“Where are you going?” Oliver called after her.
“Somewhere warm!” she shouted over her shoulder. Somewhere warm, where she wouldn’t need a fire, a glass of whisky, and a pair of strong arms holding her close to stop her from shivering.
…
Mad dogs and Englishmen, they said, went out in the midday sun. With her fair skin, Olivia was much too cautious to follow their example. In the past week, she’d established a simple routine for her days with an early morning swim, followed by breakfast and a walk. After lunch she took a siesta. Most days she didn’t sleep, but she lay on her bed in the cool, darkened room and read for an hour or two. When the worst of the heat was gone, she put on her bikini again and ventured out to the pool. Sometimes she swam, often she simply stretched out on a lounger, slathered herself with high-factor sunblock, and lay back to enjoy the warmth of the Caribbean sun.
It was a novel experience doing nothing. She’d always assumed she was the sort of person who couldn’t do nothing, but here on the lazy beaches of St. Lucia, a million miles from MCI Oil’s Aberdeen offices, it turned out to be rather easy.
Olivia reached out to pick up her cocktail and sipped at the delicious pineapple drink, grateful for its icy chill. Adjusting her sunglasses, she lay back and basked in the late afternoon sunshine.
Other than the sound of an occasional plane overhead, this pool was wonderfully quiet. There was another, much larger, pool on the other side of the resort where families tended to gather, and the infinity pool behind the main hotel building had a floating bar that drew the honeymooning couples. She preferred the privacy of the little pool, even if she did have to get up to order another drink.
She’d surprised herself on this holiday. It was the first time she’d traveled completely alone, without the security of business colleagues to make arrangements and plan ahead. The absence of colleagues was a welcome relief, but the absence of a plan was an unexpected benefit. No deadlines to meet, no meetings to schedule, no flights to coordinate. She’d booked her luxury beach hut for a month, but if she felt like it, she could stay longer or leave sooner.
Some days she went for a massage or an aromatherapy session. Once she’d hired a scooter and taken a trip into the nearest town. Tomorrow she had booked a scuba diving lesson. She had a snorkel that she used to explore the rock pools and coral reefs just off shore, but she wanted more.
The Caribbean Sea wasn’t the Persian Gulf, but these shores rivaled the Saqati waters for richness of marine life. The hotel offered trips on glass-bottomed boats for tourists, but Olivia had no desire to take one. Not unless the boat was being driven by an Arab sheikh who would lie beside her, identifying and describing everything they were seeing. But St. Lucia was disappointingly lacking in Arab sheikhs.
Which was the reason she’d chosen to come here.
Olivia felt a faint sense of irritation when a shadow passed over her, and its owner sat on the lounging chair next to hers. Many empty loungers surrounded the pool, so why would someone choose to intrude on a lone sunbather? She shut her eyes, turned her head to the other side, and did her best to ignore the sounds of a can being opened and then more rustling.
She couldn’t ignore the dollop of freezing cold sunblock dropped in the middle of her stomach. Olivia shot upright. “What the hell was that for?”
“You were burning.”
“No, I wasn’t.” She looked down to check. She was always thorough with her sunblock and there was no sign that she’d missed anywhere.
“Better to be safe than sorry.”
She hadn’t imagined it. That deep, husky voice couldn’t belong to anyone else. She looked through her sunglasses, then lifted them up and checked again. Definitely Khaled. Here. In St. Lucia. Sitting next to her.
Olivia scooped off the excess cream and automatically put her hand out to wipe it off on his stomach. He tensed. She froze, watching his muscles twitch millimeters from her touch. Cautiously, she withdrew her hand, shaking it so that the sunblock dropped onto the ground. She wiped her hand on her towel and sat up.
“Khaled, what are you doing here?” A sudden, horrifying thought gripped her. “You’re not on your honeymoon, are you?”
His eyebrows shot up in horror that matched her own, and she breathed a silent prayer of relief.
“No, I’m not on my honeymoon. I came to find you, of course.”
“Of course?”
He took hold of her hand and pulled her round so that they were facing each other, knees almost touching. Olivia instinctively pushed her lounger back, but Khaled grasped its steel frame, holding it so that she couldn’t go far.
“I’m sorry it took me so long, Livvy.”