Trade (12 page)

Chapter Thirteen

They slept late. Sholto woke with his arm curled around Max,
spooning her in a way he’d never done with anyone else before. He carefully
eased away, and stepped out into the sunlight.

Last night had been incredible.
After their first, frantic coupling, they’d spent hours exploring each other’s
bodies. She loved it when he took her from behind, both of them on their knees
as he slid in and out of her fast and hard. He loved her on top, riding him to
orgasm with bouncing breasts, her face half hidden by her long blonde hair.

He ran a hand over his hardening
cock. It wouldn’t be fair to wake her. They’d had very little sleep, and she
would be sore this morning…

With regret, he dressed and
slipped on his shoes. He snacked on a banana and drank his fill of water.
Supplies were running low so he picked up the water bottles and the parang, and
set off to the stream.

Forcing thoughts of Max away, he
considered work. He was as prepared as he could be for the audition. There was
only one logical passage to present: the scene where John Weatherly had broken
down completely. He’d ranted at the sky, spoken to himself. It was a
challenging scene for any actor—he’d been arrogant to presume he could just
walk right out there and deliver the goods.

And for the first time, he
acknowledged that Jasper had been right not to screen test him on the basis of
his previous work. But being on the island had changed him. Shedding his mask,
connecting with the painful memories of the past, and denying himself food and
water had lowered his defenses. Allowed him to access a part of himself he kept
tightly locked down.

At the stream now, he walked fully
dressed into the clear water, submerging his entire body and head under the
surface. God, what he’d give for a bottle of shampoo and a hot shower. But he’d
have to wait. Max had cleverly organized the audition to take place at his
hotel the moment they returned from Melati. He wouldn’t wash, shave or change
his clothing until after he’d read for Jasper Watson and the casting director.

After that? For the past week he
hadn’t allowed himself to think further than the audition. But there were other
concerns he’d have to address, sooner or later. And after nine days of radio
silence, he was pretty sure Larry would be desperate to reconnect.

He slicked water off his hair and
beard. Being incommunicado was wonderful, but too soon he’d be hooked back into
the matrix, bombarded by telephone, text, and email. As would Max—they’d talked
a little about her business last night, in the hours when they weren’t having
sex. Dovetailing their lives would be difficult, but necessary, because there
was no way he was ready to let her go.

He filled the bottles, and picked
up the machete. Breadfruit. Then checking the lobster pot.
Another hard day’s
work in paradise.

Halfway back to her, an alien
sound cut through the silence. A raw alien sound, but instantly recognizable.
An airhorn. Sholto broke into a run.

She was outside the tent when he
reached her, struggling into her clothes. “It must be the boat.” Her brow
furrowed. “We haven’t lost track of time, have we? It’s not nine days already…”

“No.” He grabbed her hand and when
the sound blared through the air again, they ran to to the spot where they’d
landed on Melati.

The small white speedboat bobbed
in the waves.

Adam stood on the beach, the
airhorn in his hand. A wide smile spread over his face the moment he saw them.

“Adam?” Max took the lead. “You’re
early.”

He nodded. “I’m sorry to cut short
your stay on the island, Miss Max, but we received an urgent message for you.”
He pulled a piece of paper from his back pocket and handed it over. “From your
office.”

Max read. Her face paled.

“What is it?”

“It’s from my assistant.” There
was a barely discernable shake in her hands. “My father had a heart attack. I have
to leave.”

“Help me pack up everything, Adam.”
Sholto slung an arm around Max’s shoulders, and directed his attention to the
other man. “What arrangements have been made?”

“I was told to get Miss Max back
to the mainland. Her assistant has organized tickets on the next flight out,
which will go in three hours.”

They made it back to camp in
moments. Sholto directed Adam down the beach to his camp with instructions to
gather his belongings while they shoved Max’s things into a bag. “It’ll be
okay, baby. We’ll be there soon.”

She rolled her lips together. Her
movements were shaky, as though she was in shock, but she kept it together. “You
can’t come with me.”

“What?” He grabbed her shoulders
and rotated her around to face him. “What are you talking about? Of course I’m
coming with you.”

