The Bridegroom's Dilemma

He was sitting at the kitchen counter twirling a glass of wine in his fingers. The sun was setting, flooding his beautiful apartment and its views of Sydney Harbour with a golden radiance. And he didn’t answer but only allowed his dark gaze to drift over her in a way it had once before. This time there was something darker about it, though.

She stopped beating. ‘Nick—is something wrong?’ she asked uncertainly.

He smiled but with an effort. ‘You could say so.’

‘What? Tell me?’ she whispered.

‘I don’t know if this is on your agenda, Skye, but—even watching you make Yorkshire pudding is driving me out of my mind.’

She blinked, her mouth fell open and all she could say hoarsely was, ‘Why?’

‘Because I’d very much like to be kissing you.’

Several reactions hit her. Relief, disbelief and a sudden inner trembling. ‘Oh. I thought it was something serious.’ She stopped and blushed as he looked at her ironically. ‘Well, you know what I mean—’

‘No. I’m not at all sure what you mean, Skye.’

Her hands were all floury and she rubbed her forehead agitatedly, transferring some of the flour to it. ‘I was thinking of an illness or… I didn’t think you saw me like that. That’s what I meant.’

‘Then we shared the same dilemma.’

Skye sat down on a stool rather abruptly. ‘Surely— I wasn’t that good at covering it up?’

A fleeting frown came to his dark eyes. ‘You tried to?’ he hazarded.

‘Oh, yes,’ she said simply. ‘I learnt my lesson the first time you took me to lunch.’

He got up and came round the counter so he was standing in front of her and he put his fingers beneath her chin to tilt it so he could look into her eyes. ‘Didn’t that put you off?’ he asked sombrely, not attempting to deny the charge.

‘Unfortunately, the other thing about you is that you’re such fun to be with and I really enjoy your company.’

‘We’ve never been anywhere or done anything other—than this.’ He glanced around the kitchen.

She shrugged slightly.

‘So—may I kiss you, Skye Belmont?’

A faint smile trembled on her lips. ‘You know, Nick, I didn’t think you were the kind who waited to be asked.’

‘There could be a lot of things you don’t know about me, Skye,’ he said, and took her in his arms.

How true, Skye thought, lying on her bed. Things that he had never intended her to get to know, either. But the sheer magic of being kissed by and intimate with Nick Hunter had claimed all her senses, including her common sense.

It had been a revelation. He’d made love to her with a mixture of laughter and intensity that had been breathtaking. Just to see his hands was enough to make her stop in her tracks and go hot and cold at the memories of how he’d handled her body, how he’d made her feel like silk and velvet, how protective his whipcord strength had been, how much pleasure he’d brought to her. How they’d laughed at the oddest things while they were lying in each other’s arms.

And the way his dark gaze drifted over her, often in public, had the same effect. So that she knew he would take her to his apartment very soon, whatever they were doing, and slide her clothes off, paying meticulous attention to all her most sensitive, erogenous zones until she could barely speak. Then he’d take her to bed and their bodies would unite in a way that spoke for itself.

It struck her that if she’d once thought he was tall, dark and dangerous she now thought he was tall, dark and to die for.

Then, any hidden doubts she might have had had been allayed one day when he’d propped his head on his hand, drawn his other hand across her breasts with a touch so light yet at the same time electrifying, and said, ‘I think we ought to do something to formalize this state of affairs, Ms Belmont.’

‘Oh?’ She’d smiled dreamily. ‘Don’t tell me. You’re thinking of hiring me as your full-time cook?’

‘On the contrary, I’m thinking of asking you to marry me.’

Skye had opened her eyes wide and sat up suddenly. ‘What…?’ She’d had some trouble with her voice. ‘What do you mean?’

He’d eyed her quizzically. ‘What do you think I mean?’

‘But—’ she’d groped for his hand and held it tight between hers ‘—I didn’t know you felt like that…’ She’d trailed off, and the sheer surprise had still been in her eyes.

‘Skye—why do you think I keep doing this?’ He’d freed his hand and pulled her into his arms. ‘For that matter, we keep doing this,’ he’d said into her hair.

She’d trembled in his arms.

‘Don’t tell me—’ he’d raised his head and looked into her eyes quite wickedly, ‘—you’ve only been toying with me, Skye Belmont?’

