Even though it was nearly dark outside now, in the pinks and golds of the twilight she could see a sailboat making its way slowly to port, its tall white sails fluttering lazily in the early evening breeze. She’d gone sailing out there with her family so many times. Her parents, her sister Solaina. Those had been good times, and she almost ached from the memory of them. But that had been so long ago, and nothing now, or in her future, was about sailboats or any of the other luxuries with which she’d grown up. She didn’t miss them much, though, because she had the memories, and nothing now could come close to that.
“The bathroom,” Solange whispered, crossing over to take a peek at the bathtub. White porcelain, deep, and curved in a way she was sure would fit to her well. Solange sighed wistfully. Only a few months up in the mountains and she’d already forgotten how nice a long soak in the tub could feel. Now it was a matter of a quick, usually cold, shower. Function over luxury. And time necessitated expediency because, no matter where she was, she was expected someplace else.
But this bathroom was so nice, she did indulge herself the fantasy of it all for a moment, picking up the scallop-sculpted soap nestled into a large abalone shell sitting at the washbasin. The lavender scent of it wafted up to greet her, and she quickly replaced the soap in its abalone shell for fear that getting caught up in the luxuries here would distract her.
“Feel free to use it,” Paul said. “Any of it. All of it.”
She laughed. “Am I being that obvious?”
“Like a kid in a candy store.”
“Out in the jungle there aren’t any such luxuries. We have buildings and we have the basics, but lavender soap…Frère Léon buys lye soap from one of the villages and, believe me, it doesn’t come close to smelling this nice.” On her way out of the bathroom, Solange stepped in front of the mirror over the vanity, almost afraid to take a look.
Her first glance at herself was such a shock. “Mon Dieu!” she whispered. Slowly lifting her hand to her face, she brushed it across her cheek, then her lips, then she raised it to her hair and ran her fingers through it. “I’ve aged so much,” she said. Her eyes were almost hollow, her hair so wild. And she was so thin…Turning away, she smiled self-consciously. “I haven’t been in front of a mirror for months and after all this time I’m afraid it’s quite a shock.”
“Then we must be looking at two different images, because what I’m seeing is absolutely stunning.”
“Kind words, Doctor, but not the ones I want to hear from you.”
“That’s right. You came to discuss lab tests and X-rays.” He laughed. “It seems to be a family trait. Your father’s a stubborn man—”
“I’m not stubborn,” Solange interrupted, turning out the bathroom light and stepping out into the hallway. “I wouldn’t argue the point over my father being stubborn, but I like to consider myself persistent.” She smiled at him, hoping not to seem too pushy. “Persistent with a purpose.”
“And I always thought that was called stubborn. My mistake.” Paul placed the palm of his right hand flat against his chest and gave her a slight bow. “And my sincerest apologies to the persistent lady. I’ll never make that mistake again.”
“Accepted,” she said, laughing. Paul was quite the charmer, and she shouldn’t be paying attention to him in a personal sense, or even liking him as anything other than a business contact. But she did, and it was very foolish! She knew that. She’d had a charmer for three years and look how that had turned out.
So why was she still susceptible? Especially when anything personal had the potential to make this situation between Paul and her difficult. She needed professional—colleague to colleague. Nothing else. Maybe not ever again, because it was turning out that being on her own wasn’t as bad as she’d feared it might have been. In fact, she rather liked her life, coming and going as she pleased. Nothing but the work to dictate her time and attention. Without Mauricio, life was good now, better than it had been in a long time, and she aimed to keep it that way. Meaning no more charmers!
“So now that you stand corrected about my persistence, shall we work out the details of your hospital schedule and arrange the best way for my patients to be seen there?” Solange went to sit on one of the two rattan chairs in a grouping at the end of the beds.
“That’s direct,” he said. “And just when I thought I might get lucky.”
“Lucky, as in…?” She tossed him an exaggerated puzzled look.
“Apparently as in it’s just my luck to be in a hotel room with the most beautiful woman on the island and all she wants to do is schedule X-rays.”
“I think you’re finally catching on,” Solange teased.
“Believe me, I may have caught on, but I don’t have to like it.”
“Is this how you raise your funds? Flirt with the women until they open up their…” Solange tossed him a sly wink “…purses to you?”
“If you had a purse, would that technique work on you?”
“Flirting? Not a chance. I learned how to be impervious to that technique, as you call it, a long time ago.”
“Sounds bad.”
“At the time, yes, it was bad. In a look back, it was the best thing that could have happened to me.”
Paul seated himself across from Solange, and plucked an orange from the fruit basket on the table between them. “Me, too,” he commented casually, breaking it apart and handing her a section. “Difficult at the time, and in a much broader perspective, it was the best thing that could have happened to her.”
“Her?” Solange asked before she popped the orange into her mouth.
He grinned. “She got everything she wanted—the husband at her side, lots of children. The life she wanted that I couldn’t give her.”
After swallowing her orange, Solange asked, “And what did you get?”
“The life I wanted. I travel and I’m not too tied into the domestic scene at this stage of my life, which is a good thing. I can’t be the perfect husband, or any kind of a good husband for that matter, and continue to do what I do. Couldn’t then either, so we split and everybody’s happy.”
“You still have contact with her?”
Paul nodded. “Our parting was, as they say, amicable. No hard feelings and we do talk every few months. Mostly because she wants to know what’s going on at the hospital, though. But it’s not strained. And you?”
“Hard feelings. Really hard feelings.” No need to say more. This conversation was becoming much too personal. But Paul was so easy to talk to, and listen to, and she was going to have to keep up her guard to avoid getting caught up in every little shade. Or in him.
“Let me guess. No one has captured your heart since.”
“I haven’t dated since,” Solange said, matter-of-factly. “One of my neighbors in Miami gave it a try…chocolates and champagne.”
“And?”
She wrinkled her nose, recalling the memory. “And he had all that champagne and chocolate to himself.” Plus a pile of clothes tossed onto the sidewalk. One of her moodier moments, admittedly. But such a good one!
Paul handed Solange another section of orange and practically drooled, watching her eat it. Attraction aside, and he was surely attracted to her, this was crazy. Pure craziness. He had work to do, and in another few days he’d be back in the States. And here he was…so distracted he didn’t want to go back to Bertrand’s party at all, back to all the wealth.
That was something he never allowed.
Even