Page 16 of Modern Romance September 2025 1-4
Immediately, Bunny was listening. ‘Who was she?’
‘Ariana, the kid sister of one of my best friends. She travelled here with her brother and me. I was eighteen. She was a year younger. There was nothing between us and never had been. Her brother thought it was funny…just a silly infatuation, but he insisted that I had to be frank with her and tell her that I wasn’t interested. I did and she took an overdose and almost died.’
Bunny flinched, clear green eyes flying to his in dismay and sympathy. ‘Oh, no…’
‘When Ariana recovered, she was depressed and her family put her in a clinical support unit because they were afraid she would try again. I felt responsible even though I hadn’t encouraged her. I may not remember the last few years but I’m always careful to set that one rule if I see the same woman more than once. If you should ever feel that you can’t live without me, walk away fast,’ he breathed in a raw undertone. ‘Because I’m a born and bred loner, Bunny. I don’t do the couple thing. ‘
‘Okay.’ Bunny wasn’t sure what she wanted. After Tristram, she had decided that it would be a long time until she got seriously involved with anyone again, had dimly pictured enjoying light, fun relationships.
But fate had instead thrown up Sebastian. The force of his personality could be overwhelming.
‘I’m on fire for you.’
The very concept of being desired to that extent by Sebastian sent a naked flame racing through her bloodstream. But, just like him, she didn’t want any big discussions or complications. There wasn’t a nice, neat label for the attraction between them. Lust? She winced but maybe it was only that, yet so many other feelings surged in her in Sebastian’s radius. He was so wary, so damaged, she sensed, and she wouldn’t have been human had she not wanted to know why. It wasn’t solely his experience with an unhappy girl who had fixated on him while he was still a boy, she reckoned.
‘Fancy a swim?’ she prompted abruptly.
Her suggestion broke the tension. On the beach, Sebastian stripped off everything and laughed when she got into the water in the shirt and the material ballooned up around her. ‘Want to borrow my boxers?’ he teased.
And she agonised over what she truly wanted because she wanted him, didn’t even need to think about it. Did that mean that she was already too keen? Was she asking for trouble when she already knew he was going to walk away? Or was she worrying about tomorrow whentodaywas really all she should be concentrating on? A short-term future only, she decided. If she wanted him to back off, he would, but was that what she wanted? She didn’t think so.
She watched him in the water, lithe as an otter, unexpectedly graceful for all his size. Backed by lush vegetation, the sunlit beach was sublime. In the distance a slender column of black smoke swirled up from the little bonfire. It hadn’t attracted anyone’s attention yet, she noted, nor had their painstakingly made SOS messages on the beach.
‘You didn’t finish the story. What happened to Ariana afterwards?’ she asked.
‘I haven’t remembered that far back yet, but she did have another episode at university and she dropped out.’
Bunny grimaced as she leant back against the wooden pier. ‘Why do you take on that guilt? You didn’t cause her problems. I would assume she was troubled beforehand even if her family didn’t realise that and families often don’t. If it hadn’t been you who became her focus, it would’ve been some other boy. It wasn’t your fault.’
‘It felt like it,’ Sebastian countered grimly.
Bunny changed the subject. ‘How much wood is there left to keep that bonfire going?’
‘I’m reluctant to start felling trees,’ he admitted. ‘I don’t want to do irreparable damage here. I’ve already combed through most of the undergrowth and removed logs. A nature lover like the owner of that house wouldn’t like trees being felled.’
‘When will you use the flares?’
‘In a few days. I’m hoping we’ll hear search planes. We’ve got to allow that time for a search to begin.’
He settled upright just in front of her and braced his big hands on the pier either side of her. Spectacular dark eyes gazed down into hers.
‘You’re remembering stuff,’ she murmured. ‘You’re different.’
‘How different?’
‘More impatient, bossier…bouncing off the walls with surplus energy,’ she muttered with rueful amusement.
‘I don’t like being in situations I can’t control.’
‘This experience could teach you patience.’
Disconcerting her, Sebastian turned away. ‘I’ll swim for a while, work off that energy.’
Her brow indented and then she dropped back into the water and swam back to shore.
What the hell was he doing with her? Sebastian was asking himself. She wasn’t up to his weight. She wasn’t fragile or lacking in confidence like Ariana though. She was her own woman and she didn’t trust him. And why should she? Practising withdrawal as a means of contraception?Really?He knew how unreliable that was. What had possessed him? And why was he so drawn to her? He needed to give her some space and work out what was happening to him before it all blew up in his face. He wasn’t himself, particularly with her. He felt that down to his very bones and the feeling unnerved him. Yet he still couldn’t make himself step back from her.
Bunny went back to the house and, to keep occupied, changed the bed. The linen cupboard was full, as if waiting for a full house of guests, and yet there was only that one bed. She missed books. The few books on shelves were of the ornithology variety, not very tempting to someone like her who liked fiction and history. She located the cushions for the outside furniture in a cupboard and grabbed one to sit and survey the tiny view of the beach, which was mostly screened by trees that needed to be cut back. Eventually she dozed off, reflecting that she already missed Sebastian and that there was no way she was going to stop whatever they had started up. Life was simply too short to be that cautious of something or someone new.