Because the opposite had sometimes occurred to her, because, while it wasn’t in her to toy with anyone in this way but the same might not be said of him, by reputation anyway, she’d actually gasped and looked so thunderstruck, he’d started to laugh.

‘Are you serious?’ she’d demanded then.

‘Of course. What plans did you have for us?’

It was a question that had suddenly revealed all her hidden fears to her. Fears that she hadn’t been able to look in the face because his effect on her had been so powerful… Would they go on being lovers until the gloss wore off and a new woman replaced her?

How stable could a relationship be when they lived it inside a bubble—their daily lives were not in the slightest altered by it? He came and went, often with little or no explanation. She did the same, often doing the show interstate. They didn’t spend much time together at all that wasn’t spent in passionate lovemaking—or, it struck her with some irony, her cooking for him. Now this.

She’d looked around his bedroom and licked her lips. ‘I…didn’t have any plans, actually.’

‘Then I think it might be time to start making them,’ he’d said wryly. ‘Will you marry me, Skye? I promise it’s not only your cooking I love about you.’

That had done it. She’d lain back in his arms, overcome not only by him but the fact that this offer of marriage had to banish all her fears. Surely? ‘Yes.’ And then, in the grip of love and excitement such as she’d never known, she’d kissed him. ‘Yes, please.’

That had been six months ago, she recalled. He’d bought her an engagement ring of Tanzanite, an exquisite violet blue stone that was the colour of her eyes, surrounded by diamonds. She’d met his parents and his sister and been welcomed with open arms, although she’d thought his mother had looked at her with secret surprise.

But his father had been particularly warm and welcoming of his prospective daughter-in-law, and she’d formed the impression that Richard Hunter had decided she would be good for his son.

Nick had met her mother and charmed her thoroughly. Although, again, Skye had sensed some reservations in her mother. All Iris had ever put into words, however, had been the fact that she sensed Nick Hunter might be more complicated than met the eye.

And they had become an item, Skye Belmont and Nick Hunter—a celebrity couple. Once again her ratings had skyrocketed and she’d continually had to field questions about Nick, how they’d got together, what their plans were, what the wedding would be like, her dress, the cake—would she make it herself?—their honeymoon plans, how many children they wanted.

And that, she thought sadly, lying on her bed, was when the rot had started.

Or it was the catalyst, more accurately, that had made her see she was marrying a man she adored to go to bed with, but there was not a whole lot more between them than there ever had been…

It had started out as a laughing discussion, three weeks before their wedding, on all the questions people asked her.

‘While I seem to be an open book to the whole world,’ she said with a grin, ‘you are this mysterious figure they all hunger and thirst to know about. I can’t believe people’s preoccupation with you, or things like how many children we plan to have!’ She grimaced.

‘Well, I hope you don’t plan to rush in and have an army,’ he replied ruefully.

Her feeling of laughter deserted her for some reason. ‘I don’t intend to do either but—we are going to have kids, aren’t we, Nick?’

‘All in good time.’

She was cooking for him again, breakfast this time—bacon, eggs, mushrooms and tomato. She had on a yellow silk robe with nothing underneath it and all he wore was a pair of shorts. They hadn’t been up long. He was reading the newspaper at the kitchen counter while she cooked.

‘What do you mean, “All in good time”?’

He looked up briefly. ‘You’re barely twenty-four, Skye.’

‘And you’re thirty-two, Nick,’ she countered. ‘Look, I don’t want to have them immediately but by the time I’m twenty-five I’m sure I shall. I will also—’ she stopped, took a deep breath and looked around ‘—want a proper married life. I’d like my own home one day and a husband who doesn’t spend half his life away from me, doing things I don’t much care for anyway.’

‘Such as?’ He said it quietly but she divined a dangerous little glint in his eyes.

‘If you must know I find your social world incredibly shallow at times. I can’t stand motor racing, speedboat racing—and all the groupies who go with them—and I don’t think the way you have to travel overseas so frequently is conducive to a happy life.’

‘Then why are we getting married?’

‘Because I thought it would change,’ she said intensely. ‘But I now see that out of bed we might as well inhabit different planets. Especially if you’ve got something against us having children!’

