Island Fling To Forever

He might have done, three years ago, if he’d known about this place—or rather, known that this was her home. Because now, too late, all the pieces were falling into place. She’d left him to go back to her mother’s family home, for her grandfather’s funeral—and never come back again. La Isla Marina must have been where she’d run to.

If he’d known that then, would he have followed?

Or would he have accepted that she’d not told him where she was going for a reason?

Oh, who was he kidding? Even if he’d known where she was, he’d have sat there waiting for her to come back because he’d had faith in her. Something that had turned out to be seriously misplaced. And the day he’d realised that was the terrible day that everything had happened with Gareth, and he wasn’t going anywhere for a while. Except down, in a despair spiral he almost hadn’t made it out of. And then, suddenly, up the charts, for all the wrong reasons.

After Gareth, how could he have let himself see her again, anyway? He’d broken every promise he’d ever made for this woman, and she’d walked out anyway, leaving his world destroyed and empty.

Of course he hadn’t chased her across the globe. Even if he’d wanted to, and hated himself for that.

So many conflicting emotions tied up in the curvy, petite woman standing in front of him, all tangled and tight around his heart. Would he ever escape those bonds?

Rosa was still staring at him, stunned, and Jude hunted around for something to say. For some of the many, many words he’d wished he could say to her over the last few years. The accusations, the questions, the declarations, anything. But nothing came out.

‘You two know each other?’ Professor Gray was looking between them, confused.

Something about his voice seemed to snap Rosa out of her shock, as she gave them both a lopsided smile that never quite reached her eyes. ‘Oh, Dad, everyone knows Jude Alexander. He has possibly the most recognisable face in the world, right now.’

Professor Gray turned his curious gaze onto Jude, as if searching for fame in his features.

‘Your daughter photographed me for a publication a few years ago,’ he explained, blandly. No hint of the true story between that four-week study when Rosa travelled with them on tour, capturing every moment of their rise to fame. Of Gareth’s last tour. ‘I’m in a band, you see.’

‘A band?’ Rosa scoffed. ‘Jude is the frontman of The Swifts, Dad. Hottest band of the decade, some are saying.’ She raised an eyebrow at him, and Jude tried not to squirm under it. Not just because of the inevitable uncomfortableness that always came when someone referred to him as the frontman, instead of Gareth. But because he had so been enjoying not being that Jude Alexander for a while.

‘You know I don’t follow popular culture, Rosa.’ Professor Gray dismissed his daughter’s words with a wave of his hand. ‘But Jude here is an almost competent Scrabble player, at least.’

Jude watched as Rosa’s gaze flicked over to him at her father’s words, meeting his for just a second. Just long enough for him to feel the same connection he’d experienced the night they’d met. It hit him deep, inside those tangled threads around his heart, a piercing guilt tied up with want and need and lust.

Still. Nice to know he hadn’t imagined it, that connection. Even if it clearly never had the same effect on Rosa as it had on him.

‘I’m so glad you’ve found a playmate, Father,’ Rosa said, her tone scathing. ‘But Jude’s Scrabble abilities don’t answer any of my questions. Where are Mama and Anna? And what on earth are you doing here?’ She glanced at Jude again as she asked the last question, leaving him uncertain as to whose presence she was most baffled by.

Jude didn’t blame her.

Now the initial shock of her arrival had passed, he found himself watching her more closely, looking beyond the familiarity of the woman he’d known so intimately—if, apparently, incompletely—three years ago. There were changes, ones he hadn’t initially spotted. She was leaner now, he realised, harder even. Her mass of long, dark curls had been tamed back into a braid that hung over her left shoulder, and her dark eyes were far more wary than he remembered. Even in her relaxed jeans and fitted T-shirt, her sunglasses dangling loosely from her fingers, she looked poised to run at any moment. As if this beautiful island resort was more of a trap than her home.

What had made her look that way? And why, after all this time, did he even care?

‘Your mother is talking with the cook about dinner, I believe,’ Professor Gray said. ‘And as for your sister, I have no idea.’

‘She went to Barcelona with Leo,’ Jude put in, since apparently he was paying more attention to the professor’s family than he was.

