Growing up as the illegitimate and unacknowledged daughter of a Spanish aristocrat, watching her mother trying to scrape together a life for them both, any way she could.

‘My favourite time was when Mama worked as a cook on this fantastic island resort—La Isla Marina,’ Valentina had said. ‘I thought it was the most magical place in the world.’ The name had stuck in his head, and when he’d been looking to escape for a while, he’d plugged it into a search engine and been on a plane less than twenty-four hours later.

Why hadn’t he remembered that sooner? And if he had, would it even have made any difference?

He hadn’t thought for a moment that Valentina would plan a trip here, too. Yes, she had fond memories of the place, but that wasn’t the same as relocating her entire wedding there—especially since, last time he’d had an update on the wedding planning from Sylvie, when they were still together, Valentina and Todd were getting married in some top-notch, luxury villa somewhere. Between them, Todd and Valentina could afford any wedding venue in the world. So why were they coming here?

Maybe this was fate. Destiny’s way of making him deal with all the things about his life, his future, his whole existence that he’d been putting off for too long. The breakup with Sylvie and the book’s release had lit the fire under him, and now look where he was—stuck in the middle of nowhere with the one woman he’d thought he could love, and the one he knew he couldn’t arriving imminently. That definitely felt as if the universe was sending him a message about dealing with his issues.

Except, just in case some more earthly powers were behind this unlikely coincidence, Jude decided it was worth asking at least one practical follow-up question. Especially since he knew La Isla Marina wasn’t Valentina’s first wedding venue choice—however nostalgic she was for the place.

‘I thought Valentina was getting married out in some incredible luxury villa somewhere?’ Somewhere very much else.

‘Apparently it burnt down.’ Rosa sighed. ‘Which is very sad, obviously, but she seems to have decided to move the whole shebang here, decorations and all, despite never even doing a site visit.’

Because she had it all in her memory, of course. But Jude wasn’t going to spill Valentina’s secrets for her.

‘Well, I’m sure she’ll love it here,’ Jude said, trying not to look around him for evidence to the contrary. He knew what sort of luxury Valentina and her friends were used to and, despite all the hard work Anna and Leo seemed to be putting in to get the bungalows up to scratch, Jude had to admit that La Isla Marina wasn’t quite the magical paradise that Valentina seemed to remember. Yet, anyway.

‘Not right now, she wouldn’t,’ Rosa said bluntly. She’d worked around celebrities, of course. She knew the expectations, too. ‘Mama says that Anna’s arranged for an army of seasonal staff—including a plumber, joiner and builder—to arrive tomorrow and finish off the work of making the accommodation decent.’

‘Well, that’s good, isn’t it?’ The way Rosa said it, he suspected not.

‘I suppose. Except it means that I’m left with all the wedding stuff. Allocating accommodation for the guests, decorating the pagoda, working out seating plans, dealing with what is sure to be their many, many issues when they arrive.’

‘And you’d rather be painting?’ Jude guessed.

‘I’d rather be thousands of miles away with my camera, chasing a good story.’ She gave him a half-smile, as if to indicate that she was joking—which Jude was pretty sure she wasn’t. ‘It’s just that this sort of thing—admin and paperwork and people—it’s not really playing to my strengths. I’m better with a paintbrush in hand.’

‘So why has Anna given these jobs to you?’

‘Punishment, I reckon. For showing up two weeks after she did.’ Rosa sighed, and pulled the clipboard towards her. ‘I mean, look at some of these names. Tyrana Lichfield-Burrows. Ursula Pennington. Isadora-Marie Woodford-Williams, for heaven’s sake. Do they sound like my sort of people?’

‘Actually, Isadora-Marie is nice. And funny. But I can tell you now you’re going to hate Ursula.’ It was a flippant remark, but Jude realised his mistake almost instantly.

Rosa’s gaze sharpened, fastened on his face as she leant across the table towards him. ‘You know these people,’ she said, in the sort of voice he’d never been able to lie to.