‘Are you still working, or would you like to come?’

Tom linked his arms above his head and stretched. ‘A walk sounds good.’ It sounded normal, easy, safe. Controllable. ‘I could do with stretching my legs.’

‘Great.’ Imogen finished her water. ‘I’ll get my hat.’

It was well into the afternoon by the time they set out, but it was still very hot, in spite of a breeze that ruffled the lagoon and made the palms sigh and rustle overhead as Imogen and Tom headed barefoot along the beach. Imogen had wrapped a sarong around her waist and her face was shaded by a soft straw hat. Beside her, Tom wore shorts and a loose short-sleeved shirt.

They walked in silence at first but, rather to Imogen’s surprise, it didn’t feel uncomfortable. They splashed around the point where the dense vegetation grew right to the shore and found themselves on the far side of the island. There was little sand to speak of there, but the water was so warm and clear that they were happy to wade ankle deep in the shallows to where the shore curved inwards once more.

Suddenly Tom stopped and shaded his eyes as he looked out to sea. ‘Look!’

‘What is it?’ Imogen’s gaze followed his finger until she exclaimed in delight. ‘Dolphins!’

In silence they stood and watched a whole pod of dolphins leaping out of the water with breathtaking grace. For Imogen, it was an extraordinary moment. It was as if she had never been fully alive before that moment, and she was aware of everything with a new and fierce intensity.

The sea was the bluest of blues, the heat hammered down, the light beyond the shade of her hat glared. She could feel the sand cool beneath her toes, the shallows rippling warm against her ankles and Tom, still and self-contained beside her, while further out the dolphins played, soaring into the air as if for the sheer joy of it, the water that streamed from their bodies glittering in the fierce sunlight.

Imogen could feel her heart swelling and her throat closed at the rush of emotion. The beauty and exuberance of the scene was so joyous it felt like an unexpected gift.

‘Quite something, isn’t it?’ said Tom.

Unable to speak, she nodded.

After a while the dolphins moved on. Imogen and Tom waited a few minutes in case they came back, but eventually they started walking again.

‘I’m sorry Julia’s not here with you,’ she said quietly at last, ‘but I’m glad I came. I’ll never forget that, or the reef this morning.’

Tom glanced down but could see little of her expression beneath her hat. ‘I’m glad you came too,’ he said.

Imogen took a breath. ‘How are you feeling?’ she asked. ‘I mean, really?’

‘About Julia? I’m OK,’ he said when she nodded. ‘And yes, really.’ He looked away from her, squinting slightly at the bright light bouncing off the water. ‘Maybe I should be thinking about her more,’ he said slowly. ‘I wanted to marry her, after all. I ought to be missing her, but the truth is that I’m not. We never actually lived together, so perhaps it’s because I’m not used to her being around.’

He fell silent, thinking about the woman who should have been exploring the island with him. What would it have been like to have been here with Julia? Somehow it was hard to imagine when Imogen was walking beside him, her face shaded by the wide brim of her hat. Her skin was glowing after a day in the sun and he could see the salt drying on her shoulders.

The bottom of her sarong was wet and kept clinging to her calves so that every few yards she had to stop and disentangle herself. As she bent, her tangled brown hair would swing forwards and cover her face until she pushed it impatiently behind her ear.

‘I think I miss the idea of Julia more than anything else,’ Tom went on at last. ‘She was so exactly the kind of woman I’d always imagined marrying: beautiful, very intelligent, glamorous, successful…’

All things she wasn’t, Imogen couldn’t help thinking.

‘Well, you’ve met her,’ he said, unaware of her mental interruption. ‘You know how special she was. I was tired of girlfriends constantly demanding attention, insisting that I rang them all the time, forever wanting to cross-examine me about my feelings…’

Tom shuddered at the memory. ‘They all seemed to think that I could drop everything at work to dance attendance on them and take them out to dinner or to Paris for the weekend, and if there was a crisis at work, they would sulk.’ He lifted a shoulder, irritable at the mere memory. ‘I couldn’t be bothered with any of that.

‘Julia was different,’ he remembered after a moment. ‘She wasn’t needy or emotional, and she didn’t expect me to jump through hoops for her. We understood each other-or, at least, I thought we did,’ he amended. ‘I had no idea what Patrick meant to her, for instance. When she said that he was just a friend, I never questioned it. I thought she would be the perfect wife.’

He paused, remembering. ‘I suppose the truth is that it wasn’t her I really wanted, but someone to go home to. Someone who would make me comfortable, who would be able to cope with any corporate entertaining and who wouldn’t make a fuss about the time I spent at work.’

