From the open door I watch her wash vegetables in the sink. She turns off the tap and reaches for a knife. Her hair falls forward and she flicks it away carelessly. The gesture arrests me. Compels me to stay and watch. It is as if I am watching a movie. She is someone else. I am someone else. The picture of domestic bliss is so foreign. So alluring. It warms my heart.

What is it about her that makes her so magnetic? Even the simplest thing she does becomes a movement of grace and beauty. I have to stop myself from going into the kitchen, lifting her onto the counter and fucking her until she claws at me.

She leaves the tap running and turns to check on a pan of boiling water. As she puts the lid back on it she looks in my direction, sees me, and for an instant loses her concentration. The lid slips from her hand and falls to the ground, catching a ladle resting by the side of the pan on its way. The ladle pings up and falls into the pan of boiling water and splashes boiling water onto her hand.

I hear the ladle clatter to the floor as I rush to her and try to pull her toward the cold water tap, but she shakes her head vehemently.

‘Flour,’ she gasps. ‘Find me some flour.’

I stare at her, confounded; convinced I have heard her wrong. ‘What?’

‘Where’s the flour?’ she barks urgently.

Flour! As if I would know where that is. I start opening cupboards and clumsily rifle through them. Dropping packets on the counter and floor. Cursing. I find an unopened packet in the third cupboard I open. I turn around quickly,

‘Open it,’ she instructs, white with pain.

I open it and pass it to her. She takes a handful of flour and holding it against her burn, closes her eyes. It must have given her some relief because she looks up at me and smiles tremulously.

‘I know it looks weird but it’s an old Chinese trick my grandmother taught me. She actually keeps a packet of corn flour in the fridge so it is cold and ready for use whenever she burns herself.’

I stare at her in shock. This is the first time she has offered a tiny little snippet of herself, without being prompted, and something real!

‘It’s brilliant,’ she adds. ‘It actually helps heal the burn faster and stops the skin from marking.’

I keep my voice casual. ‘Your grandmother is Chinese?’

She smiles. A tender expression comes into her eyes. ‘Yes.’

‘And you love her very much, don’t you?’

‘Yes, yes I do.’

‘And she is still alive?’

Suddenly the expression in her eyes changes, becomes guarded and fearful. And all I want to do is hold her close to me and tell her it doesn’t matter. It does not matter a damn. She has ruined nothing by telling me that.

Lily

I stare at him in horror. Oh! My! God! I have totally slipped out of character. My alter ego doesn’t even remember her grandparents. I can’t believe I have fucked up so bad. What if he wants to know more about her? Or, worse, wants to meet her? I can’t tell him she is dead. I think of her, her head tipped back, roaring with laughter. My grandmother is very superstitious—Chinese believe all mention of death and dying is bad luck, and she would be so hurt if she knew I was telling anyone she was dead. I’ll have to tell Mills and the agency will have to come up with a fake grandmother. But that will be embarrassing, too. Admitting that I slipped up this early in the assignment.

I drop my eyes to my hand.

‘How long do you have to do that for?’ he asks.

I put my head up and see him looking at the flour I am holding against my burn.

‘Ten minutes.’ The flour has helped, but it is still painful.

He switches the fire off. ‘Come on,’ he says, and with his hand on the small of my back leads me toward the living room. ‘We’ll order in tonight.’

To my great relief he loses interest in my grandmother and does not ask anything else about her.

* * *

It will be our last night on the island. Some part of me doesn’t want to leave. I have been happy here. Happier than I have ever been in my life. We have watched the sunset over the water and had our takeaway pizza, and now Jake has gone in to have a shower.

I stand on the terrace for a little while longer soaking in the magic of the island. A lizard scampers up a tree. I know a faint tinge of envy. It lives in this paradise. I watch it until it disappears into some bushes. With a sigh I go indoors and pull out a book from my bag. Curling up on the sofa I start to read. Three pages later Jake is standing in the doorway.

‘Hey,’ he says.

I gaze at him. He is wearing a pair of faded jeans. They hug his strong thighs. Something about him always makes my mouth dry. ‘Hey, yourself,’ I reply.

‘What are you reading?’

‘The Billionaire Banker.’

‘Any good?’

‘Not bad.’

He comes forward, the muscles of his chest gleaming in the down-lights. Desire floods through me, so hot and fast that my clit aches.

I pat the sofa next to me.

He raises his eyebrows.

‘I want to try something.’

His eyebrows rise. ‘What?’

I turn my book to the appropriate page and hand it over to him. ‘I want to try that.’

He takes the book from me and reads. I watch him, the way the light caresses his cheekbones, the shadows his long eyelashes make, the straight mouth. A beautiful man, a truly beautiful man. When he looks up his eyes are dark and amused. ‘I’ve got whiskey.’

‘I know where I can get some ice,’ I say with a grin.

By the time I come back with a bucket of ice, he has stripped naked. His big thighs are bunched and ready and his decorated, satiny soft cock is erect and magnificent in the soft glow of the lights. He is so hot and so perfect my thighs quiver. In one hand he is holding a bottle of Jack Daniel’s.

I lean weakly against a pillar. ‘Already so hard?’

He doesn’t answer. Instead he opens me with his practiced fingers and does to me what the billionaire banker did to his woman.