Honeymoon with the Boss

Just in case it turned out that they were going to a party, Imogen had put on her only smart dress. It was a pale creamy yellow and made of a gorgeous silky material that slithered coolly over her skin and was perfect for putting on after a day in the sun. She had tried to be sensible and sit in the shade as much as possible, but even so the sun had turned her skin to a warm gold and her hair was streaked with blonde. The dress set her new sun- drenched colouring to perfection.

‘I wonder what’s going on,’ she said to Tom, fixing in her earrings as she joined him on the veranda.

‘Let’s go and see.’

Barefoot like Imogen, Tom led the way down to the jetty. He was browner too, and his silver eyes made an even more startling contrast than usual with his tanned skin. Following him along the jetty, Imogen found her eyes resting hungrily on his back, and she squirmed at the guilty desire that swirled deep inside her like liquid gold.

Stop it, she told herself sternly. Don’t look at him. Don’t even think about it.

Ali was waiting for them in a dinghy at the end of the jetty. All smiles, he gestured out to a beautiful wooden boat waiting beyond a reef.

‘For you,’ he said.

‘It doesn’t look like a party anyway,’ said Tom in relief.

Imogen was watching the boat. ‘Isn’t it lovely? It’s called a dhoni, I think. I remember reading about them when I was booking the island. Apparently they’re fabulous for a sunset cruise. I wonder if that’s what this is?’

‘You didn’t book it?’

‘No, but it’s possible Julia did,’ she said slowly. ‘She asked me for all the details of the resort at one point. Maybe she was planning a surprise for you?’

‘Well, we may as well find out.’ Tom pointed at himself and Imogen, and then at the boat with a questioning look at Ali, who nodded vigorously.

‘Yes. Come, come.’ He waved them towards him.

‘He seems to be expecting us,’ said Tom. ‘What do you want to do? I can tell him there’s been a mistake, or we can go along and see what happens.’

‘Let’s go,’ she said. ‘It’ll be fun.’

The dhoni rocked gently as they climbed on board. Tom and Imogen were shown to the prow, which had been laid with luxurious cushions, and they settled down, feeling self-conscious as the crew pulled up the anchor and hoisted the square sail.

Once the sails were up and filled, the engine was cut and there was just the slap and rustle of the waves against the wooden hull. The sea breeze lifted their hair and filled their nostrils with an ocean tang, while the water deepened to a dark, beautiful blue and the setting sun turned the light to gold.

‘I don’t know whose idea this was, but it was a great one,’ said Imogen, thrilled by the lift and fall of the boat.

Tom watched her smiling with pleasure, and his throat ached. She was all warmth and light in the sunset. Her skin was honey-coloured, her hair bleached with sunshine, and the pale yellow dress clung enticingly to her curves and fell in soft folds around her bare legs.

The urge to reach for her, to slide his palm up over her smooth knee, beneath her skirt to explore her thigh, was so strong that he got abruptly to his feet to lean on the side of the boat.

‘Dolphins,’ he said, pointing, relieved at the distraction.

‘Where?’ Imogen jumped to her feet to join him. ‘Oh, yes! Oh, aren’t they wonderful?’

Face alight, she leant beside him, her arm only inches from his. She wasn’t looking at him. She was watching the dolphins with delight as they played in the frothy wake from the prow, leaping and rolling with effortless grace through the water. A warm breeze blew her hair around her face and she held it back as best she could with one hand.

‘This is all perfect.’ She sighed, turning to him with a smile.

‘Yes,’ he said, but he was looking at her rather than the dolphins. ‘It is.’

That was when Imogen made the mistake of looking into his eyes, and her smile faltered. It was just like the night before, when at least there had been the excuse of darkness for gazing back at him. Now she had dolphins to watch, the boat to discover, the thrill of the deep, dark ocean and the beauty of the sunset to distract her, and yet she still couldn’t wrench her eyes from Tom’s silvery-grey ones. They held an expression she had never seen before, one that she couldn’t identify but which made her heart kick into a new, slower, reverberating rhythm that sent the blood humming along her veins and lit a tremble of heat deep inside her.

Held together by an invisible skein, neither of them noticed that the sails were being lowered. They were oblivious to the boat turning or Ali readying the dinghy once more, and only a shout from the captain to a member of the crew jerked them back to awareness of where they were.

They both looked quickly away.

Tom cleared his throat. ‘What’s happening now?’

‘I’m not sure. We’re stopping for some reason. It’s just a sandbar, but there’s someone there…’ Imogen peered over the beautifully carved wooden rail, not sure whether she was relieved or sorry at the distraction.

So much for all her stern resolutions this morning about putting last night behind her. All it took was one look in Tom’s eyes and she was lost. Her pulse was thumping and she felt ridiculously shaky.

‘It looks as if we’re going ashore,’ she said, forcing a smile, but avoiding his gaze. ‘I’ve always wanted to go on a magical mystery tour, haven’t you?’

‘No,’ said Tom, who was way out of his comfort zone. ‘I like to know where I’m going.’

But he went readily enough when they were gestured to the dinghy, and then ferried across the translucent shallows to the sandbar. Once there, it seemed obvious that they should get out, so Tom helped Imogen jump onto the sand and looked enquiringly at Ali.

‘For you,’ he said, pointing them towards a frail elderly man dressed in immaculate white who seemed to be waiting for them.

‘What’s going on?’ Tom muttered out of the corner of his mouth as they headed obediently towards the old man.

‘I’ve got no idea,’ confessed Imogen, baffled, but when they got a bit closer she saw that a circle had been drawn in the sand and she stopped and tugged at Tom’s sleeve.

‘What is it?’

‘I’m getting a bad feeling about this,’ she whispered.

Tom glanced at the elderly man and then back at Imogen. He was just an old man, surely? What was so threatening about that?

‘I think it might be set up for a wedding ceremony,’ she told him.

‘What?’

Tom’s voice rose and she shushed him quickly. ‘I read about it when I was finding out about honeymoons here for you. You can’t actually get married here because it’s a Muslim country, but you can have a special ceremony to bless your marriage or renew your vows.’

‘And you booked one?’ he asked, aghast.

‘Of course not,’ hissed Imogen, ‘but what if Julia did? She might have thought it would be romantic. There’s so much organisation that goes into a wedding, it sometimes seems hard for the bride and groom to really enjoy it and think about what they’re promising in the ceremony. This way you’d have had time to relax after the wedding and say your vows again when you could really concentrate on each other.

‘I think it’s a nice idea,’ she finished defiantly, reading the scepticism in Tom’s expression without difficulty.

Now Tom thought about it, Julia had dropped some cryptic comments about their vows but he hadn’t been listening properly. If he had, he would have told her that he couldn’t imagine anything worse.

But it was too late for that now. ‘If all this was booked in advance, why didn’t they tell us anything about it when we arrived?’

‘Perhaps they did,’ said Imogen, remembering how distracted they had both been at the resort. ‘Neither of us were really paying much attention to what the manager was saying.’