Page 71 of The Wedding Pact

‘But you could pay someone else to take the fall for you.’ She grins at this.

‘This conversation got very dark all of a sudden.’

‘Yeah. Sorry about that. I get a bit carried away sometimes. It’s the creative in me. Always looking for the plot twist.’

I smile, remembering the crime thriller she was so engrossed in the other day.

‘But seriously, do you not feel a weight of responsibility to the world?’ she adds. ‘Having that much money?’

‘Yeah, some days I do. I mean, I intend to do a lot of good with it, once I’ve got the breathing space to think about it properly.’

‘You and your friends were pretty young to suddenly become that wealthy.’

‘True. We’re all dealing with it in different ways too. Kit’s splashing the cash about, living his best life, whereas Elliot’s carefully reinvesting it in his hotel chain.’

‘And you’ve started a new business – doing what exactly?’

‘We’re building a piece of software for the finance sector for use in global trading.’

I swear she’s trying not to roll her eyes at that.

‘Right,’ she says. ‘So, you’re just biding your time, waiting for the perfect opportunity to jump in with your billions and save the world.’

I raise my eyebrows. ‘Yeah, maybe I am.’

‘It’s a tricky thing to navigate, I imagine. All that power and opportunity.’

‘I guess. But I think I’ll be fine. I’ve got my head screwed on right and I’m determined to do great things.’

‘There’s nothing wrong with being ambitious, but you’ve got to get the balance of your life right, dude.’ She leans towards me again, kissing me deeply for a minute, before pulling back a little to look into my eyes. ‘So stop working and come and play with me.’ Once again she starts the rocking motion of her hips on my still semi-hard cock. Which of course makes it spring right back to life.

‘We seem to have circled back to the beginning,’ I say with an amused grin.

‘We do, yeah. Stop fighting it. It’s an inevitability.’

I know she’s right about that. There’s no way I’m going to be able to concentrate on working when there’s sex with Ida on the table.

Speaking of which, I put my hands back onto her hips, holding on to her tightly while I swing my legs over the side of the lounger. Then I stand up, lifting her with me so she has to wrap her legs around my waist.

She giggles with pleasure as I carry her back into the villa, heading straight for the dining area and an afternoon feast.

12

IDA

Later, we spend the evening over at the hotel with the other guests, watching a really fun cabaret of Maldivian Bodu Beru dancing and live music which then moves on to a DJ set on the beach, where everyone gets up to dance and splash about in the warm sea.

It’s a real relief to not have to fake our attraction – not that it was ever really fake – in front of all these lovely people now. I was becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the idea of lying to them about the real state of my and Raffa’s relationship. So, it’s great to be able to spend the evening touching and kissing him, knowing he’s more than happy for me to do so.

In fact, he’s so happy with it we end up sneaking off at about midnight to head back to the villa for more sex.

We seem to be having a lot of trouble keeping our hands off each other now that we’ve smashed through the friends-only barrier.

Not that I’m complaining.

It’s hands-down the best sex I’ve ever had.

Afterwards, we go for a swim in our pool, then float on our backs in the water, staring up at the bright stars, which pepper the dark sky above us.