able to see they regarded him as a good boss.
That said a lot about a person...things she could admire, respect. No mere venal money-grubbing property developer was he—his values were those she could share and approve of.
‘There are places in the world where new construction is fine—and places where it isn’t,’ Max was saying now as they relaxed, replete after dinner cooked over an open firepit, down on their little beach, leaning back against a rock with the water lapping gently a few metres away and overhead the tropical stars wheeling their slow arc across the midnight sky. ‘Places where we should tread lightly on the land, as I’m trying to do here, or not tread at all—places where we should save and repair what is already there, conserve what earlier generations have built.’
She glanced at him, liking what she’d heard him say. ‘Maybe being Greek helps—growing up amongst so much antiquity?’
But her words drew from him a glance that seemed, she felt, to admonish her.
‘We cannot live in the past—it is not healthy to do so. Sometimes,’ he said, ‘we have to let go. Let go of the past and make a new future for ourselves! A new life.’
Ellen’s eyes slipped away. Discomfort snagged in her, and she wished he had not said that. This was the first time he’d referred to the underlying reason he was in her life at all. Up till now there had been no mention of it—as if that troubled situation thousands of miles across the ocean did not exist. And certainly it had not intruded into what they had here.
Here, she knew—with a gratitude that in itself was revealing of how much she did not want to think of anything beyond this bliss—she could merely revel in what was happening. Day after day, just her and Max—wonderful, wonderful Max!—who’d transformed her, transformed her life, and to whom she would be grateful always! Walking barefoot on the sand, hand in hand beneath the sun, beneath the moon and stars. All cares and concerns far, far away.
But now he was reminding her of them. Making her think about them...making her face them once again. She didn’t want to hear him say such things. He’d made no mention before—none at all—of what was for this brief space of time an ocean away. Nor did she want him to.
I don’t want this time with him spoilt in any way at all. I don’t want to think about Haughton, how desperate I am to keep it. Nor to be told that I should let it go...
But Max was speaking again, gazing up at the starry night sky.
‘I remade my life,’ he was saying. ‘My mother’s death forced me to do so. I wish so much she’d lived to see what I’ve achieved, but it was not to be.’
His gaze flicked back to her, trying to read her expression in the dim light. But he could not see it. And nor could he bring himself to tell her how struck he’d been by the house he wanted her to yield to him—how it had called to him immediately, arousing in him for the first time in his life an urge to cease his wandering, rootless lifestyle.
Instead he focussed on what he so wanted her to realise for herself. ‘Do you not think,’ he ventured carefully, weighing the impact of each word upon her, ‘that your father’s death is also a turning point for you? Allowing you to be free at last to do what you want with your life?’ He chose the word ‘allowing’ specifically. ‘Allowing you,’ he finished, his eyes on her, ‘to move on. To claim your own life for yourself?’
With a sweep of his hand he indicated the whole expanse of the beach, the starry tropical sky, the lap of the gentle waves.
‘It’s a good life, isn’t it?’ he said softly. ‘Here—and everywhere! The whole world lies before you, Ellen, and now you know how beautiful you are, how desirable, what is stopping you from walking out into that world? Living your life. Your life, Ellen—unfettered and untrammelled. Not trapped in an unhappy past.’
She let him speak. She knew why he was saying it—knew it was because he wanted her to stop fighting him, stop clinging to Haughton. Knew that he truly believed it would be for her own good. But she could make no reply. Inside her, like a festering wound, was all the bitterness she felt about what Pauline’s marriage to her father had done, and it could not be so easily lanced.
I don’t want to think about them—what they did to my father, to me—not while I’m here, having this precious time with Max. I don’t want to tell him what they’re like, how vicious and ruthless they are—greedy for everything they can get their hands on. I don’t want this idyll with Max spoilt.
So she looked away, giving a slow shake of her head, closing her eyes momentarily. Shutting out what he was telling her. Then she felt his hand on her arm, not pressing firmly, almost as a message to her.
‘Think about what I’ve said...’ His voice was low, compelling. ‘That’s all I ask for now.’
He paused, instinctively knowing that he must say no more now, that she must ponder his words, let them soak into her. Make sense to her.
He shifted his position, hooking his arms loosely around his splayed bent knees. ‘So,’ he said, his tone quite different now, ‘what shall we do tomorrow? How about if we take the catamaran out?’
Gratefully, Ellen followed his lead. This was the Max she wanted. Carefree and easy-going. Revelling in the days and nights they spent here.
And she was grateful, too, the next day—to experience the thrill and the speed of skimming over the azure swell as she clung to the tarpaulin between the twin hulls of the wind-hungry vessel, with Max commandingly at the helm.
‘Enjoying it?’ he shouted to her over the rush of wind.
‘Fantastic!’ she yelled back, and then gave a cry, snatching more tightly at the tarpaulin, as with a careless answering laugh Max spun the helm, heading right into the wind, and the catamaran tacked with a lift of one hull before coming about again.
Exhilaration filled her as he headed downwind back to shore. With easy strength she helped him haul the vessel up on to the beach, then flopped down on the hot sand.
Max lowered himself beside her. Her eyes were shining, her face alight. There was sand in her hair, and it was windblown and tangled. A memory of how Tyla had hated getting her hair in a mess sifted through him—how she’d fussed endlessly about her appearance, wanting him and every other man to admire her constantly. Desire her.
His eyes softened. Ellen—his own beautiful lioness—was fit and fabulous. She’d believed no man could desire her, and even now that he had convinced her how very, very wrong that misconception had been, so that she now finally accepted the truth of her own appeal, there was still no trace of the fussing and self-absorption that Tyla had indulged in endlessly.
How easy that makes her to be with—she accepts my desire for her as naturally as breathing now, returns it with an ardour that takes my breath away!
And it was much more than simply the time she spent in his arms, breathtaking though that was. It was her enthusiasm, her sheer enjoyment of everything—from food, to sunbathing, to swimming, to gazing up at the stars—everything they did together.
I like being with her. I like her company—I like her thoughts and views and opinions. I like it that she likes this simple place and that she does not yearn for bright lights and sophisticated glamour. I like her laughter and her smiles.
She
