‘But you now see the sense in what I am saying,’ he insisted. The hand still holding her wrist aloft tightened its grip in a demand for the right reply.
She gave it anguishedly. ‘Yes—yes!’
His big, bronzed chest, gleaming in the sunshine beneath the loose fall of his open shirt, lifted and fell. ‘I will arrange for us to be married tomorrow on Pelican Island,’ he decided, ‘which is only a short flight away. Then we will come back here until we know for sure either way.’ Slowly he lowered her wrist to her side and released it.
‘Then?’ she prompted thickly. ‘What then?’
He shrugged, his beautiful broad shoulders shifting tensely beneath the thinnest cotton. ‘That decision will have to wait until we know the answer,’ he said, then turned and simply walked away.
* * *
The journey to Pelican Island was achieved in near silence. Annie sat quietly beside César as he played the controls, their sunglasses in place to protect their eyes from the bright sun.
They had barely spoken a word to each other during the last twenty-four hours. He hadn’t been around to talk to! Because a few minutes after he’d walked away from her on the beach he’d left the island, bringing the helicopter rising above the house then speeding off into the clear blue sky.
He had returned late, just as the sun had been dying out of a rich vermilion sky.
‘It is all arranged,’ he’d informed her when she’d eventually forced herself to go downstairs and face him over the dinner that Margarita had so carefully prepared. ‘We marry tomorrow afternoon on Pelican Island.’
‘I thought Pelican Island was private,’ she’d murmured, recognising the island’s name as a famous retreat for the rich and stressed-out.
‘It is leased,’ he’d corrected, ‘as my own island is. But because it possesses a hotel it is licensed to perform marriage services.’
Which had left her with nothing else to say. So they’d done their best to compliment Margarita’s delicious dinner of goujons of chicken followed by freshly caught snapper fish on a bed of fluffy aromatic rice.
During his absence she’d explored Hook-nose Bay, scrambling over rocks and soft silver sand, swimming for hours in the calm waters. That evening her skin had borne the healthy glow of a day’s unremitting sunshine—the high-factor lotion she’d found in the bathroom having protected her from the worst of the sun’s rays.
By dinnertime she had been tired—tired enough not to care what he thought of her silence or the fact that, other than by that one short burst of conversation, she had barely acknowledged his presence.
He wanted all of this, not her. She needed to make no effort to pretend otherwise, and oddly he had seemed to accept that, his green gaze straying occasionally to her closed face but without attempting to intrude on the self-absorbed shell that she had withdrawn behind.
r /> He waited until they were almost due to land before doing that. ‘I have reserved a beach cottage for us at the hotel.’ His shaded eyes glanced at her quietly composed features. ‘I thought you might appreciate the—privacy until the ceremony is due to take place.’
She said nothing, but her fingers curled slightly in tense reaction where they rested on her lap.
‘I have also arranged for something—appropriate for you to wear,’ he added casually.
That brought her gaze to him. ‘What I’m wearing is more than suitable,’ she insisted, adding cynically, ‘it isn’t as though it’s going to be the wedding of the year, after all.’
‘I never implied it was,’ he agreed almost soothingly. ‘And you would look beautiful in whatever you chose to wear, be it sackcloth or that blue linen you have on now. But…’ He paused to make a slight adjustment to their flight, his movements deft with confidence as he realigned the helicopter with the bulk of land that she could see looming towards them. ‘This will not be a hole-and-corner wedding, Angelica,’ he said grimly. ‘It is important that it appears the happiest day in both our lives.’
Grin and bear it, in other words, she noted. Well, she was a professional, wasn’t she? An absolute expert at make-believe? ‘I won’t let you down.’
‘I know you won’t,’ he murmured quietly. But the tension between them was beginning to fizz again, and after a moment he sighed. ‘Angelica, I want you to believe me when I say I mean you no harm! I do this for your own sake. Your reputation will not stand another scandal!’ His eyes flicked to hers. ‘I am sorry if that offends you, but it is the truth and I think that you know it!’
‘Ah, I see.’ The first bubbles of anger began to ferment in the calm interior she had been so carefully maintaining. ‘So this is just another case of César DeSanquez being the gallant knight in action. How very altruistic of you,’ she said waspishly. ‘Remind me to thank you for it some time.’
‘I don’t look for your thanks,’ he snapped, but from the way his lean profile clenched she knew that she’d managed to hit him on the raw. ‘I am simply trying to tell you that you can trust me!’
‘Trust?’ She made a hard sound of scorn. ‘Don’t talk to me about trust,’ she derided. ‘I will never trust another human being again.’
No answer to that. Annie waited, seething in silence, for him to pile the blame back on her, as he had so competently done with everything else, but nothing came. He just tightened his mouth and increased their speed, and let the animosity that she was determinedly generating try its best to choke the very air around them.
They landed beside a row of low palm trees that formed a line of shelter from the fiercest heat of the sun along the inevitable crescent-shaped beach.
Annie waited patiently while César shut down the engine then jumped down to come around and help her alight. As they ran clear of the steadily slowing blades Annie noticed the scattering of pretty, red-roofed bungalows almost hidden from view amongst a rich mixture of tropical shrubs and trees.
A man, tall and tanned and leanly built, met them with a welcoming smile and a warm shake of their hands. He was American, and older than he looked at first glance. It was obvious that he knew César well because after the initial introductions, and—she supposed—the expected congratulations, he fell into warm conversation with César as he led them along a path towards one of the bungalows.