‘Well, don’t think I will rush it,’ Meena said right on cue, confirming his fears of how this working relationship was going to proceed. ‘There are reefs on this side of the island and the coral is very vulnerable. It’s my responsibility to make sure that the environment isn’t harmed by your building developments here, and I’m not going to cut corners. If you want to build here, you have to take care of the island first.’
He gritted his teeth, knowing that his tension was probably showing on his face. But why hide it? She didn’t care what he was thinking. He was nothing to her. A stranger.
‘I understand that—I think my plans have made reasonable provisions for the environment, so there should be no hold-ups. I will be following your work closely.’
She bristled at that, crossing her arms and fixing him with a glare. Good. He could handle her like this. He could handle angry. Angry was nothing like what he remembered between them. Angry didn’t bring back memories that still—somehow—had the power to hurt him. Well, not for much longer. Once his plans were under way, this island would no longer be recognisable. Would no longer call to him. Would no longer be the yardstick by which he unconsciously measured his experiences and his relationships. Of course, no real woman could live up to an island fantasy, a summer romance with a beautiful girl while he’d been on holiday, barely into his twenties.
‘Where are you going to start with your report?’ he asked, trying to read her notes upside down. But her notes were in French. A language he had started to learn once—with scribbled love notes—here, with her—but had fallen out of using. Another very good reason he had hired a capable project manager to oversee this development. As soon as he got off this tiny island and back to the capital, he would be instructing his assistant, Dev, to find a temporary replacement for his injured project manager.
‘I need to inspect the reef,’ Meena said, checking her list. ‘Many of the ones nearby have suffered from coral bleaching or damage from boats, and my initial look showed that these reefs appeared to be suffering similarly. At the very least we would need to do any remedial work before building is approved and make a plan for how it can be protected from further human damage. My other main concern is the turtle population. I saw tracks on the beach that indicate there may be a nesting site. We need to wait out the incubation period to see what, if anything, hatches, and to ensure that increased use of the beach won’t impact on breeding or migratory patterns.’
He nodded, wondering how much time this was all going to take. But these were details, and he was no longer the details guy. He was the money and he was the vision. One of the joys of being the boss of your own multi-billion-dollar resort business was letting someone else worry about the bloody turtles.
‘I’m sure your report will be fine, Miss Bappoo. Just submit your findings to my office and someone will be in touch.’
He turned away from her but then stopped, his feet halting in the sand. Was this it? Was it all finally going to end with a glib remark about turtles? With Meena having no idea that they had met before today? He turned back and looked at her. Really looked. He saw pink rise in her cheeks at his unmasked appraisal of her.
Seven years. That was how long it had been since he had seen her. And yet he couldn’t see any sign of it on her face. Her cheeks, rosy beneath the warm bronze-brown of her skin, were still the smooth apples that he remembered. Her eyes were as golden and as full of challenge as they had been then.
What would she think of him, he wondered, if she remembered the man—boy—he had been? Would she find him much changed? His body was no softer—he had worked hard to ensure that. His heart, however, was harder—she was responsible for that. He shook his head. That wasn’t fair. He couldn’t entirely blame her for the way he had behaved after they had broken up. He had to carry that alone.
He held her gaze for a moment longer. He needed to know that she had seen him—really seen him. To give her one last chance to recognise him. To remember.
The blush faded from her cheeks as he refused to look away and her expression changed. He didn’t know her well enough any more to guess what she was thinking. But in that moment it wasn’t indifference. Curiosity, maybe. Desire. Did he want that? Would this feel better if she wanted him? If he was the one to walk away this time? Probably not, he conceded.
Anyway, those wounds had healed a long time ago, he told himself. He didn’t need them to be reopened. ‘So, goodbye, then,’ he said, and turned from her, walking back towards his speedboat, knowing this would be the last time that he saw her. It had to be.
‘COME IN.’
Guy glanced at the schedule on the computer monitor; he wasn’t expecting a meeting and the knock on the door had taken him by surprise. In fact, he hadn’t been expecting still to be on the island at all, but the search for a replacement project manager was proving to be more difficult than he had hoped. He’d already delayed his departure from the island by a fortnight, and the replacement that he’d hired couldn’t fly out for another week at the earliest. Guy was going to have to get the environmental permissions he needed before he could get back to Sydney. Whoever was at the door had better be quick. He had three days’ worth of work to do that evening. The last thing he needed was an unscheduled five o’clock meeting.
In the promotional brochures he’d had mocked up, he’d billed his island as paradise. But most of what he’d seen of the country in the last two weeks was the inside of its government buildings and his air-conditioned office. He could have been in the offices of any of his corporate buildings for all he’d seen of the local environment.
The door opened and he glanced up; his body registered her presence before his brain did. Before her name formed on his lips, his heart was beating wildly in his chest and there was a tightness, low in his belly, that seemed a response unique to being close to her.
‘Meena, what are you doing here?’
Way to play it cool, he chastised himself, angry that she still had that hold over him, the ability to make him say what he was thinking without any regard for whether it was a good idea. When they’d been younger, it had felt like a blessing: their mutual honesty helping them past the barrier of dive instructor and pupil. Past the social conventions of a conservative culture and into the realms of something much more personal.
‘Your environmental reports,’ she replied, her brow furrowed into a curious expression. ‘I emailed them over to Dev and he told me you’d want me to come and talk through my findings in person.’
‘And why is that?’ he asked, wondering why his assistant had thought that another meeting would be the way to cap off today. ‘Never mind. Just give me the highlights.’ He leaned back in his chair and folded his arms. The last thing this project needed was more delays.
‘Well, the headline is, I’m not giving the approval for your permits.’
Guy sighed, leaned forward again, rested his elbows on his desk and gestured towards the chair opposite, inviting her to take a seat.
‘Why not? What’s the problem?’
She crossed to his desk and laid out the paperwork in front of him. ‘The main problem right now is that the reef won’t withstand an increase in boat traffic or sedimentation from the building work. There’s been extensive bleaching and it needs to be stabilised and then an ongoing regeneration plan put in place.’
He gritted his teeth. Ongoing. ‘Ongoing’ wasn’t a word he wanted to hear in the context of this development, and not from Meena of all people.
‘Anything else?’
‘There’s still no sign of hatchlings from the possible turtle nesting site. We need to wait out the incubation period and see what we’re dealing with before I could