Page 55 of One Forbidden Night In Paradise (Hot Winter Escapes)

‘I’m real.’ He held out his hand. ‘We’re real, Jemima.’

She stumbled backwards, needing distance between them. If only she could cover her ears too. That way she wouldn’t have to listen to his words and be tempted into doing what she always did. What she wanted to do now, which was let herself be talked round.

‘No, what we have is special. It’s special and unique and I’ve loved every moment of it but it’s like you said before—the reason it’s special is because it’s not meant to last. It’s a world within a world that has nothing to do with real life.’

‘Jemima...’

‘I’m sorry, but I can’t.’

He stared at her for what felt like a lifetime. She could feel herself crumbling inside. She wanted him to stay so badly but she would simply be postponing the agony.

‘This was only ever meant to be a one-night stand.’

‘And it didn’t stay one for a reason.’ His voice sounded raw, as if it were scraping over a wound.

‘Yes. Sex.’

As his eyes narrowed on her face, her heart felt as if it were going to burst. ‘You’re a remarkable woman. Smart and sexy and strong and beautiful. And I thought you were brave. But you’re a coward.’

‘Please, just go.’ It hurt to speak, to breathe.

He walked away. Or she assumed he had. She was crying so much she couldn’t see. And now, standing alone in paradise, she admitted to herself what she couldn’t admit to him. That he was right. She loved him.

Only she had pushed him away. She had pushed him out of paradise.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

GAZINGUPFROMthe screen of his phone, Chase felt his chest tighten. The sky was changing, growing lighter by the moment. Ten minutes ago it had been the same colour as the lead ballast bars down below in theMiranda’s hull. Now it was the same soft grey as Jemima’s eyes.

In another hour it would shift and lighten into a faded blue, and by then she would be gone.

Heart pounding, he glanced back down at his phone. He’d lost count of the number of times he’d checked for messages. Enough to know that Jemima had meant what she said at the beach house. And he could hardly blame her, he thought, replaying the moment when he had told her that he had wanted to carry on seeing her.

As if they were teenagers who had just hooked up at a party.

Unable to sit with that cramping sense of loss and cowardice, he got to his feet and walked across the deck. Leaning against the handrail, he gazed down into the shifting blue waves, remembering how she had swum by his side on that first dive, communicating simply with hand signals, every movement synchronised to his.

He loved her then, this beautiful woman who wanted to save the world.

Had been in love with her since that moment when she summoned him to talk to her about hiring a bike in that crisp, precise English voice. But after so many years of not allowing himself to feel anything, he hadn’t recognised what he was feeling. Hadn’t wanted to recognise it until that night in New York. Holding her close, feeling the rigidity melt from her body, he had felt not trapped, but freed.

And what had he done with that love?

His hands trembled against the railing. He had waited, waited too long, only acting when she began checking in to her flight. And he should have told her earlier, told her better, but instead he had left it to the last moment. And instead of explaining to her how he felt and why, he’d made it sound simply as if he wanted to keep on sleeping with her, tossing in his love almost as an afterthought.

And now she was leaving Bermuda.

Above him, a lone gull was beating towards the ocean and he stared up at it, seeing instead a plane, her plane moving inexorably into the distance, into an unknown future.

He glanced around the silent deck. Only for him, a future without Jemima was no future.

The sound of the alarm was surprisingly loud in the quiet of the beach house. Not that she needed help waking up, Jemima thought, glancing at the flashing numerals on her phone. She had seen every half-hour and hour since she had woken at three o’clock from a dream that had jerked her awake and left her shaking in the darkness. In her dream, theMirandawas disappearing from view and she was in the water, holding up her arm, waving and crying, but the yacht kept moving further and further away until she was alone in the vast blue ocean.

And she was alone now. As she gazed round the empty beach house, the absence of Chase was unbearable. He had made her laugh, made her feel sexy and strong. He had held her while she cried and in his arms she had felt herself healing.

Only she had been too scared to admit her love to him. Too scared to admit his love might be real. Now it was too late.

Picking up her phone, she saw a text from her sister.

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