Chapter 18
I needed to get a photo of that mistress come hell or high water.
She had eluded me the entire day and I couldn’t just sit around twiddling my thumbs while I waited for her to take off that hat or at least look vaguely in my direction.
And that was how I found myself in the bushes opposite Victor’s villa as the sun was starting to set.
I had my camera, a long lens and a fully charged battery, everything I needed.
Well, almost. What I really needed was them.
I peered through the leaves towards the villa.
I could hear them in the plunge pool on the deck, but I couldn’t see them.
There was only one thing for it. I hung the camera around my neck, and with a last look around to make sure no one was watching, I started climbing the tree to my right.
It was dark, but tree-climbing had always been a particularly impressive skill of mine.
Give me a tree, any kind, and I could scale it.
Not to mention perch in it all night if need be.
As well as training my muscles at the gym, I’d also managed to train my bladder, and long stakeouts were easy for me.
This job was what I was built for. I quickly found the perfect branch.
It had just the right amount of foliage to keep me covered, not to mention a direct line of sight to the plunge pool. I settled in.
The lights on the deck were on, but unfortunately not nearly bright enough for me to get a clear photo.
And I couldn’t use a flash. I’d have to do a long exposure if I wanted to get a good enough image of her face.
Laughter echoed through the rustling leaves, and it was clear that the pair were really enjoying themselves.
When I pulled some foliage aside and looked through my lens, I was nearly blinded by a flash of intense whiteness: Victor’s big white teeth.
He looked happy and smug, and for a moment I imagined how much fun it would be to hide here and shoot berries at him with a slingshot.
He’d get all confused and flustered and would have to climb out of the pool and run away from the incoming bombardment.
The berries would hopefully leave little red marks all over his already red body.
But alas . . . no slingshot, no berries.
I could see Victor perfectly, but the bloody mistress’s back was facing me; still no way of getting a photo that could positively identify her. Just one photo meant my job would be done and I could get myself off this island: goodbye, Seychelles, goodbye, Cam. The thought made me smile.
‘What’s with the smug smile?’
‘Oh my GOD!’ I swung around, almost losing my balance, and looked up to where the voice had come from. ‘WHAT THE FUCK!’ I whisper-screamed so loudly that I hurt my throat. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’
Cam was sitting on the branch above me, around the other side of the tree. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t spotted him on my way up.
‘I could ask you the same question.’ He sounded completely unrattled.
‘I’m trying to get a photo of that woman. And it seems that you are very much in my way. In fact, you need to go, Cam. Right now.’
‘Well, not really, Lizzy, since I was here first.’ He leaned back against the part of the branch that curved upwards and made a show of settling in comfortably, as if in a hammock. ‘You’re the one who needs to go.’
‘Oh my God,’ I groaned. ‘This island is cursed. That’s the only explanation for this. First a cupboard, now a tree.’
He smirked. ‘Told you, it’s a small island.’
‘And an even smaller tree, now that you’re in it.’
‘Well, you shouldn’t have climbed into my tree then.’
I stared at him in disbelief. ‘Your tree?’
‘Like I said, I was here first.’
I narrowed my eyes. ‘I don’t care. I’m the one who needs the shot of her face.’
‘Do you think I’m just here for the ambience? You’re not the only one who’s trying to do a job here. I’m not going.’
‘You’re not going?’
‘Nope.’
‘Well, neither am I.’
‘I thought you would say that,’ Cam said, and smiled down at me from his vantage point. I didn’t like that he was above me like this, and I contemplated climbing higher just to make sure that I was on top. Instead, though, I tried a different tactic.
‘If you don’t move, I’m going to have to forcibly remove you,’ I said.
He tilted his head right down, as if he was trying to make direct eye contact with me. I looked up, making sure we did. Making sure he saw how serious I was.
‘Are you always this violent on dates?’
‘What?!’ I spluttered. ‘This is not a date.’
‘But we’ve got moonlight, flowers . . .’ He ran a hand over one of the pretty pink blossoms in the tree. ‘And then of course there’s that undeniable chemistry between us.’
‘Chemistry! You’re delusional.’ I turned my head away and very pointedly aimed my lens at Victor once more. ‘One of us is getting out of this tree, and it’s not going to be me.’
