‘Do you think I wasn’t clever enough to get them?’
‘Far be it from me to think any such thing. You forget—I’ve worked with you for nearly two years. I know how clever you are.’
‘Now, why does that sound so patronising?’ But she laughed and gave up the unequal fight between the wind and her hair. ‘I can smell the sea. It’s amazing.’
‘Look through there—through that clump of trees. Do you see a path? Well, that’s where we’re going.’
‘How on earth do you know about this place?’
‘The hotel manager is a fount of information and was only too happy to steer us in the direction of the best beaches.’
He swerved off the road and brought the buggy to a bumpy stop just where the Tarmac gave way to rich soil and the dense, lush foliage that was so much a feature of the tiny island. With the engine killed, the sound of the sea reached her, and she held her face upturned to the sun, enjoying the bliss of the warmth on her skin.
Okay, so it might not be a holiday, but for the first time in as long as she could remember she felt removed from the low-level stress that accompanied her everywhere.
They walked through the roughly hewn path, down a gentle incline and through a bank of coconut trees, emerging onto a strip of sand that was fine, white and powdery. The beach stretched in a half-moon crescent and the sea was as calm as a lake and a piercing turquoise.
Emily stared out, squinting against the sun. She felt free—free from all concerns and worries. She felt like a young woman without a care in the world, and she marvelled that she could have forgotten what that felt like. This was a taste of normality and she savoured it, knowing that its visit would be fleeting.
When she turned around it was to find that Leandro had flung a massive beach rug on the sand and had stripped off to his swimming trunks. The sight of him, bare-chested, was even more breathtaking than the scenery she had been gaping at moments before.
Goodness, had she been fantasising about this all the time she had been working for him? Underneath the blistering scorn and her composed demeanour, had she fooled herself into imagining a detachment that had never been there?
He certainly lived up to any fantasy a girl could have. His shoulders were broad and muscled, his stomach washboard-flat, and the sprinkling of dark hair on his chest was aggressively, challengingly masculine.
She found that she was having trouble breathing, and in a desperate attempt to conceal her shameful reaction reached into the bag over her shoulder and whipped out her sunglasses, which she stuck firmly on the bridge of her nose.
‘I take it you’re not going to spend the day in shorts and a tee shirt?’
His own clothes had been dumped on the rug, along with the shoes which he had kicked off. Even his feet, she noted distractedly, were unfairly sexy. How was that even possible?
‘I’m not a strong swimmer.’
‘Don’t worry. I’m here. I won’t let you be swept away by any treacherous undertows...’
‘You’re certainly a man of many talents,’ Emily bantered uneasily. ‘You can fly planes, drive off-road cars and now cross-channel swimming...’
‘The cross-channel bit might be taking the talented streak a little far...’
Alert now to her body language, Leandro was feeling the pull of attraction tucked away behind her nervous laughter and light-hearted remarks—and, hell, it had him firing on all cylinders. He folded his arms and tilted his head to one side, his body language redolent of a man waiting. Waiting for her to strip off...
No big deal. Her swimsuit was as daring as a nun’s habit. A black one-piece. Yet she was still burning with self-consciousness as she pulled the tee shirt over her head and eased her shorts off, folding both neatly and depositing them on the rug without once glancing in his direction.
‘I didn’t realise we would be staying in one spot,’ she muttered. ‘I thought you mentioned exploring the island.’
‘And we’ll be doing just that.’ Leandro began walking towards the water. ‘But the drive was just so hot that I thought we could kick off the day with a little swim to cool down. Coming?’ He threw the word over his shoulder.
She watched, hesitating, as he waded into the sea and then, when he was quite a long way out, pushed off and began to swim vigorously, until he was just a small speck on the horizon.
Safely far away.
Only then did she venture in. A quick, harmless paddle...
But the water was shallow, and very clear, and amazingly warm. Unable to resist the temptation of actually doing a little proper swimming, she eventually took the plunge. She hadn’t been in a public swimming pool, let alone the sea, for as long as she could remember, and although she was an okay swimmer, it was comfortingly reassuring being able to feel the sand under her feet. She flipped over, ducked under the surface, emerged and lay on her back, eyes closed against the glare, arms outstretched as the water lapped around her still body.
She wasn’t aware of Leandro slicing through the water towards her until she felt his arms, his body, and in a state of surprised panic she spluttered back to reality, half ducking under before breaking the surface, arms flailing, because the comforting bank of sand was no longer within reaching distance of her toes. And the more she flailed—partly out of surprise at discovering that she had drifted away from the shore, and partly because Leandro’s wet proximity was throwing her into a state of mental chaos—the tighter he circled his arms around her.
‘Hey! I’ve got you!’
‘And you can let me go! Right now!’ She tried to pummel his chest, but that was near impossible given the situation.
‘Clasp your arms around my neck, Emily, and we can swim back to shore. You drifted.’
‘I’m perfectly...capable...of swimming back unaided!’
She gave one final liberating push and began striking back towards the beach, her swimming jerky and frantic.
She waded out angrily. He was right behind her. There was no need for her to turn around to ascertain that fact. What the heck did he think he was playing at?
‘I don’t appreciate being...being...’ When she finally spun round she was safely wrapped up in her towel and breathing so fast that she felt on the verge of hyperventilation.
‘Being...?’ Leandro drawled silkily.
He took his time sitting down, reaching for his shades, then stretching himself out on the rug with his legs lightly crossed—the very picture of a man utterly at ease, oblivious to her spluttering anger.
Emily looked at him. She was overreacting. She knew it. She had told him that she wasn’t a strong swimmer and she had managed to float her way out of her depth... He had probably fancied himself as lifeguard, saving a damsel about to find herself in distress.
‘I’m sorry if you thought I was...in trouble,’ she said ungraciously, before quickly remembering that she was still his employee, he was still her boss—even if it didn’t feel like that out here, far removed from their daily routine. ‘And I appreciate that you thought you needed to save me. I can actually swim, Leandro. I just can’t enter competitions.’
She wished she could see his eyes, get a handle on how he was reacting, but his dark sunglasses hid everything.
‘Why don’t you lie down and recover?’
He patted the space next to him without glancing in her direction and Emily looked at his hand with the suspicion of someone eyeing up a deadly snake.
‘But don’t forget to apply sunblock. I can do without it because I’m dark, but...’
‘You don’t want the liability of a secretary who can’t perform her duties because she has to take to her bed with sunburn?’
Leandro lifted his shades and looked at her evenly. ‘For the past year and a half I’ve wondered what was going through your head. I now realise that you were wrapped up imagining the very worst about me. If you don’t want to protect yourself from the sun, then by all means don’t.’ He replaced his sunglasses and folded his arms on his chest.
She had been dismissed. Along with her churlishness, her childishness, her petty heated responses.
‘Have you been to all of the beaches on the island?’ She lay down and resumed their conversation in a placatory voice.
Without having to look at him, with only the sky above her to witness her nervous jumpiness, Emily felt a little more at ease.
‘I...I suppose you must have had to do a great deal of background checks before you decided to invest your money in this venture...’
‘Why did you decide to choose secretarial work over becoming a vet if your grades were good...?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘I visited the island once, shortly before you joined me. I made sure everything and everyone was in place and then I delegated—so, no, I don’t know every beach on the island. That’s your question answered. Now answer mine. Why sit in front of a computer when you could be in the great outdoors, tending to sick animals?’