Chapter 3.4

"What's the matter?" Selena asked.

"I thought I heard someone breathing in the shadows." He turned back to her. "You'd better go back to your room. If you don't want Professor Hunt to know we've met before, the less we're seen alone together the better, and now we've had this talk, we can go on pretending we've never met until this morning. It shouldn't be too difficult. Do you agree?"

"I agree, we should continue to pretend we've never met before," she said stiffly, keeping to herself the observation that she was going to find it difficult even if he didn't. "I suppose you've left your yacht in St. Thomas?"

"Yes, at the marina there."

"And your wife? Did you leave her on board the yacht?" She tried to ask the question casually, but even to her en ears, her voice sounded rather sharp.

He turned to face her fully and moonlit shone on he features, lighting them up for the first time, showing her that he was both surprised and puzzled by her question.

"What's this?" He queried, the left corner of his lips quirking in amusement. "What wife? I don't have a wife. I'm not married and never have been. Strictly single, that's me. Have you forgotten?"

She remembered a leggy young woman with blonde hair and a clear voice ringing out: Now we can be married. Now we can set the date.

"But I thought—" she began and broke off. He didn't know she had seen him being greeted by Sora.

"What did you think?" he asked softly, tilting his head forward, peering at her face as if trying to see the expression on it. She could smell the scents of his tanned skin, head the steady muted throb of his heart. She longed suddenly to touch him, to slide her hands inside his shirt-opening, to feel the smoothness of his skin. She stepped back quickly before temptation overwhelmed her.

"Oh, I just thought that you might have a wife now you're a respectable businessman," she said lightly. "A wife and children."

"I'm no more respectable now than I have ever been," he retorted with a laugh at his own expense. "And I don't have a wife. But I guess what you're really trying to find out is if there have been any women in my life since you left. Well, there have been a couple but..."

"No. That isn't what I wanted to know, she interrupted him. "I'm not interested in our love life. I just want to make sure you won't tell Ben or Heather that you and I used to know each other."

"And I've already said I won't," he retorted, as sharp as she had been. "But I can't promise your professor will never know about our flash-in-the-pan affair. All I can promise is that he'll never hear about it from me. Good night."

He left her abruptly, to walk swiftly in the direction of the jetty and Selena turned on to the pathway that lead up to the building where her bedroom was located. She hadn't gone very far when a figure stepped out of the trees.