‘Maybe you are.’
‘Justmaybe? Maybe you’ll get a little more turned on if I tell you that I’m looking forward to taking that bikini off you very, very slowly and then, once I’ve devoted sufficient attention to your breasts, I intend to get between your legs and taste you down there until you’re begging me not to stop...’
‘Shh...’
‘Are you wet for me yet?’
‘You know I am.’
‘Would you like to come against my mouth? I know you enjoy that...’
‘Not as much as I enjoy feeling you inside me.’ Looking at herself from a distance, looking at the woman now saying what she had just said, Ellie could scarcely believe her ears. She had never thought she could be so uninhibited and she had to acknowledge that that had been his great gift to her.
She had opened up with him, against all odds, and she had blossomed in ways she could never have imagined.
She was in such desperate need of being touched, after that hot conversation in the back of the car, that she practically leapt out of her seat before the driver had had a chance to pull to a stop.
And James was in as much of a hurry as she was.
They were holding hands, and neither of them had expected to be greeted by a woman. Indeed, they barely realised that they were on a collision course with the towering blonde until she was suddenlythere, right in front of them, her expression more shock than fury.
James gathered himself at speed and stood back, expression closed, concealing his shock as he looked at his ex for a few stunned seconds.
‘Naomi. What the hell are you doing here?’
‘I came...to see whether we could patch things up. I know you never answered my texts but... I know how proud you are...’ She was talking to James. She was staring at Ellie. Her cool, assessing eyes glittered as hard as diamonds.
‘I told you it was over.’ His voice was tight and controlled.
He had managed to pull them all to one side. Ellie was hardly aware of being manoeuvred out of the main stream of traffic along with Naomi, who was wearing the briefest of shorts, the tiniest of cropped tops and carrying a holdall bearing a well-known logo.
‘So what’s going on between the two of you?’
Her voice had risen. Ellie could feel curious eyes on them. Hardly surprising, given the fact that Naomi was clearly a supermodel, James was clearly incredibly important and incredibly wealthy and the altercation between them was clearly going south.
A cabaret of sorts was about to commence and who wouldn’t be interested in taking a ringside to witness the event?
She thought of Naomi kicking off at the office in her absence and wondered whether a repeat performance was on the cards, this time with a far more judgemental audience.
‘This was supposed to beourholiday, James! I evenchose this hotel!’
‘I amnotgoing to get into this with you again, Naomi. This was not a trip for you to make. I don’t want a scene in a public place but I’m warning you—if you don’t leave, I’ll have no option but to call the manager to have you discreetly escorted out of the hotel.’
‘You can’t do that! This is a public place! Besides, you wouldn’tdarerisk a scene!’
‘Want to try me?’
‘Were you involved with your little secretary before we broke up, James?’
Everything in Ellie wanted to rage against the sweeping insult behind that accusation, but tact made her hold back the words begging to be delivered.
She was on the periphery of this, and besides, whatever the rights or wrongs of Naomi showing up on the island in the hope that her physical charms might achieve what texts and phone calls presumably hadn’t, Ellie felt a twinge of sympathy for the other woman.
She was uneasily aware of just how effortlessly you could get blinded to the reality of a situation. James was just so persuasive, so charming, so incredibly dynamic, sharp, clever and unexpectedly thoughtful in ways you could never have predicted.
Just as well she knew the parameters of this game being played, but even so...
Naomi had wanted more. Without those parameters really in place, was it any wonder she had been tempted to show up here...?
