We Are Family Page 22

  His body was squeezed up tight against Emily’s now. Her skirt had ridden up high, right to the top of her black nylon stockings, but she made no attempt to readjust it. He caught a brief glimpse of white knickers beneath. Then they were kissing again.

  The leather seat beneath them groaned each time they moved. She pulled his hand to her breast and pressed it down. He could feel the yield of her warm flesh beneath the thin material of her blouse. Then she was leaning forward, her palms momentarily pressed hard against his chest, as her fingers splayed outwards, before delving inside his jacket sleeves, forcing them back over his arms.

  She shivered as he finished unbuttoning her blouse. Underneath, she was wearing a slip so smooth he guessed it must have been made of silk. He raised it up over her breasts as he kissed his way softly down her neck. She sighed, thrusting her pelvis hard against his. He hardened against her.

  Then she was up, holding on to the windscreen with one arm for support. Balancing first on one foot and then the other, she kicked off her shoes, before tugging her skirt and knickers down to her ankles and stepping out of them. Impatient now, she set to work on him, feverishly tossing his tie to one side and unbuttoning his shirt. Another two seconds work and she’d unfastened his trouser buttons and had slid her hand inside.

  He gasped, rising now, pulling his trousers and shorts down to his knees. She took him in her hand, straddling him as she did. As he entered her, she gasped. Her breasts quivered, the colour of milk in the moonlight. She pushed down on top of him. Clamping her thighs tightly around his waist, they started rocking together, moving as one.

  They could have been in a boat. There in the great wide black sea of the moor, with the Jupiter’s roof down and the limitless sky stretching far and wide above, they could have travelled anywhere, the two of them together. Anywhere they’d wanted at all.

  Chapter XIII

  Mallorca, Present Day

  Laurie watched the cab that had dropped her off in the road leading down to the tiny harbour, until it had disappeared around the bend, back up towards the main road. It was the Tuesday morning after the hideous meal at Sa Costa. The day that Rachel had ordered Sam and Laurie to spend together on Flight. It was supposed to be a day of – how had Rachel put it? – ‘rest and relaxation’ for the two of them. How ironic, she thought, feeling tenser than ever.

  She’d been expecting the harbour to be full of chic restaurants and women clad in designer clothes shopping in little boutiques, so she was amazed to discover that it was so rustic. On the street corner, three old women sat in a line beneath the overhanging shade of a rickety building which housed a small café. They chatted while they crocheted with fine white cotton. As Laurie passed them, the aroma of paella cooking wafted out of the open door, a TV on the wall inside blasting out the sound of a man talking in rapid Spanish, followed by a TV audience laughing.

  Laurie slowed down and stopped on the corner, feeling her nerve deserting her. She shouldn’t be here. She shouldn’t have come. By simply being here, she was going against every vow she’d made to herself. Now she wished she’d tried harder to wriggle out of today’s arrangement. Surely there were a million excuses she could have used, so why hadn’t she thought of one of them? She should have just called Sam and backed out of it days ago, hours ago even . . . but she hadn’t.

  Laurie felt her legs carrying her forward towards the harbour, a slick of sweat was breaking out all over her skin in the heat. Her heart was pounding. Her stomach clenched with what could only be a sickness induced by guilt. After all, she was an imposter. Feeling as she did, she knew she was deliberately betraying her new family and all the trust they’d placed in her. And not only her family. Wasn’t it true that she was betraying her friends, James, herself? She should turn and get the hell away from here as fast as possible.

  But something inside her was stronger than her common sense. The morbid fascination with all-things Sam which had first led her to accept Rachel’s invitation to Mallorca, and then Claire’s invitation to the anniversary party on the boat and now, ultimately, to be walking towards a date with her ex-lover, was just too powerful to resist.

  She told herself that she’d had no choice. She’d had to accept Rachel’s offer of the villa, because it had been too good to turn down. She’d had to accept Claire’s invitation to the party or risk sounding incredibly rude. And she’d had no choice but to bow yet again to Rachel’s wishes and agree to spend the day with Sam today.

