Page 100 of The Last Kiss Goodbye

‘I said I was prepared.’

‘Of course. You have to be practical about these things. Should I read it?’

He shook his head. ‘Just put it somewhere safe. But you should know that Jonathon Soames and Robert Webb are the executors of my estate should anything happen. As we’re not married yet, I’ve changed a few things around to accommodate my wishes.’

‘Dom, don’t talk like this.’

‘If anything happens to me, I want you to have my shareholding in Capital magazine,’ he continued. ‘The Tavistock Square flat too. There’s a small mortgage on it, but nothing the hottest journalist in London shouldn’t be able to handle.’ He smiled at her softly, the corners of his eyes creasing into fine lines she hadn’t even noticed before.

‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ she said, putting her hands dramatically over her ears. ‘You’re here now. You are going into that jungle, coming out again, and in the week before Christmas we are getting married. Me and you. I’ve even found a cream velvet cape, so you can’t let me down.’

Dom’s eyes were shining. She thought she saw a glint of emotion, but when she looked closer, his tears had gone.

‘A cape?’ he said finally.

‘Trimmed with silk. You’ll like it, but I’m not saying anything else. It’s bad luck for the groom to know too much about his beautiful bride’s gown.’

‘Miguel’s wife is cooking,’ said Dominic, deliberately changing the subject. ‘Do you want to eat with the others, or just us?’

‘Just us.’

He grinned and instructed her to wait in the room, returning a few minutes later with a cast-iron pot, which he held by its handles with some sacking cloth.

While he’d been gone, Ros had lit three storm lanterns and placed them around the room. The light was low, soft and glorious, but the air was still humid, and for a second she felt like a fly trapped in amber.

Dominic put the pot on the table, which she had set with plates and two tin cups. She smiled to herself, deciding that she had some potential as a homemaker, while Dominic poured red wine into the cups.

She didn’t have to ask how he had sourced a decent claret in the jungle. It was one of the many things she loved about him: his competence and cleverness, the easy way he just got things done. That confidence in his ability to do absolutely anything was the one thing that had kept her sane over the past few weeks. If anyone could do a solo adventure into the Amazon and make it safely back, it was him. He had made similar journeys before and come back with stories for his dinner parties, rather than broken bones and tropical diseases. He was blessed. It was as if God was smiling on him.

‘Do you know what? I think the world would be a better place if it was lit only by candlelight,’ she said, dipping her spoon into her stew.

Dominic started to laugh.

‘Whatever do you mean?’

‘Look around,’ she said, her eyes shining. ‘Look how intimate it is. It’s a light made for sharing secrets, for complicity, for honesty.’

‘Maybe we should recommend it to Kennedy and Khrushchev the next time they meet.’

‘Perhaps the Cold War would be a little less chilly,’ she agreed.

‘Tell me a secret,’ she said after a moment.

‘I can play the ukulele.’

‘I didn’t know that.’

‘You wanted a secret.’

‘All right, all right,’ she said, sensing that he did not want to play. She couldn’t help but think he was being a little distant; then again, it was probably just nerves, the excitement and the prospect of what was to come. ‘We have a lifetime to get to know one another. I want to be still talking, still finding things out about you when I’m seventy-five. The last thing I want to be is one of those couples who run out of things to say to one another after two years of marriage.’

‘I’d like that,’ he said softly.

Ros wanted to know more about his survival training, about his last time in the jungle with the Lampista tribe, and Dominic seemed to relax as he showed her how to make a bow and arrow out of twigs, twine and stone. He told her how the tribe leader had given him a shot of venom from a poisonous Amazonian tree frog, and how he was hoping the procedure didn’t have to be revisited once they reached the camp.

At some point Miguel knocked on their door, and Dominic disappeared for half an hour to meet the Indian guides, who had just arrived. In his absence, Ros changed into her last clean nightdress, enjoying the feeling of fresh cotton on her skin, although when Dominic returned, it was not long before it was removed.

Their lovemaking was tender but intense, and when it was done, she did not want him to pull out from inside her. She wanted to stay absolutely connected to him for as long as she could, as if it would help her to lock in his scent, his touch, the sensation of him, until he got back.