‘Leo?’ Rosa’s nose crinkled up as she said the name. ‘Who on earth is...? Never mind. Dad, why are you here?’

Professor Gray observed his daughter mildly. ‘Why, is it such a crime for a man to wish to spend time with his family?’

From the look Rosa gave him in return, Jude rather thought her answer might be yes.

‘Professor Gray?’ Maria, the only non-family member of staff that Jude had actually met on the island, appeared in the villa doorway. ‘There is a phone call for you at Reception? From Oxford?’

‘Still no mobile phone, huh, Dad?’ Rosa asked.

‘I have one,’ Professor Gray answered, loftily, as he got to his feet. ‘I merely do not see the requirement for it to always be on my person. Or switched on.’

‘Of course you don’t.’

As Professor Gray made his way into the villa, Jude found himself staring at Rosa again. What was it about this woman that captivated him so, that he couldn’t look away, even now, after everything that had happened because he’d fallen for her? He wished he knew. Maybe then he could break free of it. As it was...

‘So.’ Rosa moved to take her father’s chair opposite him, and Jude knew exactly what was coming next.

She was going to ask him a question, and he was going to have to decide how much of the truth he wanted to tell her. Given that last time he’d told her everything—opened up every part of himself and shared it with her—and she’d left anyway, he had a feeling that this time discretion might really be the better part of valour.

Or, as Gareth would have said, if he were still alive to say it, Screw me once, shame on you. Screw me twice...

Jude wasn’t going to let that happen. In any sense of the word.

Rosa sat down, and caught his eye across the table.

‘What are you doing here, Jude?’

Jude opened his mouth, and prepared to lie.

CHAPTER TWO

HE WAS GOING to lie to her.

Three years, and Rosa could still see the tell in the way Jude glanced to the side before speaking.

She supposed she couldn’t blame him. She hadn’t exactly done much to earn the truth from him.

But on the other hand, this was her home, her place—and she’d never told him about it. Had he been stalking her, searching for her, these last three years? Had he come here to find her? And if so, why on earth now, not three years ago?

No, that was ridiculous. She hadn’t known she was coming herself until two weeks ago, and she had a hard time believing that Sancia and Anna had teamed up to come up with some outrageous story to get her there, just to help Jude out.

Unlikely as it seemed, this had to be some kind of crazy coincidence.

Rosa wasn’t entirely sure if that made it better or worse.

‘Believe it or not, I came here to work on some new music,’ Jude said. Just the words conjured up memories of watching him composing, trying out new melodies on his guitar at the back of the tour bus, folded up to sit on the narrow bunk she lay in. Some of the most precious moments they’d spent together in that too-short month were times like that, when no one else was there or awake, when it was just them and the music.

But she couldn’t think about that now. Memories weren’t going to help her figure out what the hell was going on here.

‘So you had no idea that this was my mother’s family home?’ Rosa asked, her eyes narrowing. It didn’t hurt to double check these things, right?

‘None at all.’ That, at least, seemed to be the truth. So where was the lie? He was a musician, of course he’d come here to work on music. Except where was the rest of the band, in that case? Or what was left of it.

The memory hit her harder than she’d expected. An article online she’d caught by chance, that had left her crying in a foreign airport for a man she’d known and grown fond of. For another star gone too soon. And for Jude, left behind—the only time she’d let herself cry for him at all.

The band she’d known, when she’d toured with Jude that summer, wasn’t the same band he was with now. Not without Gareth.

No wonder he hadn’t come after her. He’d been dealing with his own tragedy, while she’d left to attend her abuelo’s funeral and had her whole world changed.

But that didn’t change the truth of him being here, now. ‘So you expect me to believe that this is just a bizarre and unfortunate coincidence?’

‘If you like.’ Jude gave a small, one-sided shrug, but the smile on his lips told her that wasn’t entirely how he’d put it. ‘To be honest, it doesn’t much matter to me what you believe, any more.’

It had once, though. For one brief, shining month in time, what Rosa had believed had mattered to Jude Alexander. And what he’d believed about her had mattered to her, too.

Which had only made it harder to let him down when she’d walked away.

