Cracking the Dating Code

‘Working,’ said Seb grudgingly. ‘That is not the issue. What I want to know is why you sent her here in the first place. You into her? You setting something up? Like a lightning visit?’

‘What?’ said Tomas.

‘God, you even sound like her,’ muttered Seb. ‘Are. You. Into. Her? It’s not a difficult question. A simple yes or no will do.’

‘What if I am?’ asked Tom warily.

‘Then you’d better come and get her before I forget you exist. Now do you understand?’

His brother swore, loud and long. Smart man, only, ‘I’m not involved with Poppy,’ he said at some point during the tirade. ‘I have no intention of ever getting involved with Poppy,’ he said a short time later, and the stranglehold on Seb’s chest relaxed. ‘But if you think I sent her there for you to get into, you couldn’t be more wrong,’ his brother continued. ‘You want to party, get off the island.’

‘And leave Her Citified Slenderness here by herself? How do you think that’s going to work out? She’s already nervous about staying in the guest house by herself.’

Silence from Tom.

‘Can’t she go and work somewhere else?’ It wasn’t quite a plea for mercy but it was the closest Seb had ever come to one. ‘Because if you want me to stay away from her, she’s going to have to go.’

‘She can’t go,’ said Tom. ‘Trust me on this one. She needs the privacy, the bat cave, and she needs a bit of time. Give her two weeks, Seb. Please. Hell, give her two days. Surely you can manage two days without trying to get her on her back?’

‘Crème caramel,’ murmured Seb. ‘I haven’t had a crème caramel in ages.’

‘Resist.’ Panic in Tom’s voice now, but it was too late. Tom didn’t want her. Seb most certainly did. ‘I mean it, Seb. You treat her like a sister.’

‘We don’t have a sister.’

‘Point taken,’ said Tom. ‘Then, for God’s sake, treat her like my boss.’

Dawn came too early for Poppy, but once the sky began to brighten on the horizon there was nothing else to do but pull the mosquito net aside, turn on her side in the glorious, king-sized bed, find a few pillows to prop beneath her head and give the dawn show the attention it deserved.

Sleep had taken its time coming to her last night. Sunrise took its time too as it stole across the rippling water and then crept across the edge of her bed.

Poppy stretched her hand out to caress it; no bite in the sun’s rays yet, but the dust motes in the air glowed silver and they kept her entertained as vivid dreams of making love with Sebastian had kept her entertained throughout last night.

In her dreams, Poppy hadn’t been standoffish or in need of personal space. She hadn’t been wary of him or of the things he might do.

It hadn’t been awkward. She hadn’t been clueless or desperately out of her depth, the way she had been with others.

She hadn’t been seventeen going on fourteen and Sebastian hadn’t been twenty-two and impatient. Sebastian hadn’t been baffled by her awkwardness or horrified by her age and inexperience when finally she’d confessed it.

He hadn’t muttered stumbling apologies interspersed with curses, while scooping up her clothes and directing her to put them on, put them on, before hurriedly showing her the door, saying, ‘Sorry, sorry, dear God, I’m sorry. I had no idea.’

Sebastian hadn’t said sorry at all.

Fine things, dreams.

Poppy threw her covers back and stretched out and waited until the sun bathed every inch of her in its glow.

Dreams were what wishes were made of.

Sebastian wasn’t at the house when Poppy arrived there just on 8:00 a.m. Easy, then, to make herself at home in the cave and find Tom’s cache of music and crank up the juice and get down to business.

She almost didn’t hear the outer office phone, but the repetitive ring seeped through to her brain eventually and with it came a new dilemma. Answer it or not? Surely the man had an answering machine?

But a quick look confirmed the phone for some sort of satellite affair and whether it had an answering service function was open to speculation. She reached for the phone and picked it up gingerly.

‘Finally,’ said an exasperated female voice. ‘I didn’t think you were ever going to pick up. You done brooding yet? Because there’s a few things here in need of your attention. Like a potential blowout in the Timor Sea. Do we want after it or not?’

‘Hello?’ said Poppy. ‘You’ll be after Seb.’

‘Who’s this?’ asked the voice suspiciously.

‘Are you after Seb?’ countered Poppy politely. ‘Because I’m quite happy to take a message. I’m quite happy to go and find him and deliver a message if it’s important.’

‘Who are you, exactly?’

‘A friend of Tom’s.’

‘Seb’s brother.’ The voice grew friendlier by the second.

‘Yes. Seb’s not in the house right now. I’m not sure where he is, to be honest.’

‘In that case, I’d love you to give him a message. Tell him there’s a jackup leaking oil and gas in the Montara field. It’s been evacuated and I’m pulling in more details from the parent company now. It’s a mess. Tell him to call Wendy asap.’

‘Tell him or ask him?

‘Ask him,’ said Wendy. ‘But if you can make it sound like it’s non-negotiable, all the better.’

‘All righty,’ said Poppy. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

She hung up and, with a wistful glance towards the computer room, headed for the quad and set it chugging sedately down the track towards the boatshed in search of her host.

But he wasn’t in the boatshed, so she tried to remember where he’d said he might be as she took the track that ran around behind it and worked the quad slowly around the edge of the island. Fishing, climbing, swimming or something. That was where he’d be.

Poppy kept motoring, with the smell of the bush closing in on one side of her and the smell of the sea on the other, and the colours spread out before her were forest green and azure blue, sometimes butting up against each other and sometimes separated by a strip of sand. Wind in her hair, the sun on her face and the throb of the quad beneath her. Poppy’s senses were sharper here. Her enjoyment of sensual things more pronounced.

Maybe that might explain her fascination with one Sebastian Reyne.

He wasn’t on the first stretch of beach that she came to but she did find his quad parked in the shade of some trees on the second. Poppy scanned the beach and the bushland behind her but there was no sign of the man on either.

Sighing, she turned her attention to the sea. Picture perfect, this little blue bay. A semicircle full of shallows and coral clusters and then an abrupt drop off into water of an infinitely deeper blue.

A slight commotion in the water. Darting fins, black tipped and plenty of them. A snorkelling Sebastian, rising from the shallows with a spear gun in hand and a pearly orange fish on the end of it. Spear fishing in the company of half a dozen or so curious sharks.

Man with a death wish, as far as she was concerned, but then, given the day job, what else could she expect?

Poppy cupped her hands and called to him. Waited until he turned around and then stood up and waved him in. Die he would, if that was truly his desire, but please, Lord, not on her watch and not in the water.

He waded back towards the shore and a cohort of black-tipped fins wove in and out around him, but he still had his catch when he reached the sand and stripped off his snorkelling gear, and a grin on his face that spoke of enjoyment, not terror.