The Secret Sinclair (2 page)

‘A holiday affair?’ Sarah repeated in a small voice.

Raoul sighed and ran his fingers through his too-long hair. He would get rid of it the second he made it back to civilisation.

‘Don’t make me out to be an ogre, Sarah. I’m not saying that it hasn’t been … incredible. It has. In fact, it’s been the most incredible three months of my life.’ He hesitated. His past had never been something he chose to discuss with anyone, least of all a woman, but the urge to go further with her was overpowering. ‘You’ve made me feel like no one else ever has … but then I suppose you know that …’

‘How can I when you’ve never told me?’ But it was something for her to hang onto.

‘I … I’m not good with this kind of emotional drama. I’ve had a lot of emotional drama in my life …’

‘What do you mean?’ She knew only the barest of facts about his past, even though he pretty much knew everything about hers. She had waxed lyrical about her childhood—her very happy and very ordinary childhood—as
an only child of two parents who had always thought that they would never have kids until her mother became pregnant at the merry age of forty-one.

He had skirted round the subject aside from telling her that he’d had no parents, preferring to concentrate on the future which, as time went on, suited her very well—even though any mention of
her
in that future hadn’t actually been voiced. She liked the thought of him forging his way with her at his side. Somewhere.

‘I grew up in a foster home, Sarah. I was one of those kids you read about in the newspapers who get taken in by Social Services because their parents can’t take care of them.’

Sarah sat up, lost for words. Then her natural warmth took over and she felt the prickle of tears, which brought a reluctant smile to his lips.

‘Neither of your parents could look after you?’

‘Just the one parent on the scene. My mother.’ It was not in his nature to confide, and he picked carefully at his words, choosing to denude them of all potency. It was a trick he had learnt a long time ago, so his voice, when he spoke, was flat and detached. ‘Unfortunately she had a problem with substances, which ended up killing her when I was five. My father … Who knows? Could have been anyone.’

‘You poor soul!’

‘I prefer to think of my background as character-building, and as foster homes went mine wasn’t too bad. Where I’m going with this …’ For a second he had to remind himself where he
was
going with it. ‘I’m not looking for a relationship. Not now—probably not ever. I never meant to string you along, Sarah, but … you got under my skin … And all
this
didn’t exactly go the distance in bringing me back to my senses.’

‘All what?’

‘Here. The middle of nowhere. Thrown together in the heat …’

‘So nothing would have happened between us if we hadn’t been out here?’ She could hear her voice rising and had to control it, because she didn’t want to wake anyone—although there was only one other English speaking person on the compound.

‘That’s a purely hypothetical question.’

‘You could try answering it!’

‘I don’t know.’ He could feel the hurt seeping out of her, but what could he do about it? How could he make it better without issuing promises he knew he wouldn’t keep?

Frustration and anger at himself rushed through him in a tidal wave. Hell, he should have known just by looking at her that Sarah wasn’t one of those women who were out to have a good time, no strings attached! Where had his prized self-control been when he had needed it most? Absent without leave! He had seen her and all trace of common sense had deserted him.

And when he had discovered that she was a virgin? Had that stopped him in his tracks? The opposite. He had felt unaccountably thrilled to be her first, had wanted to shout it from the rooftops. Instead of backing away he had rushed headlong into the sort of crazy quasi-romantic situation that he had always scorned. There hadn’t been chocolates and jewellery—not that he could have afforded either—but there had been long, lazy conversations, a great deal of laughter … Hell, he had even cooked her a meal on one occasion, when the rest of the crew had disappeared for the weekend to camp on the beach, leaving the two of them in charge.

‘You don’t know? Is that because I’m not really your type?’

He hesitated just long enough for her to bitterly assume the obvious.

‘I’m not, am I?’ She slung her legs over the bed, kicking away at the mosquito net and finally shoving it aside so that she could crawl under it.

‘Where are you going!’

‘I don’t want to be having this conversation.’ In the darkness she hunted around for her clothes, located them, and began putting them on. An old tee shirt, a pair of denim shorts, her flipflops. ‘I’m going outside. I need to get some air.’

