you! That was an awful thing to do.’
‘There are no sharks.’ His hand curved around her waist. ‘The reef stops them swimming this close to the land.’
‘It does feel slightly menacing, having all that water beneath you,’ she confessed, not brushing his hand away quite so quickly as she would have done had they been on dry land. ‘It’s beautiful. And—weird,’ she admitted, ‘not being able to touch the bottom.’
‘You haven’t swum off a boat before?’
‘I don’t generally find the opportunity during my working day.’
He gave a slow smile. ‘You need to rethink your working day, tesoro. Life is to be lived, not just survived.’ His hand was still on her back—large, warm, strong.
‘I like my life.’
‘That’s because you don’t know what you’re missing. Stay there, I’ll fetch you a snorkel.’ He swam away from her, hauled himself back onto the boat with athletic ease and returned moments later with two masks in his hand. ‘Try this.’ Ignoring her protests, he adjusted the mask and eased it over her head. ‘Put your head in the water and see if it leaks.’
After a moment of hesitation she decided that it would be safer just to follow his orders for once, and dutifully held her breath and put her face in the water.
An amazingly beautiful and varied underwater world stretched out beneath her and when she finally had to lift her head to breathe, she was smiling. ‘All right. Just this once I’m willing to concede that you’re right about something. I love it.’
He showed her how to breathe through the tube and how to dive down and clear it. Then he swam off and left her to get used to it by herself.
She experimented, becoming more and more adventurous and delighted by the brightly coloured fish she saw darting in shoals beneath her. When she finally stopped swimming and lifted her head, she saw Alessio taking the boat onto the beach.
She swam to the shore, removed her mask and snorkel and walked towards him. The white sand was silky soft under her feet, the sun blazing down on her head and shoulders.
‘I’ve packed us some provisions.’ He hauled some baskets out of the boat and handed her one. ‘This island is very pretty. Worth exploring.’ He dragged the boat farther up the beach, away from the lick of the sea.
Then he pulled out a cool box and a rug and strolled farther up the beach towards the palm trees. ‘Your pale English skin will need the shade.’
Unlike him, she thought ruefully, scanning his golden brown shoulders and bronzed back as he casually threw the rug onto the sand. He had the sort of skin that turned brown in an instant.
He lay on his back on the rug and closed his eyes. ‘An hour,’ he murmured. ‘We’ll spend an hour here and then we’ll sail back to Kingfisher Cay.’
She sat down, leaving a respectable distance between the two of them. ‘How did you find this place?’
‘I was sailing one day and came across it. I bought it.’
‘Retail therapy, Alessio?’
Eyes still closed, he smiled. ‘I had a wild idea that I might build a villa for myself on it one day. I like the fact that it’s relatively inaccessible. The way the land curves means that it isn’t visible from any other island. No photographers with long lenses. I like my privacy.’
‘Is that why you don’t allow cameras on Kingfisher Cay?’
‘Yes. I want the guests to know that they’re truly on holiday.’
‘So are you going to build yourself a house here?’
‘Maybe. At the moment we only use it for privileged guests who want a deserted island experience.’
‘How did you find Kingfisher Cay?’ Suddenly curious, she frowned down at him. ‘I mean, you’re Italian.’
‘Sicilian.’ His tone a shade cooler, he raised himself up on his elbows. ‘I’m Sicilian.’
And he looks Sicilian, she thought desperately, with those strands of blue-black hair flopping over his bronzed forehead. He looked dark and dangerous and—‘All right, you’re Sicilian—’ she spoke quickly ‘—but why the Caribbean? You have your own islands in Italy.’
‘No one would sell me Sicily.’ His eyes gleamed with sardonic humour and she found herself laughing too, although a tiny part of her wondered whether perhaps he wasn’t joking.
‘Do you have to own everything?’