Of course, that was how she knew it was the right decision, too. But that didn’t mean there hadn’t been moments since, days when she’d been lost and alone and confused, when she’d wondered how different things would be if she’d gone back to him when she’d left La Isla Marina, instead of hightailing it for the Middle East, then Australia, then the Americas.

A whole life she’d thrown away and never lived. Of course she thought about it. She just didn’t let herself imagine it too often, or in too much detail. She didn’t want the regrets—not when she’d done the right thing, and found the life she’d always promised herself because of it.

She wondered if Jude would understand that, if she told him. Or maybe he’d been relieved when she hadn’t come back. After all, he’d chased and caught his own dreams, too. But they’d come at a high price.

Rosa picked up a few of her father’s Scrabble tiles, and began rearranging them on the rack, spelling out Spanish words he’d never use, for her own amusement, trying to find the words she needed to say.

In the end, she settled for blunt. It was her style, after all.

‘I heard about Gareth. I’m sorry. You know how fond I was of him.’ It had been hard not to adore Gareth. His optimism, his openness, the joy he’d found in the world... It was hard to imagine the band without him.

Hard to imagine Jude without his best friend.

Jude looked away. ‘Yeah.’ The curt word told Rosa her sympathies weren’t enough. Of course they weren’t.

Nothing could make up for Gareth’s death. Certainly not anything she had to offer.

It wasn’t her place to ask what happened, to tell Jude he could talk to her, if he needed to. Wasn’t her place to comfort him for a three-year-old tragedy that obviously still cut him deep.

She’d given up that place when she left.

Time to move on. She was never good at the touchy-feely stuff, anyway.

‘So, where are the others?’ Always a good way of figuring out whether a person was lying to her—ask a question she already knew the answer to. ‘Jimmy and Lee and Tanya?’ The rest of The Swifts. After all, Jude hadn’t got this famous all on his own, whatever the gossip magazines seemed to think.

And right now, the gossip sites didn’t seem to know what to think. Rosa didn’t make a point of following Jude’s every career move, or anything—in fact, she made a point of not listening to his music any more than she had to, which was made more difficult by the fact it seemed to be playing everywhere at the moment. Even in the rainforest, someone had brought speakers and been playing The Swifts when they’d set up camp the other week.

But even she hadn’t been able to avoid the news that Jude Alexander had dropped off the face of the earth. The rest of the band had been photographed out and about in New York City, but there had been no sign of their lead singer.

Not that Rosa had been concerned about that. Much.

‘New York, I think.’ Jude looked away again, down at his own tiles. He wasn’t lying, so maybe just hiding something? Rosa couldn’t tell, any more. ‘I’m working on some...different stuff.’

‘Solo stuff?’ Because that she hadn’t read anywhere online. ‘You’re planning on leaving The Swifts?’

‘No,’ Jude said, too quickly. ‘I’m not. I couldn’t. I just... I needed some time away, is all.’

‘And you picked La Isla Marina?’ Because, really, that was too much of a coincidence to not bear some investigation.

‘I heard someone talk about this place once. I can’t remember who, exactly. One of Sylvie’s friends, maybe.’

Sylvie. That would be Sylvie Rockwell-Smythe, Rosa’s ever-helpful brain for useless knowledge filled in. Jude’s beautiful, red-headed, heiress and model girlfriend. Exactly the sort of woman a celebrity like Jude should be dating.

Except, if he was here in paradise, and she was still in New York... ‘How is Sylvie?’

‘We split up,’ Jude said, shortly.

‘Ah. Sorry.’ There was that old talent for putting her foot in it, rearing up again. One day she’d learn not to just say the first thing that popped into her head. Maybe.

Jude shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t be.’

‘Like that, huh?’

‘Pretty much.’

Rosa sat back and surveyed him, taking in the changes the last three years had wrought on a face she’d known so well, once. He looked thinner. No, not thinner, exactly. Leaner. As if some stylist had decided to play up his pale and interesting aspect. But they couldn’t style away Jude’s broad shoulders, or the muscles in those arms.

But he looked tired. Worn down, maybe.

‘So. How’s fame going?’

