Page 18 of The Rebel

Call me naïve but I didn’t suspect a thing.

‘Yeah. Oh.’ A faint pink tinges his cheeks, like he’s embarrassed. ‘Considering my spiel after our kiss on the beach that it wouldn’t happen again, doing something like that is all on me.’

‘As I recall, there were two people doing the fucking in that cave.’

Now it’s his turn to be shocked as his jaw drops and I place my finger under his chin and shut it.

‘I don’t know why you feel guilty about what happened. It was stupendous, exactly what I wanted, so don’t beat yourself up.’

I’m tempted to say more, like how much I’d like to do it again, but I wisely keep my mouth shut. I can’t allow this unexpected infatuation to derail my plans to make this the best job I’ve ever done.

‘Now that we’ve got that out of the way, why don’t you take a look at this campaign I’ve brainstormed and let me know what you think?’

I slide a folder across to him, silently willing him to drop the subject.

We had hot sex.

In a cave.

Shit happens.

But as he flicks through the sheets of paper and I study him, I know my plan to keep my hands off him will be sorely tempted over the next few weeks.

Chapter Nine

Hart

‘Thought I’d find you here.’ Kevin sidles up to me, like he expects I’ll push him off the cliff.

We’re at the highest point of Gem Island and until now I’ve avoided coming here. If the cave was my go-to place, this was Pa’s. I remember him bringing me here when I first arrived on the island as a starstruck sixteen-year-old who’d never been off the mainland.

He told me the truth—how he made a mistake cutting off contact from my mum when she fell in with the wrong crowd at nineteen, how he stubbornly resisted her call for help two years later, how he didn’t know I existed until he received a letter from her the day she died, stating she’d had a kid and that she’d abandoned him.

Pa was always a straight shooter and as I lowered my carefully erected barriers and let myself depend on someone for the first time in my life, I learned that maybe there was something to this family caper after all.

I resent him for not telling me he had heart problems but I understand why he did it. In his own twisted way, he was probably punishing himself for not being there for my mum when she died and he wanted to die alone too.

‘I haven’t been up here since we tossed his ashes,’ I say.

Kevin clears his throat. ‘Me either. But this was the spot he did his best thinking and I assumed you’d be doing the same.’

His presumption annoys me. ‘I’m not my grandfather.’

‘I know you’re not, kid, but I sure as hell see a lot of similarities.’

Utter bullshit, because Pa and I are nothing alike. He was noble and driven and a stickler for tradition. I can’t wait to shrug off the weight of responsibility and leave this all behind.

‘Have you come here to lecture me over the fuck-up with the Darwin hotel? Because having the entire kitchen staff go on strike because Pa was too stubborn to listen to their wage demands was not my fault.’

‘No.’ Kevin sighs. ‘I came here to tell you to stop beating yourself up. You haven’t done this job for years, and even back then you were barely a kid out of university stuck behind a desk you didn’t want.’

‘Not much has changed, except I’m older.’

‘Nobody’s expecting you to fill Ralfe’s shoes, but it would be nice if you could try them on for size for however long you’re here.’

With that, Kevin walks away. I should call him back, make light of his analogy, but his name sticks in my throat. I’ve told him my plans to improve the profile of the hotels and restore consumer faith, it has to be enough.

I guess Pa and I are alike in that respect: Pa was a private person who hated change and preferred to keep out of the limelight. He resisted modernisation and relied on the family name to keep profits soaring.

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