She shook her head. “No.” She
swallowed. “I don’t need you to. I’ll have time to shower and change before I
catch the flight, and my assistant will have made arrangements for a car to
take me to the airport and fetch me once I arrive in England.” She forced a
weak smile. “She’s good with details. If I know her, she’ll be waiting for me
herself the moment the plane touches down.” She looked up into his face with an
expression of fervent determination. “You have to stay here two more days and
make that appointment with Jasper as planned. If you leave with me now, there
won’t be time to fly back out here for the audition—”

“Fuck the audition.”

She wrapped her arms around him
and hugged him. “You don’t know how much I appreciate that.” Her voice was
choked. “But we don’t know the situation, and I can’t let you throw away your
chance of winning this part.”

“I’m coming with you.” She needed
him.

She placed her fingers to his
lips. “Listen to me. I can handle this.” Her back straightened. “You know I
can. I want you to stay here. I want you to slay them with your audition and
get the part. Do it. For me.”

Adam ran across the sand, carrying
Sholto’s bag.

She shook her head. “Leave it,
Adam. I’m travelling back alone.”

*****

Max managed to catch a few hours sleep on the plane, so by
the time she cleared arrivals she wasn’t in too bad shape. When she walked
through Cam was waiting.

“How is he?”

Cam hugged her. “Not great. He’s
in critical condition.” They strode through the airport to the carpark. “Your
family is at his bedside.”

Max shivered. There was a chill in
the early morning air.

“I brought a sweater from your
apartment.” Cam grabbed it from the back seat of the car. “I thought you might
need it.”

“I don’t know what I’d do without
you.” Max put it on. “You think of everything.”

“I’m just so sorry this had to
happen while you were so far away.” Cam started the engine. “You haven’t had a
vacation for so long…” She glanced over. “You look great, by the way. How was
playing castaway with Sholto?”

Indescribable.
She let
herself think of him for the first time in hours, and her heart filled with an
ache. “It was pretty great.”

Cam lifted an eyebrow. “It was?”

“Yep. We…”

“Sex?”

“Lots of it. But more than that. I
really like him.”

 “Is it serious?”

It had only been a week, but the
truth settled in Max’s heart. “I think so. I want it to be.”

Cam’s hands tightened on the
steering wheel. “He better not hurt you.” She glanced over. “Is it weird me
taking your boyfriend to my reunion?”

“Not if I can have him after.
Distract me. What’s been going on at work?”

Cam sighed. “It’s been busy. I’ve
had to refuse a couple of jobs because we just don’t have the staff to complete
them.” She glanced over. “Your eyelid is twitching again.”

“Tired.” Max swallowed. She could
lie to Cam, but she couldn’t lie to herself. Already a knot of nerves had built
in her stomach as they discussed the business. “It’s a complete Catch-22, we
need to take on more work in order to be able to expand, but we can’t afford to
employ more people until we have the finances.” She rubbed the back of her
neck. “I’ll have to consider a business partner, or get a bank loan.”

“Are you sure you want to do that?”
Cam’s tone was gentle. “It’s fun being small, and dealing with just our regular
customers. I know you don’t like saying no, and you want to make everyone’s
fantasy come true, but expanding the business,” she shook her head, “that’s a
huge undertaking.”

Max’s aims when she started the
company had been modest. She started as a movie locations scout, and had
branched out when the opportunity to mastermind a sex party at Hazzard Hall had
presented itself. At the beginning it had been fun, making some more outlandish
fantasies come true. Now, the strain of being the head of a company was taking
its toll. It wasn’t just the trauma with Joel that caused sleepless nights, but
also the stress of work. “I don’t want to let anyone down.”

They parted at the hospital with
Max promising to call Cam with news as soon as she could. She pushed open the
double glass doors and discovered her father’s room number from reception.

“You’re here, thank God.” Her
mother, Margaret, rose from a chair at the bedside and enveloped her youngest
daughter in a hug.

“How is he?”

“It was a heart attack. They’ve had
to operate and put in stents.”

Max walked to her father and gazed
down at his sleeping face. He looked pale, old, and helpless against the white
sheets. She stroked his hand.

