Page 74 of Modern Romance July 2025 #4-8
CHAPTER SIX
C ASSIE LEFT THE en suite bathroom, towel-drying her hair as she walked towards the chest of drawers to fetch some clothes.
It was day five and already nearly eleven o’clock; they’d enjoyed a very lazy bout of love-making when they’d got up. From his vantage point propped up on the pillows, arms folded behind his head, Leo was being treated to a sight that was second to none.
She was completely naked, her generous breasts swinging as she vigorously dried her long hair. She stopped, straightened, looked at him with raised eyebrows and smiled.
‘Come back to bed, Cass.’
‘The beach is calling me, Leo.’ She laughed and tossed her towel at him and he caught it with one hand and dumped it on the ground. ‘I want to make the most of being out here. After all, I won’t be seeing much sea or sand, or sun for that matter, when I get back to Canada next week.’
‘But on the plus side you also won’t be seeing bailiffs knocking at the door to take away the TV and the dining table.’
‘I had an email from my bank manager yesterday,’ Cassie told him, ‘And everything is slowly being put in place. Debts are being cleared and suppliers paid off and my father’s company can be revived on a smaller scale.
There are a couple of interested parties willing to buy it now that it won’t come with any encumbrances. ’
‘So everything is sunshine and light in the Farraday family?’
Cassie looked away, fetched her swimsuit and began putting it on, her back to Leo and his all-too-perceptive dark gaze.
Her mother wasn’t in the loop about the fast-progressing events.
That would be a conversation Cassie would have with her face to face.
She’d been vague in her text messages to Mary over the past few days and breathlessly in a rush on the phone.
She had made reassuring noises about the state of their finances, and vaguely said something about talking to people interested in buying the carcass of the construction company.
It was just awful but Cassie hadn’t even been able to tell her where, exactly, she was.
‘Offshore… I don’t want to go into the details, Mum, just in case I jinx this deal that’s happening…’
‘I think today we’re going to do something a little different,’ Leo drawled, and Cassie swung round to look at him.
‘But I love our routine.’
Cassie couldn’t help wondering whether this was the start of things changing between them. Their routine had been one of making love, hitting the beach, eating delicious food, then the pool, dinner and making love again.
But the time limit for their bubble was always there, at the back of Cassie’s mind, and she felt a jolt of panic at the prospect of any change in their routine.
It was a wake-up call: two more days and then reality would resume and pick up where it had left off.
She didn’t want to wake up, at least not yet.
A deeper panic stirred. What was going on inside her?
It felt as though the clock had been turned back on their relationship.
How had that happened? This was nothing like what they’d shared eight years ago.
Now, there were no promises of anything, not one.
They talked, laughed and chatted but vast grey areas remained out of bounds.
There was no mention of what life had been like for them when they’d only had eyes for one another, and definitely no mention of the wedge that had finally driven them apart.
So why did she feel so comfortable around him?
Why did she think of them parting ways with a sinking sense of dread?
How had she gone from doing this for herself—purging herself of memories with the bonus of money on the tablet—to feeling that weakness around him, that desperate want and craving that had ruled her years ago?
Pride stiffened her spine.
‘I want to take you out and show you off.’
‘Really? Here? I don’t think I’ve actually seen anyone else since we’ve been here.’
‘I’ve wanted to keep you to myself, for obvious reasons.’
Cassie tried on a smile for size, because a reminder of how important the sex was to him hurt even though she tried to bank down that reaction.
‘Where is there to go?’
‘There is an infrastructure here,’ Leo said wryly, ‘Although it’s small, and caters very much to an exclusive clientele. Anyway, it would be nice to see a bit more of the island before we leave.’
‘On the subject of which…’ Cassie stepped into a pair of denim shorts and pulled over her head the pink tee-shirt she had taken out of the drawer. She kept her voice light and breezy but her heart was thudding because this was the taboo subject she had been careful to avoid.
She watched as Leo levered himself out of bed.
He was a work of glorious art. It was what she thought every single time she looked at him.
Eight years had not diminished him: broad shoulders tapered to a whip-slim waist; strong, muscled legs had just the right amount of dark hair that accentuated the bronze beauty of his skin tone.
