Page 29 of The Island in Bramble Bay
‘Well, it is. And so’s the boat actually.’
‘But that’s part of my seduction technique, so you know, essential.’ He leaned across and kissed her, a twinkle in his eye. ‘Want to see my cabin?’ he asked, standing up and offering his hand to Maggie.
‘Thought you’d never ask,’ she said, taking his hand as he swept up their glasses of prosecco and led the way inside.
He’d barely ever been in the cabin having only really sailed alone and for short periods so it was immaculate and aside from some basic kitchen equipment was devoid of any trace of anyone. But the bed was made.
‘Where else could we go?’ Maggie asked him as they lay on the bed facing each other, the sunlight streaming through the small windows above them.
‘I guess we could go to most places in Europe, she’d probably make it across the Atlantic but I don’t know if I’d be up to that.’
Maggie looked horrified. ‘Neither would I.’ Her face softened and began to look dreamy. ‘Imagine anchoring off a little Greek island where nobody else goes and just diving off the boat into the warm Ionian Sea. And then pottering around to the next cove and doing it all over again. That’s a pretty good reason to have a boat.’
‘It is. We could do that.’
Maggie raised an eyebrow.
‘What’s stopping us?’
‘Work? Although I know that’s no issue for you,’ she teased.
‘Well, your issues are my issues.’ He traced his hand across her forehead, gently pushing a stray hair away. ‘But know this, Maggie Cassidy, wherever you want to go, I’ll take you.’
25
THEY’D LEFT THE delights of the cabin in favour of sunning themselves back on deck. And it seemed as good a time as any. They were having the most incredible day and at least it wasn’t going to lead to the first hurdle their relationship would have to face because that had already happened.
‘I came to Bramble Island for a fresh start,’ Maggie began. ‘I’d been working at a Trust property, Croftwood Court in Worcestershire. In the middle, near Birmingham,’ she added in response to Charlie’s vacant look as she’d mentioned a place other than London or Poole. ‘And I started the Trust Trek idea at Croftwood. It took off straight away and visitors started putting it on social media and other properties started contacting me about setting it up at their places too. Anyway, head office picked up on it and invited me to go and talk to them about rolling it out properly across all the Trust properties.’
‘And the rest is history,’ said Charlie with a grin.
If that was the whole story it would be easy to tell. Maggie managed a tight-lipped smile and carried on.
‘I was living with Ben, we’d been together for a few years, we met when we were volunteers after Uni. I was seconded onto a team at head office to roll out the Treks. It was so different to what I’d done before and so kind of fancy, you know working indoors with smart people for a change.’
‘Instead of slumming it outside whatever the weather with people so heavily layered in waterproofs that you can’t tell who they are. I can understand your excitement.’
Maggie smiled, grateful to Charlie for trying to be light-hearted about it. ‘There was this man, Nick, who was from a marketing agency and we started seeing each other.’ She looked at Charlie, wanting to gauge the level of his disgust with her. ‘It started with a group of us going out for drinks and he paid so much attention to me…and well, you know.’
Charlie took a deep breath and raised his eyebrows, clearly taken aback. ‘Wow, I didn’t see that coming. So what happened? Did you tell Ben?’
‘Not straight away and I will always regret that. He deserved better but he was pissed off that I’d fallen into the kind of job he’d wanted which made things between us even worse. I was really enjoying this taste of a different life and tried to keep everything separate for a while but he confronted me, saying I’d become distant and caught up in a world that wasn’t mine. Now, when I look back, I know it only happened because we’d already grown apart. We were more like friends than partners by then. Not that that’s an excuse. I couldn’t believe a guy like Nick would look twice at someone like me, I was flattered and… stupid, as it turned out. As soon as the campaign was finished he wasn’t interested and I realised that I’d been such a fool.’
‘Oh, Maggie. You can’t blame yourself for that. The guy sounds like a sleazeball.’
‘God, Charlie. I cheated on Ben and Jessica cheated on you. Don’t you think that’s terrible? I did to him just what she did to you.’ She put her head in her hands, not able to look him in the eye now that she’d pointed out the obvious.
She felt Charlie’s hands on hers and he gently took them away from her face. ‘Honey, it’s not the same. Jess cheated on me with my best friend. As far as I was concerned, we were doing great. I was stressed out at work but she seemed supportive and I loved her for it when actually, they were having a great time together while I was working myself into a breakdown. You said you’d grown apart from Ben, was it really a huge surprise to him? And he was jealous of you when he should have been proud which is even worse.’
‘I suppose it was inevitable that we wouldn’t be able to weather it,’ she admitted. ‘To be honest he was more annoyed by what he thought was me getting too up myself to be happy when I went back to Croftwood.’
‘Up yourself? Doesn’t sound like hedoesknow you that well.’ He smiled and shifted across the deck so that he could hug Maggie. ‘And you’ve been worried that I’d think you were like Jessica?’
‘I’ve been worried about telling you that I ruined my life over a few flattering comments. That I’d been shallow and disloyal. Iamlike Jessica. Whatever excuse you want to make for me, Charlie, I cheated on Ben.’ She pulled away from him so that she could look him in the eye. ‘But you know now.’
‘Yeah, I know now. Andyoushould know that it doesn’t change the way I feel about you. At all. It’s kind of cute how worried you were about that.’
Maggie didn’t know whether to hit him or hug him. She was glad he’d not taken it as seriously as she’d thought he would but at the same time, it had been a huge thing in her life. It had led to her leaving Croftwood. The Trust wanted her back there as the park manager but she couldn’t have gone back there and been Ben’s boss, and he’d been adamant it should be her to leave rather than him. She had felt so guilty that she’d agreed and that was when the Trust offered her the Bramble Island job instead.