‘I didn’t say that—’

‘You might just as well have, Nick; I can tell when you have reservations—about anything.’

He closed the paper at last and stood up to lean his shoulders against a cupboard. ‘What is so wrong about wanting us to learn to live with each other before we set about populating the earth, Skye?’

She gasped. ‘That’s as good as saying you don’t…you’ll make your marriage vows but on the understanding you can break them!’

‘It happens,’ he said roughly. ‘It happens to people with the best of intentions. By the way,’ he added pointedly, ‘I don’t quibble about your work which also takes you round the country, nor have I laid down any ultimatums that you’ll have to stop and devote yourself to me once we’re married.’

She was speechless.

Something he took advantage of. ‘As for going overseas, I’ll never be able to help that. It comes with the job, but…’ he paused significantly ‘…if you are not burdened down with babies, you could always come too.’

Shock lit her eyes. ‘You really don’t want kids, do you, Nick?’ she whispered. ‘At least tell me why?’

He stood very still for about half a minute, his dark gaze resting on her pale face. Then he said, ‘Perhaps I know myself well enough to know—how hard I find it to be tied down.’

‘So why—you asked me this—why are we getting married?’

His lips twisted. ‘I hadn’t figured you for such a conventional homebody, Skye.’

‘Not even,’ she said huskily, and put out a hand to support herself against the fridge, ‘when all I’ve done is be at home with you?’ She stared at the bacon and eggs then lifted her gaze to him. ‘Could there be anything more homely than this?’

‘In a sense,’ he said dryly, ‘that’s been part of the problem. You seem so happy just to be at home.’

‘So you thought you’d be able to live your old life while I stayed put and kept the home fires burning?’

‘You haven’t seemed to mind until now,’ he pointed out.

She swallowed a great lump in her throat. ‘It doesn’t make sense. One moment you tell me you didn’t suspect I was such a conventional homebody—’

‘Ah, but that’s the operative word. I didn’t think you were conventional. You’re very successful, Skye,’ he said meditatively. ‘You’re very cool and confident, not at all, one would have thought, a clinger.’

‘Who’s talking about clinging?’ she managed to say although there were tears of anger and sorrow in her eyes. ‘I was talking about being in love and sharing—our lives. However, you’re right in one sense. I did mislead you.’

He raised a sceptical eyebrow at her.

‘Skye Belmont, as you see her on television, is not the real me. It’s something I don’t fully understand myself and perhaps, with you, I’ve extended that persona. I think I always knew when you let me dangle for two months…’ She stopped and shrugged. ‘Well, that I should be all cool and confident.’

‘That’s not how you are in bed.’

‘No,’ she said thoughtfully, although something felt as if it was frozen inside her—her heart? she wondered.

‘Perhaps that is something we should take into account before we do anything—drastic,’ he drawled.

‘How good we are in bed?’ She swallowed again as his dark gaze drifted down her robe, resting on the outline of her nipples beneath the thin yellow silk then the slenderness of her waist bound by the sash and finally to the curve of her hips—hips, he often told her, like perfect peaches on a slender stem. ‘No, Nick,’ she said hoarsely. ‘For months I’ve…used that to…to blind myself to everything else.’

His gaze was sardonic as it reached her eyes again. ‘Then what do you propose? Isn’t it a little late, Skye,’ he said with sudden savage impatience, ‘to have this dramatic awakening? Do you know what would happen if we did go back to bed?’

She closed her eyes. ‘I’m sorry but I just can’t do it.’

‘Sorry?’ he repeated. ‘You’re the one with a wedding dress in your cupboard, a cake you made yourself, all your new honeymoon clothes, two bridesmaids—’

‘Stop it,’ she whispered, appalled. ‘You’re the one who has just told me you’re going to resist us having children to the nth degree.’

‘Skye, if it makes you happy, have them,’ he said wearily.

‘No, thank you, Nick. Not with you.’

‘Look, this has blown out of all proportion and I can’t believe you’ve made love to me time and time again with such joy—when all this was on your mind.’ He raked a hand through his hair and set his teeth. ‘When all these shortcomings of mine were niggling away at you!’

