When the nurses had realised they’d developed strategies to help, and gradually, as her brain had started to heal itself, she’d been able to process information from both sides of her visual field again.
Why and how had she chosen to see only half of Mark? And only negative things too? Ellie put her glass down on the bar. She’d made up her mind about him, set its trajectory, before she’d even met him. Her thought patterns had got stuck in one of their grooves yet again.
But now she saw all of him…
Oh.
And she saw all of herself too—all the things she felt for him.
A jumble of images, sensations and smells hit her all at once. As if every moment she’d spent with Mark flashed before her eyes. All her blinkers dropped away and she felt as if she was floating, with nothing left to anchor her to cold, hard reality.
It was quite possible she was desperately in love with him. How could she not have known?
And how had this happened in the first place? He was nothing like Sam, and she’d always expected that happiness only came in that size and shape. How would it work with someone totally different? Could it work? Their lives were so different. Could she find joy in his fast-moving, flashbulb-popping world?
Talking to Kat earlier had stretched her conceptions of what being rich, successful and famous was like, had given her a fresh look at life from her side of the lens. Kat was surprisingly human. In fact she was just like thousands of other seventeen-year-olds who cried into their pillows every night because they’d fallen for the wrong guy.
Maybe it wasn’t all as impossible as it seemed. Maybe she could have a future with Mark. Everybody needed love, whether they were rich or poor, somebody or nobody.
Her head swam. Too much pineapple-rum stuff on an empty stomach. This was no time to be thrashing this problem out.
What she needed was a clear head—and a shower.
And with that thought she plopped the straw back into the half-full cocktail glass and walked through the gardens to her cabin, thinking that even if she never qualified for the former she could definitely manage the latter.
A knock on the half-open slatted door of the cabin caused Ellie to jump off the sofa she’d been dozing on. For a second her mind was blank and she was totally in the present, hardly aware of where she was and what she’d been doing to make her so sleepy.
There was another knock, and she swivelled to face the veranda. She knew it was Mark standing out there, knew it in a way that had nothing to do with the height and shape of his silhouette and everything to do with the way her skin prickled in anticipation.
‘Come in,’ she called out, and then realised too late that she’d been fresh out of the shower when she’d collapsed on the sofa and was still dressed in her old pink robe. Too late to do anything about it now; he was already pushing the door fully open. She tried to smooth her damp hair down, and pulled at the edges of her robe to get rid of the gap.
‘I…er…’ He stopped and swallowed. Where was the carefree, free and easy Mark Wilder banter? Probably evaporated in the heat. He tried again. ‘I wondered if…if you’d like to grab some dinner?’
‘Oh. Okay. That would be lovely.’
Although they’d finished early, the third and final day of shooting had left her absolutely ravenous. On the previous couple of evenings they’d joined Kat and some of her entourage in the rather trendy hotel restaurant. Ellie had enjoyed the gourmet food, but had felt a bit superfluous to requirements.
‘I’ll just go and get dressed,’ she said, pulling herself to her feet.
She wasn’t really in the mood for sitting on the sidelines of another round of industry chat and gossip, but the only alternative was sitting alone in her room, and at least this way she got to be with Mark.
As she emerged from her bedroom, wearing a simple long skirt and spaghetti-strap top, she glanced at the clock. ‘It’s only four-thirty. Aren’t we a bit early for dinner?’
‘I’ve been up since six this morning and I’m starving,’ Mark said. ‘I don’t know about you?’
Ellie nodded enthusiastically.
‘Anyway, there’s something I want you to see first.’
Instead of heading for the hotel restaurant, Mark set off in a different direction, his long legs helping him to stride ahead. She was too busy just keeping up with him to ask questions. He led them into the hotel car park, hopped into a Jeep with a driver at the wheel and sat there, grinning at her, as if he’d done the cleverest thing in the world.
Ellie put her hands on her hips. ‘Where are we going?’
She didn’t add alone together.
‘I’m taking you to the best place on the island.’
Ellie looked down at her floral-print skirt and flip-flops. She wasn’t really dressed for fine dining. And she was too tired to be on her best behaviour. When she felt all fuzzyheaded like this she knew she was apt to forget words and bump into things more easily.
He patted the seat beside him and gave her a meaningful look. Ellie climbed in, too tired to be bothered to walk back down to her cabin, flop onto her sofa and dial Room Service. At least doing it Mark’s way she wasn’t going to have to use her legs.
The driver put the Jeep into gear and they rattled their way through the neatly manicured resort, but it wasn’t long before they’d left it behind them, heading uphill. The road was lined with palms and aloes and breadfruit trees. Occasionally she saw pretty little clusters of yellow orchids dancing in the light evening wind.
Ellie breathed out and relaxed back into her seat. This was lovely, actually. Although they’d been to three different locations over the island in the last three days, she’d always been too caught up with her clipboard and ‘to do’ lists, terrified of missing something, to sit back and admire the scenery. This island truly was stunning, everything a tropical paradise should be. The beaches were soft white sand, the sea shades of cobalt and turquoise. If it wasn’t all so pretty it would be a giant cliché. But there was something comforting about having her expectations met rather than defied for once.
It was almost a shame that everything was over and they’d be flying back tomorrow. At least she assumed it was tomorrow. If Mark had told her the time of the flight, she’d already lost that bit of information in the maze of her brain.
Looking down the steep hill and out to sea, she asked, ‘What time do we need to get to the airport tomorrow?’
Mark didn’t answer right away, and eventually she stopped looking at the stupendous view and turned to face him.
‘Mark?’
He looked away, studying the scenery through the windscreen. ‘Actually, I’d planned to take a break—stay on for a few more days.’
Oh.
That meant she’d be going home alone. Suddenly all the hours of flying she’d be doing seemed a lot emptier. She nodded, following Mark’s lead and looking
