Page 42 of One Forbidden Night In Paradise (Hot Winter Escapes)

THENEXTDAYthey didn’t go back out in the submersible again. Instead they chilled on the yacht, which was very easy to do. As well as a swimming pool and a gym, theMirandahad a steam room, a sauna, a cinema, a basketball court and, best of all, a library.

Gazing up at the bookshelves, Jemima remembered her surprise when Chase had mentioned Hemingway at the bar. There were so many things she had got wrong about him. Like when he had got so angry with her on the dive. He was angry because he was scared. For her. Worried. About her.

She replayed the pain in his voice as he told her about his wife’s accident, and her chest tightened. The thing she needed to remember was that his concern wasn’t personal to her. Because of what happened, Chase felt responsible for people, even random divers.

‘Pick one. I know you want to.’

Her body stilled. Chase was standing behind her. He was so close she could feel the heat from his body. His scent, that impossible to replicate mix of clean skin and maleness and sandalwood, enveloped her as his arms slid round her waist.

‘There’s no real order, I’m afraid, but I know the Hemingways are over there on the second shelf.’ She could hear the smile in his voice, and she groaned softly. So he had noticed her reaction. Now that she knew him better, it was hard to imagine why she’d thought he had never read a book back then.

‘Okay, I may have been a little judgey at the bar,’ she admitted. ‘It’s just that most men I know only read the sports section of the paper.’

She felt his lips find the pulse below her ear. ‘And am I like every man you know?’ His voice was a hot whisper against her skin.

No, she thought, picturing him that night, how he parted the crowds as he moved. ‘You were wearing a baseball cap that first day at the Cycle Shack and then you asked me about fishing so I made an assumption. The wrong assumption. But that’s why I was surprised.’

Her heart quivered against her ribs. He was the surprise. Every day, she found out something new, something unexpected, something that made her want to know more, to know everything.

‘Pleasantly, I hope.’ His warm breath was tickling her skin, teasing her, making her belly clench and unclench, then clench again.

‘Of course,’ she said hoarsely. ‘I like it that you read books.’ There was so much more to him than simply thrill seeking, she thought, remembering how carefully he had manoeuvred the sub around the wreck. He was good company too, with views not just on sport as she’d assumed but literature, politics, music.

‘That doesn’t surprise me in the slightest. You know, I had you down as a teacher when we met at the harbour.’

‘Why? Because I was wearing glasses?’

‘That, and you used this voice when you spoke to me. Kind of strict and snippy. Pretty sexy actually.’

She laughed. ‘You have a one-track mind.’

‘Not true.’ His voice softened and she felt it like a flame inside her. And she was melting on the inside. It was that easy, that swift. ‘I don’t just want your body, I want your mind, Dr Friday.’

Something inside her twisted Chase wanting her mind didn’t sound like something that should happen in a fling and she wished that Holly were there so that she could ask if he was just flirting. Or if it meant that he wanted more. The possibility of that pulled at a thread inside her so that when she spoke, her voice sounded scratchy and tight.

‘I’m not a doctor yet.’ And she probably never would be, she thought, her mood dropping a notch as it seemed to do whenever she thought about her life back in England. But that was the downside of a holiday. At some point you had to go back home and face up to all those things you had put on hold.

‘It’s just a matter of time.’

‘And effort,’ she said quietly. ‘I do have to write it.’

‘And you will.’ He turned her to face him. ‘Are you worried about it?’

Yes, she wanted to say. And not just about her PhD. She felt overwhelmed and yet also depressingly underwhelmed by her life. Here in Bermuda and with time on her hands, it was easy to see the choices she’d made in the round, and the far-reaching consequences of those choices. How she had stalled somewhere between adolescence and adulthood. A student homeowner who dated boys in bands and still borrowed money off her mum.

But after everything Chase had told her last night, she wasn’t about to host a public pity party. It would be crass to think his revelations had given her the green light to raise her own woes. That wasn’t what this was about. Last night had been the exception, not the rule.

‘No, not really. It’s just been a bit of a slog. But I should have expected that. I mean, when you have to write upwards of sixty thousand words you’re going to hit the occasional stumbling block.’

‘But he’s not in your life any more.’

‘Who?’ She stared at him blankly.

‘The stumbling block. Your ex.’ His lip curled. ‘Who is he anyway?’

The directness of his question caught her off balance, mainly because she had, to her astonishment, stopped thinking about Nick. And now that she was having to, it was as if she were remembering him from long ago and far away. He was just a blurred, indistinct shape, almost as if she were standing on the seabed staring up at him through the water.

‘He’s a singer in a band. He plays the guitar too.’

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