to Miami must have been a bit of a shock, then.’ He was smiling still, but his eyes on her face were serious.
She nodded, wondering where he was heading with that remark.
‘I suppose,’ she agreed. ‘But in a good way. I could be who I wanted to be. The real me. And Miami is such a warm, vibrant place. It’s like there’s a permanent party happening.’
The change in him was negligible. She might not even have noticed it but for the slight tightening of his mouth, the ripple of tension in his shoulders.
There was a small pause, and then he shrugged. ‘You can get tired of partying!’
She looked up at his face, wishing that there were subtitles running across his forehead to give her a clue as to what was going on inside his head.
‘I suppose you can,’ she said carefully. ‘I haven’t actually been to that many.’
He shifted in his seat, abruptly switching his gaze across the veranda to the rippling blue water.
‘I must have been to hundreds,’ he said softly. ‘My parents live to party. When I was a child, Henry, my father, kept a whole bunch of suites at the Colony Club. All weekend it would be open house. To get in, my parents just had to like you. My mother, Serena, once invited the boy who cleaned our pool because he could charm snakes.’
His face grew still and taut.
‘He had other charms too!’ He stared past her, then shrugged again. ‘But not enough to keep my mother entertained. So somebody threw him out of a window. He landed in the swimming pool.’ Glancing at Addie’s horrified expression, he smiled tightly. ‘I expect you’re grateful they didn’t come to our wedding now!’
She stared at him in silence. Yes and no. For a moment she considered asking him about their absence again, but the fierce dark glow in his eyes held her back.
‘Wow! They don’t sound like most people’s parents,’ she said finally.
His eyes narrowed. ‘They’re not. In fact I don’t really think of them as parents. Serena was only sixteen when she had me, and Henry had just been kicked out of Dartmouth.’ His mouth twisted. ‘You could say we grew up together. And now there’s a couple of calls I need to make, so why don’t you take a shower or go for a swim?’
Disconcerted, she met his gaze.But there was no mistaking the discouraging tone of his voice. Nor the shuttered look in his eyes. The conversation was over.
In the end she took the shower. An hour later she lay on the bed, gazing out of the window. It had certainly been an interesting day. So much had happened—what with all the travelling and her failed attempt to seduce Malachi on the plane. Only even that felt so long ago now, and suddenly far less significant, pushed aside by his unexpected and uncharacteristic revelations about his life.
Thinking back to what he’d told her about his parents and their partying lifestyle, she bit her lip. Would she be enough to keep him entertained? Her pulse slowed and, stifling a yawn, she breathed out softly. She didn’t have to be. This trip wasn’t about partying and crowds. He wanted peace and birdsong. And her.
Or he would once he’d finished making his calls.
It was a comforting thought. Or it might have been had she not seen him sitting and staring out across the water, gaze unmoving, phone lying untouched next to where his fingers restlessly tapped the tabletop.
She tried to make sense of it. But after an hour her brain and body gave in to the heat of the day and finally, swiftly, she fell asleep.
IT WAS THE light falling across her face and a feeling of not quite knowing where she was that woke Addie. Somebody had closed the cream-coloured blinds, but she knew without even pulling them open that it was morning.
Her stomach flipped over nervously and she kept her eyes closed, basking in the soft whiteness of the morning, delaying the moment when she would have to face the man lying on the other side of the bed. What exactly was the correct way to greet your estranged husband the morning after the night before?
Her cheeks grew warm. Except there hadn’t been a night before, because she’d fallen asleep instead.
She held her breath, wondering how he felt about that fact.
But there was only one way to find out and, gritting her teeth, she opened her eyes and rolled over.
Beside her the bed was empty. And not just empty. The sheet and pillowcase were perfectly smooth. Unless Malachi had slept several inches above the mattress, he hadn’t slept there at all.
Her heart gave a twitch as she noticed a paper rose on the pillow beside her. Unfolding it, she saw that it was a note from Malachi, written in his familiar bold, cursive script.
Sweetheart,
I’m sorry I didn’t wake you last night, only I thought you needed to sleep. I’ve got a couple of problems at work to sort out, but breakfast is all laid out so help yourself to what you want.
Terry is dropping round this morning, so if you need anything else ask him.
Malachi
PS—While I remember, the security pin is 2106. You’ll need it to open any doors or windows. You shouldn’t have a problem remembering it!
She read it again, and then twice more. Reading between every line, letter and punctuation mark. But the words stayed stubbornly the same, and finally she dropped the note onto the sheet beside her.
Of course she would remember the pin number. It was their wedding anniversary. Her mouth thinned. No doubt he’d chosen it to rub in the fact that this trip was a travesty of the honeymoon they might have had, had she not walked out on him. So much for the caring, sharing Malachi of last night.
Frowning, and suddenly feeling as restless as her thoughts, she pushed the sheet off. Rolling out of bed, she padded across the floor into the wet room.
As she stood under the warm spray of water, snippets of yesterday’s lunchtime conversation with Malachi kept popping into her head, each one seeming to contradict the one before. It was so confusing. She couldn’t seem to get a clear picture of what he’d said. It was almost as though she’d been talking to several different versions of the same man. But who was the real Malachi King? And how could she have been married to a man she knew so little about?
Then again, what did any of that matter now? He wasn’t her concern any more.
Wrapped in a large fluffy towel, she walked back into the bedroom and gazed out of the window. It was another glorious day and it really was the perfect honeymoon location.
She lifted her chin. In another life, with another man, it might be, she told herself defiantly. But this was just a business trip. However, it was also probably going to be the only holiday she would ever spend on a private Caribbean island. So from now on she was going to make the most of every moment.