‘Overrated.’ Jude met her eyes. ‘Haven’t you heard the latest? The entire of the continental US is talking about it.’

‘I’ve been kind of out of touch,’ Rosa admitted. ‘I was working on a story down in South America...wait.’ Hadn’t she read something about a book, somewhere? A kiss-and-tell sort of a book, all about Jude? Maybe Sylvie had something to do with that... ‘Is this about the book?’

‘Jude: The Naked Truth.’ Jude shook his head in disgust as he quoted the title. ‘That’s the one.’

Whoever had written it should have come and found Rosa. She could have told them plenty of secrets about Jude Alexander.

She wouldn’t have, of course. That was just one of the many differences between her and Sylvie. That and the fact that the other woman was a supermodel. And at five feet three and with too many curves, Rosa would definitely never be that.

‘I haven’t read it.’

Jude didn’t respond, and Rosa resigned herself to looking him up on the internet once she’d got her laptop hooked up to the island Wi-Fi. It wouldn’t be the first time, anyway. And Jude didn’t have many secrets from the media these days, it seemed to Rosa. She could probably download the eBook and know everything she wanted to about him in a couple of hours of reading.

Except she didn’t want to. Those books never told the whole truth, anyway. And she knew more about him than any pages could contain.

Or she had. Once.

Before.

She turned back to her father’s Scrabble tiles, and ignored the letters ‘s’ ‘e’ and ‘x’ to find something else to think about.

‘So. Been a while,’ Jude said, and Rosa looked up from her Scrabble tiles to take in the sight of him in the sunshine again.

He was too pale, she decided. He couldn’t have been on the island long or he’d have lost that grey pallor that came from too long spent inside with only his guitar for company.

But he was still every bit as gorgeous as she remembered. As she’d tried to forget.

Her fingers flexed, reaching for the camera that wasn’t hanging around her neck for once. She wanted to capture him here, now, in the moment. A comparison piece to the famous, laughing photo of him she’d taken three years ago. One photo in thousands she’d taken that month, but the one everyone remembered most. The one that had made her name. Kick-started her career, when The Swifts had hit the big time.

She’d been assigned to the up-and-coming band by a magazine she’d done some work for before, asked to follow them on tour for an in-depth photo piece with some interviews. Someone high up at the magazine had a feeling about them, she’d been told, and they wanted to get in there first, before anyone else.

Whoever that person was, they’d been right. And they’d changed Rosa’s world with that one commission, in too many ways to count.

If she hadn’t taken the job, she’d never have taken the photo that started her rise to the top of her profession, that gave her the luxury of picking and choosing jobs wherever she wanted in the world.

If she hadn’t taken the job, she’d never have met Jude. And if she hadn’t met Jude, she wouldn’t have spent three years taking any job that kept her away from England, Spain and New York.

‘Three years.’ As if he didn’t already know.

‘You look good.’

‘You look pale.’

Jude laughed, the first true emotion she’d seen from him since she arrived. ‘You never were very good for my ego, were you?’

‘You never needed me for that.’ He’d always had plenty of hangers-on and groupies, ready to tell him how wonderful he was, even back then, before The Swifts took over the music world. Gareth might have been the lead singer, but Jude was the mysterious lead guitarist, and that had its own appeal.

And he’d had Gareth to keep him optimistic. To keep him humble.

How had he coped without him?

She should have called. It was three years too late to be asking these questions. But back then...she couldn’t.

Rosa shoved the last of the Scrabble tiles aside and got to her feet. ‘I really should go and find my mother. Let her know I’m here.’

Jude inclined his head in a small nod. ‘Of course.’

She waited, just a moment, in case he was going to say anything more, but he was already studying his letters again. If those groupies could see him now—wild-child rock-and-roll star plays Scrabble. Wouldn’t they be disappointed?

Was she, though? Rosa wasn’t even sure. Already this trip home was nothing like she’d expected.

But she couldn’t be certain if that was a bad thing or not. Not yet.

She paused as she reached the archway leading into the villa.

‘Jude?’

He looked up. ‘Yeah?’

‘Did you really not know I’d be here?’

‘Honestly?’ Jude gave her a sardonic smile. ‘I would never have come if I did.’

