‘Will…’ Alice was reeling, shocked by the emotion surging between them and the power of her own response.
‘I’m going to Belize next week to work on the reef,’ he went on, taking her face between his hands. ‘Come with me,’ he said with an urgency she had never heard from him before. ‘Come with me and marry me, Alice. We need each other, you know we do. Clive has got his big, fat bonuses to keep him warm. He won’t even notice you’re gone. Say you’ll come with me, and we can spend the rest of our lives making each other happy.’
And the truth was, Alice remembered by Beth’s pool in St Bonaventure, that for a moment there she hesitated. Every fibre of her body was clamouring to throw herself back into his arms and agree.
And every cell in her brain was clanging a great, big warning.
She had the security she had yearned for at last. She had a good job, and in a year or two she would be in a position to get a mortgage and buy her own flat. Wasn’t that what she had always wanted? A place of her own, where she could hang up her clothes in a wardrobe and never have to pack them up again? She was safe and settled. Did she really want to give that up to chase off to the Caribbean with Will, no matter how good it felt to kiss him again?
‘Say yes,’ Will urged her, encouraged by her hesitation.
Very slowly, Alice shook her head. ‘No,’ she said.
She would never forget the expression on his face then. Alice felt as if she had struck him.
‘Why not?’ he asked numbly.
‘It wouldn’t work, Will.’ Alice pulled herself together with an effort. ‘We went through all this two years ago. We agreed that we’re different and we want different things. Our lives were going in different directions then, and they still are now. What’s the point of pretending that they’re not?’
‘What’s the point of pretending that what we have doesn’t exist?’ he countered, and she swallowed.
‘It’s just sexual chemistry,’ she told him shakily. ‘It’s not enough.’
‘And Clive and his bonuses are, I suppose?’ Will made no attempt to hide the bitterness in his voice.
Alice didn’t—couldn’t—answer. It wasn’t Clive, she wanted to tell him. It was the way her life seemed finally under control. She was settled, and had the kind of reassuring routine that she had craved when she was growing up.
And, yes, maybe Clive and the other boyfriends she had had weren’t kindred spirits the way Will had been, but at least she knew where she was with them. They didn’t make her entrails churn with excitement the way he had done, it was true, but they didn’t make her feel superficial and materialistic for wanting to root herself with tangible assets either. Will was like her parents. He wanted things like freedom, adventure and independence, but Alice had learnt that you couldn’t count on those. You couldn’t put them in the bank and save them for when you needed them. Freedom, adventure and independence might be great things to have, but they didn’t make you feel safe.
So all she did was look helplessly back at Will until he dropped his hands, his expression closed. ‘That’s three times I’ve asked you to marry me,’ he said bleakly as Alice lowered her trembling arms and rubbed them unsteadily. ‘And three times you’ve said no. I’ve got the message now, though,’ he told her. ‘I won’t ask you again.’
He had stepped away from her then, only turning back almost against his will for one last, hard kiss. ‘Goodbye, Alice,’ he said, and then he turned and walked out of her life.
Until now.
Alice sighed. For a while there, the past had seemed more vivid than the present, and her heart was like a cold fist in her chest, just as it had been then.
‘Are you sure?’ asked Beth, whose blue eyes could be uncomfortably shrewd at times.
‘Of course.’ Alice summoned a bright smile. ‘It was fine,’ she repeated, knowing that Beth was afraid that tension between her and Will would mar the party she had planned so carefully. ‘And it will be fine this time, too. Don’t worry, Beth. I promise you I don’t have a problem meeting Will or his wife,’ she went on bravely, if inaccurately, as she got to her feet. ‘Will probably won’t even remember me. Now, why don’t I give you a hand unpacking all that shopping?’
Will watched anxiously as Lily took Beth’s hand after a moment’s hesitation and allowed herself to be led off to the pool, which was already full of children squealing excitedly. His daughter had looked apprehensive at the thought of making new friends, but she hadn’t clung to him or even looked to him for reassurance. He was almost as much a stranger to her as Beth was, he reflected bitterly.
‘She’ll be fine.’ Roger misread Will’s tension. ‘Beth loves kids, and she’ll look after Lily. By the time the party’s over, she won’t want to go home!’
That was precisely what Will was afraid of, but he didn’t want to burden Roger with his problems the moment that they met up again after so long. He’d always liked Roger, and Beth’s delight at bumping into him the day before had been touching, but the truth was that he wasn’t in the mood for a party.
He hadn’t been able to think of a tactful way to refuse Beth’s invitation at the time, and this morning he had convinced himself that a party would be a good thing for Lily, no matter how little he might feel like it himself. Beth had assured him that it would be a casual barbecue, and that several families would be there, so Lily would have plenty of other children to play with.
Will hadn’t seen his daughter play once since they had arrived in St Bonaventure, and he knew he needed to make an effort to get her to interact with other children. But, watching Lily trail reluctantly along in Beth’s wake, Will was seized by a fresh sense of inadequacy. Should he have reassured her, or gone with her? He was bitterly aware that he was thrown by the kind of everyday situations any normal father would take in his stride.
‘Come and have a beer,’ said Roger, before Will could decide whether to follow Lily and Beth or not, so he let Roger hand him a bottle so cold that the condensation steamed. There wasn’t much he could do about Lily right now, and in the meantime he had better exert himself to be sociable.
The two men spent a few minutes catching up and, by the time Roger offered to introduce him to the other guests, Will was beginning to relax. He didn’t know whether it was the beer, or Roger’s friendly ordinariness, but he was definitely feeling better.
‘Most people are outside,’ said Roger, leading the way through a bright, modern living-area to where sliding-glass doors separated the air-conditioned coolness from the tropical heat outside.
Will was happy to follow him. He had never minded the heat, and, if he was outside, he’d be able to keep an eye on Lily at the pool. Roger glanced out as he pulled open the door for Will, then hesitated at the last moment.
‘Beth did tell you who’s staying with us, didn’t she?’ he asked, suddenly doubtful.
‘No, who’s that?’ asked Will without much interest as he stepped out onto the decking, shaded by a pergola covered in scrambling pink bougainvillaea.
He never heard Roger’s answer.
He saw her in his first casual glance out at the garden, and his heart slammed to a halt in his chest.
Alice.
She was standing in the middle of the manicured lawn, talking to a portly man in a florid shirt. Eight years, and he recognized her instantly.
Even from a distance, Will could see that her companion was sweating profusely in the heat, but Alice looked cool and elegant in a loose, pale green dress that wafted slightly in the hot breeze. She was wearing high-heeled sandals with delicate straps, and her hair was clipped up in a way that would look messy on most other women, but which she carried off with that flair she had always had.
Alice.