One Hundred Proposals (32 page)

‘I thought we’d sit on the beach for a while.’

I’d thought that Harry was perhaps a bit more sober than I was, despite the fact that we had drunk the same, but he didn’t seem that steady on his feet either.

With his arm round my shoulders, he guided me down the beach to a dark patch near the end, where the lights didn’t shine. Moonlight licked the waters but other than that it seemed to be pitch black.

I shivered a little in the cool night air.

‘Here sit down here, I’ll build a fire.’

‘Oooh you’re such a man.’

Harry smiled and I sat down watching him as he moved amongst the trees gathering sticks and bits of wood. I looked up at the stars and then lay back on my hands to study them more closely. There were thousands of them, millions, all filling the night sky, shining so brightly that the sky no longer looked black but a sparkling blanket of charcoal grey.

Orange flames distracted me and I sat up to see a fire burning strongly. I was impressed.

‘That was quick, did you rub two sticks together, or use a flint stone?’

Harry showed me the lighter in his hand and I laughed.

The flames turned through green and blue, the heat igniting the salt water that had dried on the bits of driftwood. It was beautiful.

Harry looked up at the tops of the trees and I followed his gaze.

‘Fancy a coconut?’ he asked, leaping lightly to his feet.

I looked at the pair of coconuts hanging from the tree like a large pair of green testicles. ‘You’ll never get them, they’re too high.’

But Harry was already running off into the trees. I heard him stamping around for a few minutes and he returned triumphantly with two coconuts in his arms, one small hairy one which had obviously come out of the green husk, and one still in its large green outer shell.

‘Here,’ he passed me the small one. ‘Crack this open on the rock.’

I scooted over to the rock excitedly, and smashed it down hard. To my surprise it cleaved open in two neat halves, but there was no milk inside at all. Instead, in the light of the fire, I could see letters on the inside of the shell. I brought the coconut back towards the fire and held it up to the light to see the words ‘Marry Me’ branded onto the inside of the shell in black burnt writing.

I squealed in delight and looked up in surprise at Harry as he watched me.

‘How did you do that?’ I had asked that question so many times in the last few months. I looked back at the coconut and could see the shiny glue on the rim of the two halves. Clearly the coconut had been cut in half, branded and glued back together. Very sweet.

This was number ninety-nine. I had one more to go.

‘Thank you.’

Harry scooted over to the rock and smashed the other coconut on the side of it. Nothing happened, the green hard shell stayed resolute and unbroken. He brought it down three more times and then suddenly milk spurted from a small crack and he quickly brought it back for me to drink. I licked up the side and sucked over the hole. The milk was warm and watery rather than an actual milk. There was a definite coconut flavour but it didn’t taste great. I passed it to Harry and I watched as he licked round the sides too, then closed his mouth over the crack, closing his eyes in what looked like sheer bliss. There was something incredibly intimate about having his mouth over the same spot my mouth had been seconds before – almost as if we were kissing. Harry let out a tiny, involuntary moan and a bolt of desire slammed into my stomach. He was tasting me.

I shuffled closer and he eyed me over the coconut, his eyes dark with lust.

‘Can I have some more?’ I whispered.

He stopped drinking and passed it back, holding it for me. My hands joined with his as I licked along the crack, and I watched him, his eyes burning into mine as I drank. I barely tasted the coconut this time. I could taste him, his dark, sweet, sensual taste. I could smell his spicy, clean scent. I wanted more but the shell was now empty as I lowered it to the ground. I ran my fingers over my lip and sucked the last residue off them, longing to taste him again.

‘Tastes so good,’ I said, his eyes still on mine.

His voice was strangled when he spoke. ‘What did it taste of?’

‘You.’

I heard the breath catch in his throat and suddenly he launched himself at me. Or I launched myself at him. Our mouths met, hard, but as he cupped my face he tried to turn it gentle – holding himself back.

Chapter Seventeen

The heat, the zing of need for him, ripped through my heart, and sliced straight down to my groin. His tongue invaded my mouth, the taste of him exploding on my tongue. Oh his taste, the acute, pure wondrous delight of feeling his tongue against mine.