Raoul debated the wisdom of following her for a few seconds, then leapt out of the bed, struggling with his jeans, not bothering with a shirt at all, as he watched her flying out of the room like a bat out of hell.

The bedroom was small, equipped with the most basic of furniture, and cluttered with all the bits and pieces of two occupants. He came close to tripping over one of his shoes and cursed softly under his breath. He shouldn’t be following her. He had said all there was to say on the subject of any continuing romance. To prolong the conversation would be to invite a debate that would be stillborn, so what was the point? But watching her disappear through the bedroom door had galvanised him into instant, inexplicable action.

The house was a square concrete block, its front door accessed by sufficient steps to ensure that it was protected against flooding during the cyclone season.

He caught up with her just as she had reached the bottom of the steps.

‘So, what
are
your types!’ Sarah swung round to glare at him, hands on her hips.

‘Types? What are you talking about?’

‘These women you go for?’

‘That’s irrelevant.’

‘Not to me it isn’t!’ Sarah stared up at him. She was shaking like a leaf, and she didn’t know why she was getting hung up on that one detail. He was right. It was irrelevant. What did it matter if he went for tall brunettes and she was a short blonde? What mattered was that he was dumping her. Throwing her out like used goods. Tossing her aside as though she was just something insignificant that no longer mattered. When he was
everything
to her.

She literally shied away from the thought of waking up in three days’ time in an empty bed, knowing that she would never lay eyes on him again. How on earth was she going to survive?

‘You need to calm down.’ He shook his head and raked his fingers through his hair, sweeping it back from his face. God, it was like an oven out here. He could feel the sweat beginning to gather on his body.

‘I’m perfectly calm!’ Sarah informed him in a shrill voice. ‘I just want to know if you’ve had fun
using
me for the past three months!’

She swung round, began heading towards the central clearing, where the circular reed huts with their distinctive pointed roofs were used as classrooms for the twenty local children who attended every day. Raoul didn’t teach. He and two of the other guys did brutally manual labour—building work in one of the communities further along, planting and harvesting of crops. He gave loads of advice on crop rotation and weather patterns. He seemed to know absolutely everything.

‘Were you just making the best of a bad job out here? Sleeping with me because there was no one else around to your taste?’

‘Don’t be stupid!’ He reached out and stopped her in her tracks, pulling her back to him and forcing her to look up.

‘I know I’m not the most glamorous person in the world. I know you’re probably accustomed to landing really gorgeous girls.’ She bit her lip and looked away, feeling miserable and thoroughly sorry for herself. ‘I knew it was odd that you even looked at me in the first place, but I suppose I was the only other English person here so you made do.’

‘Don’t do this, Sarah,’ Raoul said harshly. He could feel her trembling against him, and he had to fight the impulse to terminate the conversation by kissing that lush, full mouth. ‘If you want to know what kind of women I’ve always gone for, I’ll tell you. I’ve always gone for women who wanted nothing from me. I’m not saying that’s a good thing, but it’s the truth. Yes, they’ve been good looking, but not in the way that you are …’

‘What way is that?’ Sarah asked scornfully, but she was keen to grasp any positive comment in these suddenly turbulent waters. She realised with a sinking heart that she would be willing to beg for him. It went against every grain of pride in her, but, yes, she would plead for him at least to keep in touch.

‘Young, innocent, full of laughter …’ He loosened his fingers on her arm and gently stroked her. ‘That’s why I should have run a mile the minute you looked at me with those big green eyes,’ he murmured with genuine regret. ‘But I couldn’t. You summed up everything I wasn’t looking for, and I still couldn’t resist you.’

‘You don’t have to!’ Before he could knock her last-ditch plea down in flames she turned away brusquely and walked towards the clearing, adopting a position on one of the fallen tree trunks which had been left as a bench of sorts.

Her heart was beating like a jackhammer and she could barely catch her breath. She didn’t look at him as he sat down on the upturned trunk next to her.

