Olivia shook her head in disbelief. Once again, she felt as though she was dreaming, as if at any moment someone would shake her awake and pop the beautiful bubble she’d found herself in. With him. Her dark-eyed Peter Pan.
Except he wasn’t make-believe.
He was real.
And Olivia wasn’t sure she was ready to let him go just yet.
Jacob
‘You’re drunk.’ Olivia snorted.
‘No, I am not.’ Jacob swayed a little. ‘You’redrunk.’
‘Can we not both be drunk at the same time?’ Olivia’s scowling face reminded him of a wrinkled baby. He was about to tell her so when he decided otherwise. A comment like that could ruin a perfectly brilliant evening.
‘You do make a lot of sense, a lot of the time.’
‘A lot of the time? You mean,allof the time.’ Olivia wrapped her arms around herself, unsuccessfully hiding her shivering body.
‘For the fifteenth time, woman, do you want my top? Because I’ll let you have it.’ He began unbuttoning his shirt, his fingers struggling to coordinate properly. ‘Olivia Jackson, you can have the shirt off my very back if you want!’
A young couple walking past them began to laugh.
‘Jacob, for Christ’s sake, will you please keep your clothes on.’
‘You’ve changed your tune.’ He raised his eyebrows andstopped dead in his tracks. ‘Because that is not what you were saying last night.’
‘Oh my god.’ The horror on her face made his heart stumble over itself. ‘Will you bequiet.’
‘Never! You can never silence me.’
Olivia pulled at his hand and tried to drag him along, but he was too heavy, and she was unsteady on her feet.
‘Come sit with me for a second.’ He plonked himself down on the damp sand. ‘I love watching the ocean, especially at night.’
He could see the ‘no’ making its bid for freedom from her mouth.
‘I know you have to be up early for your flight tomorrow; I just want a couple of minutes. That’s all. I promise.’
‘OK, fine.’ She came and sat next to him, snuggling her body close to him.
Her hair shone white in the moonlight; her skin prickled with goosebumps. She looked ethereal, almost ghostly. Like she belonged to a world other than his, which deep down he’d known all along to be true.
Sorrow pooled in his stomach, and his breath caught in his throat.
‘What time do you fly tomorrow?’
‘Around nine thirty, I think.’
‘Youthink?’ He nudged her softly.
‘Fine. I leave Goa at nine forty and then fly from Delhi to Heathrow at one twenty.’
‘There we go, planned to a tee.’
‘What can I say? It’s my superpower.’
‘And are you ready to go back? To unleash your powers of organization on the miserable, soul-destroying western world?’
