think she regretted her decision. She jerked into walking, rounding the bed and heading up towards the administration office.
Harry had given her the door key after he had locked up before dinner. She dug it out of her shorts pocket, anxious to have the door open and be standing right there, ready to receive the cake from him so he had no reason to come in with it. Being alone with him in any enclosed space right now would severely stretch nerves that were already wildly agitated at having to be face to face with him, just for a few moments.
It surprised her to see guests laughing and chatting in the open bar lounge as she passed by. It had seemed so private on the lower decks. What if any of these people had strolled down to the beach while she and Harry... It didn’t bear thinking about. Reckless, shameless...her face flamed at how very nearly she had succumbed to almost a public sex act.
Anger simmered as she unlocked the door, opened it and turned to take the cake platter from Harry, who had virtually caught up with her. ‘Did you realise there were still people up and about when you swept me off to that bed?’ she demanded accusingly.
‘So what?’ He arched his eyebrows at her as though she was mad.
‘Oh, you don’t care about anything, do you?’ she cried in exasperation and tried to snatch the platter from him.
He held on to it, forcing her to meet his gaze, a blast of hot resentment burning over her own. ‘On the contrary, I care about a lot of things, Elizabeth. As to your quite unnecessary embarrassment at the thought of being observed in flagrante, this happens to be a tropical island where people drop their inhibitions and feel free to have sex wherever and whenever they want it. Using that bed under the stars for some natural pleasure in the privacy of the night would not offend anyone.’
‘I’m not a guest. I’m staff,’ she argued furiously.
His chin jutted with arrogant authority. ‘This island is mine. I can make any rules I like for whomever I like.’
‘I live by my own rules, Harry,’ she flared at him. ‘Now let me have the cake and let’s say goodnight.’
He released the platter and stepped back, nodding mockingly as he said, ‘Goodnight, Elizabeth.’
Then he strode away, back towards the beach, not giving her the chance to say another word.
She was so wound up it took several seconds for her to realise the threat of him was gone—not that he’d been threatening her. It was just how she felt with him, as though in constant danger of having her rules undermined or blown apart.
She quickly took the platter to the office desk, set it down and returned to lock the door, telling herself she was now safe for the night. Tomorrow...well, she would deal with tomorrow when it came.
She carried the untouched cake into the apartment, shutting herself into her own private domain. In a violent reaction to the whole stressful day, she found a knife and cut the Happy Birthday writing off the icing. It had been a rotten birthday. No happiness at all. She’d suffered a devastating let-down from Michael, as well as what felt like a betrayal from Lucy and persecution from Harry.
Tomorrow had to be better.
She only had to put up with Harry tomorrow.
And while that might not be a piece of cake, she would stomach it somehow.
No way was she going to break up again anywhere near Harry Finn!
HARRY clenched his hands into fists as he strode back down to the lower deck. The urge to fight was still coursing through him. He’d barely reined it in to bid Elizabeth a fairly civilised goodnight. He certainly didn’t feel civilised.
Okay, he’d jumped the gun with her but she’d been right there with him. Not one other woman he’d been with had ever pulled back when both of them were fired up to have sex. Being rejected like that was an absolute first, though he probably should have been prepared for it. Elizabeth Flippence had made an art form of rejecting him over the past two years.
What were her damned rules? No mixing business with pleasure? She would have mixed it with Mickey so that didn’t wash. Did she have to have a wedding ring on her finger before she’d have sex? Where was she coming from to have that kind of attitude in this day and age? A thirty-year-old virgin? Harry didn’t believe it. Not with her looks.
Clearly he needed to know more about her, form another plan of attack because she was not going to get away from him. He didn’t understand why she dug so deeply under his skin, what made her so compellingly desirable, but the buzz was there and he couldn’t get rid of it. What caused him even more frustration was knowing she felt the same buzz around him.
It was a maddening situation.
He lifted the bottle of champagne out of the ice bucket, stepped over to the edge of the deck and poured the remaining contents onto the sand. The only thing worse than flat champagne was the flat aftermath of flattened desire. He popped the emptied bottle back in the bucket and started the long walk down the beach to the wharf where his yacht was docked.
He thought of his own birthday—thirty-three last month. Mickey had thrown him a party. They always did that for each other because their parents had and neither of them could quite let go of that golden past, though they had sold the marvellous family property on the hill overlooking Cairns because it wasn’t the same—couldn’t be—without their mother and father there.
He remembered the great tennis parties and pool parties his mother had organised. His and Mickey’s school friends had loved coming to their place—always so much fun to be had. The fishing trips with his father had been great, too. He’d had the best childhood, best teen years, a really happy life until that black day when his father’s plane went down.
This resort had still been on the drawing board then. His father had been excited about building it, showing him and Mickey the plans, talking about how he would market it. After the funeral Harry had wanted this project, wanted to be physically busy, creating something, bringing his father’s vision to reality. He’d lived here, worked here until it was done, organising everything for it to be a successful enterprise.
Mickey had thrown himself into managing the franchises, needing to be busy, too, both of them wanting to feel their parents would be proud of them. It had seemed the best way to handle their grief, filling the huge hole of loss with hard absorbing work. Neither of them had been interested in managing girlfriends during that dark period, not wanting any emotional demands on them from people who had no understanding of what was driving them. The occasional night out, some casual sex...that had been enough.
Over the years neither he nor Mickey had fallen into any deep and meaningful relationships. Somehow there was always something missing, something that didn’t gel, something that put them off. Occasionally they chatted about their various failures to really connect with one woman or another. It always came back to how happy their parents had been together, complementing each other, and ultimately that was what they wanted in a life partner. In the meantime they floated, docking for a while with whatever woman they felt attracted to.
Harry wondered if Lucy would last with Mickey, then chewed over his own problem of even getting a start with Elizabeth.
Why was giving in to a perfectly natural attraction such a problem to her? Why not pursue it, find out if it could lead to a really satisfying relationship? Was she so hung up on her unrequited love for Mickey that she didn’t want to admit that something else could be better?
Whatever...he’d get to the bottom of her resistance and smash it, one way or another.
By the next morning Harry had cooled down enough to realise he should give Elizabeth more time to come to terms with the changes in her life. He had rushed her last night. Today he would be very civilised. Though not necessarily according to her rules.
He had breakfast on the yacht, suspecting that Elizabeth would avoid having breakfast with him in the restaurant.