Barefoot Bride

‘Is it? Don’t try and tell me you weren’t lying there trying to work out how soon you could tell me that you only wanted this for tonight, that it didn’t mean anything to you and that it wasn’t meant to be for ever.’

‘What did you think it was?’ retorted Alice, glad that he had found the words for her.

‘I wasn’t thinking at all.’ Will’s wry smile gleamed in the darkness. ‘I can’t say I regret it, though. It wasn’t something either of us planned, but I think it was something we both wanted-or are you going to deny that?’

‘No, I’m not going to deny it,’ she said in a low voice. ‘There’s always been a special chemistry between us.’

‘I know that. You don’t need to worry, Alice.’ Will reached out and lifted a lock of her wet hair, rubbing it gently between his fingers. ‘You don’t need to explain or make excuses. I know you’re leaving, so you don’t have to think of a way out. Let’s just leave tonight as an itch that we both scratched.’

It ought to have made Alice feel better, but somehow it didn’t. She knew that Will was right, and that he was giving her exactly what she needed, but she didn’t want to be an itch.

Sitting up, she pushed her damp hair away from her face and reached down for the sheet that had slipped unheeded to the floor much earlier. ‘Is that it?’ she asked almost sharply as she wrapped it around her.

‘What more can it be?’

‘Well…there’s still three weeks or so until I go,’ she found herself saying.

There was a pause. ‘What are you suggesting, Alice?’ he asked, and it was impossible to tell from his voice what he was thinking. ‘That we keep scratching that itch?’

‘If that’s how you want to think of it.’ Alice bit her lip and pulled more of the sheet onto the bed. ‘You were right about the way out. There’s no point in pretending that I’m not leaving in three weeks’ time, so I’m not making any promises. I wouldn’t want you to think that I’m talking about for ever.’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Will, at his most dry. ‘I learnt a long time ago never to think of you and for ever in the same sentence.’

‘Then, if we both know that, why not make the most of it?’

Part of Alice was rearing up in alarm at her insistence, and warning her that nothing good could come of getting involved with Will again. It was all very well to talk about scratching an itch, but, once you had given in to the need, it was almost impossible to stop. It was madness to think that she could sleep with him for three weeks and then calmly walk away. Better to leave things as they were, as Will himself had suggested, and treat tonight as a one- off. She had a nice house and a life to go back to in London. That was enough, wasn’t it?

But another, more reckless, part had her in its grip tonight. Why not? it was asking. How long was it since she had felt that gorgeously, fabulously good, that relaxed, that sexy? What was the point of not doing it again, when they had another three weeks or more to get through? They both knew where they were. They had no expectations of each other. And it had been great. Did she really want that to be the last time?

No, she didn’t.

‘It would be fun,’ she coaxed, realising at that moment that it was a very long time since she had let herself simply have fun. Ten years, in fact.

Will was silent for a moment. ‘I don’t want to fall in love with you again, Alice,’ he said.

‘We won’t fall in love,’ she said. ‘We’ve been there, and we know it doesn’t work. That doesn’t mean we can’t have a good time together.’

‘So you just want me for my body?’ said Will, but Alice was sure she could hear a smile in his voice.

‘We-el…’ She let the sheet fall and slid back down beside him, letting her hand drift tantalisingly over his flat stomach, and scratching him very, very lightly with her nails. ‘If the itch is there, we might as well scratch it, don’t you think?’

The downward drift of her fingers was making it hard for Will to think clearly. ‘So we’ll have the next few weeks and then say goodbye?’ he managed.

Alice’s hand paused for just a second. ‘Then we’ll say goodbye,’ she agreed.

Will knew that he was probably making a mistake but right then, with her fingers teasing him and her lips against his throat, and her body warm and soft and close, he didn’t care. Moving swiftly, he pinned her beneath him and put his hands on either side of her face. ‘All right,’ he said as he bent to kiss her. ‘Three weeks. Let’s make them good ones.’

It didn’t work, of course. They had about a week when they both resolutely closed their minds to the future, and thought only about the days with Lily and the long, hot nights together. It was easy to fall into their old ways, talking, laughing, arguing, making love…And inevitable, Will thought, that he should start wishing that it could go on for ever.

Knowing that, it made him increasingly tense and irritable. He was angry with Alice for her dogged refusal to consider taking a risk on the unknown, angrier with himself for agreeing to the one situation that he had most wanted to avoid.

Because of course he had fallen in love with Alice again. The truth was that he had probably never fallen out of love with her, and it wasn’t helping matters to have her there whenever he went home, as combative, challenging and stimulating as ever, as warm and responsive every night. Every time Will looked at her, his heart seemed to stop, and the knowledge that he would have to let her go gnawed relentlessly at him.

Three weeks, that was all they had. After the heady delight of that first week, Will did his best to distance himself from her. But how could he when she was there in his bed, when she lay warm against him all night, and her very nearness made his head reel?

Alice sensed his withdrawal, even understood it. It had been a wonderful week, but slowly the sensible side of her was regaining its natural ascendancy. Ah-ha! it cried. Told you you’d regret it! Look what a mess you’ve got yourself into now!

The three-week deadline changed her whole sense of time. Sometimes it seemed to rush forward with dizzying speed, making her panic, and at others it slowed to a lethargic trickle that made it impossible to imagine the future. Alice tried to focus on going home, but her life in England seemed increasingly unreal.

She had expected to start feeling bored by now, to start yearning for shops, cinemas, bars and the gossip and pressure of a proper job, but it hadn’t happened yet. She tried to make herself miss them, but how could she think about London when Lily chattered as she swung on her hand, and the lagoon glittered behind the coconut palms, and Will closed the bedroom door every night with a smile?

The arrival of Lily’s trunk only underlined how far she was from home. Having made such a fuss about Will not bringing his daughter’s things with him, Alice had to admit that none of the clothes were suitable for a tropical island. There were surprisingly few books, and a lot of very expensive and hardly-used toys, none of which seemed to interest Lily very much.

She had to find some way of detaching herself from life here, Alice thought with increasing desperation. It was too comfortable, too intimate, with just the three of them. She needed to get out and meet more people, make her life bigger again so that when she left there wouldn’t be an aching gap where Will and Lily had been. Deep down, Alice was afraid that she might have left it too late for that, but at least it was a plan.

When Will told her that he and his team were preparing for an open day at the project headquarters that Friday, Alice leapt at the opportunity.

‘Can we come?’

‘To the open day?’ Will looked taken aback at the idea.

‘Why not? It would be a chance for Lily to see what you do all day.’

‘I’m not sure it’ll be of any interest to a child. We’ve got a government minister coming, but it’s really about trying to involve the local community in the project, especially the fishermen, and getting them to understand what we’re trying to do.’

‘Why don’t you lay something on for all the children?’ said Alice. ‘They’re part of the community too, and if you get them on board now it’ll make things much easier in the future. You could lay on little trips for them,’ she went on, warming to her theme. ‘Or have a competition with little prizes…you know, they have to find out information as they go round and answer questions, or find something, like a treasure hunt.’

‘I suppose we could do something for the children,’ said Will slowly.

‘It’ll be good for Lily to start meeting other children before she goes to school, too,’ Alice pointed out.