‘It sounds to me as if you wanted a housekeeper, not a wife,’ said Imogen with a certain tartness. ‘Why didn’t you just hire someone?’

‘Because I don’t sleep with my employees.’ Tom’s voice was level, and Imogen flushed beneath her hat.

Of course he would expect to sleep with his wife, but she didn’t really need to have that fact rammed down her throat. She didn’t need to imagine being that wife, making love with him every night, waking up with him every morning. Especially when it was never going to happen.

‘As one of your employees, that’s good to know,’ she said as crisply as she could.

Tom slanted her a quick look. ‘It’s not just about sex,’ he said. ‘I wanted an equal, someone I could talk to, someone to support me-what was so wrong with that?’

‘That depends on what you were going to offer her in return.’

‘A lot of money,’ he said. ‘Security. Comfort. Trust. Respect. Honesty. Fidelity. When I make a promise, I keep it. I wouldn’t have taken wedding vows unless I was going to stick to them.’

It wasn’t a bad deal, Imogen supposed. She knew people who had settled for less.

He had offered Julia everything except love. Imogen wasn’t surprised that Julia had thought that she would marry him, but it wasn’t a surprise either that she hadn’t been able to go through with it.

Tom might not think love mattered, but it did.

‘You don’t approve?’ He was watching her more closely than she realised.

‘It’s not up to me to approve or disapprove,’ said Imogen carefully. ‘It just wouldn’t be enough for me.’

‘What more do you want? Oh-love, I suppose?’

‘Yes, love,’ she said evenly, ignoring the dismissive note in his voice. ‘What good is respect or security or all that stuff if you’re not with someone who makes you feel…oh, I don’t know…’

How could she explain to someone like Tom? ‘…like one of those dolphins we saw,’ she tried. ‘They looked so…so joyous leaping out of the water, didn’t they? As if they were exactly where they wanted to be, doing exactly what they wanted to do. That’s how it feels when you’re in love,’ she told him. ‘I’m not getting married until I feel that way again.’

Tom shook his head, unconvinced. ‘You’re not being realistic, Imogen. You want everything to be perfect, but nothing ever is. Look at Coconut Island,’ he said, gesturing around him. ‘They said it was paradise, and it is-but there are still cockroaches and bats and who knows what else lurking in the undergrowth.’

Imogen cast a nervous glance at the vegetation smothering the shore. She hadn’t thought about what else might be sharing the island with them and wished that Tom hadn’t put the idea into her head. What if there were snakes? Mentally resolving to stick to the beach at all times, she edged further out into the water.

Tom was still talking about the need to adjust her ideas. ‘You’re holding on to a fantasy,’ he told her.

‘So I’ve been told,’ said Imogen with a slight edge. ‘Amanda thinks I ought to compromise, and go out with men who aren’t absolutely perfect, but I don’t want to do that. I’ve been in love. OK, it didn’t work out, but I’m not prepared to settle for anything less.’

‘You’re just setting yourself up for disappointment,’ he warned, and she put up her chin.

‘Well, we’ll have to agree to disagree, won’t we? It’s just as well we’re not thinking of getting married, isn’t it?’

There was a tiny pause. In spite of himself, Tom’s mind flickered to Imogen’s warm, smooth body, to the feel of her hug and the laughter in her eyes. It might be nice to go home to that every night.

But that would mean feeling unsettled the whole time. Imogen would want him to love her and make her feel like a bloody dolphin! Tom recoiled from the very thought. His whole life would slip out of control in no time. No, he couldn’t cope with that at all.

‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘Just as well.’

That first day set the pattern for the week. Walking round the island at the end of the afternoon became part of their routine. Imogen never got tired of the reef and was eager to get out there every morning. For the first couple of days, she sat down at her computer when they got back, but in the end Tom told her gruffly that there was little point in her being there and that she could do as she pleased.

Imogen didn’t put up much of a protest, it had to be said. It was impossible to concentrate, anyway, and she hoped that eventually Tom would get the idea of not working as well and learn to relax instead.

Not that there was much sign of that yet. Imogen had no idea what he was doing, but he seemed to spend hours at his laptop while she was on the beach. It was a shame that he was such a workaholic, she thought. He wasn’t having much of a holiday and, when they did spend time together, they were getting on surprisingly well. Sometimes he would bring her a drink, or join her for a swim, but he never stayed for long and always made an excuse to get back to his computer.