Page 24 of One Forbidden Night In Paradise (Hot Winter Escapes)

And she hadn’t slept well mainly because despite having said goodnight to Chase Farrar in the kitchen, he had stayed stubbornly inside her head. Only in her head, she had kept her cool instead of blushing and getting all worked up.

She bit into her lip. She never should have said anything. It was none of her business what he did or why he did it. But watching his eyes narrow on some unseen prize at the bottom of the ocean had made her realise that the only difference between Chase and all the other men she’d ever dated was that, rather than needing alcohol or gambling, he was a thrill-seeker, a man addicted to the adrenaline rush of diving for treasure.

In other words, instead of breaking the bad habits of the past as she’d promised, she was simply repeating them.

That was why she had reacted as she had. It was a shock hearing him talk in that way because she had thought he was different from all the other men she had fallen for. But it turned out that she had simply proved her sister’s theory that she was only attracted to sexy but ultimately unreliable addicts.

Feeling a rush of exasperation with both the old and the new Jemima, she rolled out of bed and padded into the bathroom. What she needed was a shower and, peeling off her T-shirt, she stepped under the water, turning the temperature up until it was punchingly hot.

Closing her eyes, she tipped back her head so that the water ran down her back, turning slowly on the spot. It felt good. Fight fire with fire, she told herself as the heat pierced her skin. And that was what she needed to do now: fight this crazy pull of attraction she felt for Chase.

Her skin was tingling now and she switched off the water and wrapped herself in a cloud-soft white towel, and then, bending over, she wrapped another towel around her wet hair to form a turban. Straightening, she stared at her reflection in the mirror, her pulse shivering as she remembered his green eyes, that flicker of heat.

She had felt it again last night in the kitchen. Low in her belly, impossible to ignore.

Her fingers trembled against the towel. It was crazy to feel like this about someone she hardly knew. What was even crazier was how close she had come to kissing him again last night. She looked at her reflection again, depressed by the colour in her cheeks and the glitter in her eyes. But there was no point in pretending. She had wanted him.

Wanted to touch him and be touched. Wanted his hands to slide over her body.

And then what?

She stared at her reflection angrily. Did she really want to have sex with Chase Farrar again?

Her body felt suddenly hot and tight. Yes, she thought, remembering the friction of his skin against hers. A thousand times yes. But things were already way more complicated than they were supposed to be. And it didn’t matter that his touch had melted her with its heat. In fact that by itself was a reason to keep her distance. Chase was a fantasy. Or rather the man who had ordered her to strip naked, the man who made her body feel like a living work of art, was a fantasy. The reality was that he was as addicted to ‘thrills’ as Nick was to alcohol.

Not that it mattered because she was done with men like him. Done with obsessing about how to decipher their complicated, conflicted lives.

It was better that he stayed as a beautiful memory, she told herself. Only it was difficult when she was living under his roof, sharing a meal with him.

Walking back into the bedroom, she opened the curtains. Her eyes widened. The sky was the warm gold of a ripe peach. The storm had gone. And soon Chase would be gone too. All she had to do was stay strong until then.

There was nobody in the kitchen but she could smell the warm scent of freshly cooked pastry. Outside, she found the source of the smell. A plate of croissants, steam spiralling up from their crisp golden outer shells. Beside them sat another plate of beautifully sliced fresh fruit and a bowl of what looked like Bircher muesli. But it wasn’t just the food that looked so appetising. The table was set with a creaseless white tablecloth and fine, white china.

It looked nothing like her own table at home with its circular stains from Ed’s coffee mugs and all her mismatched crockery. Fantasy versus reality, she thought, walking away from the table to the Perspex balustrade that edged the deck, her eyes leapfrogging across the curve of pink sand to the shimmering turquoise water.

Slipping off her glasses, she rubbed them against the hem of her blouse but there was no sign of last night’s storm. If she hadn’t seen it with her own eyes she might have thought that it was just a dream. Only a slight ripple on the surface of the ocean.

What the...?

She blinked as Chase emerged from the waves, rearing up like some kind of mythical sea god, his blond hair slicked back against his skull. He had his back to her and she stared at the water trickling down his shoulders, her heart pounding inside her chest.

It was one thing having dinner in her T-shirt... It was another to eat breakfast sitting opposite that. She took an unsteady step backwards.

There was an audible crash as her leg collided with the table, the sound snapping around the quiet cove like a gunshot, and she froze as Chase’s chin jerked up and he spun round to face her. He’d said he was in insurance, she thought, her mouth drying as his eyes locked onto her with the precision of a sniper. She couldn’t imagine why he would lie about that, and to be fair she hadn’t met that many insurance brokers, but it was hard to imagine any of them looking like the man standing in the sea like a temptingly masculine riposte to Botticelli’sThe Birth of Venus.

For a moment they just stared at one another and then he started to wade back through the water with slow, strong strides.

But not slow enough, she thought as he came to a stop in front of her moments later. ‘Good morning,’ he said softly. ‘I didn’t know you were up.’

‘Good morning.’ She gave him a small, tight smile, keeping her gaze firmly locked on his face as he pulled a T-shirt over his head. ‘I think breakfast is ready,’ she said unnecessarily as he could see the table too. But there was something about this man that made her say stupid, unnecessary things.

And made her act on impulses she didn’t even know she had.

It was easier once they were both seated and he was no longer shirtless to eat and talk. Their conversation was insubstantial, partly because Robyn appeared at intervals to replenish her coffee and clear away their plates, but also because after last night it seemed wiser to stick to banalities. It also gave her a chance to admire the house.

The design was less colonial than the typical Bermudian house. Instead it seemed to take its cue from one of those hill towns in Italy. The large deck where they were sitting acted as a kind of piazza, with the living area housed in an adjacent bungalow. Two separate bungalows perched above it, angled away from one another to create privacy and provide access to views.

‘What are your plans for today?’

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