‘Hang on,’ Cam said. ‘Isn’t this one of those tree frogs you’re so fond of?’
‘Cam, shut up. I’m trying to get a photo.’
‘But look,’ he said, sounding gleeful now.
Suddenly a hand appeared right in front of my face, holding a tiny wide-eyed tree frog. It blinked at me once and then started opening its mouth.
‘Oh my GOD, Cam! Put it back!’ I hissed. ‘I promise you, if it gets disturbed, it makes—’
RRRRRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE . . .
The frog let out one of its high-pitched screams. And maybe because I was closer to it this time, it sounded louder than before.
There was no way to adequately describe the noise really, but it hovered somewhere between a banshee being run over by a steam train and two cats fighting in the middle of the night on a tin roof.
‘What the fuck?!’ Cam startled. The frog began to fall from his hand, and then everything seemed to go into slow motion.
With my camera in one hand and the other hand clutching the branch, I was unable to stop it, so I watched in horror as it tumbled through the air, twisting once, twice – rather elegantly, actually, like a diver at the Olympics – and then disappeared into my top.
Its cold, sticky fingers landed on my chest, and it stopped screaming.
‘Oh my God, Cam!’ I wanted to kill him right now for fucking up my investigation, because the noise had not gone unnoticed.
‘Did you hear that?’ Victor said.
I froze. The frog froze too, and then . . .
RRRRRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE . . .
‘What is it?’ Victor asked, rising from the pool, and then, then, the worst thing happened. The mistress stood up and turned. But because I had a frog down my top and my eardrums were moments away from shattering, I did not have the wherewithal to point my camera in her direction and shoot.
‘Shit!’ I hissed, so pissed off right now.
‘Ow! What the hell was that for?’ Cam rubbed his ankle, the one I’d just pinched as hard as I possibly could.
‘You put an amphibian down my front and made me miss my shot! I thought it would be— Aargh!’ I almost fell out of the tree as the frog went lower, finally settling onto my ribcage. I clenched every muscle in my body. I didn’t want to move in case I set the creature off again.
‘I didn’t mean to,’ Cam said. ‘It jumped.’
‘You dropped it!’
‘Seriously, what was that noise?’ Victor was looking around now, and so was the mistress. It was the perfect moment to get the perfect shot, but of course, I couldn’t.
And then . . . ‘Come on, let’s go inside,’ he said, and with that, they were gone. I had missed my moment, and it was all because of Cam. I twisted my head and glared up at him.
‘I could have got the fucking shot, Cam. But because of you, I’ve got a tree frog down my top and I can’t get to it because I have a camera in one hand and am holding a tree in the other.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Cam said. ‘Pass me your camera. I’ll hold it.’
‘I am not passing you my camera. I don’t trust you with it.’
‘So I guess you want me to stick my hand down your shirt and fish out the frog?’
His words momentarily stunned me into silence, because I didn’t want to think about Cam’s hands under my clothes, given what had happened the last time they were there.
I sighed. ‘Fine, take my camera.’ I shoved it up at him, and the second he had it, I pulled my T-shirt away from my body and peered down it. ‘Hey,’ I scolded Cam when I saw he hadn’t turned his head yet. ‘Eyes upwards.’
I stuck my hand down my shirt and took hold of the tree frog as gently as possible.
The last thing I needed right now was for it to go off again.
After some careful manoeuvring, I was finally able to pull it free of my clothing, and placed it on the branch next to me, exhaling an instant sigh of relief.
Having moist froggy paws all over my body was not a feeling I wanted to repeat.
I stuck my hand out and clicked my fingers several times, an indication that Cam should pass me the camera. He did.
‘Well, I guess that’s it,’ he said. ‘We might as well go. There’s nothing to see here.’
‘I’m not going anywhere.’
‘Fine, suit yourself. But I’m going, and I’m also going to have to step down onto the branch you’re standing on; it’s the only way I can get down.’
‘Not the only way. I could push you,’ I snapped back.
‘I’d grab on to you and take you with me,’ he said seriously.
I rolled my eyes at him. ‘Fine. Hurry.’
