Unknown by Unknown Read Free Book Online

you are here to be married? I am hoping that to be the case. Maybe you have forgotten.'
    I'd thought about it. Apart from everything, I should be preparing for tomorrow at the health clinic —not dancing the night away here, like some tourist.’ Suddenly she realised the stupidity of all this and was a little annoyed, but she tried not to let him see this. She did not want him to know that he had succeeded in ruffling her.
    ‘If you find yourself thinking about these things,' he held her closer, ‘it could be that you find yourself attracted to me?’
    ‘We are being frivolous,' she said, ‘at somebody’s expense.’
    'You mean—Marlow Lewis?’ His voice was hard.
    ‘You know I mean Marlow Lewis. The music has stopped,’ she added, when he continued to hold her close. ‘I must thank you. You saved me from eating by myself.’
    'Nicole, of course, did not ask you to dine at her house.’ He made it sound as if he knew why.
    ‘I didn't expect her to,’ she replied quickly, trying to hide the fact that she had, in fact, expected something like this and was disappointed in Nicole de Speville.
    ‘No?’
    ‘No.'
    ‘I’ll see you to your door,’ he told her, and escorted her there. The staircase and corridor which led to it were also open to the sea breezes and island scents.
    Plants with huge green leaves growing in white urns cast black shadows on the white walls.
    When he took her into his arms he said, very softly, ‘I am feeling my way with you. That, of course, must be obvious to you.'
    His breathing felt tight. ‘It is,’ she said, ‘very obvious, and I can tell you right now, this is a mistake with you.’
    ‘I don’t think so.’ Placing his fingers beneath her chin, he raised her lips to his own. Moving her head slightly, Jade said, ‘I promised myself a long time ago, Laurent, not to allow any man to feel his way with me. I should imagine you must have a very bad reputation on this island.'
    Laughing a little, but sounding irritated, nevertheless, he said, ‘A very bad reputation with women, you mean?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘I’m too smart for that,’ he told her. When he kissed her she went weak for a moment and then her body was seized by excitement. ‘Goodnight,' he said, releasing her, and, humiliated, Jade watched him go.
     

CHAPTER THREE
    Birds came to perch on the railing of her balcony in the morning and then, seeking food, hopped down on the glass topped table. The setting was perfect ... the sun, the coral reef, lush foliage and the exciting promise of sheer contentment.
    Wearing only a bronze silk pyjama jacket and bikini pants, Jade went to stand there. Her legs were tanned and beautiful and her dark hair seemed streaked with golden lights.
    To one side of the hotel and forming a part of it was the glass-fronted health clinic ... a self-contained haven of tranquillity with its own private terrace.
    Inside her room the radio was playing, for she had turned it on before coming out on to the balcony, and it seemed both romantic and fitting that the tune being played was The Way We Were, reminding her of the flight and of Laurent Sevigny.
    ‘The staff ratio is high,' Nicole de Speville’s secretary had written to Jade. ‘We have on our staff dieticians, two nursing Sisters, several electrologists and trained physio-technologists and two beauticians. At the moment, however, we have only one beautician and eagerly await your arrival. There is also a unisex hairdressing salon, a masseur and doctor of chiropractics and osteopathy. Comtesse de Speville’s brother, Yves Mazery, is in charge of the men's section.'
    Jade decided to have a quick swim before showering and eating breakfast and, going back into the air-conditioned room, she slipped into a maillot, which was supposed to be replacing the bikini and which was a far cry from the Annette Kellerman one-piece introduced in 1900. Later she left the pool, glistening bronze in the drying sun, and ate a breakfast of tropical fruit at a