His arms wrapped round me, cradling me against his body as the kiss continued. The kiss became urgent, desperate, filled with want and need.

His hands were everywhere, as his mouth didn’t leave mine for a second. He pulled at my clothes, sliding my pashmina off my shoulder. The feel of his skin against mine was electrifying.

We fell back into the sand, Harry pinning me with his delicious weight. His kiss, his taste, his smell, the feel of his body against mine, it was a complete sensory overload. Kissing had never been like this before, this insatiable desperate need for more. An urgent frenzy of hands and mouths and lips.

The fire cracked loudly and Harry snatched his mouth from mine in shock.

‘Sorry, God I’m so sorry. You’re drunk and I’m an ass for taking advantage of you like this.’

‘You’re drunk too, I could be taking advantage of you.’

He smiled slightly, as he stared down at me, his moral conscience warring with need and desire. ‘I want you so much.’

I reached up to hold his face, tracing my fingers over his lips. He kissed my thumb, closing his eyes, he softly kissed my palm and then the inside of my wrist, leaving his mouth there as he felt my pulse race against his lips. He opened his eyes and they were almost black with desire as he kissed me again.

His hand gently pushed the strap off my shoulder, reverentially trailing kisses along my neck to my breast.

Suddenly a flash went off, followed quickly by another.

We both looked up in shock to see the Japanese man from the day before standing a few feet away taking our picture.

‘Crap,’ Harry hissed, moving his hand quickly over my breast to try to hide my modesty but the Japanese man took another picture of this too. ‘What the hell?’

‘Harry and Suzie, yes?’ the Japanese man said, smiling inanely as he fired off another shot. ‘One Hundred Proposals? She say yes?’

Harry quickly got up and I grabbed my pashmina but the Japanese man was fast. As Harry moved towards him he sprinted off down the beach in a blur.

I stared after him in horror because he was taking with him very personal, private photos.

Harry stood torn for a moment between staying with me or chasing after the man, but in the end he chose me. He knelt by my side, wrapping the pashmina round my shoulders and then pulling me to my feet. He could hardly bear to look at me, his lips were thin with disgust.

I found I was shaking. It was such a huge invasion of privacy, coupled with the desire and need that was quickly fading to be replaced by shame.

Harry didn’t say anything as we walked up the beach – the worst thing was he didn’t even touch me or look at me. It was just a drunken fumble and one which he was now deeply regretting.

We approached the bright lights of the hotel and he stopped me. By blocking my way, not by touching me as he would normally. ‘I’m sorry. That should never have happened.’

I folded my arms across my chest ‘What? Some pervert taking our picture whilst you had your mouth on my breast or you drunkenly groping me on the beach?’

He looked horrified and I instantly felt bad. ‘I’m sorry I kissed you, like that. And you seemed to be enjoying it as much as I was, so don’t make out that I forced myself on you.’

‘I was enjoying it until you looked at me as if kissing me made you physically sick. Then it kind of lost its shine a bit.’

He stared at me then laughed. He moved his hands to my shoulders and leaned his forehead against mine. It was such a sweet gesture and almost all of my anger just faded away. ‘You really have no idea how much you mean to me. I was angry with myself for kissing you when we’re both too drunk to appreciate it properly.’

My head was swimming. He was right, I
was
drunk – and this argument made almost no sense. Harry was simply not the drunken fumble sort of man, and I was angry that the kiss had been thwarted rather than at Harry. I pulled out of his embrace, still unsure what the kiss had meant.

We walked back to the hotel, still in silence but the tension seemed to have gone – leaving behind only confusion.

Once back in the room, we both got changed for bed. I slipped under the covers and probably more out of habit than anything else, Harry curled himself around my back, tucking me in to his chest with his arm round my waist. I considered removing myself from his arms for a few seconds but he was breathing deeply a few moments later and I didn’t want to disturb him.

*

I woke the next morning to an empty bed, which didn’t make me feel any better about the kiss. I sat up to see if he was there but I was alone.

Next to my bed was a jam jar with a note inside. Curious, I unscrewed the lid and tipped the note out onto the bed.

It wasn’t a long note but what it said made me smile, hugely.

