Bedded for Pleasure, Purchased for Pregnancy. Carol Marinelli

met the one.

      Picking up a stone, Zarios skimmed it out to the water.

      The one!

      ‘Hah!’ He shouted out the word as he skimmed another stone.

      There was no such thing as the one! He picked up a handful, skimming them angrily now. Take Emma, for example. Had his father not warned him about her problem with money? Had he not seen it with his own eyes and heard it directly from Jake?

      Well, she might have had him convinced for a while, but not for long, Zarios thought savagely. Never for long. Over and over he was proved right: women wanted only one thing—well, two if he was being accurate. And the second he was happy to provide for free!

      He refused to be as blind as his father—a man who still loved the woman who had shamed him, who had walked out on her husband and child without a backward glance.

      A woman who wanted to creep her way back now that his father was ill and about to retire… Well, she’d have to get past Zarios first. From his shorts he pulled out a letter, read again the needy words he had intercepted, then wrapped it in a stone and tossed it out to the ocean.

      She was too late!

      Thirty years too late. And if his father couldn’t see that, then he was a fool.

      For a moment he thought he was seeing things. Squinting out into the grey pre-dawn ocean, he saw a flash of something white. His heart stilled in his mouth as he saw it was a hand, and realised with dread that someone out there was in trouble.

      His first instinct was to dive in, but Zarios fought it. The person was a long way out, and a clear head was what was needed here. Behind him was the lifeguard’s shed, but he found it was locked. Soon he knew the first surfers would be coming, but for now it was down to him alone.

      He was running before his plan had actually formulated in his mind. Already he was acting on it, running the length of the beach, scanning the slippery low rocks ahead, while whipping his head around every few seconds to the water, making sure he didn’t lose sight of the swimmer.

      The panic that had gripped him when he had realised it was a person out there in trouble had abated now. Zarios was running on pure adrenaline, focussing just as he did at work, only on the task in hand and not upon the stakes. It was a formula that had served him well.

      Don’t slip.

      He told himself that as he reached the rocks. Just get to the mid-section.

      She was still treading water.

      She.

      He pushed that thought aside as he navigated the sludge and seaweed, dragging in two large lungfuls of air as he calculated the distance and realised he was as close on land as he could get. Aware of the rocks, he lowered himself rather than dived in, kicking off with a powerful front crawl, looking up every now and then, keeping his eye on his target, feeling the power of the water beneath the relatively calm surface as he neared her.

      Just like that she was gone.

      A glimmer of fear crept in then—a first glimpse that he was too late. A frantic, urgent second of negotiation cluttered his mind. If he’d just run faster, swum quicker…if he dived under now… And then she resurfaced, blue eyes frantic, mouth open, arms flailing. For the first time in his life Zarios tasted pure, unadulterated fear. It seized him as if someone had touched his insides: this fury, this panic at what had nearly been lost.

      What still could be lost.

      He grabbed her, pulled her into the crook of his arm and lay on his back. Then with every ounce of strength he could muster he kicked and propelled his body back towards the rocks, swimming across the rip. Someone must have been really looking out for her, because just when his body was tiring a surfer, who must have seen the action from the beach, was there, helping her onto his board. The two men worked in silent unison to bring her to the shore, where she knelt in the shallows, coughing and retching and just so very, very lucky.

      ‘Stupido!’ He was beyond furious. Between dragging in lungfuls of air and coughing out half the ocean, still he managed to loudly point out first in rapid Italian and then in English what a fool she had been. Whatever language he spoke, the message was blatantly clear. ‘Voi idiota stupido! Swimming alone…’

      Emma was kneeling in damp sand, coughing, shivering, too terrified to be grateful—too shaken to yet relish being alive. Instead of filling her hungry lungs she could only manage tiny shallow breaths. The panic that had gripped her in the ocean was nothing compared to her realisation of the fragility of existence. Of the thoughtless action that had nearly cost her life.

      ‘Okay, mate…’ Surfer boy must have seen it all before, because, though breathless himself, he was incredibly calm. ‘She knows she made a mistake. You did the right thing, letting the rip carry you,’ the boy reassured her as Zarios stood there silently fuming. ‘You can’t swim against it.’

      Her breathing was slowing down now, delicious oxygen creeping into every exhausted cell. Each and every breath was like a refreshing glass of lemonade, and she relished each one.

      A little posse had formed—mainly lean, bronzed surfer-types, and an elderly woman who was walking her dog, all standing around her as she shivered in her bra and panties and in her own misery. A blanket was produced from the surf shed, and Emma was grateful for its heavy, musty warmth as it was wrapped around her shoulders.

      ‘Did you take in a lot of water?’ the surfer asked.

      ‘No! I was just tiring. I’m fine now…’

      ‘Maybe we should get you looked at?’

      Emma shook her head. ‘I just want to go home.’

      She remembered to thank him, although Zarios actually remembered first, shaking his hand and then wrapping an arm around Emma’s shoulders before leading her up the stony path to her parents’ house. He even smiled and thanked the elderly lady when she rushed up, having retrieved Emma’s clothes.

      ‘Don’t tell Mum…’ Her teeth were chattering so violently she could hardly get the words out. ‘I don’t want to ruin the weekend.’

      ‘You nearly took care of that…’ He stopped himself from ramming home the inevitable point. ‘Let’s just hope they’re not up yet…’ His voice faded again.

      Despite the early hour the marquee was already being taken down. Lydia was trilling her orders, anxious to get the place in shape before the champagne breakfast.

      ‘What about in here…?’ He pushed open the doors of the summerhouse, a pretty white room where her mother read and her father escaped. Leading her to a daybed, he sat her down, then set about locating a towel, taking the musty blanket from her shoulders and wrapping her in its soft warmth. ‘We’ll get you dry, and then you can get dressed and back to the house…she won’t know.’

      ‘You won’t tell her?’

      ‘On one condition.’ He gripped her upper arms, his face stern and serious. ‘You have to promise me that you will never do anything like that again.’

      ‘I won’t.’

      ‘Christo, Emma…’ His eyes burnt into hers, anger creeping back in. ‘What possessed you?’ He was drenched, his black hair almost blue, droplets of water still on his wide shoulders.