Shackled by Diamonds

At her side the project manager had turned his attention to his employer, drawing his notice to something on the sheaf of architectural drawings in his hand. With half an ear Anna heard Leo’s deep voice answering brusquely, his voice edged like a serrated knife.

When they left the site she was relieved, and yet it was even worse being incarcerated in the car alone with Leo. He did not speak to her, nor she to him, yet the silent tension between them pulled at her, making her muscles tense in mental resistance. Her hands pressed into each other in her lap. Her throat felt constricted.

He drove for a good half an hour, over twisting coastal roads, until he turned into a private drive that led down to the sea—a low-rise beach hotel his destination.

‘Lunch,’ he announced tersely, and got out of the car. Silently Anna followed suit, and went into the hotel with him.

She disliked it immediately. It was clearly a boutique hotel, aimed at a clientele bored with mundane tourism and demanding a novelty of design that Anna castigated as pretentious. So was the menu.

‘A vegetarian salad, please,’ she ordered. ‘No dressing.’

‘I thought you were starting to eat normally?’ said Leo edgily.

Anna shrugged. ‘The prices are ludicrous and the menu idiotic.’

Leo’s eyes narrowed. ‘This is rated as one of the best hotels in the Caribbean.’

Anna stared at him. ‘The décor is pretentious, the staff snooty, and the guests are all posers. That place yesterday was a million times better.’

‘Well, we’re here now,’ Leo returned, and moodily studied the wine list.

‘Just mineral water for me—sparkling,’ said Anna.

‘I’m glad something is,’ he retorted.

They ate in virtual silence, Leo grim-faced and Anna tense. Had they really been having an almost normal conversation just twenty-four hours ago? she wondered disbelievingly. Now she could hardly say two words to him. Not that he seemed in the mood for conversation. She was grateful. All she wanted now was to get out of here, back to the villa, and lock herself in her bedroom. Or anywhere. She felt jittery, restless. Looking anywhere but at Leo.

And yet somewhere deep inside her it was as if an electric charge were building, dangerously overloading her nerves. Her muscles were tense, her skin prickling. Her body seemed alive, but in an alien, uncontrolled way, as if it wanted something—something that she must not, would not think about. Her fingers tightened around her fork, she held her neck rigid, so she could not let herself look across at the man sitting opposite her. A man who seemed as restless, as on edge, as she was.

Her teeth clenched. She would not look across at him. She would not.

Doggedly she went on eating, though the food tasted like sawdust for all its exorbitant price.

Inside her, coiling tighter and tighter, the electric charge went on building. Silently.

Dangerously.

The meal crawled to its interminable end. Leo seemed determined to drag it out, ordering a dessert and then coffee, when all she wanted to do was jerk to her feet and get out—out of here, away from him.

The tension radiating from him was palpable.

Finally, when she thought she must just scrape her chair back and rush off, he pushed aside his empty coffee cup.

‘Anna—’

His voice was edged, serrated. It had been like that all morning. But now it was worse.

Her jaw tightened. She said nothing.

‘Look at me.’

What was it in his voice that made her do it? Let her eyes off the leash she had been pinning them down with. Let them lift and meet the dark, heavy-lidded eyes fastening on her.

Electricity cracked through her, the charge arcing across to his eyes.

Telling him exactly, exactly, what he wanted to know…

‘No.’ Her voice was low. ‘No!’

She jerked to her feet—the way every tense, coiled muscle was impelling her to.

Leo followed suit, his hand impatiently, imperiously beckoning for the bill. When the waiter glided over, Leo had his card at the ready. As he handed it over, scrawling his name on the chit, he said something in a low voice to the man, who nodded without a flicker of his eyes. He glided away with the credit card while Anna stood, tension racking through every limb, then returned, handing back the card to Leo—and something else besides. She did not see what it was and did not care. She knew only that she must, must get out of here. It was imperative. Essential.

‘Let’s go,’ said Leo, and headed off. His voice sounded harsh, but Anna ignored it. She just wanted to get out of there, the quickest way, and she followed his rapid stride from the dining room without complaint.

But he didn’t lead the way back out to the front of the hotel. Instead he went down into the gardens. Shrugging mentally, Anna followed him. She could see palm-fronded beach cottages artfully sited amongst the banana trees and cultivated vegetation, and beyond them the white of the beach backed by the azure of the sea… Without realising it, she saw that she had followed Leo along a paved path and up to the door of one of the cottages. He held the door open for her.