He made a beautiful gesture with his hands. ‘It is done,’ he said simply and stepped back. ‘You are bound together, and now you are one.’

‘What have we done?’

All smiles, Ali had escorted them back to the dhoni, where Imogen had been greeted with a garland made of frangipani flowers. The heady fragrance was making her feel slightly sick as she and Tom were left alone in the prow at last. Or perhaps it was the way her senses were still spinning from the realisation of how much she loved him?

How much, and how hopelessly.

Now, as the sails unfurled and the boat dipped gently into the swell, Imogen held onto the rail, afraid that her trembling legs wouldn’t hold her up any longer.

‘We haven’t done anything,’ said Tom, unfastening the twine around their wrists. He hesitated, just for a moment, and then dropped it into the sea. ‘It was a ritual,’ he said. ‘It didn’t mean anything.’

Imogen watched the loop disappear and wanted to cry. It hadn’t felt meaningless. ‘We made promises,’ she said with difficulty.

Tom looked away. She was right. And wasn’t he the one who prided himself on always keeping his promises?

It had been the strangest of experiences, standing in that circle with Imogen. He had been feeling exasperated at the whole muddle, Tom remembered, but the moment he’d taken her hands and looked into those blue, blue eyes an inexplicable sense of relief had swept over him, as if, without knowing quite how it had happened, he’d found himself at exactly the right place at exactly the right time, doing just what he’d needed to do.

And then he had kissed her, and her sweetness had made him reel. The taste of her, the feel of her, the softness of her lips and the silkiness of her hair around his hands was still thrumming through him, beating insistently along his veins and making him feel…what? Edgy? Apprehensive? Excited?

Surely not.

‘It wasn’t real,’ he said, wishing he didn’t sound so much as if he were trying to convince himself. ‘We’re not really married.’

They couldn’t be married. Neither of them wanted to be married. It was ridiculous to think anything had happened on that sandbar.

‘No, of course not.’ Imogen mustered a smile. ‘I can hardly believe it actually happened, to tell you the truth. It was like a dream.’

‘This whole week has been like a dream,’ said Tom, coming to join her at the rail. ‘It’s as if we’re in a kind of bubble with no connection to life at home.’

She nodded. ‘Yes, that’s exactly what it feels like.’ She managed another smile, a better one this time. ‘It’s going to be a shock to wake up when we go home!’

‘We don’t have to wake up just yet.’ Succumbing to temptation, Tom took Imogen’s hands and turned her gently to face him. ‘We could keep the dream going a little bit longer.’

His fingers were warm and persuasive around hers, and Imogen felt dizzy at his nearness again. ‘The dream?’ she croaked.

‘That we’re here because we want to be together,’ he said. ‘We both know it’s not true, and that it couldn’t last even if it were. As soon as we get back to London, everything will be different. The dream will be over. We won’t be able to get it back, and we won’t want to.’

Was he making any sense? Tom wondered. He wasn’t sure if he understood himself what he was trying to say to Imogen, and part of him was already wondering if he was making the most terrible mistake. But another, stronger part was urging him on.

‘We’re not the same people here that we are in London,’ he said. ‘We want different things at home but here…maybe here we want the same. I know what I want. I want to kiss you again. I want to touch you again. I don’t want to spend another night on that damned couch thinking about you alone in the bed and wishing that I could be with you.’

Imogen was looking pole-axed, the blue eyes wide with astonishment. She opened her mouth to speak, but Tom was afraid to hear what she was going to say and he rushed on before she could start.

‘I know you’re still hung up on Andrew. I know you’re hanging out for something perfect that I can’t give you, but I was just thinking that while we’re here, maybe it could be perfect. We both know this isn’t real, but we’ve still got two weeks. Why not make the most of it?’

‘You mean as if this really was a honeymoon?’ Imogen found her voice at last. ‘As if we meant those vows we’ve just taken?’

‘Yes,’ said Tom. ‘We’re not talking about forever,’ he added quickly. ‘As soon as we get back to London, we can forget about this time. We can pretend it never happened. But for now…now there’s just the two of us, and we can…we can love each other, just like we’ve just promised.’ He paused, looking down into her face, trying not to show how desperate he was for her to agree. ‘What do you think?’

