Several times she looked around, but the tangle of growth that surrounded the bungalow was empty of prying eyes. Anyway, it wasn’t the sort of sensation that whispered of danger. More a feeling of languorous expectancy, as though something good was going to happen…
‘Perhaps your new passport will arrive tomorrow,’ she murmured, looking down at her clenched hand; because she wasn’t married, she’d taken to wearing Guy’s signet ring on her middle finger. It was still too big, but it didn’t slip off.
It was made of heavy gold, and the engraving almost worn away; not for the first time, she turned her hand in the red light of the dying sun, trying to make out its form. Some sort of crest, she thought—a bird? Were those wings? The outline danced in the smoky light and she blinked hard to clear her sight, but had to give up again.
Whatever, he clearly valued it, so when she finally got off Valanu she’d leave it with the agent.
Driven by restlessness, she let down the woven sides of the room and loosened the knot on her sarong, walking out onto the coral platform to enjoy the cooler air of evening on her bare shoulders and arms. A yawn took her by surprise.
‘What the hell are you doing here?’ a familiar voice enquired from behind.
ONE hand holding back her heartbeats, Lauren swung around. A large dark silhouette against the violent crimson of the sky, Guy Bagaton stood a few feet away.
Relief and incandescent joy rioted through her, shocking her with their intensity.
Guy demanded, ‘Why aren’t you staying at the resort?’
‘I didn’t have enough money,’ she told him, fighting to keep her voice level. Although he stood about ten feet away, his awareness rested like a blade against her sensitised skin. ‘Your agent is in Singapore—he’s expected back tomorrow.’
Guy said something that made her brows shoot up. ‘So what have you been using for money? The amount I gave you wouldn’t have kept you for a week.’
‘It has,’ she said.
Then her eyes adjusted to the rapidly fading light, and she gasped and raced towards him. ‘What happened?’
He ignored the bandage around his upper arm. ‘It’s nothing—a crease from a bullet,’ he said curtly. ‘How are you?’
‘I’m fine.’ Brows drawn together, she examined him closely.
He was still villainously unshaven, his autocratic features were more deeply carved, and something in his eyes—a kind of bitter determination, as though he’d kept going through events that no one should ever see—had dimmed his tremendous vitality.
Empathy twisted her heart into a hard knot in her chest. No man should look like that. ‘How did you know I was here?’
He sent her a stabbing glance. ‘It took me a while. In the end I called in a favour from someone who works in the immigration service.’ He looked around. ‘This is no place for you.’
‘Has a doctor looked at that bullet crease?’
‘Yes. She jabbed me and provided me with antibiotics. It’s barely a scratch.’ He held out a plastic bag and, when Lauren automatically took it without stopping her anxious scrutiny of his face, commented drily, ‘You can open it. Your passport is in there.’
‘My passport!’ Hastily she pulled the bag open and saw the familiar cover. She looked up again sharply. ‘Did you go back to the resort?’
His lashes drooped. ‘Briefly. It had been looted, but they hadn’t been able to get into the safe.’
The hairs on the back of Lauren’s neck lifted. ‘How—was everybody all right?’
‘There was no one there, but as far as I know, the staff survived.’ He finished, ‘The passport’s intact and unblemished.’
Gratefully she said, ‘Thank you so much. It was terribly kind of you to take the trouble.’
Yet all she could think was that it meant she could now leave Valanu—when he had just arrived. A dangerously heady enchantment wrapped her with silken energy.
Lust, she thought, yet knew she was wrong. At the beginning, yes—it had been stark, undiluted animal attraction—but now she knew much more about Guy Bagaton, and that physical chemistry had transmuted into something she didn’t dare examine. He had saved her from what could have been her death; she wished she could help him with the cocktail of emotions simmering beneath his granite façade.
She put her passport on the table, its familiar formality incongruous amongst the scarlet taffeta of a cluster of hibiscus flowers. ‘Come in—no, let’s sit outside; it’s slightly cooler.’
True, but it was also less intimate. Babbling slightly, she continued, ‘You look as though you could do with a drink—a previous guest left behind a couple of cans of beer if you want some. They’re still in the fridge.’
He said on a harsh half-laugh, ‘You’re a woman out of every man’s fantasy.’
A rill of pleasure ran through her, hotly disturbing. Getting a can, she said lightly, ‘Because I offered you a beer? You’ve got remarkably low standards if that’s all a woman has to do.’
He took it from her, broke the seal, and drank half the contents in one swallow. Lauren busied herself pouring a long glass of tangy fruit juice before turning to find him watching her with a narrow-eyed intensity that almost sent her swaying into his arms.
‘Nothing like a can of beer after a few days’ fighting in the jungle,’ he said after a second so taut she could feel its impact twanging along her nerves.
Lauren let her breath go on a noiseless sigh. ‘Let’s sit on the terrace.’
He sank into one of the chairs with a sigh that hinted of bone-deep weariness. ‘Did you have any problems getting into Valanu?’
‘At first they didn’t want to let me off the plane.’ She drank the juice, taste buds purring at its acidic tang, every sense honed and on tiptoe. ‘The fake marriage papers—and the pilot—persuaded them to relent. He stayed long enough to convince them that I was truly married to you.’
‘Beachcombers are a damned nuisance in the Pacific. Without tough policies for keeping them out, the islands would have freeloaders from all over the world preying on the locals. Who have little enough for themselves, most of the time.’
‘Your name did the trick.’ She wanted very much to know what had happened on Sant’Rosa, but instinct warned her not to probe. ‘And you can’t believe how grateful I am to you for thinking of it. I walked past the prison the other day, and you were right, it didn’t look like a place I’d enjoy staying in.’ Remembering how he’d tried to put her off going up to the village in the mountains, she finished with a hint of humour, ‘I’ll bet the cockroaches there are truly outstanding specimens.’
‘No toenail is safe,’ he agreed gravely and swallowed another mouthful of beer. The warm light of the lamp emphasised the lines engraved down his cheeks and the dark fans of the lashes hiding his eyes.
Fighting a disturbing urge to cradle his head against her breasts, Lauren averted her gaze to a sky so deeply black it was like staring into the heart of darkness. Stars began to wink into life, huge, impersonal, the pure air cutting the familiar cheerful twinkle.
Pitching her words just above the soft murmur of the waves, she asked, ‘How long are you here for?’