‘A very late one, yes.’
She widened her eyes and gave him a doleful look. ‘You know, I haven’t eaten anything all day.’
Alex frowned. ‘Didn’t you have something up at the house?’
Phoebe bit on her lip and shook her head forlornly. ‘I’m ravenous.’ She waited and, when Alex didn’t look as if he had any intention of taking her hint, she swayed a little. ‘Do you realise that if I pass out this evening as a result of lack of sustenance it’ll be entirely your fault?’
‘How do you figure that?’
‘You didn’t give me time for breakfast, so if there’s enough in there for two…’
‘There’s plenty.’ He set the box on the ground and took the lid off. ‘Help yourself.’
Oh. Phoebe peered into the cool box and her mouth watered. Lunch looked and smelled delicious. But however tempting his suggestion was, nibbling on a chicken leg alone on the beach while Alex did whatever he did on boats had not been the plan at all.
‘I’d much rather join you,’ she said with a little pout.
Alex’s jaw tightened but he remained stonily silent.
‘Fine,’ she said sadly. ‘I understand. I just hope your hosting skills improve by tonight.’
Alex let out a resigned sigh. ‘OK. That’s enough. You can come.’
Phoebe beamed. ‘Great.’
Letting Phoebe on board his boat had been such a bad idea, Alex berated himself for the hundredth time.
He should have thrown her a sandwich and left her on the beach. Better still, he should never have disturbed her in the first place. He wasn’t sure why he had.
But even though he’d known perfectly well what she’d been up to with those big eyes and the pout it didn’t negate the fact that she was right. The catering staff had gone on a break for a couple of hours before gearing up for tonight. The cool box contained enough lunch to feed an army and he was sick of feeling guilty. What else could he have done?
All he’d wanted was a moment’s solitude. To feel the wind in his hair, the tiller beneath his hands, and to fill with the sense of peace that sailing always gave him.
But had he found that solitude? That peace? Nope. Because Phoebe was anything but peaceful and he’d been an idiot to think he could get away with ignoring her.
She might not have hit him with a barrage of questions just yet, but her eyes had locked onto him with the focus of a heat-seeking missile the moment they’d cast off and in the past half an hour they hadn’t wavered. Even when he had his back to her he could feel her gaze boring into him. Watching him carefully, as if trying to penetrate right through to the centre of him and fathom him out.
His whole body itched and buzzed as if a swarm of bees had taken up residence inside him. The last thing he wanted or needed was fathoming out, he thought grimly, switching off the engine and releasing the main sail. It unfurled and fluttered in the breeze and Alex hauled and winched the ropes until his muscles burned.
For a while the yacht glided smoothly through water, and as Phoebe turned her face to the sun Alex stared at the horizon, let his thoughts lighten and he finally found an edgy sort of peace.
Until Phoebe’s stomach rumbled like a crash of thunder and the flicker of guilt he thought he’d managed to extinguish fanned back into life.
‘Uh, sorry about that,’ she muttered and rubbed her midriff.
‘Lunch?’
‘I thought you’d never ask.’
If he hadn’t had a conscience he wouldn’t have. Because he had no doubt that as soon as they sat down to eat the questions would come. But he couldn’t postpone lunch any longer, so he’d answer them as briefly as possible and if she persisted he’d employ any tactic at his disposal to deflect her.
Ignoring an odd sense of impending doom, Alex steered the yacht towards the coast and dropped the anchor as soon as they reached shallow water.
‘How did you get to be so good at sailing?’ said Phoebe, finishing off the last piece of cold chicken and thinking lunch had never tasted so delicious.
Alex tensed and she wondered exactly why he was so reluctant to talk about himself. ‘I used to race.’
‘But not any more?’ She set the chicken bone on her plate and licked her fingers.