The night was alive with the sounds of insects and frogs, but it was cooler out here than it had been in the stifling heat of the bedroom.

Eventually she turned to him. ‘I’m not asking you to settle down and marry me,’ she said quietly—although, really, who was she kidding? That was exactly what she wanted. ‘But you don’t have to walk away and never look back. I mean, we can keep in touch.’ She threw him a watery, desperate smile. ‘That’s what mobile phones and e-mails and all these social networking sites are all about, you know.’

‘How many times have we argued about the merits of throwing your personal life into a public arena for the world to feed on?’

‘You’re such a dinosaur, Raoul.’ But she smiled. They’d argued about so many things! Light-hearted arguments, with lots of laughter. When Raoul took a stand it was impossible to deflect him, and she had enjoyed teasing him about his implacability. She had never known anything like it.

‘And you’d be happy to do that?’ Raoul thought that if she were the kind of girl who could be happy with that kind of distant, intermittent contact then they wouldn’t be sitting here right now, having this conversation, because then she would also be the kind of girl who would have indulged in a three-month fling and been happy to walk away, without agonising about a future that wasn’t destined to be.

For a fleeting moment he wondered what it would be like to take her with him, but the thought was one he discarded even before it had had time to take root. He was a product of his background, and that was something he was honest enough to acknowledge.

Deprived of stability, he had learnt from a very young
age that he had to look out for himself. He couldn’t even really remember when he had made his mind up that the world would never decide his fate. He would control it, and the way he would do that would be through his brains. Foster care had honed his single-minded ambition and provided him with one very important lesson in life: rely on no one.

Whilst the other kids had been larking around, or pining for parents that failed to show up at appointed times, he had buried his head in books and mastered all the tricks of studying in the midst of chaos. Blessed with phenomenal intelligence, he had sailed through every exam, and as soon as he’d been released from the restrictions of a foster home had worked furiously to put himself through college and then later university.

Starting with nothing, he had to do more than just
be clever
. A degree counted for nothing when you were competing with someone who had family connections. So he had got two degrees—two high-powered degrees—which he intended to use ruthlessly to get where he wanted to go.

Where, in his great scheme of things, would Sarah fit in? He was no carer and never would be. He just didn’t have it in him. And Sarah was the sort of soft, gentle person who would always need someone to take care of her.

Heck, she couldn’t even bring herself to answer his question! When she spoke of keeping in touch, what she really meant was having an ongoing relationship. How responsible would he be if he told her what she wanted to hear?

Abruptly Raoul stood up, putting some vital immediate distance between them—because sitting next to her was doing crazy things to his thoughts and to his body.

‘Well?’ he asked, more harshly than he had intended, and he sensed her flinch as she bowed her head. He had to use every scrap of will-power at his disposal not to go across and put his arms around her. He clenched his hands into fists, wanting to hit something very hard. ‘You haven’t answered my question.
Could
you keep in touch with me with the occasional e-mail? When you should be moving on? Putting me behind you and chalking the whole thing up to experience?’

‘How can you be so callous?’ Sarah whispered. She had practically begged and it hadn’t been enough. He didn’t love her and he never would. Why should she waste her time lamenting the situation? He was right. E-mails and text messages would just prolong the hurt. She needed to cut him out of her life and leave no remaining bits to fester and multiply.

‘I’m not being callous, Sarah. I’m sparing you the pain of building false hopes. You’re young, with stars in your eyes …’

‘You’re not exactly over the hill, Raoul!’

‘In terms of experience I’m a thousand years older than you, and I’m not the man you’re looking for. I would be no good for you …’

‘That’s usually the coward’s way out of a sticky situation,’ she muttered, having read it somewhere and thought that it made sense.

‘In this case it’s the truth. You need someone who’s going to take care of you, and that person is never going to be me.’ He watched her carefully and wondered if he would ever again be in the business of justifying himself to another human being.
Walk alone
, that was what he had taught himself,
and you don’t end up entangled in situations such as this
. ‘I don’t want the things that you do,’ he continued softly.