Page 7 of Modern Romance September 2025 1-4

There was no reasonable explanation for why she panicked when he was out of view.

Maybe it was because being marooned on a rather small island with few, if any, edible resources was scary, but Sebastian seemed to have survivalist instincts that beat hers hands down.

A more pressing need to find facilities, if there even were any indoors, gripped her and she went off to explore and found a door into a cloakroom behind that inside pond thing in the foyer.

An ancient, battered man’s jacket hung on the single peg.

Not an owner with many visitors, she reckoned.

In truth, a working facility with running water interested her much more just then.

She studied the pond, empty of water, fish or greenery, and shrugged before heading down the corridor to find a staircase, which she climbed.

The whole time she was snooping, she was telling herself that Sebastian was right and they had to make the best of whatever fate had dealt them.

There were only two doors, one of which led into a massive bedroom and en-suite bathroom.

A door still hung open on a sparsely filled built-in closet, which Sebastian must’ve rifled through the night before to give her a shirt.

The bathroom had a separate shower and bath, the appointments as opulent in finish as the huge four-poster steel bed, festooned with thin silky drapes to keep out insects at night.

Giant windows overlooked the island interior and one set opened out onto a balcony with a single seat.

The view over the palm trees and exotic jungle vegetation was magnificent and yet, even in the sunlight, it made her shiver and withdraw indoors again, painfully aware of their isolation and disconnection from the modern world.

Wouldn’t the owner of such a fantastic house have an Internet connection and a computer?

Heart hammering, she opened the second door into a home office with a desk but there was no tech in there of any kind and she left the room again with a grimace.

Before she went downstairs again, she couldn’t resist switching on the bathroom shower just to see if it worked and when it did, she was out of her borrowed shirt within seconds and stepping beneath that warm, rather than hot, flow.

She didn’t take her time. She washed and shampooed fast, unsure how much water she dared use.

Emerging, she grabbed a towel and dried herself in guilty haste before donning the shirt, which was at least relatively clean even if she had slept in it.

She trod back down the stairs, embarrassed at having used the unknown owner’s comb to untangle her long, knotty hair.

When she walked through the last downstairs door, she found the kitchen: a gleaming state-of-the-art installation with stainless-steel utilities that looked as if it had never been used.

A man’s apron hung incongruously on another single peg.

It was the cupboards that she was keenest to investigate in her search for food and just when she feared she’d drawn a blank she opened a large larder cupboard and found it packed with dry goods.

Flour, coffee, sugar, salt, rice, pasta, quinoa and, below that, shelves of tins.

Relief swept her in a wild rolling wave because with water, food and shelter they could manage for weeks, and surely it wouldn’t be weeks before they were found?

Reggie would’ve called for help…but had he had time in the midst of that terrifying storm?

And if he hadn’t survived there would be no one alerted to their plight until his absence was noted.

So, nothing certain, nothing sure as far as rescue went, she conceded reluctantly.

Right now, they were stuck on this island in this house for the foreseeable future.

The hungry growl in her stomach reminded her that she had more important things to concentrate on: food, because she was starving.

Sebastian returned from a busy morning on the beach, having gathered up his dry clothes from the rocks on his way, checked out the ripped remains of the life raft and set up a marker bonfire at the foot of the island.

He walked back into the house and heaved a sigh, knowing that he had to eat.

He was stunned into initial silence when he saw Bunny busily moving round the kitchen, covered in a giant navy apron.

‘Who turned you into a Stepford wife?’ he quipped.

Bunny froze and then spun round, a smile lighting up her face. ‘Where have you been?’ she demanded automatically. ‘I mean, what is there to do out there? Where is there to go?’

Sebastian grinned with intense pleasure. ‘Is this what being married feels like?’

A wash of pink swept over her expressive face and she turned away. ‘I’m sorry, I—’

Amusement quelled, Sebastian rested his hands down on her narrow shoulders and turned her back from the sink where she was draining rice.

‘It’s okay. I was only teasing. You’re very sensitive, aren’t you?

’ he murmured, staring down at her with dark eyes lit by shades of caramel in the sunlit kitchen.

‘Don’t be that way with me. I’m…outspoken, loud, abrasive but I don’t mean any actual harm. ’

For an instant, Bunny was absolutely frozen where she stood, lost in the hold of those lustrous eyes of his and the kindness she saw there that he had not shown an ounce of on Merry Days .

