Page 23 of Best Laid Plans
He readied himself, fixing a smile firmly onto his face and was about to turn towards the approaching group when he realised with a lurch that he recognised one of the voices.
Oh, no. Please, no. Anyone but her.
After counting to three, which did absolutely nothing to calm his raging pulse, he turned his head to watch Indigo walk towards him, followed by three women he didn’t recognise.
His heart sank. Was this karma coming along to kick his butt? Or, since this was Indigo we were talking about – fate?
Her brow creased into a frown as she got nearer to where he was sitting, which wasn’t entirely unjustified since he was taking up half of the path so that anyone wanting to journey on would have to step around him, putting themselves in even more danger of slipping off the edge of the cliff and into the sea.
‘Julien? Are you okay?’ Indigo asked, her voice edged with unease. That would be due to the insulting I-want-you-but-actually-no-I-don’t debacle he’d put her through last night.
‘I’m fine,’ he managed to rasp through a throat that had practically closed up with embarrassment.
Her frown deepened, but she kept on walking, stepping past him so that the women close on her heels could get by too.
Thankfully, none of the others spoke to him and he averted his gaze, willing away the raging heat in his face as he counted down the seconds until they’d be out of his sightline, and he could make another attempt at standing up and leaving this godforsaken place.
There was a murmur of voices in the distance, which he assumed was Indigo filling the rest of her party in on the tribulations he’d put her through since they’d first clapped eyes on each other, and he dropped his head to his knees and let out a long, low breath.
So this was what payback felt like.
* * *
Indigo made it a few more metres down the path – after breezily explaining to the three women she’d made friends with at breakfast that Julien was another hiker she’d met on the walk – when her conscience refused to let her take another step.
There had been an odd expression on Julien’s face when she’d walked up to him that had lodged itself in her head and she couldn’t shake the feeling that something had been very wrong, despite his assertions to the contrary.
After the humiliating episode last night, she’d been determined to forget about him and carry on with her holiday in the way she’d planned – she’d be coolly friendly, of course if – no,when– they bumped into each other – but that would be it.
She wasn’t going to put herself in a position where she made a fool of herself in front of him again. Because she didn’t need an emotional roller coaster ride like that right now.
She was supposed to be looking after herself this week.
But something about the way he was sitting there still niggled at her.
‘I’m going to go back and check that Julien’s okay,’ she told her new friends, experiencing a dip of disappointment at leaving them when they’d all been getting on so well.
‘Okay. Perhaps we’ll see you in Positano,’ the more senior of the women, Ruth, said, giving her a friendly smile. There was something else in her expression too, as if she suspected there was a little more to Indigo’s about-turn than she was admitting to.
Not that it mattered what Ruth thought. Julien had helped her out by getting her the boots she was currently wearing, thus saving her holiday, and she owed him big for that.
He was probably fine anyway and would wave her concerns away in that arrogant way of his, so she’d be able to catch her new friends up again – but she just wanted to make sure.
Julien looked as though he was about to stand up as she made her way back to him along the rough, narrow path, and she began to feel foolish for worrying and was about to turn round again when she noticed that the tendons in his hands were white with tension as he clung to the rock behind him and a sheen of perspiration had broken out across his forehead.
What was going on here? Was he ill?
‘Julien? Are you sure you’re okay?’ she asked as she came within striking distance of him.
He dropped his chin to his chest at the sound of her voice, as if he was exasperated with her for coming back and bothering him again.
A sting of annoyance jabbed her, but she didn’t back off. ‘Are you feeling ill?’
He lifted his head to look at her and she could tell by the expression on his face that her instincts had been right. There was something badly wrong here.
There was a long pause where she worried whether he was even capable of answering her. Then she saw him swallow hard before letting out a long, frustrated sigh.
‘I was fine with the first bit of this walk,’ he said, his voice sounding strained, ‘but then the path got narrower and I started to feel like the ground was sloping downwards towards the drop, which made me dizzy. Logically, I know it isn’t doing that, but my brain keeps telling me otherwise. I’ve never been great with heights, but I haven’t been affected this badly before.’
