Decidedly dull, that was, until Leo slipped an arm around her waist and pressed his mouth to her ear. ‘Did I tell you how much I love your shorts,’ he whispered, ‘and how much I can’t wait to peel them off?’
And she shuddered right there in anticipation of that very act. But first there were other pleasures, other discoveries. They discovered secret bays and tiny coves with sheer cliff walls and crystal-clear waters. They found bays where inlets carved dark blue ribbons through shallow water backed by pure white sand, a thousand shades of blue and green against the stark white beach and the lushly vegetated hills rising above.
They stopped for a swim at that beach, followed by a picnic comprising a large platter of antipasto and cold chicken and prawns, with Vietnamese cold rolls with dipping sauce all washed down with chilled white wine or sparkling water.
After lunch, the Alvarezes went for a stroll along the beach and Maureen took a snooze while Eric and Leo chatted, no doubt about business, a little way away. And Eve was happy to sit right there on the beach in her bikini, taking in the wonders of the scenery around her, the islands and the mountains, the lush foliage and amazing sea and above it all the endless blue sky. And she felt guilty for not sharing it with Sam, even though she knew that if he had come, none of them would have been able to relax for a minute. One day, when he was older, she would love to show him.
Leo dropped down on his knees behind her, picked up her bottle of lotion and squeezed some into his hand, started smoothing it onto her shoulders and neck until she almost purred with pleasure. She didn’t think it necessary to inform him she’d just done that. ‘You look deep in thought.’
‘I was just thinking how much Sam would love this. I’ll have to try to bring him one day.’
His hands stilled for a moment, before they resumed their slippery, sensual massage. ‘Don’t you love it?’ she said. ‘Can you believe the colour of that sea?’
‘I’ve seen it before.’
‘You have?’ But of course he would have. Leo had been everywhere. ‘Where?’
‘In your eyes.’
The shiver arrowed directly down her spine. She snapped her head round. ‘What?’
He squeezed more lotion, spread it down her arms, his fingertips brushing her bikini top as he looked out at the bay. ‘When I first saw them, they reminded me of the Aegean, of the sea around the islands of Santorini and Mykonos, but I was wrong. For every colour in your eyes is right here, in these waters.’
And that battle scarred never-say-die, foolish, foolish creature inside her lumbered back into life and prepared for take-off once more. ‘Leo…’
He looked down at her upturned face, touched one hand to the side of her face. ‘I don’t know how I’m ever going to forget those eyes.’
Then don’t! she almost blurted, surprising herself with her vehement reaction, but he angled her shoulders and invited her into his kiss, a heart-wrenching bittersweet kiss that spoke of something lost before it had even been found, and she cursed a man with a stone for a heart, cursed her own foolish heart for caring.
‘Come on, you two lovebirds,’ Eric yelled along the beach. ‘We’ve got a seaplane to catch!’ If the Whitsundays had been spectacular from the boat, they were breathtaking from the air in the clear afternoon light. Island after island could be explored from the air in the tiny plane, each island a brilliant green gem in a sapphire sea. And just when Eve thought it couldn’t possibly get any better, they headed out over the Coral Sea to the Great Barrier Reef. The sheer scale of the reefs took everyone’s breath away, the colours vivid and bright, like someone had painted pictures upon the sea, random shapes bordered in snowy white splashed with everything from emerald green and palest blue to muted shades of mocha.
And then they landed on the water and transferred to a glass-bottomed boat so they could see the amazing Technicolor world under the sea together with its rich sea life. ‘I am definitely coming back one day to show Sam,’ she told Maureen as they boarded the seaplane for the journey back to Mina. ‘Thank you so much for today. I know I’ll treasure these memories for ever.’
And from the back seat Eric piped up, ‘You just wait. We saved the best till last!’
They had. They were heading back over a section he identified as Hardy Reef, one part of a network of reefs that extended more than two thousand kilometres up the north Queensland coastline, when she saw something that didn’t fit with the randomness of the coral structures.
She pointed out the window. ‘That looks like… Is that what I think it is?’ Eric laughed and had the pilot circle around so they could all see.
‘That’s it. What do you think of that?’
It was incredible and for a moment her brain had refused to believe what her eyes were telling her. For in the middle of a kind of lagoon in the midst of a coral reef where everything appeared random, there sat a reef grown in the shape of a heart, its outline made from coral that looked from above like milk chocolate sprinkles on a cake, the inside like it was covered in a soft cream-cheese frosting, all surrounded by a sea of brilliant blue.
And little wonder she thought in terms of frostings and cakes, because it reminded her so much of the cake she’d made for Sam for his first birthday, knowing that as he got older he’d want bears or trains or some cartoon character or other. She figured that for his first, before he had a say, she could choose, and she’d made a heart shape, because that was what Sam meant to her.
‘Look, Richard,’ Felicity said, clasping his hand as they circled around. ‘It’s a heart. Isn’t that amazing?’
‘It magical,’ Eve said, gazing down in wonder at the unique formation below. ‘This entire place is just magical. Thank you.’ The Culshaws laughed, delighted with the reactions of their guests as Leo took her hand and pressed it to his lips. She turned to him, surprised at the tenderness of the gesture, finding his eyes softly sad, feeling that sense of loss again, for something she had not yet quite gained. ‘What is it?’ she asked, confused.
‘You are magical,’ he told her, and his words shimmied down her spine and left her infused with a warm, golden glow and a question mark over her earlier accusation. A heart of stone? she wondered.
But there was definitely something magical in the air.
They dined alfresco that evening, an informal barbecue held early enough that Sam could join them, happily showing off his new toy collection to anyone who displayed an interest. Luckily nobody seemed to mind and Sam was in his element, lapping up the attention. When he yawned, there was general consensus amongst the couples. It had been a fabulous day, but exhausting, and tomorrow there was serious work to be done, an agreement to finally be hammered out between the men, a morning at the spa on a neighbouring island for the women.
And before that a night of explosive sex. Eve felt the tension change in the man alongside her, the barely restrained desire bubbling away so close to the surface she could just about smell the pheromones on the fresh night air. She sensed the changes in her own body, the prickling awareness, the mounting heat. It distracted her.
Sam, sensing the party winding up around him, found his second wind and made a dash for the toy room. Eve was too slow, caught unawares, and surprised when it was Felicity who snatched up the squirming child. ‘Gotcha!’ she said, swinging him in the air and tickling his tummy before, breathless and