Rosa looked away. Well. That told her.

And really, what else was she hoping for?

Shaking away the conversation with Jude, Rosa headed inside to find her mother. And some answers.

* * *

Jude watched Rosa go, then realised she’d stopped, just inside the archway to the villa.

Not that he cared.

He shouldn’t care.

He absolutely shouldn’t care enough to want to watch her every move.

Except...he did. Even after everything.

Trying not to be obvious about it, Jude tilted his chair just enough for him to see inside the villa, to where Rosa had found her mother. Both women seemed far too preoccupied with each other to be worrying about him, so he took advantage of their distraction to shift his chair around a bit more, so he could watch them properly.

It wasn’t his place to spy on a reunion, he knew. But since his own with Rosa had been so anticlimactic, he wanted to know what a real one would look like.

Inside, Sancia threw her arms around Rosa and held her tight, swaying her back and forth with her outpouring of affection.

Once, Jude had imagined that his and Rosa’s reunion might be full of love, like that. Filled with passion, at least—the same kind of passion they’d shown each other during their brief time together.

Sometimes, late at night, he’d allowed himself to picture it. Rosa coming back, finding him backstage, just as he was finishing a gig. He’d be on a performance high, anyway, and when he saw her...everything would crystallise, fall into place. He’d sweep her up into his arms and never let her go again.

Except she’d never come back, had she?

And then Gareth had died, and he’d been so lost. So hopeless, without his best friend. He’d needed Rosa, then.

But she was long gone. And even if she hadn’t been...how could he let himself love her again, knowing what that love had cost him?

From the moment they’d met, when Rosa had arrived on the tour bus and introduced herself as the person who’d be documenting their every move for the next month, her presence had filled his whole world, pushing everything else to the edges. The connection had been instantaneous, even if the physical side of their relationship had developed more slowly. Rosa had spoken to them all, of course, taking notes, filming them, her camera always to hand. But somehow, when it had been just the two of them, Jude had found himself giving up far more than she’d asked for—details about his life, his mind, his friendships, his heart. Details she’d never used in the article, because they were just for her.

Whenever the music was done, they’d gravitate towards each other, letting the others head out to party while they headed back to the bus or a hotel room. And soon, all those late-night talks had become midnight kisses, and more, as Jude had lost himself in the wonder of Rosa.

Unbidden, memories of their last night came back to him, filling his brain with the images of them together. The hotel room, the champagne, the post-gig euphoria that always came over him—and Rosa. Rosa’s eyes, bright with excitement. Her hair, loose and soft and dark as it hung over her bare shoulders. Her olive skin, so smooth and welcoming under his hands.

The feel of her against him, both of them mindless with the kind of passion Jude knew didn’t come around all that often.

Or ever, for him, it seemed, unless it was with Rosa.

It was crazy. He’d been with supermodels, Hollywood actresses—some of the widely acknowledged most beautiful women in the world.

And they’d never made him feel an iota of what he felt in one night with Rosa.

He pushed the memories aside. It was that passion, that uncontrolled connection, that had made him forget the promise he’d made to Gareth after his first close call. Jude had sat beside that hospital bed looking at his best friend—too pale, too lost, so close to being utterly ruined by the drugs and the alcohol and the life it was so easy to live as a band on the road. And he’d made the most important promise of his life—he’d promised to keep Gareth safe from then on. To be the one Gareth could rely on to steer him away from temptation, to remind him how much he had to live for.

But then he’d met Rosa and let that promise slide, too distracted by passion and infatuation to notice his best friend slipping again.

Until it was too late.

Shaking his head, he looked away as he saw Sancia putting an arm around Rosa’s shoulders as she led her further into the villa. He had to stop living in his memories.

He needed to focus on what this meant for his future.

He’d made a new promise, when Gareth died—an echo of the one he’d made him a year before, except this one he’d kept, would keep on keeping. He’d live life for the both of them. He’d have the success that should have been theirs, chase the fame Gareth had always wanted. Live the life Gareth should be there to enjoy.

The Swifts’ success wasn’t his. It wasn’t even Jimmy’s or Lee’s or Tanya’s. It was all for Gareth.