An Indecent Proposition. Carol Marinelli

but he did not show it.

      ‘On a flight?’

      Charlotte nodded. ‘I recognised him back at the hotel I was booked into—he was having trouble being understood.

      We were in Japan and, unusually for that hotel, the staff member he was dealing with spoke very poor English, so I stepped in.’

      ‘You speak Japanese?’

      She held her finger and thumb a tiny space a part. ‘A little. And my mother’s French, so I can get by there too. Oh, and I can speak a little … Mía glóssa then íne poté arketí.’ He smiled as she told him in his own language that one language was never enough. ‘I love learning languages, it’s my hobby. I’m studying now … Anyway, Nico was having trouble changing his flight …’ And Zander had to force himself to remember that it was Nico he was trying to find out about, for instead he wanted to know more about her. He wanted to know about her life before Nico and her love of languages, and it wasn’t a ploy when he interrupted her to ask.

      ‘What are you studying now?’

      ‘Russian.’ Charlotte rolled her eyes. ‘Well, when I say studying, it’s just on the Internet and I make myself watch the Russian news … Where was I?’ she asked, and he blinked, because he was having trouble remembering where he was. He was forgetting the very reason that he was here. ‘I helped Nico to sort out his flight and his follow-on accommodation and he said that he needed someone part time …’ She gave a tight shrug. ‘I was in no position to accept his offer, of course, I spent half my life 40,000 feet in the air, but we kept in touch and now and then I’d arrange him a flight or book a hotel. But when his PA resigned I’d just left the airline …’ Nothing in her voice revealed the regret in her decision, she just paused for half a second before continuing. ‘It sort of grew from there.’

      And something was growing here too—how, she did not know, for her guard was up and she was determined to be businesslike, but there was something about his company that engaged her, something about the hand that reached out for her as she stepped over a rock pool that steadied her stance, just not her heart.

      ‘I ought to get back.’ Charlotte reclaimed the hand that was warmed by his brief touch. ‘I have to make a phone call. To my mum,’ she added, because, though it didn’t quite fit with her polished party-girl image, she didn’t want him to think she was racing back to tell Nico. ‘You can use mine.’ He pulled out a slim phone from his pocket and she was about to decline, to head back to the safety of her suite, to work out what on earth she should do, but the sky was so gold and her hand was still warm from his touch, and for reasons better left unexamined she did not want their walk to end.

      ‘It’s international …’ Her voice petered out along with her excuses, because the cost of a phone call would hardly be a problem to him. ‘Thank you.’

      Politely he walked on ahead and took a seat on a rock by the water’s edge as she spent a moment locating the number and being put through.

      It was heartbreaking. The confusion in her mother’s voice, the pleading with Charlotte to come and save her, to bring her home, had Charlotte biting back tears as a nurse came onto the phone.

      ‘It might be better if you don’t talk to her just before bedtime,’ the nurse gently suggested. ‘It unsettles her for a couple of hours after she speaks with you.’

      ‘So it’s better that she thinks I’ve forgotten her?’ Charlotte retorted, and then apologised. “I’m sorry to snap, I just …’

      ‘It’s so hard on you.’ The nurse was incredibly kind. ‘If she was here permanently it would be different, but she’s only with us for a few days and the change of surroundings is so unsettling, it just disorientates her all the more when you call. Why don’t you ring and speak with the staff to find out how she is?’

      It took a moment after hanging up to compose herself enough to join Zander, but he must have seen the glimmer of tears in her eyes because after a moment he spoke.

      ‘You’re close to your mum?’

      ‘I don’t know,’ Charlotte admitted, though she had never done so before, her head still spinning from the emotion of speaking with her mother. ‘I don’t know if we’re close or just bound …’ She took a deep breath. This was not the professional conversation she was supposed to be having with him, but surely she wasn’t being indiscreet in speaking about herself. Surely it was safer than speaking about Nico. And on this particular evening, knowing her mother was scared and in tears and that there was nothing she could do about it, it was easy to talk. Not that she would reveal her mother’s illness to him, for she had been badly burned doing so in the past—the look of horror on her boyfriend’s face when she had invited him in one night and he had witnessed the chaos that was her life, and another fledgling relationship that had ended before it had really begun when she had told him of her plight. Charlotte had long since learned where to stay quiet.

      ‘She had me when she was older …’ Charlotte said a couple of moments later, soothed by the company and the view, her ankles dangling in the water. The sky was a glorious riot of orange. She had front row seats to a show she loved, but this was surely the best one ever, the colours so vivid, the ocean so majestic. ‘I think at first she wanted my dad to leave his wife …’ She hadn’t really told anyone this, but it was so good to talk and have someone answer. Too used to her own thoughts, it was so nice to finally share a part of herself, though she chose not to tell Zander everything, chose not to reveal all of her plight. ‘She was my father’s mistress. He was from London, which was why she moved there. I think she thought if she had a baby that he’d …’ Charlotte gave a shrug. ‘Well, it didn’t work—he wanted a mistress, not a mother. He didn’t leave his wife, didn’t come and see us.’ She gave a wry smile, for her mother had never let her forget just how much she had given up for her child. ‘I always thought he’d come and live with us one day.’

      ‘Did your mum?’

      ‘Not in the end. By the time I was at school she’d long since given up.’ Charlotte shook her head. ‘She just got more bitter. I always dreamt he’d come and find us. She said that I lived with my head in the clouds …’

      ‘Clearly you were intended to,’ Zander said. ‘Forty thousand feet up in them.’ And she smiled, because he had listened, really listened, and then the smile on her face faded, because she was looking at him and he was looking at her, and it was more than talking and sharing. There was more, and in that moment she knew it but forced herself to deny it, changed the conversation, for they could not sit staring endlessly, and if they did, for even a moment longer, he would kiss her. He would kiss lips that were waiting, would be accepting, but he did not move.

      ‘What about you?’ Her voice did not break the spell.

      ‘I live with my feet on the ground,’ Zander said.

      ‘Your parents,’ she asked. ‘Do you still see your mother?’ There was so much she wanted to know, so much Nico was desperate to find out, but, sitting there, it was not Nico she was asking Zander the questions for but herself. She wanted to know him, but it was her question that broke the moment, her words that ended the kiss that never was.

      ‘I live in Australia,’ he said, which wasn’t really an answer. He turned away from her and looked out to sea, changed the subject along with the mood. ‘The sunsets are spectacular here,’ he said, because they were. Whatever he felt about Xanos, that much was at least true.

      ‘The sun doesn’t set,’ she said. He turned again to look at her, but she did not return his gaze, just stared out into the distance. ‘It’s just an illusion. We’re the ones moving.’ Now she did turn, saw him frown and she smiled. ‘It messed with my head a bit when I read it, but it’s obvious really—given that the sun never moves.’

      He looked back at the ocean, to another truth that was a lie, to a different way of thinking, and it messed with his head too.

      ‘But, yes,’ Charlotte said, ‘it’s very beautiful.’