‘Neither can I,’ she said with a deadly sort of calm. ‘And I am sorry I didn’t understand and…look this in the face earlier. Goodbye, Nick.’ She pulled her engagement ring off and laid it on the counter.

‘Keep it,’ he said dryly. ‘Who knows? It might bring you some comfort when you’re not in my bed, just loving it.’

Her eyes registered the sheer hurt of his words but she drew on a reserve of strength she hadn’t known she possessed, and left the ring lying on the counter. ‘Would you announce it? I think we’d be better doing that otherwise there’ll be endless speculation.’

He laughed and picked up the ring to turn it between his long fingers. ‘There’s still going to be endless speculation, Skye, but if that’s what you really want?’

‘Yes. Thank you. I’ll go now.’

His eyes captured hers. ‘There’s no reason we couldn’t still be lovers. We’re pretty good at that, whatever we may lack for marriage.’

She bit her lip to stop herself from crying out in anguish and he stood watching her attentively, the stuff her dreams were made of, until she’d run into the reality of Nick Hunter. It was as if every time they’d made love or laughed together passed before her eyes, as if she were drowning, she thought torturedly.

But remember this, she told herself. Remember his last words to you.

‘Not any more,’ she murmured, and turned away.

The simple announcement had been in the paper the next morning. Today, she mused. Had she hoped there would be some attempt on his part to mend things? Of course. Had she hoped a lonesome night such as she had passed last night would change him? Yes.

But no olive branch had come. Only a few formal lines on page three of the paper together with a photo of them in happier times. So it really was over and the sooner she came to grips with it, the better. Nick Hunter was not for her.

She would go away, as soon as she could arrange it. She would take the cake to a hospital and she would even donate her wedding dress to charity…

CHAPTER TWO

THREE weeks later, Skye was pounding away at a laptop computer in her bikini beside a beach so perfect, most other people would have been lost in admiration for the view.

Or lazing in the aqua shallows beside its whiteness, perhaps snorkelling over the reef with its jewel-bright coral, or simply wondering what culinary delight was in store for lunch.

Indeed, for her first few days on Haggerstone Island, way up the coast of Queensland within the Great Barrier Reef towards Cape York, Skye had done all of those things. Besides, the resort on this tropical island, with its beautiful New Guinea-style roundhouse, accommodated very few guests—part of its attraction and why she’d chosen it—and, until today, she’d been the only one.

This had suited her perfectly as she’d tried to come down from wrapping up the show for the series, and come to terms with her break-up from Nick. And the sheer beauty of the place, as well as being so far away from civilization, had helped cocoon her from her emotional turmoil.

There was nothing behind Cape Grenville, off which Haggerstone stood, but vast cattle stations. And the couple who ran the resort had literally carved it out of the wilderness themselves. So not only was it a cherished project of lovely taste and style, but the island and waters around it were home to them.

Skye had gone fishing, snorkelling and crayfish-catching with them. She was on friendly terms with Tilly, their resident wallaby, she’d sampled her hostess’s marvellous cooking and spent the rest of her time relaxing in the sun or the sea.

Her fair skin was now golden, her hair was even fairer and she knew she looked healthy. It had taken the news that another guest was arriving to make her realize that her cocoon was about to split open, and to wonder about her inner health. She would more than likely be recognized and, even if she wasn’t, she wanted no human contact at the moment other than the discreet, undemanding friendship she had with her hosts.

Then it had occurred to her that if she could weave Haggerstone Island and its cuisine into her book, particularly the way her hostess used a cooking pit and different grids for different effects, she not only had a legitimate reason for being too busy to socialize, she also had something wonderful to write about from a culinary point of view.

She later realized that it was impossible to be a recluse on an island with only three other people, but, most of all, quite impossible to quash Bryce Denver.

He was twenty-six, a marine biologist. He was tall but looked as if he might not have lost all his puppy fat; indeed, he was exceedingly clumsy, like an overgrown puppy—out of the water, that was. He swam like a fish. He had red hair, freckles and a shy kind of charm.

Half an hour after he’d landed on the adjacent island and been transported over the reef to Haggerstone by boat, he told Skye over lunch that he’d fallen in love with her when he’d first seen her on television and he’d breathed a sigh of absolute relief when he’d read about her breaking off her engagement to Nick Hunter…

Something about her frozen expression must have got through to him, because he slapped his forehead suddenly, knocking over his water glass in the process, and he asked her with unmistakable sorrow if she could ever forgive him for being such a callous idiot.

