Honeymoon with the Boss

stronger part was urging him on.

‘We’re not the same people here that we are in London,’ he said. ‘We want different things at home but here…maybe here we want the same. I know what I want. I want to kiss you again. I want to touch you again. I don’t want to spend another night on that damned couch thinking about you alone in the bed and wishing that I could be with you.’

Imogen was looking pole-axed, the blue eyes wide with astonishment. She opened her mouth to speak, but Tom was afraid to hear what she was going to say and he rushed on before she could start.

‘I know you’re still hung up on Andrew. I know you’re hanging out for something perfect that I can’t give you, but I was just thinking that while we’re here, maybe it could be perfect. We both know this isn’t real, but we’ve still got two weeks. Why not make the most of it?’

‘You mean as if this really was a honeymoon?’ Imogen found her voice at last. ‘As if we meant those vows we’ve just taken?’

‘Yes,’ said Tom. ‘We’re not talking about forever,’ he added quickly. ‘As soon as we get back to London, we can forget about this time. We can pretend it never happened. But for now…now there’s just the two of us, and we can…we can love each other, just like we’ve just promised.’ He paused, looking down into her face, trying not to show how desperate he was for her to agree. ‘What do you think?’

Imogen’s fingers twined around Tom’s. It couldn’t last, he had said. We’re not talking about forever. She was going to hurt when it was over, when she had to go back to being his PA and greeting him coolly every morning.

But she was going to hurt anyway, Imogen realised. That was what happened when you fell in love with a man like Tom.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. She had wanted the perfect relationship. She wasn’t supposed to fall in love with a man who didn’t do love, who would give her two weeks and no longer.

But she had done it anyway, and wasn’t two weeks better than nothing? At least when they said goodbye, as they would in two weeks’ time, she would have some memories to treasure. That would be all she would have, Imogen knew. There was no point in hoping that the dream would last.

Find joy in each other, the celebrant had told them. She could choose that, or she could choose to be sensible.

Imogen chose joy. It would be temporary, like everything else she did, but it would still be joy.

And how else was she to resist him for the next two weeks?

Smiling, she tugged her hands from Tom’s to rest them flat against his chest and looked up at him. ‘I think it’s a very good idea,’ she said.

Tom stared at her for a moment, as if hardly daring to believe what she had said, and then his eyes blazed and an answering smile illuminated his face. Sweeping her into his arms, he kissed her fiercely, hungrily, and Imogen melted into him, warm and willing, her fingers clutching at his shirt to stop herself from dissolving with sheer pleasure as the heat washed through her.

Giddy with the glorious relief of being able to kiss each other, touch each other, the way they had wanted to all week, they sank down onto the cushions under the darkening sky, crushing the frangipani garland between them. The fragrance of the creamy yellow flowers enveloped them, while the boat rose and fell, and there was only the shush of water against the hull, the creak of wood and the occasional flap of the sail.

The crew talked quietly at the back, giving Tom and Imogen complete privacy, but they were aware only of each other in any case. Tom’s body was hard and heavy as he pressed her into the soft cushions, his hands sliding possessively under the yellow dress.

Imogen wrapped her arms around him and forgot everything else. She was sinking under a tide of heat. Every now and then she would surface, gasping, almost frightened by the need to touch him everywhere, feel him everywhere, and a tiny part of her would wonder if she was making a terrible mistake. But how could it be a mistake when his lips felt this good, when his mouth was this exciting, when his hands were moving over her, tracing wicked patterns of desire, and she was unravelling with the need for more, more, more…?

The stars were out above Coconut Island when they made their way back along the little jetty. Afterwards, Imogen could never remember exactly how they had got there. Ali must have taken them in the dinghy, she supposed, but all she remembered was the feel of the smooth bleached wood beneath her bare feet and the gentle slap of water against the posts. She was preternaturally aware of everything: of the silky dress whispering against her legs, of Tom’s warm grip on her hand, of her mouth still tingling, her body still thumping with desire.

It all looked so familiar, she thought as they climbed the veranda steps. It all looked exactly the same when it should be different. Everything had changed since they had walked down these same steps to see Ali waiting for them at the end of the jetty.

Then they had been boss and PA; now they were husband and wife.

CHAPTER NINE

EXCEPT that they weren’t, not really. Imogen’s steps faltered at the sudden moment of clarity.

Tom was behind her, nuzzling her neck as he guided her through the door and pushed her back against it so that he could kiss her again, his hands hard and urgent. ‘What is it?’

‘You…you don’t think we’ll regret this?’ she asked unsteadily, trying to hang on to the last shreds of rationality but it was hard when the feel of his lips on her bare shoulder was enough to make her inhale sharply.

‘We’re going to have to go back to working together,’ she reminded him with difficulty as he started kissing his way down her throat. ‘How are we going to do that if we…?’

‘How are we going to spend the next two weeks if we don’t…?’ countered Tom, smiling wickedly against her skin. His fingers had found the zip of her dress and were easing it down. ‘Let’s just forget work for now.’

Imogen shivered at the sureness of his touch. She had a hazy idea that it wasn’t going to be as easy as he made out, but she couldn’t think, not with his hands sliding over her, not with his mouth devastating the last of her defences, not with the heat pooling deep inside her. It spilt feverishly along her veins until she stopped trying to think at all and gave herself up to the deep, dark spool of desire, to the feel of his mouth and his hands and his lean, hard body.

The bed was wonderfully wide. It was like being cast away, with the deep thrill of knowing that they were completely alone. There was no one to see them, no one to hear them. There was just the two of them, entwined, where nothing mattered but touching and tasting and feeling.

‘Let’s just think about being here,’ whispered Tom in her ear. ‘Let’s just think about now.’

And so Imogen closed her mind to the future and did just that.

The days that followed stayed forever golden in Imogen’s memory. At one level, things went on much as they had done before. In the mornings they explored the reef, while afternoons were spent on the beach, swimming, reading or just lying in the shade and talking.

Often Imogen was content just to sit and gaze at the sea, marvelling at the intensity of the light, of the blueness and the greenness and the pristine whiteness of the beach. She would inhale slowly, savouring the wonderfully clean, invigorating smell of sea and sunlight, feeling the heat in her nose, watching the way the breeze made the palms sway and sent their tattered shadows dancing over skin and sand.

She had never seen things so clearly before, had never been intoxicated by smell and touch and taste the way she was now. It was as if all her senses were supercharged with Tom at her side.

The laptop lay unopened now, as Tom succumbed to the dream-like atmosphere of the island. He liked to get up early in the morning, when Imogen was still asleep, and walk down to the jetty, when the light was pearly and the lagoon was quiet and still.

Imogen preferred the early evening. She loved washing off the tingling, salty feeling of too much sea and too much sun, and changing into something loose and comfortable. Tom would have made a cool drink by then, and they sat on the veranda together, watching the sun set. A hush fell over the island then, and in silence they watched the sky flush pink, deepening with astonishing speed to a blaze of orange and scarlet, while the sea shimmered and they both remembered standing on the sandbar, promising to love each other for ever in the same