Save the Last Dance. Fiona Harper

After a couple of minutes of walking, Finn stopped suddenly, eyed up a thick-trunked palm and then began hacking it to bits with his machete. Allegra quelled a shiver. There was something about a man pitting himself against nature that made a girl feel all…wobbly. When he was almost all of the way through, he pushed the trunk over and gouged a well in the stump, which instantly began to fill with clear liquid.

       ‘Here…’ he said, gesturing to it. ‘If you’re thirsty you can drink this.’

       Allegra held back her ponytail and bent to sip from the shallow pool. The liquid tasted like water, clean and clear, with a hint of sweetness. When she’d downed as much as she could, she stood back and let Finn take a turn.

       She watched him, knowing she should quench the little puddle of warmth that had begun to collect in her stomach at his thoughtful action, but she didn’t have the heart.

       I know he’s not mine, she silently told whoever was listening. I know when this week is up we’ll probably never see each other again, but let me have this. Let me have the crumbs I can have before I go back and face the mess I’ve made of my life.

       Foolish girl, the ferns around her seemed to whisper. Don’t unlock this gate. Don’t cross this threshold.

       Too late.

       It was much too late for such warnings. She’d crossed into that forbidden territory when she’d started to realise Finn McLeod was so much more than a two-dimensional fantasy. She’d instantly lost herself in that new place when she’d seen that the flesh and blood man was so much more than pixels of light on a TV screen.

       The territory of teenage crush was rapidly being left behind, and Allegra had no idea where she was heading now—only that it was new and frightening and exhilarating all at the same time, and that she had no choice but to follow him, because finally she felt alive.

       ‘Better now?’

       Finn had finished, and his voice beside her ear roused her from her fanciful ramblings. She shut the door on them, not wanting to probe too deeply into what was happening to her, anyway. All she wanted to do was enjoy one week with Finn McLeod. Surely that wasn’t too much to ask?

       Or was that just wishful thinking, that same disease that had plagued the character she’d brought to life on stage less than a week ago? Mermaid thinking. And that girl hadn’t really known when to give up and let go of the dream, had she? She’d let her hopeless desire for the wrong guy rob her of her very life.

       ‘Much better,’ she said, ignoring that thought. ‘How long until we reach our camp?’

       Finn scrunched up his face and peered into the never-ending greenness in front of them. While he was working it out, her empty stomach decided to voice its displeasure with a loud and rather unladylike growl.

       ‘About an hour,’ he said, turning back to her. And then he smiled. ‘Why don’t we see if we can find some food along the way?’