She assured him stiffly that she could, but made a resolve to get herself away from Haggerstone as fast as possible.

She retreated to her room after lunch. The guest accommodation was in separate cabins and hers had a superb view over the water and the reef and was cool inside with wooden shutters at the windows. She sat down and started to write furiously.

But at sunset the lure of the beach got to her and she wandered outside to watch an evening ritual she loved. The resident guinea fowl settling for the night in a magnificent coral tree in front of the roundhouse, the one peacock walking amongst the old dugout canoes planted with vivid impatiens, the quality of light over the water and beach, the beautiful serenity of Haggerstone.

She wasn’t surprised when Bryce Denver came up to join her as she sat on the beach but she was surprised to find him now a gentle, amusing companion.

Perhaps it was the magic of the island that did it, she thought later. That gave him the belated tact to steer well away from anything personal, and gave her wounded psyche the balm to simply relax and go with the flow.

At any rate, she went to bed that night no longer determined to leave. Bryce was not going to be a problem, she decided. She would stay at least until she’d perfected her piece on Haggerstone.

Bryce was not a problem over the next days. As a marine biologist the waters, fish and coral around the island were the nearest thing to heaven for him. As a companion, he was rather like a younger brother despite being two years older.

He was sweet, she caught herself thinking once, and had to grimace because she knew enough about men to know he would not relish that tag. Nor might he have relinquished any dreams he’d woven around Skye Belmont, TV personality, but he was nice and they would be parting in a few days anyway. He to Cairns where he lived, she to Sydney.

It was the thought of Sydney that suddenly lay on her mind like a bar. The last thing she wanted to do was go home, she mused.

And that was why, in the end, when Bryce made an amazing suggestion, she agreed.

‘Only one more sleep,’ Bryce said regretfully over dinner, ‘after tonight, that is. I believe we’re flying out together?’

Skye stirred and looked rueful. ‘I could stay here for ever.’

‘So could I,’ he agreed, ‘but I’ve had a thought.’

Skye immediately looked wary instead of rueful.

‘I’m not going straight home,’ he said hastily. ‘A good friend of mine has a cattle station west of Cairns and next weekend is their annual picnic race meeting. It’s quite something,’ he said enthusiastically. ‘People come from hundreds of miles around for it and they sleep in tents, whatever—you would enjoy it, Skye.’

‘Not sleeping in a tent, I wouldn’t, Bryce.’ She grasped the first reason she could for nipping this suggestion in the bud although she quite liked camping.

‘Oh, no! I didn’t mean that. My friend makes up a house party at the homestead; it’s huge—the house, I mean! And he’s always delighted if I bring someone with me.’

Skye sighed inwardly and reminded herself she’d known that this could be on the cards. ‘Bryce, look, you’ve been lovely company but there couldn’t ever be any more to it than that, for me.’

‘Because of Nick Hunter?’

‘Yes,’ she said honestly.

‘He must be mad!’

Skye smiled wearily. ‘It was as much my fault as his but it…’ She gestured. ‘So I think I’m better off going home and I think you…are so nice, when the right girl comes along, she’ll thank her lucky stars she found you.’

He grimaced.

‘I mean it,’ Skye said sincerely.

‘I still think you should come with me. I promise not to make a nuisance of myself but it could make an interesting chapter for your book. They spit-roast pigs and sides of beef, they make traditional damper and billy tea, they cook witchety grubs…’

Unwittingly, Skye couldn’t help looking interested.

‘And there’s an awful lot of colour and activity,’ Bryce continued. ‘Real outback stuff—calf-roping, wood-chopping contests, a boxing tent—and I’m no mean hand with a camera. I’ve got some lovely shots of Haggerstone for you.’

Pictures were the one thing Skye had worried about. She’d come unprepared to make a photographic diary of her sojourn. Truth to tell, although she’d brought her laptop, she hadn’t seen herself as being in the frame of mind to write anything constructive.

And she knew Bryce did have an impressive array of cameras, underwater and others.

She said uncertainly, ‘I’ll…I’ll think about it. But…’