Imogen’s fingers twined around Tom’s. It couldn’t last, he had said. We’re not talking about forever. She was going to hurt when it was over, when she had to go back to being his PA and greeting him coolly every morning.

But she was going to hurt anyway, Imogen realised. That was what happened when you fell in love with a man like Tom.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. She had wanted the perfect relationship. She wasn’t supposed to fall in love with a man who didn’t do love, who would give her two weeks and no longer.

But she had done it anyway, and wasn’t two weeks better than nothing? At least when they said goodbye, as they would in two weeks’ time, she would have some memories to treasure. That would be all she would have, Imogen knew. There was no point in hoping that the dream would last.

Find joy in each other, the celebrant had told them. She could choose that, or she could choose to be sensible.

Imogen chose joy. It would be temporary, like everything else she did, but it would still be joy.

And how else was she to resist him for the next two weeks?

Smiling, she tugged her hands from Tom’s to rest them flat against his chest and looked up at him. ‘I think it’s a very good idea,’ she said.

Tom stared at her for a moment, as if hardly daring to believe what she had said, and then his eyes blazed and an answering smile illuminated his face. Sweeping her into his arms, he kissed her fiercely, hungrily, and Imogen melted into him, warm and willing, her fingers clutching at his shirt to stop herself from dissolving with sheer pleasure as the heat washed through her.

Giddy with the glorious relief of being able to kiss each other, touch each other, the way they had wanted to all week, they sank down onto the cushions under the darkening sky, crushing the frangipani garland between them. The fragrance of the creamy yellow flowers enveloped them, while the boat rose and fell, and there was only the shush of water against the hull, the creak of wood and the occasional flap of the sail.

The crew talked quietly at the back, giving Tom and Imogen complete privacy, but they were aware only of each other in any case. Tom’s body was hard and heavy as he pressed her into the soft cushions, his hands sliding possessively under the yellow dress.

Imogen wrapped her arms around him and forgot everything else. She was sinking under a tide of heat. Every now and then she would surface, gasping, almost frightened by the need to touch him everywhere, feel him everywhere, and a tiny part of her would wonder if she was making a terrible mistake. But how could it be a mistake when his lips felt this good, when his mouth was this exciting, when his hands were moving over her, tracing wicked patterns of desire, and she was unravelling with the need for more, more, more…?

The stars were out above Coconut Island when they made their way back along the little jetty. Afterwards, Imogen could never remember exactly how they had got there. Ali must have taken them in the dinghy, she supposed, but all she remembered was the feel of the smooth bleached wood beneath her bare feet and the gentle slap of water against the posts. She was preternaturally aware of everything: of the silky dress whispering against her legs, of Tom’s warm grip on her hand, of her mouth still tingling, her body still thumping with desire.

It all looked so familiar, she thought as they climbed the veranda steps. It all looked exactly the same when it should be different. Everything had changed since they had walked down these same steps to see Ali waiting for them at the end of the jetty.

Then they had been boss and PA; now they were husband and wife.

CHAPTER NINE

EXCEPT that they weren’t, not really. Imogen’s steps faltered at the sudden moment of clarity.

Tom was behind her, nuzzling her neck as he guided her through the door and pushed her back against it so that he could kiss her again, his hands hard and urgent. ‘What is it?’

‘You…you don’t think we’ll regret this?’ she asked unsteadily, trying to hang on to the last shreds of rationality but it was hard when the feel of his lips on her bare shoulder was enough to make her inhale sharply.

‘We’re going to have to go back to working together,’ she reminded him with difficulty as he started kissing his way down her throat. ‘How are we going to do that if we…?’

‘How are we going to spend the next two weeks if we don’t…?’ countered Tom, smiling wickedly against her skin. His fingers had found the zip of her dress and were easing it down. ‘Let’s just forget work for now.’

Imogen shivered at the sureness of his touch. She had a hazy idea that it wasn’t going to be as easy as he made out, but she couldn’t think, not with his hands sliding over her, not with his mouth devastating the last of her defences, not with the heat pooling deep inside her. It spilt feverishly along her veins until she stopped trying to think at all and gave herself up to the deep, dark spool of desire, to the feel of his mouth and his hands and his lean, hard body.