‘You may have had your moments when you were younger,’ he said, ‘but underneath it all you were...kind.’
I blinked. Of all the adjectives he could have chosen after describing my more destructive qualities, that was not one I’d ever have considered. ‘Kind?’
‘You were forever finding small injured animals and taking them in. Frogs. Squabs. Bumble bees. If it was missing a wing or had fallen out of a nest it had to be saved.’
‘I’d forgotten that,’ I said, slightly taken aback that he remembered. ‘I didn’t always succeed.’
‘But you always tried. You fought for the weak. You championed the underdog. Do you recall coming to my defence once, when some kids at school were taunting me about where I was spending the holidays? I was handling things fine on my own, but that didn’t stop you flying into the melee and telling everyone exactly what you thought of them. You were small but fierce. Like a mini Boadicea. I was impressed.’
I searched my memory, but it didn’t take long. ‘I do remember,’ I said, thinking that was one moment involving him that I could be proud of at least. ‘I was eleven to your thirteen. It was the end of your first term and I was with my parents, picking Seb up. You and I hadn’t met at that point. I just saw injustice and reacted. But if I’d known how disruptive and unwelcome you were going to find me,’ I added a touch tartly, ‘I might not have bothered.’
‘I’m glad you did.’
When had I lost that fearlessness? I wondered, mopping up the juices on my plate with some bread. When did I stop caring about those in need of help? When did I become more interested in clothes and make-up and a bunch of pretty rotten friends?
‘Do you know what you also were?’
I snapped myself out of my turbulent thoughts and refocused. ‘I’m not sure I want to.’
‘You were influential.’
My eyebrows shot up. ‘Influential?’ That was an improvement on resented and chaotic, although it could hardly have been any worse.
‘Firstly, if it wasn’t for you and the conversation we once had about it, I’d still be messed up about having a father I’ve never met. I’d still be feeling guilty about spending so much time with your family instead of my mother. And secondly, without you I wouldn’t be who I am today. Your comment about me being beneath you—’ He broke off, a flare of heat lighting the depths of his eyes and I went hot, despite the lingering pique at the knowledge he’d found me so impossibly frustrating. ‘It sparked my drive to succeed. To make money. To be and do better than everyone else. I admit there was the money element. I wanted to get my mother and myself as far away from where we came from as possible. I swore to myself that neither of us would ever be hungry or cold again and didn’t stop until I achieved that. But I was initially driven by you and your disdain. That’s why I’ve never needed or wanted your apology for that afternoon by the pool, Millie. If anything, I ought to thank you.’
Nick fell silent but the noise in my head was deafening. I was, in part, responsible for the man he’d become? My adolescent petulance had led to his stellar success? I didn’t know whether to be ashamed of that or proud. I didn’t know what to think any more. I went from hot to cold and back again. I was influential and chaotic, annoying and Boadicea, resented yet desired.
But suddenly none of that seemed to matter. It was all swept aside by the Millie. He hadn’t called me Amelia. He’d called me Millie. For the first time ever. Which, for some bizarre reason, had my heart flipping about all over the place, an unstoppable smile curving my mouth, and all my outrage and pique, my objections and concerns melting clean away.
‘You’re welcome.’
After brunch, we ventured outside to inspect the storm damage. The ground was waterlogged. Leaves and branches lay scattered everywhere and the flowers in the planters were trashed. Much of the debris had ended up in the pool and I spent a good quarter of an hour watching and admiring as a shirtless Nick scooped it out, which eventually led to a scorching interlude on a sun lounger.
Later, once we’d cleared up the worst of mother nature’s fury in the immediate vicinity of the villa, he grabbed my hand and led me down the path to the jetty, which remarkably remained intact. He dragged the boat from its shelter with an impressive display of muscles and fired it up, and ten minutes later we were motoring around the island to check on the rest of it.
The beach at the cove I’d explored yesterday lay beneath half a dozen felled palm trees, their freshly jagged trunks jutting out of the churned-up sand. The door to the boathouse at the top end of the island was hanging off its hinges and as Nick steered the boat into the shore I could see that the sails had been blown off the walls and the kayaks and boards had slipped from their supports.
The devastation that lay all around was a side to paradise that didn’t appear in the brochures—and I didn’t dare imagine what it would have been like had the storm been stronger and lasted longer—yet it occurred to me as Nick cut the engine and jumped off the boat into the once limpid but now murky shallows that, extraordinarily, out of it, in our tiny corner of it, at least, had come harmony.
Because of it, we’d been forced to confront our history. We’d cleared up the torturous past and paved the way for a smoother future. And while he’d frequently tied me in metaphorical knots, which had hampered clarity on certain subjects somewhat, there’d been honesty.
Best of all, it hadn’t been as bad as I’d feared. I hadn’t been forced to disclose anything particularly deep or shameful. I wasn’t overexposed and emotionally vulnerable. In fact, if anyone had been revealing, it was Nick with the ‘Millie’ that perhaps proved he no longer considered me quite such a disturbing nuisance these days.
‘You’re very quiet,’ said Nick, jolting me out of my reverie and drawing my attention to the fact that while I’d been wool-gathering he’d pulled the boat up onto the sand and unloaded bits of the kit he’d randomly accumulated earlier, just in case.
I stood up and smoothed my dress, only to have to do it again after he’d planted his hands on my waist, lifted me off the boat and let me slide down his body as he lowered me to the sand. ‘I’ve been thinking it feels as if we’re in some sort of parallel universe,’ I said, a little breathless after the gallantry that hadn’t been necessary but was deliciously thrilling all the same.
‘In what way?’
‘You and me working together and not glowering at each other, for one thing.’
He handed me a drill and an electric screwdriver then loaded himself up with rope, a couple of planks of wood and the toolbox. ‘It does make a change.’
‘I can’t envisage you in a suit any more,’ I said, running my gaze over his tousled hair, the reflective sunglasses that glinted in the sun and the shorts that this afternoon were electric blue with white stars. ‘Or in an office. It’s all very weird.’
‘It’s progress.’
Well, yes, I thought as I followed him up the beach to the boathouse and mulled it over. I supposed it was in a way, although, worthy of a champagne celebration? I wasn’t so sure. ‘Do you ever wonder what things could have been like between us if you’d done them differently?’