A hot and slippery panic was crawling over her skin. She felt sick and scared.
What if something had happened to him?
The thought was unbearable.
It hurt like an actual physical pain, as though a crack was opening up inside her. But why did it hurt so badly? It was completely disproportionate, excessive, unreasonable, and it didn’t make any sense. They barely knew one other and they weren’t even a ‘real’ couple.
She thought back to the lunch party, and to the way her eyes had met his along the length of the table.
No, it didn’t make any sense, unless—
Unless she loved him.
She breathed out unsteadily. Her heart felt as though it was about to burst out of her chest and her whole body was vibrating with shock and acceptance and joy at her silent admission.
But of course she loved him.
Every thought, every action, every feeling she had led back to him. Even when he wasn’t there she could conjure him up, fully formed, inside her head.
Only how had it happened? She had never expected to feel this way again. She’d thought that life had given and then taken away everything it had to give. But then this man had stepped into her path—or rather she had stepped into his—and now she could feel love and hope working through her veins as she gazed down at the sea.
And then, just like that, he was there, bursting through the surface of the water, his dark hair sleek against his head. As he pulled himself up onto the platform the blood seemed to drain from her body with relief.
His eyes, so green, so familiar, so necessary, locked with hers. ‘What is it? Did something happen?’
She hesitated. Really though, what could she say? Yes, I just realised I love you.
She wasn’t feeling that brave right now.
‘You’re late.’
‘I know.’
He pulled her against him, and the chill of his usually warm body was a shock.
‘I was under the boat and I noticed a couple of dents in the hull.’ His hand tightened in her hair. ‘I just wanted to check them out.’
His voice was tense, distant, as though he was still beneath the water.
She nodded. She felt exhausted. But he was alive, and he was here, and that was all that mattered.
* * *
They reached Havana by mid-evening.
As they followed the inevitable traffic diversion through the centre César had to grip the edge of his seat to stop himself knocking on the glass behind Rodolfo’s head and asking him to take them back to the boat.
After the peace and isolation of the plantation the city felt incredibly loud and bright, and maybe Kitty felt the same, he thought as they headed back to the estate. She had been quiet in the car. In fact, she’d been quiet since the dive.
Later, she was quiet during dinner too. But maybe it wasn’t just bodies that needed to decompress after a dive. Perhaps emotionally it was hard to adjust to ordinary life when moments earlier you’d been in a thrilling underwater world.
‘If you like we could take the boat out next weekend. There’s a nature reserve just up the coast with turtles and stingrays. Sometimes even manatees.’
She stared up at him, her thoughts clearly elsewhere. ‘That would be lovely.’ She hesitated. ‘I’m sorry that you didn’t get longer in the water.’
‘It’s fine.’
His heart clenched as he thought back to the dive, to the moment when he’d realised that something was wrong. Tension had been building in his chest, his blood pulsing inside his head, and at first he’d thought it was his mouthpiece. But of course it hadn’t been.