Cam began climbing down to my branch. Oh crap.
The space up here was so limited that as he lowered himself, his entire body – feet, legs, oh God, crotch, stomach, chest and then, worst of all, face – slid against mine.
And when the sliding was over, something even worse happened.
Because now we were standing face to face, only inches apart, sharing one branch.
Every nerve in my body lit up with sheer, utter, flaming . . . anger? Aggravation? Hatred?
It had to be one of those, because I was certainly not noticing his scent again.
And I hadn’t noticed how impossibly large his package was as it moved past my face, and I was certainly not now noticing the warmth radiating off his body, and definitely not now noticing just how big and solid he was and how there was no space between our bodies, and how his lips were so close to mine and how big his hand was braced on the branch, and I was definitely not noticing how much my body was reacting to all of it.
‘You’re on me,’ I spat out.
‘I told you. Only one branch.’
‘Well, you’d better get off it right now, before I push you myself.’
He looked far too entertained for someone in mortal danger. ‘God, I’ve missed this.’
‘What?’
‘This. You. Being all worked up. Angry and violent and glowing with it.’
‘I am not glowing!’
He smiled. ‘You kind of are.’
I narrowed my eyes. ‘You have about five seconds to get off me.’
‘Okay, okay, I’m going.’ He started climbing off the branch, but as he left, he threw a very aggravating ‘Don’t miss me too much’ over his shoulder at me. And that was the last straw. All it took was one gentle squeeze on his fingers with my foot to send him tumbling to the ground.
‘Oops.’ I smiled down at him. He hadn’t fallen far. It was merely a small tumble; not even a tumble, a tiny slip. Such a pity we weren’t on a cliff.
‘Still trying to kill me, I see.’ He’d landed flat on his back with a thud.
‘Not trying hard enough, apparently.’
And then he did something so infuriating that I was tempted to throw myself out of the tree and land on top of him, elbows first. He stretched his arms before lazily lacing his fingers together and sliding his hands behind his head like he was sunbathing.
He grinned up at me, utterly unfazed. ‘You know, if you came down now, we could make it a proper date. Have a little picnic. I’ll even share the grass.’ He patted the ground next to him invitingly.
‘In your dreams.’
Even though it was relatively dark, I was still able to make out the look that washed across his face, causing that clawing sensation along my spine again. Then he sat up, pulled his knees towards him and tilted his head to meet my eyes.
‘Most nights, actually. Most nights.’
My breath stopped. The words had not been said jokingly. I swallowed hard, trying to push down the feelings they had elicited in me. I needed to show him that those words had not just made me feel like . . . What?
‘Most nights. No wonder you have bags under your eyes.’ It was the only retort I could think of.
Cam laughed. ‘Okay, Lizzy, whatever you say.’ He got to his feet and tugged down his shirt.
It had ridden up in the fall, and it hadn’t been lost on me that when he’d been lying there, hands behind his head, his lower abs had been peeping right back up at me.
Then he turned and started walking towards the path, hands in his pockets, acting all casual, which was in stark contrast to what I was feeling right now.
I was about as far away from calm and casual as you could possibly be.
‘See you soon,’ he called over his shoulder.
‘Hopefully not,’ I muttered, but my voice was not quite as cutting as I would have liked it to be.
I looked over at the villa. The curtains were closed now, and my stake-out had been ruined.
I climbed down from the tree and started walking back to my own villa.
I really hoped Victor and his mistress would emerge for dinner this evening.
I needed a shower, and then I was going to head to the bar to see if I could get a photo.
Hopefully that wasn’t Cam’s plan too.
Okay, maybe ‘most nights’ had been a bit of an exaggeration. But it wasn’t exactly a lie, either. Because I’d thought about her over the years more than I cared to admit. And yes, she’d shown up in a few of my dreams – some more PG than others.
Sometimes she’d flash through my mind for only a moment, almost as if she wasn’t quite there at all.
But she was. Even if it was only in the background.
But sometimes she stayed for longer, and I indulged those thoughts of her, letting my mind run with them.
Inevitably, it always led back to that night.
To what might’ve happened if it hadn’t all gone so wrong.