  She felt caught up in the relentless Glover procession of events and had no way of extricating herself without raising suspicion. Being at Rachel’s villa was like being caught in the centre of a giant spider’s web. On the one hand she wanted to know her aunt, but the pay-off was that Rachel wanted her to be part of the family. But that family included Sam and his wife and child. The only thing she could do was to play along and pretend that everything was normal.

  But maybe having to behave normally, having to play this game in which Sam was a mere acquaintance, having to keep her feelings hidden all the time was the reason that her feelings were so powerful. And she’d spent too many sleepless nights in the last month to continue pretending that she didn’t care for Sam, or secretly crave to be with him.

  She knew deep down it was very, very wrong even to be thinking about him. In the same way that she knew that from the first moment that she’d seen Claire at the beach on her first day on the island that she should have packed her bags and left. But she’d hoped, foolishly, that seeing Sam and giving him the cold shoulder at his own party, of proving herself in front of him, of flaunting her independence, her indifference would have given her the satisfaction she craved. She’d told herself that it would have cured her need for revenge and that she’d be able to leave Sam in the past once and for all.

  But her plan had failed spectacularly. Sam’s apology, his hasty explanation, his obvious terror at her being back in his life had sunk into her heart like a knife and reopened an old wound that had refused to heal ever since. Instead of feeling vindicated, she’d once more become obsessed by the man that she’d once thought would be her future. As if she’d been drugged, Sam had seeped into her subconscious, his face had been in every stroke of paint, his voice in every murmur of the sea.

  But the facts, she reminded herself, remained the same. Sam had made his choice and it hadn’t been her. And now he was married, with a child, and they were inextricably bound by a family which would be destroyed if they ever found out their secret. Which is why running away would be the actions of a child. It wouldn’t solve anything. It would only leave a trail of unanswered questions which Rachel was bound to pick at until she uncovered the truth. Which is why she had to go through with today’s plan.

  Down at the water’s edge, the waves slapped gently against the concrete front. Several brightly coloured fishing boats bobbed in the water and a fisherman hosed down a small trawler, a cigarette hanging from his lip. She could see small black fish darting in the emerald-green shallows, and along the path, a gaggle of small local boys were fishing with a plastic bucket on a piece of string.

  At the end of the path, where the cottages gave way to a jumble of old sheds, a jetty stretched out into the water, with small white yachts and power boats moored either side. High above, the sky was a brilliant blue, only a thin haze of cloud stretching like a veil above the seaweed-encrusted harbour wall.

  Laurie walked slowly along the water’s edge and stopped at the start of the jetty, looking down the vessels, wondering which one was Flight. She’d only heard the vaguest of instructions from Sam on Rachel’s answering machine at the villa. Wouldn’t it be ironic, she thought, after all her worrying, if Sam was the one who had bailed out? Could it be possible, she wondered, if he was feeling as nervous and uneasy about today as she was?

  Then, suddenly, she saw him. He was at the far end of the jetty, hauling a heavy bag on to a boat. He was balancing with one foot on the bow of the boat and one foot on the concrete jetty. He was wearing khaki sh
orts and his chest and his feet were bare. His dark blond hair fell across his tanned face. There was something so unexpectedly boyish about him, as he worked, and she could tell immediately that he was alone.

  And then it happened. Just as she’d dreaded. She stopped to watch him, feeling something inside her flip over, her knees weakening beneath her and her throat going dry. Damn it! Why was he so goddamned attractive? She cursed the chemistry that made her physically react to him in this way.

  Oh God, she panicked. She shouldn’t go through with this. Sam hadn’t seen her, it wasn’t too late to run. This was too dangerous. She wasn’t strong enough to be alone with him.

  Laurie forced herself to think about Claire. Her cousin. Her relative. OK, so Laurie might find her a bit shallow and materialistic, she might be secretly jealous because Claire was beautiful, but Claire had shown nothing but faith in Laurie from the moment they’d met. She’d done everything to be friendly towards her new cousin. What would Claire think if she knew Laurie was standing here, feeling like she did about her husband? She would be horrified. Horrified and betrayed. Sam was the father of her child, for God’s sake. Laurie closed her eyes for a moment, forcing herself to picture Archie’s face, thinking about the cute little boy whose whole future she could so easily ruin. But still her heart pounded, knowing that she was about to spend the day with Sam.

