They did try. They sat across from each other at the table and began by checking their email, but it was hard to care very much about strategic audits or core competencies or competitor analysis when outside the ocean was murmuring against the reef and the sun was slicing through the fringed leaves of the coconuts. Somewhere a bird called raucously and a tiny, almost colourless gecko ran up the wall and froze as if astounded by the sight of two humans staring silently at their computer screens.
Tom couldn’t understand it. Until now, work had always been his refuge. He was famous for his ability to focus, in fact, but the words on his computer screen were dancing before his eyes, and his attention kept straying to Imogen across the table. Had she always had that little crease between her brows when she studied the screen? That way of tucking her hair behind her ears?
Sensing his gaze, she glanced up and caught him staring at her. ‘Did you want something?’ she asked.
Tom scowled to cover his mortification. ‘We ought to discuss the new acquisitions strategy.’
‘O-kay,’ said Imogen cautiously while she racked her brain to remember what he was talking about. Her mind was full of colourful fish and the sunlight on the sea. She couldn’t even remember what an acquisition was, let alone how you ever had a strategy for it. London and the office seemed to belong to a different world altogether, a world where Tom Maddison was brusque and brisk and besuited, not lean and long-legged and sleekly muscled.
Not the kind of man who could make her heart turn over just by sitting at the helm of a boat with his hair lifting in the breeze from the ocean and his steely eyes turned to silver in the light.
Tom started talking about some new executive vice president while Imogen searched her inbox desperately for the relevant email, until he stopped abruptly.
‘Oh, to hell with it!’ he said, throwing up his hands in a gesture of defeat. ‘It’s too hot to work. Let’s go and swim.’
‘I’ve often wondered how people who live in lovely climates ever get any work done,’ said Imogen a little while later. They were sitting in the tattered shade of a leaning palm and she curled her toes in the soft sand as she looked out over the lagoon. ‘It’s bad enough at home when the sun shines. The moment it comes out, I always feel like turning off my computer and spending the afternoon in the park.’
Tom raised a brow. ‘Nice to know you’ve got such dedication to your work.’
‘I’m only a temp,’ Imogen reminded him, unruffled by his sarcasm. ‘Temps aren’t supposed to be dedicated. It’s different for you. You’re responsible for the whole company. If you get it wrong-or decide you’d rather spend the afternoon in the park-then it’s not just you that’s out of a job. A lot of other people will lose their jobs too.’ She made a face. ‘I’d hate to have that kind of pressure on me, which is why I’ll never have a hugely successful career.’
‘Don’t you have any ambition?’ said Tom, unable to completely conceal his disapproval.
‘Sure I do, but it’s probably not the kind you would recognise. My ambition is to be happy,’ she said simply. Picking up a piece of the dried coconut husk that littered the sand beneath the trees, she twirled it absently between her fingers. ‘To see the world, forget about Andrew and find someone who will love me and who wants to build a life with me.’
Imogen glanced at Tom. She could tell that he didn’t understand. ‘What about you?’ she said, pointing the piece of husk at him as if it were a microphone. ‘What’s your ambition?’
He didn’t have to think about it. ‘To be the best.’
‘Yes, but the best at what?’
Tom shrugged. He would have thought it was obvious. ‘At whatever I’m doing,’ he said with a hint of impatience. ‘If I’m running a company, I’m going to make it the leader in its field, I’m going to win the most lucrative contracts and earn the highest profits. It doesn’t matter what the race is for, I’m going to win it.’
‘What happens when you
‘I try again until I do,’ said Tom. ‘The winner is always the one in control, and I never want to be in a position where anyone else can tell me what to do.’
Imogen tossed the husk back into the sand. ‘No wonder you don’t believe in love,’ she said, remembering their conversation the night before.
‘I believe in success,’ he said. ‘And it’s not just for me. I take a failing company, I turn it round and I make it the best and, as you pointed out, everyone who works there shares in that success. People are depending on me for their jobs, for their futures. If I fail, they fail too.’
‘They’ll still have jobs if the company has the second-highest profits,’ Imogen pointed out. ‘Not winning isn’t always the same as failing.’
‘It is to me. I’m not prepared to be second-best,’ he said uncompromisingly. ‘That’s why I won’t take a day off when the sun shines.’
‘And why you’re thinking about work when you’re sitting in paradise?’ She gestured at the view. Coconut palms bent out towards the water, framing the beach and the lagoon between their fringed leaves like an exquisite picture. Beyond the shade the light was hot and harsh, bouncing off the surface of the lagoon and turning the white sand into a glare.
Tom’s expression relaxed a little. ‘You started it,’ he said.
‘Did I?’
‘You were the one talking about switching off your computer.’
‘So I was,’ she conceded. She watched a breath of wind shiver across the surface of the lagoon and stir the palms above their head.
‘It’s hard to imagine that the office exists right now, isn’t it?’ she went on after a while. ‘While we’re sitting here in the sun, the girls are in Reception, Neville’s in Finance, the other secretaries are sending out for coffee… There are meetings going on and decisions being taken and things are changing without us.’ She shook her head. ‘It just doesn’t seem real.’
‘And when we go back, this won’t seem real,’ warned Tom.
‘Well, I for one am going to make the most of it.’ Getting up, Imogen dragged her lounger out of the shade. ‘I think I’ll spend a busy afternoon working on my tan.’
She adjusted the lounger so that she could lie flat and turned onto her stomach before groping around in the sand for the book she had dropped there. Wriggling into a more comfortable position, she smoothed out the page with a sigh of pleasure.
‘This is the life! I’m never going to be able to go back to work after three weeks of this.’
Tom watched her with a mixture of disapproval and envy. She had an extraordinary ability to enjoy the moment, he realised. It wasn’t something that he had ever been able to do. He was always too busy thinking about what needed to be done at work.
‘Careful you don’t get burnt.’
‘Yes, Mum!’ But Imogen pulled the beach bag towards her and rummaged for the sun cream. She supposed she should put some on. Sunstroke was no fun.
Squeezing some lotion into her palm, she slapped it onto her shoulders as best she could.
Tom hesitated, torn between the disquieting temptation of touching her the way he had been thinking about all day and a horrible fear that he might not be able to control himself if he did.
But she couldn’t reach her back herself, could she? He could hardly sit here and let her burn.
‘Would you like me to put some cream on your back for you?’ he offered stiltedly.
It was Imogen’s turn to hesitate. The thing was, she would and she wouldn’t. The thought of his hands on her skin made her shiver with excitement, but she was petrified in case he guessed quite how much she
But they were being normal here, right? She would burn if she didn’t do something about her back, and she wouldn’t hesitate to ask any other friend to rub cream in for her.
‘That would be great,’ she said after a beat.
Reaching behind her, she unclipped the bikini top and lay flat, her arms folded beneath her face and her head pillowed on her hands. She was wearing sunglasses, but turned her head away from him as an extra precaution.
The squirt of the suntan lotion onto his hands seemed unnaturally loud, and Imogen found herself tensing in preparation for his touch. When it came, his hands were so warm and so sure that she sucked in an involuntary breath and couldn’t prevent a small shiver snaking down her spine.
‘Sorry, is it cold?’
