Save the Last Dance: The Ballerina Bride / Invitation to the Boss's Ball

Finn didn’t notice.

He rolled onto his back and let himself float face up, his eyes closed, and kept himself steady with the odd flap of one of his outstretched hands.

‘Isn’t this perfect?’ he asked quietly.

Allegra stopped washing and stared at him. She couldn’t help smiling herself as the warm sun beat down on her shoulders and the cool water lapped around her.

This man, he was so utterly different from her. He got the urge to do something and he did it, no matter if it was crazy or dangerous, or both. He didn’t dither and second-guess himself. He made split-second decisions in high pressure situations and his gut instinct was always right. She let her breath out slowly, hoping his ears were far enough below the surface not to hear the ragged longing in it.

She held it again when his eyes popped open and he swivelled his head to look at her. She found an answering smile curved her face.

‘Yes, it is,’ she replied softly, looking right at him. ‘It is perfect.’

The rest she left unsaid.

Finn clambered over a rock and then turned and thrust out his hand for his celebrity shadow to grab. ‘Not far now.’ He pulled her up onto the ledge he’d jumped up onto, then turned to look towards the summit of the hill. ‘Once we’re at the top we’ll be able to get a better idea of the lie of the land.’

Allegra didn’t answer. Her chest was moving rapidly and she put her hands on her hips.

It hadn’t been easy going on their trek to the island’s highest point. The hill itself was nothing compared to what he was used to climbing, hardly more than a bump, but the closer they’d got to the centre of the island, the denser the jungle vegetation had become. Even for him it had been tiring.

She’d kept up, though. Had hardly even slowed him down.

It had been Dave who’d done all the moaning, despite the fact the glorious morning had meant the rest of their small crew had been able to join them and he was now guaranteed something a little more comfortable than bamboo to bed down on that night.

Allegra, however, had done everything he’d thrown at her without a murmur. She hadn’t even complained about the insect bites that were popping up all over her skin, and Finn was now hastily revising his earlier conclusions about this ballerina. Her training must be a lot more rigorous than he’d imagined, because the girl had stamina. And guts.

As for blowing away in a stiff breeze? Well, he was starting to suspect it’d take something akin to a typhoon to uproot this woman if she set her mind to staying put.

A few more feet and they were standing on a broad flat rock, partially covered in yellowish grass, that marked the island’s highest point. He sucked in a lungful of air. Wow. The view was stunning. He glanced over his shoulder at the crew, hoping Dave and the extra cameraman were getting some good shots.

He’d known the location of the chain of islands they’d be visiting for this episode, but other than that he knew very little about this particular spot. It had been a conscious decision on the part of both him and the production team to leave him out of the location-scouting process. That way he really had to think on his feet and use all his skills when he reached his destination. As a result, this was his first chance to see just how big the island was and what natural features it was graced with.

Allegra was standing a few feet away, turning slowly on her heels, her eyes practically popping out of her head.

‘Can’t beat this,’ he said.

She shook her head solemnly. And then she looked right at him and gave him one of her rare smiles. Something about it reached down inside of him and he felt something like a champagne cork popping. He started to fizz with energy.

He could see it in her eyes—that she was sharing the adrenalin rush with him—that her pulse was quickening and the blood was rushing in her ears, and it reminded him of what it had felt like the first time he’d seen a view like this. How he’d been literally breathless. Somehow, knowing she was having the same rush, that first sweet taste of adventure, intensified the experience for him, too. Doubled it.

He ran to the edge of the large rock, where it rose up slightly and then dropped away suddenly for maybe forty feet into the jungle, and then he stood on his tiptoes, threw his hands out wide and yelled into the wind.

When he’d run out of breath he turned back to find the crew rolling their eyes, but Allegra…

Allegra laughed.

The sound burst from her, surprising her as much as him. She clapped her hand over her mouth to muffle it, but over the top of her fingers her eyes still danced.

Finn couldn’t help but join her.