  She must focus on Archie and Claire and Sam’s present situation, she told herself. She would have to be strong and keep her feelings well and truly hidden. She’d got herself into this mess and she would simply have to find her way through it. She would have to do everything in her power to guard her secret, so that no one, especially not Sam, would even suspect that she felt anything other than platonic friendship.

  Yes, she decided, nearing the boat. She would take a leaf out of Sam’s book. She would just have to be adult about the whole thing. She would have to make out that she believed, as Rachel and Claire did, that this was the most normal thing in the world. Two newly acquainted people out for a spot of sailing. Nothing more, nothing less.

  Either side of her, the small yachts and powerboats were empty. Where was everyone, she wondered, stepping over a black cat which was stretched out on the concrete in the sun. Sam’s yacht loomed ahead of her.

  Rachel had told her that Flight was a thirty-four-foot classic schooner, as if that should mean something. Laurie hadn’t taken much notice at the time, but now she could see why Sam was reportedly so proud of it.

  As it was moored bow-to, she could see that the sleek sides were painted a glistening midnight blue. Beyond, on the beautiful varnished teak deck, she could see the proud wooden mast and boom, and the old-fashioned wooden wheel.

  Then Sam emerged from the cockpit and jumped on deck. She cleared her throat to get his attention.

  ‘You’re here already?’ he said, sounding flustered, as he glanced at the chunky silver watch on his wrist. He clambered forward to the bow of the boat, past the cleats and over the front deck, grabbing his short-sleeved linen shirt from the rail. He hastily put it on and did up two buttons, covering his tanned chest and the curls of dark blond hair. The same dark blond hair she’d once touched . . .

  ‘Come aboard,’ he said.

  Laurie slipped off her shoes and held them in her hand. Then she grabbed Sam’s outstretched hand and lunged her foot towards the pointed bow. It wasn’t exactly the most dignified way of climbing aboard, but she was damned if she was going to make a fuss.

  Sam steadied her for a moment as she found her footing on board and then let her hand go. He didn’t look at her, or say hello. Nothing in fact. No ‘Hi, Laurie, how are you?’ with two Continental cheek kisses. Nothing.

  Well, good. She didn’t want him to kiss her. Formal was better. And him helping her on board had been a handshake in its own way.

  ‘You don’t mind if we get going straight away, do you?’ he asked, hurrying away from her. She followed, watching as he jumped down into the cockpit and then swung down through the small open hatch into the cabin below. He pulled the large bag in the cockpit towards him. ‘I’m not sure how much wind we’re going to get,’ he said. ‘So if you want to get out into the bay and back, we’ll have to hurry.’

  Laurie felt a flash of irritation. She didn’t want to go into the bay and back at all. She hadn’t forced him into taking her sailing. It hadn’t been her idea.

  Laurie crossed her arms, feeling peeved. She’d spent so long thinking about how Sam would behave with her, but it hadn’t occurred to her that he might continue to behave in private the same way that he had in public when they’d had dinner a few days ago. Now she felt thrown.

  Back on deck, Sam set about issuing orders, calmly explaining the anatomy of the boat. She learnt that the two sails were called a mainsail and a headsail and that she would be in charge of winching in the headsail when they tacked. She forced herself not to make a facetious comment when he ran through the boat’s safety drill. But she knew better than to point out the obvious emergency exits. Sam clearly wasn’t in any mood for humour.

  And then, without further ado, she was helping him pull up the anchor lines and, in no time at all, they were unfurling the sails. As the boat cut effortlessly through the waves, she watched Sam at the wheel, seemingly absorbed with the course of the boat, as they sailed out into a vast expanse of sea, a hundred white sails littering their path to the horizon. She couldn’t begin to tell what he was thinking as his eyes were hidden behind the dark lenses of his glasses. He certainly didn’t appear to be thinking about her. So far, he hadn’t looked at her once.

