They’d arranged to meet at the pool bar an hour later. By the time she’d unpacked and changed she’d convinced herself she’d dreamt him up. But there he had been, exactly where he’d promised. Two cocktails later and she’d learned he was Greek, twenty years old, and a single traveller like herself. Dreamer that she was, she’d been convinced fate had brought them together.
‘Is this everything you’ve brought with you?’ Xander asked, taking in the physical changes time had brought on his wife. He’d known she would have changed over the years but he hadn’t expected it to be quite so profound.
Ten years ago she’d had the rounded features of a young woman. Now she was leaner, her cheekbones more defined. Large dark glasses stopped him seeing her eyes but she had a polish to her, a sophistication far removed from the wide-eyed ingénue who had captured his attention from the very first glance. That Elizabeth had been a fresh-faced open book.
This Elizabeth, the rampant curls he remembered straightened and glossed into long, tumbling waves, was professional and collected. She was dressed in slim-fitting dark grey jeans with studs across the pockets, and a fitted white shirt, which together emphasised her litheness. She could be anywhere, at a semiformal business meeting or out with friends for lunch. She was the perfect chameleon. Her looks were too striking for people not to look twice at her but she would fit in perfectly wherever she happened to be.
He carried her case to his Jeep. Elizabeth easily kept pace with him. He’d forgotten how long her legs were, and lengthened further by a pair of simple yet sexy black heels.
She was sexy. The way she carried herself. Her confidence. She was dazzling.
He pulled the passenger door open and waited until she’d taken her seat before closing it. Through the slight breeze he caught her delicate scent, which put the frangipani and butterfly jasmine St Francis was famed for to shame.
‘I’ve booked us a table at a restaurant on LuLu Beach,’ he said as he drove them out of the small airport, which mostly consisted of a landing strip and a pristine white hut. St Francis was one of the smaller Caribbean islands and had a colourful beauty that was world renowned. Not for nothing was it known as a honeymooner’s paradise.
He’d chosen St Francis for a myriad reasons. It hadn’t occurred to him that being on the island again would unsettle him so much. Sitting next to Elizabeth only unsettled him further, something he should have anticipated.
‘Sounds good,’ she said in the same easy tone she’d greeted him with. Yet, despite her friendliness, he detected a frost around her.
He could be imagining it, he supposed, but he doubted it. Meeting an ex wasn’t normally a big deal but what he and Elizabeth had shared had been different from all his other relationships.
His honesty when he’d left her had verged on brutal but he’d known it was necessary. If he’d strung it out it would have hurt her a lot more.
Had she kept quiet about their annulment’s failure as a means of punishing him; to make a bigamist of him if he’d married again? Had she spent a decade quietly biding her time for revenge?
Or did she genuinely not know they were still married?
He would learn the truth soon enough. Either way, a clean break had been the right thing to do and he had no regrets on that front. He’d disconnected the call from his mother and looked at the woman he’d married five days before and understood what a terrible mistake he’d made. His world was cut-throat and ruthless. If a woman raised in it like Ana couldn’t cope, what chance would a dreamer like Elizabeth have? She would never have been accepted or fitted into it.
It wasn’t long before they arrived at the LuLu Beach restaurant.
A waitress led them out to the terrace and to a table overlooking the beach. They sat opposite each other, both getting a good view of the tranquil surf lapping at the fine white sand like a loving puppy.
‘Water for me,’ Elizabeth said when asked what she wanted to drink.
‘Water?’ Xander queried.
‘Water.’
He shrugged and turned to the waitress. ‘One water and one bottle of beer.’
Once they were alone again he openly studied Elizabeth. The setting sun made the honey of her hair look like spun gold. ‘You look as though life has treated you well.’
He wished she would take those damned sunglasses off so he could see her eyes and gauge what she was really thinking. The sun was now set so low its glare reflected directly off them.
* * *
‘Thanks.’ Elizabeth resisted the urge to say she knew life had been treating him well. After all, Xander’s life had been all over the news and Internet for weeks.
She took a breath to calm the unexpected rage shooting through her.
Xander was her client and her clients’ private lives were none of her concern. The salacious stories about the other three men hadn’t bothered her in the slightest and she would not allow the burn that ravaged her brain whenever she imagined Xander acting out some of the described racier acts to cloud her judgement or control her emotions.
She’d thought she was prepared for this and for seeing him again but the racing of her heart and the dampness of her palms proved it to be a lie. She could have had a month to prepare and she still wouldn’t have been ready.
The waitress returned with their drinks then pulled her notepad out to take their food order. Elizabeth ordered the Yellowfin Tuna Tartare appetiser. She wasn’t hungry but it would be good to have something to nibble on, a distraction. Like most of the restaurants on the island, LuLu’s menu was a mixture of French and Creole. She’d adored the fusion when she’d been here before. She’d actively avoided both since. She’d avoided anything that would bring the memories back.
‘Why did you want to meet here?’ she asked, glad the sun was still strong enough to warrant keeping her shades on. She’d read once the eyes were the gateway to one’s true emotions. She couldn’t bear to think of Xander looking into hers and seeing the pain all the bittersweet memories were evoking.
‘It bothers you?’
‘It bothers my pride. I have no issue finding a life partner for you but I do think you could have shown some sensitivity and chosen somewhere neutral for us to meet.’
‘I don’t require a life partner. I require a wife.’
‘Is that not the same thing?’
‘A life partner suggests permanency. I only need a temporary wife.’
Removing her professional notebook from her bag, Elizabeth wrote ‘temporary marriage’ in it and circled it so heavily the nib of her pen bent.
Determined as she was to keep things on a professional footing, she couldn’t help but say, ‘Using your ex-wife to find you a new wife is one thing, but conducting the preliminary interview on the very island we met and married screams insensitive jerk to me. You have the money and resources to travel anywhere your heart desires so why here? Was it to rub my nose in it?’
When she finally looked at him, he was staring at her with a look she couldn’t
