‘Hardly.’ The smile dropped for a minute but then he relaxed and moved behind her, massaging her shoulders until some of the tension eased away from her. ‘You can see why it helps so much that I have brought you along…Abby, you’re the only person I trust and I can’t tell you how much it means to me…’
‘Don’t say it.’ She swung around to face him and pulled him down so that he was kneeling in front of her. ‘I trust you too…we’re good for each other, Michael. It cuts both ways. I only hope…’
‘What?’
‘Your brother doesn’t seem to like me,’ Abby said bluntly. ‘Did you notice? I got the feeling that he was looking at me, I mean really looking at me. When everyone was at the table and he offered that toast to our engagement, he just leaned towards me after everyone else had carried on talking and said something about it being a very speedy engagement.’
‘Don’t worry about Theo,’ Michael said reassuringly. ‘He’s just an older brother. He’s always been like that. We didn’t go to the same schools. He went to England to board, but I can remember him coming back for holidays and he would always be there, at my school gates, making sure that everything was all right.’ A smile of affection lit up Michael’s attractive face. ‘He knew about me being bullied, you see. I didn’t want Mum involved, but Theo wasn’t standing for any of it. He only had to show up a couple of times, and it never happened again. He is like that, Abby. Always there for the family.’
‘Yes, but…’
‘But nothing. Do not worry.’ He stroked her arm fondly. ‘He will be able to see that we are very happy in each other’s company and that will be enough.’
Abby wasn’t too sure. Two hours later her mind was still worryingly focused on Theo, on that dark, sexy face staring at her, considering her, trying to get inside her head.
In the opaque darkness she could make out Michael’s shape on the long, elegant sofa by the window, could see his chest gently rising and falling. Michael would never see the darkness behind the light, he was just that sort of person, but she could see it. Theo Toyas unsettled her. There was a still watchfulness about him that had made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end, and even now, in the sanctuary of their room, she could still feel that shiver of apprehension just thinking about him.
Things didn’t seem so bad in the morning.
She woke early, missing the comforts of her own place and missing her son. Michael was still sleeping and she smiled fondly at the figure curled under the blanket. He could have shared her bed, he knew that, but he had chosen the sofa and she had been quietly relieved. The only body she was accustomed to sharing her space with was that of a five year old, and it would have been uncomfortable having Michael in bed with her, even though he would have kept to his side. He was not a restless sleeper.
Abby clambered out of bed. Dozing had become a thing of the past. Ever since she had had Jamie her body clock seemed to have been reset to waking up early and collapsing in bed by ten.
She tiptoed across to Michael and gently shook him until he had surfaced into a state of groggy wakefulness.
‘I need to phone Rebecca and speak to Jamie,’ she whispered, stroking back his hair, which was sticking up in odd directions. ‘Where’s the phone in this place? I don’t want to burst into anyone’s bedroom but I might as well call now while everyone’s still asleep.’
‘Out of the bedroom…hmm…’ He half sat up and frowned. ‘God, it’s been so long since I’ve been here…Why don’t you use my mobile instead? You can go down to the pool and call. Out through the front door and then turn right and keep going. Want me to come with you?’
‘And deprive you of your beauty sleep?’ Abby grinned. ‘Wouldn’t dream of it.’ She spent a scant fifteen minutes washing her face and brushing her hair, then she changed into a pair of cropped jeans and a T-shirt and headed out with Michael’s phone.
This was the first time she had been away from her son and she was missing him as much as she had known she would, even though she knew that he would be fine back in England. He was at school during the day and he adored Rebecca, who had moved in for the duration of the week to look after him.
She was already dialling the number as she made her way outside to the pool area, which was a way away from the front of the house and surrounded by protective foliage. She glanced up once and almost faltered at the beauty of the spot.
Although the gardens were lush, the natural glory of the caldera was in its rocky magnificence, sloping downwards to the still, flat water of the volcano.
She could admire later, she thought, turning her back on both the pool and the view and finding a little spot of privacy on a chair by the side. Right now she needed to get through to her son before he headed off to school.
His voice, when she finally heard it down the end of the line, after a few minutes of chatting to Rebecca, brought an instant smile to her lips. She drew her legs up and leaned back, eyes closed so that she could picture his little face, her long hair tumbling over the back of the chair.
He had a secret. He wasn’t supposed to tell. It took all of ten seconds for him to gleefully inform her that Rebecca had tucked a chocolate bar into his lunch-box. But there was some fruit too, he hastened to assure her. He babbled on, with Abby interjecting here and there, content just to listen to his childish ramblings. In her mind, she could picture him with his toffee-coloured hair rumpled, dwarfed in his uniform, which she had sensibly bought one size up so that it could last a bit longer. His thin legs would be dangling from the kitchen stool and his grey socks would be pushed down because all the other boys wore theirs like that.
‘I’ll call again later,’ she promised, hearing the catch in her voice and taking a deep breath to steady herself. ‘Don’t forget to draw me a picture for when I get back. We can put it up on the notice-board next to the one of the dinosaur.’
From the veranda Theo watched silently as the telephone call was ended and she remained where she was, her face soft, lost in her own private thoughts.
His mouth tightened as he considered her. There was only one thing that could make a woman look like that and it was a man. And there was only one reason why she would have slunk out of the house at the ridiculously early hour of six-thirty to make a call, and it was because she couldn’t afford to make the call in front of Michael.
With the fluid, soundless movements of a panther, he fetched his towel from the bathroom and took the roundabout route to the pool.
Abby, still pleasantly absorbed in thinking about Jamie, was unaware of anyone approaching until he spoke and then she jumped, spinning around in shock.
‘I’m sorry,’ she stammered, half rising as he emerged to stand in front of her. ‘I didn’t hear you coming.’
She felt her skin start to prickle with a mixture of fear and awareness as she took him in.
The full force of his male beauty hit her like a sledgehammer. He was more bronzed than his brother and vibrated with a powerful masculine attraction that Michael somehow lacked. The light of day did nothing to diminish the impression. If anything, he seemed more imposing with the harsh early sun accentuating his strong, hard features and those cold, fathomless eyes that were now boring into her with as little warmth as they had done the night before.
‘I
