‘The wet sand near the edge of the water will be firmer,’ he said with his engineer’s brain.
The full moon was high in the sky and its reflection lit a shimmering path of palest gold from the horizon, over the water to where the tiny waves of the bay sighed onto the sand.
‘Magic by moonlight,’ she breathed.
It was so light he could clearly see Lizzie’s eyes, her face pale, uplifted to the moon, her hair glinting like silver. She looked ethereal, like some kind of fairy princess in her shimmering dress.
Jesse could hardly believe he was thinking such thoughts. He was an engineer. Practical. Mathematical. Madness by moonlight, more like it.
She wound her arms around his neck. ‘I feel like I’m in some kind of enchanted world,’ she whispered. ‘And you’re the handsome prince spiriting me away to dance on moonbeams. Have I found my way onto the pages of one of Amy’s fairy tale books?’
He kissed her, lightly, possessively. ‘If that’s the case, you’re the fairy princess.’ Had he actually said that?
‘I had no idea you were so romantic, Jesse,’ she murmured.
‘I’m not usually,’ he said. ‘It...it’s you.’
This was the Lizzie who had captivated him at the wedding. During the last ten days he’d got to see the other sides of Lizzie. And the more he got to know her, the more he wanted her in his life.
She laughed and the slightly bawdy edge to her laughter reminded him how utterly real and womanly she was. ‘Where’s the music, Prince Charming? Can you conjure it up from the moonlight?’
‘The prosaic engineer in me would tell you I can play music through my smartphone.’
‘Whereas Prince Charming might say we can dance to the music of the stars,’ she suggested.
‘And the rhythm of the waves,’ he said.
‘With those chirping crickets adding some bass.’
He laughed. ‘If you say so.’
‘It’s perfect,’ she whispered.
She went into his arms and together they danced barefoot on the cool, wet sand with the occasional tiny cold wave swishing over their feet and making her squeal. They danced not with the expertise of ballroom dancers—he’d never mastered that art—but in their own rhythm, making up their steps as they went along, her glittering skirt twirling around them.
‘I don’t know that the music of the moon and stars is enough; it hasn’t quite got a beat,’ she murmured. ‘Shall I hum? I can’t sing, so humming will have to do.’
‘Go ahead and hum,’ he said, falling more under her spell each minute, totally enchanted by her.
He stood quite still as she started to hum the tune of the old song about Jesse’s girl that had tormented him for so many years. But in her slightly tuneless hum, it was the most melodious music he’d ever heard. And her particular version of the words echoed in his heart as she murmured them.
He smoothed her hair back from her face, cupped her face in his hands. ‘Do you really want to be Jesse’s girl?’
Her eyes were luminous in the moonlight. ‘Oh, yes,’ she said.
* * *
Lizzie pulled Jesse back for another kiss. She couldn’t bear to spend a minute out of his arms on this magical evening where her own Prince Charming was dancing her along an enchanted beach. Only too soon her prince might have to go across those waters to the badlands to fight his own battles and maybe never come back to her.
She’d not been one for fairy tales. As a mother, she’d tried to steer Amy in the direction of feminist tales of hard-working women who met men on an equal footing, who had no room for Prince Charmings riding to their rescue on white chargers when they could rescue themselves perfectly well, thank you very much.
But tonight with Jesse she felt differently. Whether it was indeed the magic of the full moon or because she was falling in love with him, she wanted Jesse to be her prince, sweep her up into his arms and carry her away to make her his.
Even if it was only for tonight she wanted this, wanted him. She lost herself in his kisses, yielding to his lips, to his tongue as his mouth claimed hers, trembled with pleasure at the sensation of his hands on her bare shoulders.
‘It’s about at this stage Prince Charming sweeps the princess off to his fairy tale castle,’ she murmured against his mouth.
Jesse lifted his head to meet her gaze. ‘To make her his?’
He had never looked more handsome than at this moment. His hair raven’s wing black in the moonlight, his eyes reflecting the indigo of the deep night sea.
‘Yes,’ she breathed. ‘To make her his in every sense of the word.’
‘Are you sure?’ His voice was deep, husky with a slight hitch that betrayed his fear she might say no.
There was no risk of that. She nodded. ‘My Cinderella garret above the café is all mine right now. On Wednesday the junior princess will be in residence. You might find I turn back into a pumpkin then.’
Jesse laughed, his perfect white teeth gleaming in the moonlight. ‘I think you’re getting your analogies mixed. Even I know it was the carriage that got turned back into a pumpkin. You’ve left your shoes on the beach. It will be the prince doing the rounds of every house in the magical town of Dolphin Bay trying to find whose foot fits the silver stiletto.’
She smiled. ‘So, not a pumpkin. But it’s true that at five a.m. I’ll turn back into a servant wearing rags and clogs as I stoke the fires of the café kitchen. Well, maybe not rags but—’
He dropped a kiss on her nose. ‘The clock is ticking.’
‘My castle or yours?’ she said.
‘As I’m staying in the boathouse, your garret might be more private.’
‘My garret it is,’ she said.
Laughing, kissing, Jesse danced her over the sand and back up to where they had stashed their shoes. He knelt in the sand and helped her wipe off the sand from her feet. Then he kissed the arch of each foot before he slipped on her silver stilettos.
‘I had to stop myself from doing that the night I massaged your feet,’ he said.
Delicious ripples of pleasure shimmered through her. ‘No need to stop now,’ she whispered.
Totally engrossed in the magic of being with Jesse, Lizzie didn’t care who might see them make their way hand in hand towards her apartment. There, in true fairy tale prince fashion, he gathered her into his arms and carried her up the stairs and into the magical kingdom of her bedroom.
JESSE HAD AGREED with Lizzie to keep secret the new turn their relationship had taken. In the three days since their dance on the beach they’d managed not to arouse suspicion. Neither of them wanted to be subject to the inevitable teasing the revelation they were dating would bring. To him, Lizzie was not just one in a stream of ‘Jesse’s girls’. As far as he was concerned, she was the one and only Jesse’s girl.
This wasn’t something short-term. He was convinced of that. Lizzie wasn’t underhand and dishonest like Camilla had been. He trusted her.
He intended to talk to her today about the proposition he had discussed in depth with Ben. His brother had suggested they pool some of the land they each owned around Dolphin Bay and form a property development company.
Jesse had been involved in the building