‘Like what?’
‘How long do you have?’
‘However long it takes.’
If that were true, he’d be waiting a long time because it was never going to happen. Apologising for my bad manners was one thing, baring my soul to a man who had such a low opinion of me was quite another. And why was he so interested in my shortcomings anyway? So he could gather together yet more ammunition to use against me?
‘I’ll bear that in mind,’ I said, having no intention of giving him a reason to think even less of me than he already did. ‘So what elsedoesdrive you, apart from money?’
‘Prudent planning. Tax efficiency. Taking the best care I can of the assets my clients have and solving their problems.’
Such as mine? ‘Talking of problematic clients,’ I said, sternly reminding myself that the only assets I wanted him taking care of were financial ones, ‘is there any news on the press frenzy back home?’
‘Not yet.’
Oh, dear. That didn’t bode well. How long was it going to be until the fuss had died down back home and it was safe for me to leave? How much more of this awkwardness, this stalking each other like caged tigers, were we going to have to tolerate?
Maybe time would pass more quickly with conversation. Maybe I could implement the strategy I’d developed on the plane over to rise above such small-mindedness with maturity and serenity by doubling down on the small talk. It was worth a try.
‘What’s for supper?’
‘Red snapper.’
‘Delicious,’ I said, my stomach giving a faint rumble. ‘My diet over the last eight or so years has consisted mainly of soup and pasta. This last week I’ve been making up for lost time by ordering seafood whenever I can, and it’s been heavenly. How can I help?’
‘You can lay the table,’ he said, selecting a long knife from a rack and beginning to sharpen it on a steel with the expertise of a professional chef not unlike the one who’d come to teach me and ten of my friends how to prepare sushi for my twelfth birthday. ‘Plates and cutlery are in the cupboard in front of you. There’s a salad in the fridge.’
I busied myself with setting the table, pleased to have something to focus on other than all that efficient competence, which was oddly mesmerising and unaccountably compelling, as well as the memories of the once golden, now tainted times I’d had as a child. ‘I didn’t realise you cooked.’
‘How else am I going to feed myself?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said, straightening a fork. I’d never given it any thought. Why would I? I’d only mentioned it to fill the prickly silence. ‘Order in?’
‘Where from?’
It had been a joke—not one of my best, admittedly—but as I glanced out into the dark starless night, it occurred to me that Nick made an unsettling point. We weren’t in London, where food delivery was one click of an app away. We were out here on a small island off the east coast of Africa, surrounded by the Indian Ocean, all alone, just the two of us. Rustling up a simple supper in a low-lit kitchen to the sounds of a seething sea and the warm humid breeze swishing through the leaves of his palm trees outside.
Which, come to think of it, felt unexpectedly intimate, I reflected uneasily as I headed to the fridge. We’d never been alone together before. At least, not like this. There’d been that one time when he’d picked me up from a party in London I hadn’t been finding all that much fun and driven me home in stony silence, but that had been different. I’d been seventeen and on a mission to get over my crush on him. He’d been nineteen and with one of his interchangeable leggy blondes, who he’d ousted from the passenger side of his second-hand two-seater convertible with a smouldering smile filled with sensual promise that had filled me with envy.
But while I’d been so achingly aware of him sitting close beside me, and I could still recall every moment of it all these years later, my skin hadn’t prickled on that occasion as it was suddenly prickling now. I hadn’t experienced then quite the fire that was currently rushing along my veins. There’d been far less of a buzz, far fewer butterflies, and any burning up inside had been down to helpless, sullen jealousy.
‘So where do you get supplies?’ I asked, determinedly focusing on the pedestrian and reminding myself that not only was it stiflingly warm this evening—hence the fire and the prickling, obviously—but also that Nick and I were anything but intimate. We were tolerating each other’s company under duress. There was nothing romantic about any of this, and why was I eventhinkingof romance?
‘I have a delivery from the mainland once a week,’ he said, sliding the snapper from the pan onto a board and proceeding to de-bone it with the newly sharpened knife. ‘And I fish.’
I set the salad on the table and stared at him, unable to contain my amazement. ‘You fish?’
He paused mid slice and glanced up at me. ‘Why the surprise?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said, flustered by the sardonic tinge to his words and the lingering concerns about intimacy. ‘I guess it just doesn’t fit with the image I’ve always had of you. The sharp suit... The pristine shirt... The polished shoes...’
‘I’m not always in a suit.’
No. He wasn’t. This evening he was wearing faded jeans and a pink—pink!—shirt that was, of all astonishing things, untucked. He might have had a shower, but he hadn’t shaved, and a faint five o’clock shadow adorned his jaw. With his thick dark hair touching his collar instead of being closely cropped as usual he looked...untamed. Almost piratical. Which, I had to admit, was an exceptionally good look on him.
I could hardly believe that I’d met him eighteen years ago and had thought I had him all worked out. Clearly I knew nothing. Not that I needed to know anything, of course. He was my financial advisor, that was it. Whether his rigidly controlled guard ever came down was no more my business than what might lie behind it. Which version of himself he preferred—immaculately suited or casually beachified—was of no interest to me whatsoever. Continuing the conversation, however, to keep my mind from frustratingly wandering down inappropriate avenues,wasimportant, even if it did feel like wading through treacle.
‘Did you catch this?’ I asked as he placed a fillet on each plate and brought them to the glass-topped driftwood dining table that easily sat twelve.