lamps-for just such an eventuality, he supposed-but it still took some time to find it and, when his hand did finally close on it, he exclaimed with relief.
‘At last!’
He clicked it on and they both blinked at the brightness of the beam. To Imogen’s relief, the blackness that had been pressing so heavily around them shrank back instantly.
‘That’s better,’ said Tom, and it was, until he looked down to see that he was still holding Imogen’s hand. ‘Are you OK?’ he asked carefully.
She followed his gaze to their linked fingers and a flush crept up her cheeks. ‘Yes, I’m fine,’ she said, awkwardly disentangling her hand.
Funny, thought Tom. That didn’t feel better any more.
He had been so close to kissing her. If that lightning hadn’t taken out the electricity just then, he wouldn’t have been able to stop himself. And where would that have ended?
Tom knew where. In that bed, and in the very situation he had just managed to convince himself that he should avoid.
Imogen was clearly thinking better of things as well. He had noticed how quickly she had withdrawn her hand from his, and now she was hugging her arms about her nervously. She might still be spooked by the storm, but he thought it was more likely that she was unnerved by the fact that her boss had almost kissed her.
Best to pretend that nothing had happened, he decided.
‘Well,’ he said, a little too heartily, ‘let’s light the gas lamps and then we may as well have something to eat. There are plenty of salads in the fridge.’
Imogen never forgot that meal in the hissing light of a gas lamp while the rain crashed onto the roof and her fingers twitched and tingled where they had been curled around Tom’s. She couldn’t keep her eyes off his lean, solid body, massive and reassuring in the wildness of the dark night.
She tried not to stare, but her eyes kept skittering back to him, only to skitter away again the moment they collided with his pale grey gaze. Not that it mattered where she looked; all she could see were the hard angles of his face, his hands, his mouth. His
It was just the shadows cast by the lamp, Imogen tried to tell herself. Just the power of the downpour, the energy of the lightning, that was making her feverish. Just the storm that was raging outside and deep inside her, fizzing like lightning in her blood and making her heart thunder so loudly that if it hadn’t been for the rain, Tom must surely have heard it.
It was almost a shock when the rain stopped as abruptly as it had begun. One moment it was pounding down, the next there was an uncanny silence, broken only by the steady drip, drip from the huge tropical leaves outside, before the insects erupted into frenzy and the whole island steamed in the aftermath.
Imogen knew just how it felt. Leaping up, she made a big show of clearing away the plates and putting the food away. Tom hadn’t said anything but it was obvious that he had changed his mind about kissing her.
It had been too easy to get carried away by the darkness and the drama of the storm, she reminded herself. And put herself in Tom’s position. He was only a man, after all. She had been young, female and alone with him in the dark. Who could have blamed him for being tempted to forget Julia’s rejection with someone who was clinging to him like a limpet?
Or for thinking better of it when the lights came on again?
It was just as well nothing had happened, Imogen decided. It would have made it very awkward. Tom was still her boss, and they were going to have to go back to working together in a couple of weeks.
And even if he
No, Imogen told herself firmly. Absolutely not. She had narrowly escaped making the most enormous fool of herself, and it wasn’t going to happen again. From now on, there would be no holding hands, no pressing herself against him, no fantasising about kissing him. They had agreed to be friends and a friend was all she would be.
Imogen woke the next morning to a bright blue sky. The air was rinsed and sparkling and when they set off for the reef as usual, the water was so still and so clear that it was hard to believe in the ferocity of the storm the night before. If it hadn’t been for the intensity of the island scents, heady and lush after the rain, Imogen might have thought it had all been a dream.
She was hoping that excruciating awareness of Tom would turn out to have been a dream too, but if anything it was worse in the diamond-bright light, when every line around his eyes, every crease in his cheek, seemed extraordinarily clear, and when the severe planes and angles of his face were etched against the blue sky.
Remembering her vow, though, Imogen chattered brightly all the way to the reef, and gave what she thought was an excellent impression of a girl too inane to harbour lustful thoughts about her boss.
It was a relief to put on the mask and snorkel, to hide her face in the water and lose herself in the absorbing world beneath the surface. The silence was soothing. There was just the coolness of the water and the sound of her breathing and the fish drifting below in a spectacle of colour, and by the time Tom indicated that they should go back, she was feeling much more herself. She was able to be really normal as the little boat skimmed over the water, and her spirits lifted.
See, she could do this, she congratulated herself as she settled onto the lounger in the sun a little later and opened her book. Last night had been an aberration. She would blame it all on the storm. All she had to do was carry on treating Tom as a friend and enjoy the holiday. She would have to worry about how they got back to a working relationship when they got home.
One thing was sure, she couldn’t see them being friends in London. Their lives were just too different. Tom wouldn’t be happy slobbing out on the sofa while she and Amanda gossiped, dissected the latest celebrity mags and tested each other on developments in the latest soaps. He wouldn’t offer to ring for a takeaway when it turned out there was nothing in the fridge, or want to lie in bed until lunchtime on a Sunday.
And he would never be able to cope with their messy flat, Imogen realised, remembering his need for order and control. He needed someone like Julia-gorgeous, glamorous Julia, who probably drifted around art galleries looking intelligent on Sundays and no doubt lived in an immaculately tidy apartment.
No, they might be friends on Coconut Island, but there was no point in thinking that it could be the same in London.
When Tom appeared with a glass of fresh lime juice a little later, she put her book down with a cheerful smile.
‘You make a great barman,’ she told him. ‘I’ll owe you lots of coffees at your desk when we get back to the office.’
No harm in reminding him that she hadn’t forgotten reality, no matter how much it must have seemed it the night before when she had clung to him and her eyes had been crawling all over him.
‘Actually, it’s Ali you should be making the coffee for,’ said Tom, sitting sideways on the lounger next to hers. ‘He made these. He was just finishing tidying up after the storm when I was checking my email.’ He swirled lime juice around his glass with a faint frown. ‘Does tonight mean anything to you?’
‘No. Should it?’
‘He was trying to tell me about something that had been arranged for tonight, but I couldn’t get what he was talking about.’
Imogen pulled a face. ‘No idea. Perhaps there’s a party or something at the resort? He could have been asking if we wanted to go.’
‘God, I hope not,’ said Tom in dismay. ‘I said yes, OK, just because it seemed easier than trying to understand. But maybe you’d like to go and meet other people?’ he added belatedly.
Normally she would have loved the idea of a party, but there was nothing Imogen wanted to do less right then. There were only two weeks left, she had remembered earlier, and she didn’t want to share Tom for even a minute of it with anyone else. But she couldn’t tell him that in case he thought she was needy and reading too much into what had-or hadn’t-happened last night.
‘It might be fun,’ she said as casually as she could. ‘Let’s see what happens tonight.’
‘Are you dressed?’ Imogen heard Tom call from the veranda that evening as she put on her lipstick. ‘Ali’s here with the boat.’
