She should just shut up, thought Bella dully. All Cassandra's talk of weddings and romantic rooms must have been all too bitter a reminder of what things might have been like if Aisling had been with him.
She had been hoping that things would be easier once the long flight was over. Sitting so close to Josh but unable to touch him had been a nightmare. Bella hadn't been able to keep her eyes off him. She tried to concentrate on her book but it was hopeless when her gaze kept sliding sideways, skittering over his severe profile, between the creases at the edge of his eye and down the hard, exciting line of his cheek to his jaw and then to the pulse that beat in his throat.
Bella would wrench her eyes away, only to find them wandering hungrily back to his shoulder, down his sleeve to his forearm and his wrist and those strong, square hands, and her stomach would disappear in a sickening lurch of desire. She wanted to snuggle closer, to kiss her way along his jaw and nuzzle his neck. To put her arms around him and cling to the solid strength of him until he kissed her back.
Gulping, Bella forced herself to start reading the same page of her book all over again.
At one point she must have nodded off in spite of herself, because when she stirred and blinked, it was to find that her head was resting against his shoulder. Josh had obviously had no trouble resisting the urge to put his arm around her and shift her into a more comfortable position.
Fighting the temptation to press closer to him anyway, Bella willed herself not to move. At least this way she was touching him. But when she lifted her eyes cautiously, she could see that Josh's jaw was clenched, and that he was staring blindly at the seat back in front of him, his mouth clamped shut in a rigid fine, and she straightened abruptly to move away from him.
Whatever Aisling had said had touched him on the raw. This was no time to be snuggling up to him, Bella told herself. She would have to give Josh time to come to terms with losing Aisling, and it would probably be easier for him if she kept her distance rather than constantly reminding him that he was with the wrong woman.
Bella cast a doubtful look at the bed. She wasn't sure how she was going to keep her distance tonight. It wasn't
She sighed. She would just have to worry about that when the time came. There was no point in wishing that he wanted to be with her, or imagining what it would be like if they were lovers, if they had been able to fall laughing onto the bed as soon as the door was closed, kissing as they undressed to make love with the sound of the ocean shushing onto the beach beyond the veranda.
In the meantime, she should just leave Josh alone.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Josh had barely glanced at the bed. He had opened the sliding doors and was standing watching the sea through the coconut palms, and something in the set of his shoulders made Bella's throat ache. She couldn't bear him being this unhappy.
Quietly she went out to join him and for a while they watched the sunlight rippling over the shallows in silence. 'It looks beautiful, doesn't it?' said Bella at last. 'Do you fancy a swim?'
'Not right now,' said Josh. 'I think I'll have a shower instead.'
'OK,' she said brightly. 'Well…I think I'll go.'
It was almost as if he was deliberately trying to avoid her. Bella told herself that it was stupid to feel hurt as she changed into her bikini and slathered on sun cream. It was so long since she had seen the sun that she would burn to a crisp if she wasn't careful.
For the first time ever she felt self-conscious about her body. Josh had seen her in a bikini loads of times, and in the past she wouldn't have given a moment's thought to sashaying past him down to the beach just as she was.
But that was then and this was now, and everything seemed different. Bella dug around in her case until she found a sarong, and wrapped it tightly around her, knotting it under her arms before she went back out onto the veranda.
'See you later then,' she said as casually as she could. 'OK.' Josh's voice was tight. He watched her disappear past the coconut palms onto the soft, white sand, and reappear a few moments later through another gap in the trees. She had unwound her sarong and was wading into the shallows in her bikini, while the light bounced off the water and over her skin.
He looked down at his hands. They were shaking. God, how was he going to get through this week?
It was all Aisling's fault. If she had kept her mouth shut, he could have carried on as he had before, confused and unsettled by this new and intense physical awareness of Bella, but able to tell himself that he was just upset about Aisling's rejection and not thinking clearly.
He couldn't do that now. Everything was too clear. Until Aisling had pointed it out, he hadn't let himself question the depth of his feeling for Bella, but of course she was right. Of course he was in love with Bella, and probably always had been. As long as he could tell himself that he loved her as friend, everything had been fine, but now that the truth was out there he couldn't deny it any longer: he didn't just love Bella, he needed her and wanted her and his hands itched to explore her, unlock her, and make her properly his.
Only he couldn't even let himself
And even if he could tell her he loved her, why would she believe him? He had to be pretty fickle to be engaged to one woman on Friday morning and in love with another on Monday, Josh reminded himself ruefully. If Aisling hadn't decided that her love for Bryn was too strong to resist, he would have married her.
Or would he? Their engagement had always had an air of unreality about it for Josh. Aisling's suggestion that they marry had seemed to make sense at the time. Now he could see that Aisling had merely been desperate to put Bryn behind her, but at the time the way the whole thing had ballooned out of control had been alarming. Josh didn't resent her. He was just glad the truth had come out before it was too late.
And now he couldn't think about anything but Bella, about the way she smiled and the way she moved, about the soft warmth of her body and the tantalising sheen of her skin and the silky, spun-gold hair. About the allure of her eyes and that wonderfully dirty laugh and the scent that drifted in the air long after she had gone.
It had taken an heroic effort of will not to put his arm around her when she was sleeping against his shoulder in the plane, and even worse torture to have to stand out here and let her walk past him in that damned sarong that was just asking to be untied so that he could spin her free of it and pull her back into the room and down onto the cool, inviting bed.
And tonight he had to get in there beside her and pretend that she was just a friend. How was he supposed to do that?
The contract. Josh told himself to focus on that. He was here to work and that was what he would do. If he concentrated hard enough on winning the contract then maybe he would get his thoughts back under control. He would stop thinking about lying next to Bella at night and what it would be like to reach for her, and he would start remembering that she was just a dear friend who was only here because she felt sorry for him.
Maybe.
When Bella found him later, he was sitting in the bar with Aisling, papers spread out on the table in front of them. After realising that he was hanging around like a besotted fool waiting for Bella to come back, Josh had made himself go out, where he bumped into Aisling. Since she was on her own, too, they taken the opportunity to go through their strategy for the week and decide the key points to be made and which executives needed to be targeted particularly.
Josh was feeling better. Having a shower and getting back to work had been just what he needed. Luckily Aisling was keen to get on with things too and it had taken no time at all to re-establish a good working relationship. In fact, it was already hard to remember that they had ever had any other kind of relationship.
Josh was just congratulating himself on getting a grip when Bella walked barefoot into the bar. The sarong was tied around her waist now, and her hair hung damp and tangled from the sea down her bare back. Inevitably, she had collected a group of friends on the beach, and they were laughing as they headed to the bar without noticing Josh and Aisling in the corner.
