return Anet told him about places she had been and the highs and lows and indignities of training to be a physiotherapist.
Later she would realise that she hadn’t referred to her time as an Olympic athlete.
When the divers began to drift back to the boat Anet had to hide a little niggle of resentment. Lucas Tremaine was a fascinating man—dry-witted, none too acceptant of stupidity, and he could tell a story so that it interested you on several levels. And a man who just happened to look like something straight out of a fantasy, she reminded herself, watching Georgia dry herself down with maximum effect.
Anet counted all the divers off, then made sure they reapplied sunscreen. While Scott started the engine and headed the boat towards the little motu where they’d be having lunch she listened to excited comments about the marine life the divers had seen in the coral garden.
This was the part of the day Anet liked least. Usually somebody wanted to hear about her experiences as one of New Zealand’s most visible sportswomen of a few years ago, and while she could understand their interest, it irritated her to be slotted into that mould for ever.
Well, there was one woman who wouldn’t be interested in her athletic prowess, she thought with a hidden smile as Georgia preened herself in the sunlight.
Donning a hat woven skilfully from pandanus leaves, Anet helped Scott ferry people onto the hot white sand of the motu, where a barbecue had already been set up beneath a clump of coconut palms.
The two young men who barbecued the fish and chicken for their meal were from the same family group as Sule. Their tribal council and headman had set up a trust which partnered Scott and Serena and provided workers for the venture. The fish cooking on the coals—and the others that had been made into the dish known by so many different names across the Pacific, their succulent raw flesh whitened by the juice of local limes—had been caught off the reef only hours before by other members of the extended family.
Women of the village had made the salads in a brand-new industrial kitchen on the mainland and ferried them across to the motu in big insulated boxes. They had also set the table, twining crimson and gold hibiscus flowers with glossy green leaves across the stylised, elegant black and cream of the tapa cloth made to their own traditional design.
The motu, pretty as an emerald set in kingfisher-blue enamel, looked like a bright poster from a travel agency. And all to provide tourists with an exotic experience—one, Anet had quickly realised, they enjoyed very much.
‘It’s like paradise,’ a big Australian man said now, gazing around at the glittering lagoon, the abrupt peaks in the centre of the main island, the graceful grey trunks of the coconut palms. He tried some of the fish salad and laughed. ‘If my mother could see me now—she’d never believe that I ate raw fish and enjoyed it!’
‘The lime juice actually cooks the flesh,’ Anet said. ‘Sort of, anyway.’
He grinned. ‘I’m not going to tell her that. You’re Anet Carruthers, aren’t you?’
Schooling the resignation from her face, she nodded.
‘I saw you at the Olympics,’ he said. ‘You were brilliant.’
‘Thank you,’ she said. At his next words she thought the air froze around them. His voice went on, but she couldn’t hear what he was saying until she swallowed fiercely and cleared her ears.
‘Whatever happened, you deserved that medal,’ the man finished earnestly, the upward intonation of his voice at the end of the sentence revealing that, like so many others, he wondered whether perhaps she would tell him something no one else knew about the rumours that had shadowed her Olympic triumph.
The muscles in her face ached with the effort it took to keep them passive. Although it had happened years ago, the wound was still acutely tender—the only thing that would heal it would be Victoria Sutter’s confession that she had lied.
And Anet knew just how likely that was.
She said calmly, ‘Thank you.’
Lucas Tremaine’s voice broke into the prison of her thoughts. ‘Excuse me, Anet, but several people want to collect shells,’ he said. ‘Is it allowed?’
She met his assessing look with a feeble attempt at aplomb. Words stumbled from her tongue. ‘I—yes, of course. Although they can’t take any live shellfish.’
‘You’d better show them how to tell whether they’re alive or dead,’ he said. When she didn’t move he held out an imperative hand. ‘Coming?’
Obediently she got up, gave the man beside her a vague smile and went with Lucas, mesmerised by his size, she supposed, or by the unfaltering strength she sensed in him.
‘What’s the matter?’ he asked when they were out of earshot.
‘Nothing.’ The denial came automatically.
His brows rose. ‘You went as white as a sheet, and although the insensitive clod you were with didn’t seem to notice, you looked as though you’d been shown a glimpse into the pits of hell.’
Angered by his astuteness, she returned grittily, ‘You should do well with fiction if you ever give it a try.’
He turned his head and looked her way. An inner chill shivered through her body; she had to grit her teeth to stop herself from flinching. Her chin came up as she stared back unwaveringly, defying him to comment.
Instantly it was gone, that secret, hidden menace, the cold power that had slipped its leash and blazed from his unreadable eyes for a fleeting moment before he’d reimposed control.
‘Thank you,’ he said ironically, and for the rest of the time they were on the island stayed close to her—like, she thought foolishly, a huge guard dog, more intimidating than he was handsome.
Back at Fala‘isi he left them at the wharf, but before he went he found Anet and said, ‘Scott says you’re staying with him. How would it be if I drop the present around this evening just after seven?’
‘Fine, thank you,’ she said, fighting an odd mixture of anticipation and antagonism.
Time that afternoon seemed both to stretch to infinity and hurry past, so that when they arrived back at Scott and Serena’s bungalow—set in suburbia that was familiar yet exotic, with streets shaded by coconut palms and scented by frangipani bushes, their cream and gold and cerise flowers uncurling from spiral buds between rosettes of large, lushly green leaves—Anet wondered where the hours had gone.
‘I’m taking you out to dinner,’ Scott said firmly as he switched off the engine of his somewhat aged car. ‘And then we’ll go on to a nightclub.’
‘Dinner would be lovely, but I’m not a club person really, Scott,’ she said quickly. Although the business was doing well, he couldn’t afford to waste money.
‘Come on,’ he coaxed. ‘I won’t wear a T-shirt with “Paradise Diving” in big red letters all over it like I usually do, and I’ll behave very nicely—no haring off to drum up clients, I promise.’
She gave him a teasing smile. ‘You don’t have to take me out, you know, even if it is my birthday. I’m perfectly happy staying at home.’
‘I know,’ he said earnestly, ‘but bear with me, Annie. You’ve been a real brick, leaving everything to come up and help out, and I’d like to do something for you.’
‘Well, I didn’t get where I am today by refusing to go out with handsome men,’ she said, smiling as she gave in. ‘And you’d better wear that T-shirt—at least to the nightclub. Serena would never forgive me if you missed out on an opportunity to attract more customers. Where will we go for dinner?’
‘I thought you might like to try the local Chinese restaurant. It’s the best in the Pacific, and believe me, that means something, because there are some brilliant Chinese restaurants in the South Seas. Then we can go on to an island night in one