It looks like something on the front of a postcard.
Lachlan smiles to himself when Jules reaches down the side of the boat just a little to touch the water.He hides his happiness well, but Lachlan knows him well enough by now to recognise it when he sees it.
Once they’re on the land, however, Lachlan’s reasons to smile vanish.
The island itself is small, three miles square at most.
The heat is significant.
Two golf carts arrive to collect them from the small dock.
Lachlan rides up front, studying this new place, scanning around as they’re driven to their destination.
‘Pure heaven,’ Alistair says from behind.‘Paradise unparalleled.’
It’s not paradise to Lachlan.
The first thing he clocks is that the island has no elevation, no natural overwatch and, far more worryingly, it’s almost entirely coastline around the exterior.Palm trees, white sand, scalding sun overhead.It’s probably the most beautiful place he’s ever seen, but by far the most exposed.
As they draw closer, a gleaming villa looms ahead.
Lachlan leans forward, instantly troubled by the total lack of visible perimeter.No fences, no towers.He can see the courtyard on one side and the glare of a pool on the other.Surrounding the building, which is entirely glass in parts, cresting upwards like a boat sail, is a heavy amount of foliage at the base of worryingly high trees.
It’s stunning to the eye and it does provide cover but in the wrong way.
There’s no standoff distance at all.
‘Isn’t it gorgeous?’Penhalyx sighs happily to his son as the carts pull up.Ariadne Alderwyck, her daughter Savannah and several others Lachlan recognises, are waiting to greet them, smiling and gracious in shades of white.They’re close enough to the coastline that Lachlan can hear waves if he strains.
Lachlan scans the villa, which is really more a mansion, from the outside.
Beach doors, pool doors, service doors.
Guest villas.Garden paths.
Impossible to seal.
Limitless lines of sight.
The sun isblinding.
Lachlan is ignored at first, which is how he likes it.He’s too busy looking around for security presence, surprised to see so little.There are only two other bodyguards, both of whom are loitering by the pool and they seem far too relaxed for his liking.
‘I’m sure you remember my head of security,’ Alistair says to Richard Vale and Thomas Whitlock.‘Lachlan Tanner.’
Lachlan gives a smart nod and a clipped, ‘Hello.’
‘Of course we remember him, Alistair.You speak of him often enough.’
Lachlan ignores that, more concerned by the lack of security.
Keeping eyes on Jules, who chats pleasantly with Savannah, he accompanies the group as they walk inside.The mansion is bigger than it seems, stretching a long way back.So many of the walls are heatless glass,made to catch the light and blossom prisms everywhere.Lachlan can’t deny how striking it is, but it’s all worryingly spacious too.
No choke points, no narrow areas.
What he sees is aggressively open plan.Kitchen to dining to lounge to terrace to pool, it all runs through uninterrupted.
Ariadne gives Jules, and therefore Lachlan, a tour of the place with Savannah in tow.Lachlan is scanning for staff areas.