Well, blow him down if the suits back in TV land hadn’t been right for once. Sharing this with someone who hadn’t done it before was fun. It was amazing to watch her soak up everything he gave her like a sponge, to see her eyes widen in awe at each new revelation.

He ran over to her, grabbed her tiny hand and tugged her with him to the edge of the precipice.

‘Have a go,’ he said, grinning at her. ‘There’s nothing else like it.’

Her eyes sparkled, but she bit her lip and shook her head. Finn just laughed harder, the sound rumbling low inside of him and gathering momentum until it demanded to be let out. So let it out he did.

It seemed such a shame that Allegra didn’t shout her joy out, too, that he whooped again and, as he did so, he tightened his hand around hers, hoping in some small way he was taking her with him.

Allegra plunged her canteen into the cool, dark pool of water and felt the warm air bubbles rumble to the surface. When she was sure it was full she lifted it out of the water and swung it to her lips.

‘No!’

Finn was through the draping ferns and beside her in a second, shoving the canteen away from her face with such force she almost dropped it. Shock must have been written all over her face, because his expression softened as he gently prised the canteen from her fingers and screwed its cap on.

‘It needs to be boiled first,’ he explained.

Allegra didn’t do anything but stutter. Shock had given way to awareness, and Finn McLeod was standing very, very close, his dark hair flopping over his forehead and his eyes full of delicious concern.

‘B-but, this…morning…’

He shook his head. ‘That was rain water. Different rules.’

She nodded, even though she didn’t really understand. Finn had amazed her with his ingenuity that morning. After their swim he’d set about recovering their water containers—as well as their canteens and sections of bamboo he’d cut up to make long cups—that he’d placed strategically the night before. Each one had a large rolled up leaf sticking out of the top and she’d discovered they’d acted as funnels, the torrential rain filling every one of them. But in this heat and humidity, their water supplies had gone down very fast, and there was no knowing when it would rain again.

She looked at her canteen in Finn’s hands.

She’d made a rookie mistake. One that, had she really been stranded on her own, might have been fatal. It only proved how much of a fish out of water she was here—and how much she needed Finn.

Maybe Finn had said something about not drinking the water, but she’d been too busy watching his face light up as he’d talked about navigating their way to the head of the creek he’d spotted from the top of the island to retain that information. It turned out the spring was not far from the base of the cliff they’d been standing on earlier. But they hadn’t known that until they’d made a two-hour trip, first locating the creek and then following it upstream to its source.

Finn gave her a half-apologetic, half-cheeky look, handed her canteen over and stepped back. ‘Sorry if I made you jump.’

She shook her head, and then blushed hard. Finn, thankfully, had turned away to finish filling his own canteen, and Allegra was hoping the shade cast by the drooping trees would hide her heightened colour from Dave’s beady-eyed lens.

It was a relief when Finn stood up and charged off into the jungle once again. She fell into step behind him, glad Dave and the rest of the crew were taking the rear and only had a clear shot of her sweat-stained back.

Their small party had doubled with the arrival of the speedboat that morning. Simon, who was both the producer and the director, had turned up, along with another cameraman—she couldn’t remember his name—and a safety expert called Tim. This wasn’t a big island and Allegra reckoned it was starting to feel a little crowded.

After a couple of minutes of walking, Finn stopped suddenly, eyed up a thick-trunked palm and then began hacking it to bits with his machete. Allegra quelled a shiver. There was something about a man pitting himself against nature that made a girl feel all…wobbly. When he was almost all of the way through, he pushed the trunk over and gouged a well in the stump, which instantly began to fill with clear liquid.

‘Here…’ he said, gesturing to it. ‘If you’re thirsty you can drink this.’

Allegra held back her ponytail and bent to sip from the shallow pool. The liquid tasted like water, clean and clear, with a hint of sweetness. When she’d downed as much as she could, she stood back and let Finn take a turn.

She watched him, knowing she should quench the little puddle of warmth that had begun to collect in her stomach at his thoughtful action, but she didn’t have the heart.