glowing light.
Once it had faded, the tropical night dropped with a speed Imogen could never get used to. It was the signal for the cicadas to start whirring and they would sit on, waiting for the bats to come swooping past the veranda and spotting the little geckos that darted up the walls.
Imogen wished they could stay on Coconut Island for ever. She loved the colours, the smell of the dried coconut husks on the beach, the hot wind that soughed through the trees and ruffled the surface of the lagoon.
Most of all, she loved being with Tom. She loved the long sweet nights, the mornings when he returned from his walk to wake her with drifting hands, the afternoons in the shade. She loved every moment when he touched her, every second that she could reach out for him and find him there.
But beneath the pleasure she took in every moment lurked the knowledge that it couldn’t last. Imogen tried desperately to forget that this time would pass but, just when she least needed a reminder, some stern, sensible part of her brain would put up its hand and point out that the days were passing and that before too long she would have to go back to the greyness of London in March. Back to the squash of commuters on the Tube, coats steaming with rain, back to dripping umbrellas and Monday mornings. Back to being Tom’s PA.
There would be no more nights together, no more lazy afternoons.
No more loving.
Imogen would push the thought away, but the days passed in relentless succession and suddenly it was their last evening on Coconut Island.
Leaning on the veranda railing next to Tom, she watched the sun setting in a blaze of crimson behind the reef.
But she would have to find a way to face it, and to reassure Tom that she hadn’t forgotten what they had agreed.
She turned her glass between her fingers. ‘Funny to think this is the last time we’ll do this,’ she said.
It was the last time they would watch the sun set together. The last time they would sit in the dark and watch the bats swoop and dive. The last time they would listen to the insects ratcheting up their whirring, creaking, rasping chorus.
The last time they would make love in that big bed.
She had known this time would come, Imogen reminded herself, squaring her shoulders. It wasn’t as if it was a surprise. She had known all along that it would come to this.
‘This time tomorrow we’ll be back in London.’
‘Yes,’ said Tom heavily.
He ought to be glad. He would be going back to the office, back to where everything was straightforward and he knew where he was. He would be in control of his life again, not like here.
It was different here. The sun and the sea and the quietness had worn down his defences, and he had forgotten the lessons he had learnt so carefully-to guard his feelings, to keep control. He had let himself relax and lose himself in Imogen. It had felt so right at the time but now Tom was beginning to wonder if he had made a terrible mistake.
At the time, it had seemed a sensible idea. Why spend another two weeks feeling frustrated when they could come to an agreement as two consenting adults? It was all going to be so easy. They had a definite time limit. There would be no awkward discussions about when or how to say goodbye. The two weeks would end, and it would be over. Simple as that.
But he hadn’t counted on how quickly he would get used to Imogen, to her laughter and her warmth and the wild, unexpected passion that had ensnared them both.
He hadn’t counted on the way his body would crave hers like this. He had always been so controlled, and yet now he had this constant urge to touch her, to slide his hands over her and taste the sun and the salt on her skin, to feel her smile against his throat.
He wouldn’t be able to do that any more.
Tom tried to tell himself that it would be fine, that he would have work to distract him, but whenever he tried to imagine sleeping without Imogen’s softness curved into him, or waking early in the morning and not being able to turn to her, he felt something twist uncomfortably deep inside him and a bleakness crept into his chest.
‘Perhaps it will all feel different when we get home,’ he said, hoping that it was true.
‘I’m sure it will,’ said Imogen brightly. ‘It’s been lovely, but we both know it’s not real. Real will be going into work on Monday morning, and dealing with everything that’s happened while we’ve been away. We’ll be too busy to remember anything but the fact that I’m your PA and you’re my boss.’
She seemed very confident, thought Tom, but why wouldn’t she be? They had made a deal that this would be a time out of time. He could hardly blame her if that was how she was treating it. It had been his idea, after all.
The sunset was as spectacular as ever, but Tom didn’t even see it. He was confused and uneasy at the way everything was slipping out of control. How had it happened? When had he started to
It had been easy when he was with Julia. He had known exactly where he was and what he wanted. But with Imogen…The truth was that Tom had never felt the way he did now. Intellectually, he could see that she was the last kind of woman he should fall in love with, but somewhere along the line she had become essential to him in a way he couldn’t define. All he knew was that after living with her, laughing with her, loving with her, the thought of life without her made him feel inutterably bleak.
If this was love, Tom didn’t like it.
This wasn’t the joyous feeling Imogen had described. It was the gut-wrenching sensation of standing on the edge of an abyss.
And what if it
Hadn’t they been clear right from the start that this was just a temporary thing? They were making the most of things, no more than that. What they had found together wasn’t important. It wasn’t something that could last.
No, he couldn’t say anything, he had decided. If he blurted out that he was in love with her, he would embarrass her, and if it turned out that he didn’t once they got home, he would hurt her, and Tom couldn’t bear the thought of that.
And, of course, if he did say something, Imogen might say no. She might reject him, and Tom wasn’t sure that he could handle that either. Not again.
The truth, he acknowledged to himself, was that he didn’t dare say anything. He couldn’t risk everything he was on feelings that he wasn’t sure about. And so he had been imperceptibly distancing himself over the last two or three days. Better to wait until they were home, he convinced himself, and he could tell whether these strange new feelings were real or just part of this fantasy place.
Imogen had picked up on his subtle withdrawal and had drawn her own conclusions. Tom was already thinking about going home, about working together again, she decided. Was he trying to find the words to remind her that what they had was only ever intended to be temporary? She would have to make things easy for him. He would be dreading a conversation where feelings might be mentioned.
She wasn’t looking forward to it herself, but it had to be done. They couldn’t just leave and not acknowledge what the last three weeks had been like, but she would have to make it clear that she understood completely that tomorrow it would be over.
Tom still had the fallout from his engagement to Julia to face on his return. He would be preoccupied with that and with work. If she told him how desperately she had fallen in love with him it would just make him acutely uncomfortable. He didn’t need that to deal with as well.
No, the best thing she could do for him was to get back to normal as soon as possible; the best thing she could do for herself was to stop fooling herself there could ever be any future in it and make a new life for herself.
The best thing for both of them would be to pretend that these last three weeks had never happened.
Imogen set her glass on the railing, put on a big smile and turned to face Tom properly.