  ‘Right. There’s the Barcelona ferry coming up, so we’re going to tack, if that’s OK,’ he said, turning the wooden wheel, so that they would cut across the wake of the huge steel boat which loomed up ahead of them at an alarming speed. ‘If you could unhook that rope, please.’

  Laurie did as she was told, feeling her irritation swelling. Please! If he said please one more time! He was being so polite that she wanted to swear at him. But then the headsail caught the wind and the rope sped through her hands, burning them.

  ‘Ouch!’ she yelped, letting go.

  ‘Winch in! Winch in!’ Sam yelled, as the sail flapped angrily in the wind.

  Laurie fell across the cockpit to the other side of the boat, pulling in the rope as the boat turned and the mainsail filled with wind from the other side.

  She wound in the winch handle, but it was stiff and awkward to manoeuvre from where she was crouching in the cockpit.

  ‘That’s it. Little bit faster, please,’ Sam called.

  ‘I’m going as fast as I can,’ Laurie protested, but Sam gently nudged her out of the way.

  ‘Sorry, can I . . . ?’ he asked, expertly winching the rest of the rope.

  Laurie sat back, her hands and her feelings smarting, as the boat righted and they passed behind the ferry.

  ‘It’s OK,’ Sam said. ‘You did very well for your first time.’

  How dare he be so condescending! Above her, Laurie could see the holidaymakers on the top deck of the ferry. She watched the steel propellers churning up the water. While the vast ship sped away from them, she’d never been so aware of her own pitifully small existence. And as they passed in its wake, Laurie squinted as the waves slopped into the boat and splashed her face.

  Another fifteen minutes passed, then thirty, as they tacked once or twice more towards an unknown destination. But still Sam didn’t say anything, other than the odd polite request for her to do something minor. And eventually even those fizzled out. He seemed to have run out of things to say. She could see from his face that he was pretending to concentrate on the sailing, keeping his fixed grin, as if this were the most pleasant, natural thing in the world for them to be doing.

  Was this it, then? Sam was going to play at being polite strangers all day? Well, fine, she thought, she could be a polite stranger too. That was what she’d been intending to do all along, wasn’t it? She was damned if she was going to break the ice.<
br />
  But as time crawled by, the silence between them seemed to inflate, until it was as impenetrable as a balloon. It was so tangible that Laurie was afraid of puncturing it, in case it would explode. She busied herself staring at the water over the side of the boat, wondering about the depth of the blue green sea.

  She trailed her hand over the edge of the boat, reaching her fingertips towards the water, studying the translucent reflection of the small waves on the shiny blue paint on the boat’s side. So, he really wasn’t going to say anything, she concluded. His apology in the wheelhouse had been it. That was all he had to say on the matter of their affair. He was content, now, to pretend that it had never happened.

  She’d been such an idiot, she thought, feeling baffled disappointment course through her. She’d wasted so much mental energy thinking about Sam over the past few weeks. She hadn’t even slept last night wondering how today was going to be, and all along Sam didn’t give a shit. He had nothing left to say to her. She clearly meant nothing to him.

  But, then, suddenly, Sam slapped the wheel. She’d been so absorbed in her thoughts that she jumped, ricocheting back to reality.

  ‘What’s happened? What’s wrong?’ she asked.

  ‘We’re becalmed.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The wind’s gone.’ Sam looked up at the sails, obviously annoyed.

  The mainsail was rapidly deflating, as if someone were blowing increasingly feeble breaths at it. A minute later, it was flapping limply. Sam hauled in the headsail, so that it wrapped neatly around the mast. Then he pulled in the mainsail, too.

  ‘So what do we do now?’ she asked.

  ‘Sit it out. It’ll pick up in a while. There’s no point in motoring. This happens occasionally.’

  Laurie stared at her feet. As the boat bobbed slowly. Only the gentle lapping of the waves against the boat’s hull broke the silence.

  Now she wished that Sam was still absorbed in sailing. At least then they had an excuse not to talk. But this? This was intolerable. She longed for an escape, but there was only sea around them and she didn’t fancy making a swim for it.