It made her feel all warm and soft inside, it made her want to stretch up and kiss him, a prompting that shook the life out of her and made her pull free and return to the rice.

‘You’re just in time to eat,’ she muttered, shocked by the butterflies in her tummy, the clenching deep down inside. ‘I’m afraid it’s not cordon bleu exactly, it’s tinned frankfurters and sauce and rice.’

‘I’ll go fishing for us.’

‘That sweater needs washing,’ she scolded. ‘Although I doubt you’ll ever get the bloodstains out of it.’

Sebastian laughed. ‘Could I care less?’ He tilted his head to one side, amusement glittering in his eyes and the curve of his mobile mouth. ‘I don’t think so but there is a washing machine in the utility area.’

‘What utility area?’

As she was putting the food out, Sebastian crossed the kitchen to pull open the hidden door in the wall panelling.

She finished setting the plates on the table and walked through.

A complex array of levers, buttons and controls almost covered one entire wall and on the other sat a washing machine.

‘So there’s enough water here to use it freely? ’ she asked.

‘Yes, it’s a very expensive system, which I got working.’

‘You did?’

‘The power was off when we arrived and the water pump.’

Bunny nodded as she sat down at the table. ‘So, you know how to work that kind of stuff?’

Sebastian shrugged rather than admit that he had been taken aback by how immediately he had grasped how everything worked, that he evidently knew and understood a lot about sustainable energy and, also, tech stuff.

Last night he had dreamt of an algorithm that was somehow crucially important and his fingers had been flying over a keyboard.

Piece by piece, who he was ten years on was emerging.

‘I’d have been lost. I’m great with books, not so great at the practical stuff.’

He frowned. ‘Books?’

‘Yes, I’m starting my first job as a librarian when I get home… Gosh, it’s only days away,’ she voiced in consternation. ‘Do you think they’ll hold the job for me if I don’t turn up?’

‘You need to relax for now. I doubt if anyone even knows we’re missing yet,’ Sebastian said and, although she had thought the same thing herself, it still cast her down to hear his confirmation of it.

‘My family will be worrying. They’re used to hearing from me every day.’

‘ Every day?’ Sebastian said in wonderment at such family attention and affection as he lifted his knife and fork. ‘You’re British, aren’t you?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you’re this far from home and they’re still expecting to hear from you every day?’ he prompted. ‘What age are you?’

‘Twenty-three.’ Bunny had flushed with embarrassment. ‘We’re just a very close family.’

Sebastian quirked an eloquent ebony brow. ‘Did I sleep with you on that boat?’ he asked without the smallest warning and with the utmost casualness.

Bunny almost choked on the food in her mouth. ‘Er…no, that would be a definite no, Sebastian. In fact we didn’t take to each other at all at first meeting.’

And then immediately he had to know all about that and she wished she had kept her tongue still in her mouth and said nothing, because she was forced to recount that story.

A faint flush highlighted his stunning cheekbones. ‘I was rude to you…why?’

Bunny actually grimaced. ‘Apparently you got the impression that I was attracted to you and you didn’t like that.’

Sebastian nodded reflectively as he pushed the empty plate away, not enjoying what he was learning about his current self. Arrogant, rude, hurtful to a subordinate and all the things he had sworn never to be once he grew up.

‘And was I right?’ he prompted softly.

Bunny compressed her lips and tried to be the bigger, better person, who didn’t lie. ‘Yes, you were right, but nothing would have happened between us anyway because I’m not that kind of person.’

‘And what kind of person is that?’ he pressed. ‘Considering that most of us have sex in our lives.’

‘I wasn’t being judgemental. I was just saying that I wouldn’t sleep with someone only on the boat for a week’s break!’ Bunny fielded more sharply, her colour high, her exasperation with him extreme because he had no tact whatsoever. She rose and piled the plates and moved away from the table.

‘Why?’

As she settled the plates into the sink, she was ready to scream. ‘I’m not interested in one-night stands and I wouldn’t embarrass Reggie, who is a good friend of my father’s—’

‘So, you wouldn’t want word of your sex life travelling home? Is this Reggie that indiscreet?’