When they reached the back of the restaurant, she saw a private decking area with steps leading down to a secluded lower deck. Sam lifted a small hatch and flicked a switch and immediately a dim light shone across the deck and onto the water.
‘Wow! How beautiful.’
‘After a busy shift I usually spend half an hour here to wind down before I head home.’
‘I think I would too.’
The deck housed a minibar, a table and a small cosy settee with blankets and cushions. It was surrounded by lanterns, and when Sam took a box of matches from the minibar and lit the candles inside them, the deck started to glow.
‘It’s the perfect setting,’ she observed.
‘I can happily sit here for hours looking out over the waves.’ Sam kicked off his shoes and took off his tie. Within seconds the shirt was off his back.
‘What are you doing? You’re crazy!’
‘It was written in the stars that – in fact, in that big bright one up there’—he pointed—‘that I was going to meet a girl with a funny accent…’
‘Hey! There’s nothing funny about my accent,’ she protested. ‘And as much as I like to pretend that that star is my loved ones watching over me, that’s Polaris, the bright star that is always visible in the night sky.’
He grinned. ‘How are you so knowledgeable about stars?’ He didn’t avert his eyes from hers as he undid his belt and let his trousers fall to the floor. He stood there in his boxer shorts.
Do not look down, do not look down, Verity repeated internally.
‘Because I listened at school.’
‘Brains as well as beauty.’ He grinned.
They were still staring at each other. Verity had to remind herself to breathe.
Finally, she couldn’t help it any longer. She glanced down and promptly burst out laughing.
Sam pretended to look offended.
‘You have puffins on your boxer shorts!’
‘I have twenty pairs of these. They were selling a job lot in the pub and as I live on Puffin Island I thought, “Why not?” It gets better,’ he said, turning around and waggling his bum. The boxer shorts had the day of the week written across the backside.
Verity laughed wholeheartedly, then kicked off her shoes.
‘In for a penny, in for a pound,’ she murmured, thinking there wasn’t a cat in hell’s chance that Ava would believe a word of what she was going to tell her about her only night on Puffin Island. She slipped out of her dress, and was soon standing in front of him in just her underwear. His eyes still didn’t leave hers. The only thought in her head wasWhy, oh why, had she chosen the worst possible off-white underwear set?It had seen better days – but the last thing she’d anticipated that morning was that she’d end the day standing semi-naked in front of the handsomest near-stranger she’d ever seen. Yet here she was, about to take a swim under the stars.
He pointed at some life jackets hanging on the side of the boat. ‘Would you like one?’
Verity didn’t hesitate; the answer was yes. It wasn’t because she wasn’t a strong swimmer, more to cover up her shameful underwear and create an opportunity to sneak a glance at his bum again when he turned around. Just like the rest of him, it was toned to perfection.
Sam picked a life jacket off the rack and held it open while she slipped her arms into it. He turned her to face him and zipped it up, then tightened the chest strap. Verity was now standing extremely close to him and their faces were only centimetres apart. ‘When you enter the water, your breathing may be all over the place for a moment, so try and keep it controlled and don’t panic – it’s quite normal. Are you ready? I’ll get into the water first.’
Sam climbed down the ladder attached to the side of the boat and Verity watched as he slid his perfect body into the water. He didn’t gasp or even flinch, the cold water seemingly having no effect on him whatsoever. He was holding on to the bottom of the ladder, bobbing in the waves, and she saw him take a small, belted loop from the side of the boat and fasten it around his wrist. Then he clipped on another rope that hung over the side of the boat.
‘What’s that for?’ she asked.
‘Just a safety measure, so if you get cramp or become too weak you can pull yourself by the rope back towards the boat. It’s securely fastened to the deck.’
‘You really aren’t selling this to me as an enjoyable prospect, you know,’ she said, suddenly becoming nervous. ‘Cold water swimming is clearly not for the faint-hearted.’
‘Once you’re in you’re going to love every minute of it. Swimming beneath the moon and the stars…what more could you ask for?’
‘I’m sure I could come up with something.’
