‘I’m smart. I mean, I’m not as good at business as you and my brothers but I’m not an idiot. I’ll know if I’m being taken for a ride or being patronised. Or used.’
‘That’s a valuable skill,’ Angus told her, sounding sincere. ‘What else?’
She released a huffy sigh. ‘Isn’t that enough?’ she demanded.
Angus simply widened his stance and linked his hands behind his back, looking thoroughly at ease. She knew he would stand there, like the soldier he’d once been, for as long as it took her to come up with an answer that satisfied him.
‘I’m willing to learn, Iwantto learn. And I can work hard, Angus. I know that I look like a trust-fund baby, who has money at her fingertips but I know the value of hard work. My fatherhad his faults, but he wasn’t shy to put his shoulder to the wheel.’
He smiled at her, and an undefinable emotion crossed his face as he looked across the sand to see the twins climbing down from the rocks. ‘Thads, that I already know.’ He held out his hand, and she slid hers into his.
‘Feeling better?’ he asked, his tone gentle. ‘A bit steadier?’
She was. It helped to talk through her fears, to have someone listen and respond, to give a masculine point of view. She wasn’t brimming with confidence, but neither did she feel like a ripped-away leaf caught up in a tornado. She’d never had a conversation like this with Clyde. She hadn’t been able to share her fears and doubts. It was wonderful to bounce ideas off him, and to feel supported. What would it be like to have him permanently around—?
No, don’t think like that, Thadie.That way madness and disappointment lay. She couldn’t start to rely on him and then, one day, look for him and he wasn’t there. Just like her parents and Clyde.
‘What if you stay here for another week, Thads?’
Thadie lifted her hands, confused. ‘What? Why?’
‘You said that the resort is empty for another five days, right?’
She nodded, not knowing where he was going with this.
‘Stay here, draw, think, take a break. Recharge all those batteries so that you can hit the ground running when you get back. Take some time for yourself...’
Uh, she was a mum, she had the twins to look after, as she told him. Angus shook his head, not convinced. ‘The boys will be absolutely fine without you for another few days. It’s five days, Thadie, not five months or five years. Jabu will keep them occupied during the day, Micah and Elle will look after them at night and I’m sure that Jago would pitch in as well. I would stick around if I could, but I need to get back to London.’
Angus placed his big hand on her shoulder, looking serious. ‘I think you need to do this, I think you should take some time on your own. You deserve it.’
The thought was both entrancing and terrifying. ‘But what would I do?’ she wailed, shocked that she was considering his suggestion.
He shrugged. ‘Get a massage, get lots of massages. Read, sleep, think. Sketch your designs—’
‘I don’t have paper or any art supplies,’ Thadie told him, happy to poke a hole in his runaway-train plans.
‘Make a list and I’ll see that what you need comes back with the boat,’ Angus told her, his eyes car-crash serious.
She bit her lip, excitement and terror mixing in her stomach. ‘I don’t think... I don’t know, Angus.’
‘I do,’ he told her, his thumb stroking her cheekbone. ‘Trust me on this.’
‘Angus!’
He turned round, smiling. He instinctively dropped to his haunches as the boys hurtled towards him, ready to be scooped up and spun around.
Angus carried their boys across the sand, tucking them under his arm like human rugby balls, and Thadie hung back, entranced as she watched her lover interact with their sons. There went her entire world, she admitted.
Two small boys and one very big man.
She knew she shouldn’t be, that it was emotionally dangerous, but right now, for the next few moments, she’d allow herself to be completely, irretrievably drunk-on-emotion crazy about all three of them.
Trust him, he suggested. She was, she reluctantly admitted, starting to.
CHAPTER NINE
ANGUSHADBEENtravelling for fourteen hours, crossing the Indian Ocean twice, but when he stepped onto the deck of Rock Villa and saw Thadie curled up on the lounger next to the infinity pool, a half-empty glass of wine on the table next to her book, he felt as if he was in the right place, at exactly the right time.