‘Have that drink,’ he suggested, either unaware of her distress or completely indifferent to it. A brief lift of his hand in the air seemed sufficient to bring Simon running, the young man’s bare feet kicking up small flurries of sand as he hurried over.
There was an exchange of friendly conversation in the strange local patois she’d heard several times already, before Simon went off convulsed with laughter at some teasing remark. For a moment Pascal looked rather nice—the sort of man she could confide in, who’d share a laugh and be jolly when life became tough—and she was glad that he wasn’t too cynical to be nice to Simon.
Emboldened, she reached out and touched his arm. ‘You will help me, won’t you?’ she said persuasively.
‘Of course,’ he said smoothly, giving the lie to the message in his frosty blue eyes. ‘I’ll give you the best advice I can,’ he assured her.
‘Please do!’ she said fervently. ‘I’ve no idea how to proceed.’
The lips smiled, the eyes didn’t. ‘I think,’ he said, with a regretful sigh, ‘that all you can do under the circumstances is to enjoy your holiday here at my father’s expense, go home on the eighteenth, and hope that he’ll arrange for you to come over again some time in the future.’ He creaked the smile a little further but the dimples didn’t appear.
Her pulses hammered like small drums. He wanted to get rid of her, she felt sure. But why? Trying to be generous, she decided that she might be posing a problem under the circumstances. It was more than likely that his father had left a backlog of work at his office. She knew from her days as an office worker that difficulties arose when a key member of staff was ill.
Maybe Pascal was involved in trying to lighten the load for his father’s firm—and she was just another problem that they wanted to shelve for the time being. There might be more pressing cases to deal with...like defending those clients charged with crimes, she thought vaguely. But her case was important too! No one knew how desperately she needed Pascal’s father. It was only fair to make that clear.
‘You’re right. What you suggest would be the sensible thing to do,’ she agreed reasonably, startled by the genuine and delighted grin that lit Pascal’s face. She smiled back ruefully, knowing that she’d blow his hopes of clearing her file from the in-tray. ‘However...and I can guess that this won’t be what you want...’ she said sympathetically, ‘I’m afraid I couldn’t possibly do what you suggest. I have to stay, somehow.’
He gave her a sharp look. ‘Why?’ he asked tightly.
She smiled gently at his determination to protect his father from extra worry. ‘I’m too close to my dream. To walk away from it, to risk losing the chance I’ve been given, fills me with horror. I can’t give up on this.’
‘You’d be wasting your time,’ said Pascal coldly.
She noticed that the tiny pile of sand between them was much larger now. The crab had laboriously excavated a home for itself, grain by grain. It seemed like an omen and she gave a sigh of satisfaction.
‘I don’t think so. Your father may be my saviour,’ she said huskily. ‘When I knew what he might be offering, I was over the moon. It’s everything I’ve always wanted. To be honest, I’d have surfed across the Atlantic to come here, knowing what might transpire! I appreciate that you won’t understand what this means to me—’
‘On the contrary, I do.’ Pascal impatiently swept a hand through the mass of silky gold hair that haloed his head. ‘In my time I’ve seen plenty of women like you passing my father’s way,’ he said shortly. ‘Bright-eyed, hungry, hoping their lives will be radically changed.’
She beamed in delight. From what Pascal was saying it seemed that his father specialised in missing-person or lost-daughter cases. ‘Your father’s quite a guy,’ she said in admiration.
‘His reputation on the island is second to none,’ agreed Pascal cynically.
Mandy decided that if Monsieur St Honoré had such a good track record there was all the more reason for her to stay. She clasped her hands together tightly, her hopes rekindled.
‘If you have had experience of women like me before, then you’ll know how desperate I am,’ she said, her face impassioned as she strove to engage Pascal’s emotions. ‘I have to hang around here. I’ve got to wait till your father’s better. He can make my life perfect.’ She smiled dreamily. ‘It would be a new kind of life entirely. With someone for me to love, someone to love me...’
‘My God!’ he muttered.
She flinched, but she lifted her chin, determined not to be crushed by his look of revulsion at her sentimentality. Love wasn’t nauseating and Pascal was missing a lot if he thought it was.
‘I know I’m hoping for a lot—’
‘Dream on,’ he said scathingly.
‘I will,’ she said firmly. ‘And my dreams will come true. I am a romantic, but I don’t apologise for that. I don’t care what you think—what anyone thinks!’ she added, defending her beliefs. ‘Ever since I saw your father’s advert I’ve been so excited—dancing on air, halfscared, half-thrilled. And I don’t care who knows it. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt so happy.’
He grunted, unmoved by her happiness. ‘Pity you’re going to be disappointed.’ And Pascal lay back on the sand and closed his eyes in dismissal. ‘He won’t be well enough to see you before the eighteenth.’
Mandy frowned with irritation. He was being difficult. ‘In that case I’ll have to get a job,’ she said, with more conviction than she felt.
‘You won’t be able to,’ he muttered irritably, not even bothering to open his eyes and talk to her properly. ‘You’ll never get a work permit. Jobs go to St Lucians. So, if you haven’t any funds, how do you think you’ll manage?’
Mandy didn’t waver. She’d shift the ground from under him even if it meant doing it grain by grain! She grinned at the image and felt a bit better. ‘Well, do me a favour and save me from selling my body in the open market-place,’ she said jokingly. ‘I’m sure you can help me if you put your mind to it.’
His eyes opened and pinned her with a baleful look. ‘Are you suggesting I finance you myself?’ he asked coldly.
‘No!’ She checked her exasperation. ‘Look, your father must have someone who’s deputising for him now he’s ill. Couldn’t I talk to that person? I appreciate you must have a thousand and one things to do and I don’t want to be a nuisance, so if you’d just tell me where his office is I’ll go there in the morning and make my own arrangements,’ she finished briskly.
‘That could be difficult. He doesn’t have an office.’ He smirked at her surprise.
‘Well, wherever your father usually sees his clients,’ she persisted sweetly, wondering why he was being so obstructive.
‘In bed?’ murmured Pascal, lifting a wicked eyebrow.
Her eyes flickered. ‘Yes, in bed! Why not?’ she countered pleasantly, calling his bluff. What a ridiculous remark to make!
Pascal let his gaze drift insolently over her body and she wished
