Interested, he made a mental note.
“I have some other news.” He sat on the end of the nearest lounger. “April’s wedding is back on. Her fiancé stood up to his parents’ demands and is marrying April with or without the pre-nup.”
Nina punched the air—yes!—then sat down too. “Good for him!”
“I want you to come with me.”
Her animated face froze. “To the wedding?”
“I’ve put in a special request that the desserts must be doubly to die for.”
He could imagine the cogs spinning in her mind. Should she? Shouldn’t she? Did partnering him at a wedding breach the platonic line she’d drawn in the sand? Mere semantics. That snag would be fixed soon enough anyway.
Finally her expression eased and she nodded. “Sure. I’d love to go.”
“Done.” He stood and pulled her up too. “Now, grab some shorts and a top. We need a change of scenery.”
By noon they were aboard a thirty-six-foot sailing yacht, heading out for a leisurely cruise around some of the other Great Barrier Reef islands. After they’d left the bay and were in open waters, Gabriel let Nina steer.
Her hands clutched the wheel so tightly her knuckles turned white. But he was standing close by, enjoying the view of salt air whipping through her hair while seafaring exhilaration built on her face. When they anchored near a coral ledge, they stripped to swimsuits and slipped into the crystal-clear water. With masks and snorkels they floated out together and wove over a world of marine life that darted between fingers of jade, pink, aqua and vermilion coral.
Iridescent blue angel fish, gold and white striped harlequin tuskfish, parrot fish, butterfly fish…so vivid and brilliant and clear. He chuckled to himself at the fresh wide-eyed wonder behind her mask when she pointed out an ancient turtle swimming by, close enough to touch.
After they’d climbed back on board and showered off, taking advantage of the dwindling breeze, Gabriel manoeuvred the yacht into a remote island cove. There was barely a breath of wind left by the time he dropped anchor.
Perfect. The weather report had been spot-on.
He laid out a picnic blanket on the timber deck beneath the shade of the sail, while Nina organised prawns, oysters, pineapple and fresh mango for a late lunch spread. He poured Chardonnay into plastic goblets and she peeled two enormous prawns. Looking up at the mast, then at the palm trees fringing the unpopulated island’s white-lined shore, she bit into the flesh. Chewing, and still looking around, she wiped her fingers on a paper towel.
“Everything’s so quiet,” she said.
“No wind.”
Stretching out her legs and resting back on one arm, she accepted a goblet of wine. “Don’t sails need wind? How do we get back?”
“I have oars.” He raised his glass. “Cheers.”
She smiled. “I’m getting an interesting visual. But really…”
While she sipped, he peered up at the vigilant gulls wheeling overhead. Not a cloud in the sky. Plenty of food and good wine. A beautiful, sassy woman, in an amazing flaming red bikini—who wanted to leave?
He shrugged. “We’ll have to wait it out.” No need for her to know about the inboard motor.
She sat up. “How long do you think?”
“You have something to rush back to?”
“Not a thing.”
He wasn’t quite sure how to take her tone. Had she done all she could with regard to finding another job—sending out more résumés, contacting industry friends—Or had she resigned herself to packing up and leaving in a couple of days without a job to go to?
She reached for one side of a mango and turned the skin inside out. Juice exploded and streamed down her forearms. Rushing to suck the fruit, she tried to capture what she could, and a fierce coil of awareness lassoed and tugged at his groin. He drove down a breath and blew it quietly out. She was sexy without trying—but was she doing that on purpose?
She continued to suck and lick the soft orange flesh and then, as if she hadn’t known how captivating her ingesting fruit could be, she threw a glance across and smiled.
“I’ll be sticky after this,” she said. “We could go for another swim.”
Or we could make love.
She inclined her head. “Did you say something?”
“I said I don’t want another swim.”
When he downed half his wine, she blinked twice and her cheeks pinked up beneath her wide-brimmed hat. It was becoming harder to hide his autonomic responses. Harder to pretend he wanted to. His jaw was tight, his stomach too. The back of his neck felt on fire.
