Thank Heaven, she thought. Because no doubt she would have let him photograph her just like that. Her behaviour with him since arriving on this island had been nothing short of outrageous.
‘So!’ she said, and swept up her champagne glass again. ‘Tell me why you’re opposed to my decision to have a baby alone.’
He smiled a wry smile. ‘A change of subject, I presume. A wise move.’ Just thinking about photographing her in nothing but earrings and those shoes was making him decidedly uncomfortable, especially since he was wearing rather tight jeans.
Rafe picked up his champagne, took a couple of sips and put his mind to answering her very pertinent question. If she hadn’t brought up the subject of having a baby herself, he would have worked his way round to it. He hesitated to tell her what he really thought of her decision to have a baby alone by artificial insemination. She was determined anyway, and they’d just end up arguing. What he needed to know was the likelihood of her having conceived his child today.
‘I just think it was a hasty decision, and one made on the rebound after Luke. You’re still a young woman, Isabel, with well over a decade of baby-making capabilities left. You have more than enough time to find a suitable father for your baby before launching into motherhood alone. I think you should wait and see if he turns up.’
‘Look, I told you. I tried finding Mr Right both with my heart and then my head and I bombed out both ways. No. I can’t keep on waiting. And you’re wrong about my having a lot of time. A woman might be theoretically capable of having a child right up until menopause, but the odds of her conceiving and carrying a healthy baby full term start to go downhill after she reaches thirty. No, Rafe, my biological clock is ticking and, knowing my luck, it’s probably about to blow up. The time for action is now.’
Rafe had a bit of difficulty keeping a straight face. Little did Isabel know but the time for action might very well have been this afternoon!
‘I see,’ he muttered, dropping his eyes towards his champagne for a few seconds before looking up again. ‘So if your marriage to Luke had gone ahead, you were planning to get pregnant pretty well straight away, then?’
Isabel sighed. ‘Yes.’
‘On this honeymoon?’
‘Uh-huh. I had it all worked out, right to the very hour and the day.’
‘Hard to pinpoint ovulation with that kind of accuracy, isn’t it?’
‘Not when you’re as regular as I am, and when you’ve taken your temperature every day for three months.’
‘And?’ Rafe prompted. ‘When would the critical time have been?’
‘What? Oh, not till tomorrow, I think. Yes, Thursday. I do everything on a Thursday. Ovulate and get my period. Regular as clockwork, I am. Twenty-eight days on the dot. My girlfriends at work always used to envy the fact I was never taken by surprise, which was true. I used to pop into the loo at morning tea on P-day because I knew, come noon, the curse would arrive.’
‘The curse?’
‘That’s what we women call it. You don’t think it’s a pleasure, do you? Oh, but this is a depressing topic. Would you mind if we changed the subject again? Let’s talk about you.’
‘Fine,’ Rafe said, his head whirling. Thursday. Did sperm live for a full day? He was pretty sure it was possible, but she’d got up and had a shower soon afterwards. The odds weren’t on his side.
Weren’t on his side! Was he mad? He should have been relieved. He didn’t really want to be a father, did he? Did he?
He looked at Isabel and realised he did. With her, anyway.
The realisation took his breath away.
He reefed his eyes away and stared down at the pool. Stared and stared and stared. And then his eyes flung wide. Who would have believed it?
‘Rafe? Rafe, what’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost or something.’
His gaze swung back to her and he almost laughed. ‘I have. In a way. See that blonde frolicking down in the pool?’
‘The one with the really big bazookas?’
‘Yes, well she didn’t have such big bazookas when I knew her. She must have had a boob job. Anyway, that’s Liz—the girl I told you about. The one who dumped me.’
‘Really?’ Isabel was close enough to see the buxom blonde quite well, even better once she swam over and hauled herself up to sit on the edge of the pool. When she lifted her hands up to wring out her hair, her boobs looked like giant melons pressed together. Truly, they were enormous!
The grey-haired man she’d been canoodling with in the water climbed out via the ladder and walked over to where he’d left his towel. Whilst Liz looked in her late twenties, her companion was sixty if he was a day.
‘Let’s go, honey,’ Isabel heard the man say with a salacious wink as he walked by. ‘Time you earned your keep.’
‘Coming, darls,’ the blonde trilled back, though her face behind his back was less than enthusiastic.
‘Is that the man she threw you over for?’ Isabel asked, unable to keep the distaste out of her voice.
‘No. I have no idea who that is, although I presume he’s rich. No, the man Liz left me for was a fellow photographer. A more successful one at the time, though I’d heard rumours he had associations with some less than savoury video productions. I wondered what had become of Liz when I didn’t see any more of her in the fashion world. I think the answer lies in those double D cups. A lot of models, especially ones who want fame and money too quickly, get sucked into doing things they shouldn’t do. Pity. She could have been really someone. Instead, she’s turned into that.’ And he nodded towards the sight of her hurrying after her sugar-daddy, her gigantic breasts jiggling obscenely.
‘You seem slightly sorry for her,’ Isabel said, rather surprised.
‘Oddly enough, I am.’ He sounded surprised, too. ‘Seeing her again, in the flesh so to speak, has given me a different perspective. And it’s laid quite a few ghosts to rest.’
‘You loved her a lot once, didn’t you?’
‘Yes. Yes, I did. Stupid, really. In hindsight, I can see she wasn’t worth it, but love is blind, as they say.’
‘I know exactly what you mean. I couldn’t count the number of creeps and losers I’ve fallen for over the years. But, dear heaven, the last fellow I was involved with before Luke made the others look like saints. Still, I didn’t know that when I first met him.’
‘And where was that?’
‘I was working my way around Australia and had taken this job as a salesgirl in a trendy little boutique on the Gold Coast which sold Italian shoes. One day, this sophisticated guy came in and I served him. He bought six pairs of shoes, just so he could spend more time with me, he said. Naturally, I was impressed.’
‘Mmm. A bit naïve of you, Isabel, falling for a line like that.’
‘That’s me when I fall for a man. Naïve.’
‘You weren’t with me.’
‘I was attracted to you, Rafe. I didn’t fall for you.’
Terrific. Well, he’d asked for that one, hadn’t he?
‘So what happened next?’
‘What do you think? He took me out to dinner that night, then straight home to bed afterwards.’
Rafe decided not to pursue that conversation further. He felt decidedly jealous of this Hal and his instant sexual success. Isabel had given him icicles the first day they’d met. Still, she had been a bride-to-be at that stage, and possibly still suffering from the once-bitten