Thunder On The Reef

Wasn’t it bad enough that, unasked and unwanted, he’d invaded her waking hours once more? Surely, dear God, she could blot him out of the darkness—prevent him creating havoc in her sleep as well.

She didn’t need to be reminded of the joy they’d created together. She wanted to forget.

I’ve got to forget, she thought, with a little dry sob. Got to...

She was realistic enough to know that part of the problem was her self-imposed celibacy of the past four years. Although she had never been seriously tempted to break it, in spite of the attention and admiration that had been heaped on her, especially by her father’s business partner, Cameron Denys.

Cameron had asked her to be his wife countless times, she thought, with an inward sigh. He was wealthy, floridly good-looking, and not without charm, but she knew she would never have accepted his proposal, even if the guilty secret of her hidden marriage hadn’t stood in the way.

Maybe, one day, she might meet someone she could trust and care about enough to commit herself again. In the meantime, she supposed she could always try hypnotherapy.

She drank down the rest of her juice and sat up, wiping the faint stickiness from her lips with the back of her hand. Her mouth still felt faintly tender, she noticed, frowning.

But that, of course, was why she’d had the dream. It was all the fault of that merciless kiss Ross had inflicted on her. He’d wanted to punish her—and he’d succeeded. But why?

He was the betrayer, who’d vanished from her life with her father’s pay-off. Yet he’d spoken almost as if he blamed her for his own greed and weakness. As if meeting her again had resurrected some long-buried feelings of guilt which he was trying to exorcise.

If so, surely he would be as anxious to avoid her from now on as she was to keep away from him?

Yet, ‘I’ll be seeing you...’ His parting words had not been of separation.

It was as if he was out there, somewhere, in the velvet darkness, watching her again.

Macy shivered, and got determinedly to her feet. It was high time she went indoors, and tried to get some rest for what remained of the night. It could be a big day tomorrow. A day when she would need all her wits about her.

She felt the bath sheet slip a little, and as her hand moved to anchor it more firmly she was suddenly, crazily tempted to let it fall away completely. To walk naked down the winding path between the whispering, fragrant shrubs to the crescent of silver beach. To let the fantasy begun in her dream go on to its ultimate conclusion with the man who must surely be waiting for her—there, on the edge of the sea.

She stopped, with a sharp gasp, flinging back her head. That, she berated herself, would be a self-betrayal beyond words.

Because there was no man, no tender, sensuous lover waiting to beguile her into rapture with his words and touch, and she knew it. He’d never really existed at all—always been a figment of her imagination, and she had to remember that.