He turned abruptly. 'What about you, Bella? I haven't been great company for you so far. I'm sorry.'
'Don't worry, I understand, and it's fine.' She smiled brightly as she got up and began unpacking her case. 'I'm having a great time. Most of the people seem really nice, I'm staying in this fabulous hotel for free, and I've got a whole week to lie in the sun and read. What more could I want?'
'Will?' suggested Josh.
Bella froze for a second, then busied herself hanging clothes in the wardrobe. It made a good reason to turn her face away so that Josh couldn't read her expression too clearly.
'We can't always have everything we want,' she said. 'Sometimes we just have to make the most of what we've got.'
Josh thought about what she had said as he lay sleepless beside her that night. Moonlight slipped into the room through a crack in the curtains and laid a stripe across Bella, who lay on her front, her face turned towards the window and her hair spilling over the pillow. The light was a bright band, highlighting the curve of her shoulder, and grazing the edge of her mouth. It lit the soft line of her cheek and turned her hair silver before striping on across the pillow and up the wall.
Was this the only way he could look at her properly now? Josh wondered in despair. When she was asleep?
She had looked wonderful earlier at the reception laid on by C.B.C. to welcome everyone, but Josh hadn't been able to gaze at her the way he had wanted to do. There were too many other people around, too many others vying for her attention, too many of them standing between him and Bella.
She had been wearing some kind of sleeveless red dress and yet another pair of absurdly fragile shoes. Josh didn't know very much about women's clothes, but he could see that the outfit made Bella the sparkling centre of the room. Amongst the muted colours everyone else seemed to be wearing, she stood out like a bright flame.
Torn between pride and jealousy, Josh watched her flirting and charming her way around the room. Apparently it was all right for
But it was hard not to admire her. She had been with these people less than twenty-four hours, and already she seemed to know everybody, and whether by design or not, had contrived to make firm friends with a number of the key people who would make the final decision about whether to award Josh the global contract or not. They kept coming up to Josh and telling him how nice Bella was, how pretty she was, what fun.
As if he didn't know.
He should have been pleased. He should have been grateful. He should have encouraged Bella. Josh knew all that. But all he really wanted to do was to push his way through the men thronging around her, grab her by the wrist and drag her back to the room. Instead he had to smile and agree that, yes, Bella was a very special person.
The dinner after the reception was nearly as bad, and then there was sitting around in the bar to be got through. Josh found himself longing for the moment when he would have Bella to himself, but when they finally left to go back to their room, it was even worse.
Once they would have laughed and compared notes about who they had met, and Bella would have conducted an extensive critique of what the other women had been wearing, the intricacies of which Josh had never really appreciated but which had always amused him. But now any attempt at conversation shrivelled in the air and the only sound to break the silence between them as they walked back to their room was the rasp of insects in the tropical darkness.
They were both determinedly matter-of-fact about going to bed. Josh had looked out some old pyjama bottoms and Bella was wearing a nightdress she had obviously chosen for its lack of seductive frills but whose uncharacteristic plainness only emphasised the glow of her skin and hinted at the lushness of her body beneath.
Josh waited on the veranda, listening to the insects and the murmur of sea, and trying not to think about peeling that nightdress off Bella, while she spent what seemed like hours in the bathroom. His turn took a couple of minutes and, by the time he came out, she was in bed, the sheet pulled up to her chin.
'Are you cold?' he asked stiltedly. 'I can turn the air-conditioning down if you like.'
'No, I'm fine.'
Tightening his jaw, Josh threw back the sheets on his side and got in. He could lie without touching Bella at all, but he was desperately aware of how close she was.
'Are you ready for me to switch off the light?' he asked in a voice that didn't sound like his at all.
'Yes, thanks.'
One click, and the room was plunged into darkness, with just the sound of the air-conditioning rattling into the silence.
Josh cleared his throat. 'Well, this is odd,' he said.
'I know.' Bella sounded grateful to him for breaking the silence. 'It's lucky we're such good friends, isn't it? Imagine what it was like for Phoebe and Gib. They ended up sharing a bed with someone they didn't really know at all. It must have been really awkward.'
Josh wondered how it could possibly have felt more awkward than it felt now, lying next to Bella and knowing that whatever he did he mustn't reach for her.
'Lucky for us,' he agreed dryly.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Josh hoped that things would get easier as the week went by, but they didn't really. The days weren't too bad. He spent most of his time diving, and in the evenings he was careful not to be alone with Bella if he could avoid it. She was always the centre of a big group anyway, so that wasn't a problem.
That meant that there were only the nights to get through. Josh told himself to treat them as an endurance test, like sitting out a blizzard halfway up a mountain, or carrying a heavy pack through the jungle when there were leeches insinuating themselves into your socks and you hadn't slept for three nights. If he could survive those, he could survive this.
Of course he could.
Aisling provided the most effective cover for his feelings for Bella, and Josh stuck as close to her as he could. It wasn't difficult. Bryn had turned out to be obsessive about deep-sea angling, and while Josh and Aisling were diving, he was out on a boat, strapped into a chair, and wrestling with, according to him at least, monster fish. In the evenings, he would relive his exploits in second by second accounts of his machismo to anyone who would listen.
Josh noticed that Aisling looked a little tight-lipped at times, and often manoeuvred to a join the table where he and Bella were sitting rather than sit alone with Bryn, and he began to wonder if Bella's theory was right and that Aisling's passionate romance was wearing thin already.
'I told you so.' Bella was almost snappy when he mentioned it to her. 'It must make you feel better.'
Better? Josh was puzzled for moment before remembering that he was supposed to be still in love with Aisling.
'Oh…yes, yes, it does,' he lied.
'Obviously all those hours you and Aisling spend diving are paying off,' said Bella with a brittle smile. 'I'm very happy for you.'
'You don't sound very happy.'
'No, well, it's hard to feel very happy about being dumped on the beach every day while you and Aisling go off together,' she snapped.
Josh looked at her in surprise. 'You said didn't want to go diving,' he reminded her. 'You said were having a good time.'
'It's not much fun being an object of pity for everyone else on the beach!'
He frowned. 'What do you mean?'
'You know what I mean, Josh!' said Bella angrily. 'I know you want to be with Aisling, and that's fine, but you
