The Bad Boy Wants Me(158)

My climax was beginning to build when his palm suddenly closed over my mouth.

I froze.

‘Shhh …’ he warned, his eyes narrowed.

I grasped his ribs, slippery with our intermingled sweat, and listened to whatever it was he was listening to. Still with his hand around my mouth, he turned his head very slowly. I didn’t dare move. He turned back to me, his eyes shining.

‘You won’t believe this,’ he whispered, ‘but a turtle has come ashore and is about four or five feet away from us.’ My eyes widened with shock. To the best of my knowledge turtles didn’t often come to this side of the island. Mostly they went to the other side, and even if they did come to this side it was always during the breeding months of May to September. I listened and I heard her: the heavy, rasping sounds of her dragging herself on the sand.

To my surprise I suddenly felt loose sand being flung in our direction by her flippers. She was digging her nest chamber next to us! Slowly, Ivan removed his hand from my mouth.

I opened my mouth. ‘Oh my God,’ I mouthed silently. It’s a Hawksbill.’

As gently as possible, Ivan lifted himself out of me and lay next to me. Together, lying side by side, we watched her. Grunting, bellowing and hissing as she laid over one hundred eggs, two sometimes three at a time. We saw her shed the tears that had so moved Robert.

She never acknowledged our presence. Perhaps we were just rocks or shadows to her. Rosli once told me that the locals believe that while laying her eggs a sea turtle goes into a trance from which she cannot be disturbed.

When she had finished she used her rear flippers to cover her nest with sand. Gradually, she packed the sand down over her pit, then used her front flippers to disguise her nest from predators by throwing sand in all directions. Exhausted, she slowly made her way back to sea.

Neither of us spoke. It was so special we couldn’t speak.

I felt humbled and in awe of the amount of trust that the mother turtle had entrusted her children to nature. I wanted to be brave like her. I turned to Ivan. He was still staring at the spot where she had slipped into the sea.

‘I love you,’ I said.

His entire body stilled.

‘I know you don’t love me back and I didn’t tell you to make you feel awkward. I’m sorry if I spoiled this moment for you, but I just wanted you to know. If I die tomorrow, I don’t want it to be a thing unsaid.’

He sighed heavily, like a man burdened and tortured with inner demons. ‘We have to go back tomorrow,’ he said, his voice throbbing with some deep emotion.

For a moment I felt a flash of anger. How dare he dictate when I went back? Let him go back if he wanted to. I would stay on. And then my fury deflated. What would be the point? I would be miserable here without him. I would have to return to England to face the reality of my pretend marriage.

There was something wrong, very wrong with my marriage, and the sooner I got to the bottom of it the better.





Chapter 33


Tawny Greystoke

“Love doesn’t just sit there like a stone, it has to be made, like bread.”

- Ursula Le Guin, The Lathe of Heaven.

I woke up because I heard a sound. I turned my head and saw that the pillow beside me was empty. Pushing hair out of my face I sat up and looked around. There was no light coming from under the en-suite bathroom door and the bedroom door was closed. How strange.

I got out of bed, walked in my bare feet to the door, and opened it. I could see the light in Ivan’s study was on and I could hear his voice. It was quite loud. He must be on the phone with someone. I walked towards the sound.

Something made me hold back in the corridor.

‘No, she doesn’t know and I want to keep it that way. For this plan to work she must be kept totally in the dark.’

There was a silence, then he was speaking again.

‘Absolutely. More than a hundred million is at stake. You have to come up with a foolproof plan to eliminate her. A way that cannot be traced back to anybody. Especially not me.’

Of their own volition my hands flew up and covered my gaping mouth as if to stop myself from screaming, but it was not me that was screaming it was my very soul. I just stood there in the dark frozen with shock and horror.

There was another pause and then his voice came back, urgent and hopeful.

‘Are you sure?’

Another long pause while the person on the other end probably explained something. Then came Ivan’s voice, ghoulishly excited.

‘Yes, yes, that might work. Run it by them and see if they are happy to go ahead with it. The sooner the better. I can’t stand this waiting anymore. I need to know it is done.’

‘Right. I got to go, but thanks for all your help.’

Very quietly, I tip-toed back to the bedroom and got under the covers. I was trembling. I knew without a doubt that he was talking about me. Who was he talking to? He must be in cohorts with my stepchildren. There could be no other explanation. What was it he wanted me to be kept in the dark about? Was the foolproof plan to eliminate me? Was this my worst fear? Was Ivan plotting to kill me and share my money with my stepchildren?