“You must be starved,” she said.
A tiny rapid pulse beat at the side of her throat. He felt the same rhythm hammering away in his blood.
“Here.” She handed over a delicacy. “These oysters look delicious.”
Keeping his gaze on hers, he lifted a shell and slid the oyster into his mouth. The salty, slippery, exotic taste only teased him more. It was all he could do to keep his gaze from wandering to her cleavage…to her thighs.
Her bikini wasn’t naughty, exactly; the fabric covered all the necessary bits. But the legs were cut intriguingly high and her womanly hips were so curvy. Her breasts were pulled up and looked so full that the temptation to drag her over was one he could barely contain.
No doubt reading his mind and wanting to cool it, she turned a little away, curled her legs beneath her and selected another oyster. But as her fork lifted the oyster from its shell Gabriel noticed her breathing had changed. Deeper. Quicker. And the blush which had started on her cheeks had radiated down the slim column of her throat. As the burn at his nape flashed like wild fire over the rest of his body, he clenched his hand against the urge to lean over and press his lips to her throat and that heat.
She edged a plate towards him. “Have some mango. They’re so juicy.”
He groaned. “I noticed.”
“We had two huge mango trees in our backyard. Do you remember?”
If she wanted to change the subject that they weren’t discussing, it wouldn’t work.
“Trees?” He set down his goblet. “I don’t recall.”
“Sure you do. You and Anthony stuffed yourselves so much that summer Mum thought you’d throw up.”
Gabriel’s mind flashed back and he had to grin. He remembered Anthony’s mouth stained orange, skins all over the backyard. They’d been barely able to move they’d eaten so much.
Gabriel cleared his throat and moved closer to Nina. He didn’t want to discuss old times now.
She bit into a slice of pineapple and chewed contemplatively. “You never stayed at our house for dinner. You always went home to eat.”
“Faith liked having family meals around the table,” he summed up, then held up the bottle. “More wine?”
Nina declined, then dropped her gaze. “Gabe, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, but…I was wondering what happened to your mother? Who was she before she had you?”
He lowered the bottle. As mood-killers went, that was a ten. He hadn’t spoken about that with anyone. But if Nina wanted to know they’d be here for a while. He guessed he could share.
“You want the unabridged version?”
“If you want.”
He drove his fingers through his hair and held them there while he thought back.
“Faith and my mother Darlene’s parents worked on their landlord’s dairy farm. The girls had a good mother and father, but the only speck of luxury in their lives came when they went to the cinema. Darlene worshipped Hollywood films and dreamed of marrying the next Robert Redford or Paul Newman. She planned to live in Los Angeles, but fell pregnant before she’d saved enough for a fare. She didn’t tell my father. At eighteen, she didn’t want to give her baby up, but she didn’t want to wind up with a going-nowhere-nobody either. She had her heart set on a famous, dashing, wealthy husband.”
Nina spoke gently. “She didn’t think your father was good enough?”
“He couldn’t give her the fantasy life she wanted. So Darlene shifted in with Faith, who’d moved to the city. Darlene had her baby, then set out to find a real man.” He cocked his head. “My words, not hers, but you get my drift.”
Nina got his drift, all right. His mother had robbed Gabriel of the chance to get to know his dad and vice versa. On top of that she’d left him with an echo that reached from past to present, from father to son…
Not a real man.
Nina’s verbal darts all those years ago, insinuating he didn’t measure up, wouldn’t have helped. She’d been young and foolish. After that story she could only imagine how deeply her taunts must have cut.
“That search took my mother to all kinds of interesting places—including bars.” A muscle in his jaw flexed twice. “One night she didn’t come home. The police said she’d just run out on her responsibilities. I was four. When I was eight they charged a man with the rape and murder of three women in the district over the preceding four years.”
Her breath caught.
So his mother hadn’t abandoned her little son. Cold comfort, though, given the circumstances.
His palm lay on the deck. She covered it lightly with her own. “And your father found you years later?”