‘Whatever it is,’ he said, heading for the bathroom, ‘Let’s discuss it once I’ve had a shower, or preferably later. I have a bit of work to do. I’ll be an hour at most, so help yourself to breakfast…coffee…you know the layout of the land.’
He vanished into the bathroom and Cassie took herself off to the kitchen.
Breakfast was delivered daily. It was a real treat to not cook.
She missed it, but it was so relaxing to be taken care of.
It made her realise that the privileged childhood she had taken for granted had been overtaken by so many financial and emotional concerns that she had forgotten what it felt like not to worry.
She was finishing a hot roll with local guava jam when Leo strolled into the kitchen in a pair of khaki shorts, a white designer tee-shirt and loafers.
The sun was pouring through the windows, which she had flung open.
Someone was doing the garden and she could hear the distant sound of a lawnmower.
There was some manicured garden but much of it was wild, a tumble of bushes, flowers and trees and, nestling amongst the lush growth, was the swimming pool.
He helped himself to some coffee, remained standing and then strolled towards her and deposited a kiss on the top of her head.
‘Ready for some shopping?’
‘Shopping’s on the agenda? I had no idea there were any shopping centres on the island.’
‘There are a couple of shops. No one could really call it a centre , as such. I want to buy you something luxurious, ultra-sexy and feminine to wear tonight because I’m taking us both out for dinner. Again…it’s no metropolis when it comes to choices of restaurant, but I think you’ll approve.’
‘Luxurious…ultra-sexy…feminine…’ Cassie murmured as they headed out in the blazing sun towards the buggy parked at the front. ‘Not quite me.’
‘I know.’ Leo grinned. ‘I remember you in jeans and trainers or shorts and hiking boots.’
‘You know that part of the world.’ Cassie smiled. ‘There’s not a lot of opportunity for the feminine stuff.’
She twisted to look at him as he eased the buggy away from the villa, taking his time.
‘Did you…?’ She paused and fell silent because she was so tempted to stray into forbidden territory.
‘Did I what?’
‘Nothing. It doesn’t matter.’
‘Want to hear the plan for today?’
‘Yes. Shopping, but not in a shopping centre, and then…?’
‘And then, back to the villa. The gardener will have cleared off by then and we can relax by the pool. We can have a reasonably early dinner. There might be music.’
Leo looked at her. He had swiftly steered her away from reminiscing because, in that tentative question of hers, he had detected the scent of questions waiting to be asked, questions to which he would not want to give any answers.
In fairness, she hadn’t strayed from the ground rules. He had told her what he wanted—a brief fling in the here and now, gone in the blink of an eye, with no harking back to the past. Some stuff was unavoidable but he had been determined to keep it real.
He’d seen her and had known that he hadn’t forgotten her. It had been the same for her. Neither of them was here to build ties and pick up where they had left off. They were here to put the past to rest.
Except, as they trundled towards the main drag of the island, he felt a spike of curiosity to hear what she had wanted to ask before she’d stopped herself.
Doubts about whether this one week would be enough had pushed against the vault into which they’d been shoved days ago, after that first time they’d made love once again, and it felt like a physical effort to keep them there.
They’d been careful never to go near the subject he knew would shatter what they were enjoying and, besides, he had long ago come to the conclusion that post mortems were a waste of time because they never changed anything.
They’d broken up, and that was the end of that, and nothing to do with what was happening now, which was simply the physical residue of what they had once shared.
Emotions had been drained away and yet… He contained himself, content to watch her as he introduced her to the bit of the island they had yet to visit.
Away from the solitude of the magnificent beaches was the leisurely bustle of a life that catered largely to a handful of uber-wealthy visitors to the island.
He took pleasure from her reactions. Her face lit up when they walked round the small town.
He smiled when she told him that it was like being transported into a picture-perfect postcard.
The small boutiques were in pastel shades of pinks, greens and baby blues, and the swaying coconut trees cast moving shadows on the lacy, old-world wooden facades.
She tried on frothy, silk creations in one of the boutiques while he sat, watched and enjoyed the view.
By half-past two they were back at the villa but not by the pool.