“They don’t expect him to wake for
a few hours,” Margaret said. “Caroline has gone to get coffee, and Belle went
home for a while.”

Max pulled a chair to the bed. “Will
he…” She swallowed, unable to continue.

“The doctors say his prognosis is
good. It was touch and go for a while, Caroline was panicked she couldn’t get
you by phone. You didn’t tell any of us that you were going away.” There was
hurt in her mother’s voice.

“I was only due to be out of
coverage for nine days. I didn’t expect…”

“You should have called.”

Max shifted her gaze from the man
in the bed to her mother’s face.

“We’ve lost touch over the past
while, haven’t we?” Margaret gave a sad smile. “It’s been months since we’ve
seen you. I’ve missed you, dear. And I know your father has too.”

Despite their disapproval of her
lifestyle, they were still her family. “I’ve missed you both too, Mum. I’m so
sorry I wasn’t here when you needed me.”

“You’re here now. That’s all that
matters.”

The door eased open. Caroline
stepped in, clutching a paper cup of coffee. She stopped the moment she spotted
Max. “Ah, the prodigal returns.”

Latent aggression flowed from her
sister in waves. Stiffly, she stalked across the room to hand over the coffee,
then she crossed her arms and faced Max. “Your assistant said you were in
Indonesia.”

“A remote Indonesian island. I
came the moment I heard.”

Caroline’s temper flared. “She
said you had no telephone coverage. We didn’t even know you’d left the country.
It’s damned inconsiderate of you to swan off without even letting your mother
know—”

“Hold it right there.” Max had put
up with this sort of shit from her sister for years, but no longer. “I haven’t
contacted any of you for six months, but you haven’t contacted me either. Have
you left the country during that time?”

Caroline huffed. “Of course I
have. We went on holiday to France.”

“I was on a survival vacation on
an island which doesn’t have telephone service, but my cell-phone automatically
redirected to my assistant’s phone, and she knew exactly where I was and how to
contact me.”

Caroline couldn’t argue that
point, so she took aim at another. “She said you were on the island with a man,
that it was something to do with work.”

Margaret clutched her hands
together. Her eyes widened. “You couldn’t possibly have been alone on a remote
island with a stranger. That’s so dangerous, Max.”

“He wasn’t a stranger. I was with
Sholto Kincaid.”

She might as well have said she’d
been with a vampire. Or the devil himself.

Caroline’s face went red. “Of all
the people in the world,” she spluttered. “I don’t believe this. He was a
poisonous boy. He can only have got worse now he’s a man. And he’s acting in
that…in that…”

“He’s an actor. A good actor, who
can portray a lot of different parts.”

“Not much acting needed for his
latest film.” Caroline shot a glance to their mother. “He’s in that wild film,
playing the lead. It’s scandalous.”

Max had no more fight in her.
Would it always be like this between them? Caroline had been singing the same
tune since the day she and her fiancé found Max splashing naked in the paddling
pool as a tot. But she couldn’t let her badmouth Sholto. He didn’t deserve her
scorn. “Have you always been so judgmental?” There was no bitterness in her
tone, just sadness. “He’s a person. A good person. Someone I care deeply about.”

“How can you care about someone
who humiliated you publicly? Have you no shame?”

“Have
you
no shame, Caro? I’m
your sister. You should love me, or if not love me, at least respect the
choices I’ve made. Instead, you’ve done your best to make me feel ashamed of
who I am. And if I am ashamed of anything right now, it’s that I allowed myself
to buy into your shit.” She glanced at her mother. “Sorry, Mum.” She faced her
sister. “I’m different to you, but I’m still a member of this family. I’m here
for Dad and to support Mum. And I’m done with trying to live up to your idea of
what I should do, what I should be. I have someone who cares about me, someone
I care about. I look forward to introducing him to all of you, and when I do I
hope you will at least be civil.”

“It won’t last—”

“Caroline, that was uncalled for.”
For the first time in years, Margaret got involved. “I’m happy Max has found
someone to be serious about, and she’s right, you shouldn’t blindly judge him.
I remember when he first came to the village, he had a very difficult time as a
child.”