‘
You are my best friend and I have never regretted a single moment in your company, when you’ve shouted at me, laughed with me, slept with me, or kissed me, being with you has always given me the best moments in my life.
’

I hugged the letter to me when I noticed another jam jar by the door, again with a note inside.

I climbed out of bed, unscrewed the lid on the second jar and tipped the note out.

‘
Breakfast will be served to you by the pool under the tree canopy at the far end. Please stay by the pool until you’re called sometime this afternoon. I don’t want you to see anything you shouldn’t. I have to prepare your final proposal. I’ll see you later.

Love Harry xxx
’

I smiled. I quickly showered, dressed and went down to the pool. I was nervous about this proposal. Just what did he have planned for the final one? And how would I feel when it was finally over?

Would we return to being two friends sitting in our office or had this trip irrevocably changed us?

I lay on my sun lounger replying to the huge volume of work emails, hoping I would catch some glimpse of Harry before the proposal, but there was no sign of him all day. I watched the sun glinting off the water of the pool and found myself drifting off.

*

I woke with a start as a hand slid down my back. I was lying on my front and the sun had moved round so now my head and shoulders were caught in the rays. I was wearing a hat but my shoulders felt hot. The hand stroking me was Harry’s, it had to be, it was too overly familiar otherwise.

‘You’ll burn if you’re not careful,’ Harry whispered in my ear as he slathered more sun cream into my back and neck.

I arched my back slightly into his expert touch. His hands stilled. ‘But then you get to rub after-sun into my back too.’

The hands were gone and a second later I saw him sit down on the sunbed next to me.

Talk about mixed messages. His attitude after the kiss still hurt but the way he had kissed me was permanently etched inside my brain – a glorious, vivid image that I would replay again and again and again.

I sat up and looked at him. He must have seen the question in my eyes.

‘When you flirt with me like that, I never know whether it’s a genuine ‘I want your hands on me’ flirt or just friendly banter.’ Harry looked down. ‘I just think a gesture like that means something very different to me than it does to you.’

‘You flirt all the time. How do you think that makes me feel?’

‘I never flirt, not with you.’

I felt my mouth fall open. ‘How can you say that, you’re one hundred percent flirt – every move, every word, every look is flirty. You flirt with everyone – strangers, Chloe, me. Trust me when I say you’re even harder to read. I have no idea where I stand with you.’

‘Seriously! You have no idea? None at all? Have I not given you any clue on this trip?’

I stared at him and like a flashback in a movie, my mind played back how many times Harry had told me I was his best friend. Is that what he meant, we were friends and nothing more? But then if that was the case, that kiss was nothing more than a drunken fumble and it certainly didn’t feel like that.

‘You kissed me.’ I said.

‘You kissed me.’

‘Oh Harry you’re such a child.’

I stood up to leave but he stopped me.

‘And you storming off every time we get into a fight isn’t childish?’

I stared down at his hand in mine and felt myself smile. ‘I’m a woman, that’s what we do.’

He laughed. ‘Please let’s not argue about this.’ He pulled me down onto the sunbed next to him. ‘It’s our last day and I have something beautiful planned for tonight. Just tell me one thing and I promise I’ll say no more about it. When I touch you like that, when my hands are on you, do you like it?’

I stared at his gentle brown eyes, at the lips I so wanted to kiss again and I answered automatically. ‘Yes.’

He nodded, more to himself than to me, then he stood up. ‘Come on, we need to get ready.’

‘Wait, I just told you something…’ I gestured vaguely, ‘…about us, are you not going to give me anything in return?’

He smiled – his gorgeous, winning charm-the-birds-from-the-trees smile. ‘Tonight, I promise. But let’s get through this pantomime first. We have a show to put on. But I think you’ll like it.’

I felt uneasy about that. I sort of wanted our last proposal to just be the two of us, but it sounded like he had a huge spectacle planned. He rubbed away my frown I didn’t even know I was wearing.

‘I bought you something.’ He handed me another jar. There was a large flower inside, almost filling the whole jar, its petals were the palest pink. But also as I took the jar I realised it was filled with water, sea water judging by the tiny bits of sand that were also floating around inside. As the water swirled, tiny sparkles of gold twinkled inside too.