Moonflower Read online

Sophie nodded.

  During the course of the morning, she said goodbye to the members of the group, giving Clarice and McTavish a wide berth. Mark, to Sophie’s surprise, asked if she’d take a walk with him in the garden.

  ‘Um… okay,’ Sophie said warily, and was rewarded with Mark’s famous grin.

  ‘Nothing horrible, I promise,’ he assured her.

  They talked about trivialities as they walked through the garden, past beds of lavender and agapanthus, to the edge of the lake.

  ‘Am I right in assuming our Clarice had a talk with you?’

  Sophie sighed deeply, too emotionally wrung out to feel the indignation she usually would at yet another intrusion into her private life. She turned to face him head-on. ‘Okay, let’s have it then, Mark.’

  ‘Wow! Clarice must really have done a number on you,’ he said, then shook his head and gave her that boyish grin again. ‘Not me. I like you, Sophie.’

  ‘That’s a relief,’ she said without an ounce of sarcasm.

  ‘No, really I do,’ Mark said, seeming concerned that she believe him. ‘You’re authentic. Today, that’s as rare as—’

  ‘Hen’s teeth?’

  ‘Hen’s teeth.’ Mark nodded. He hesitated before saying, ‘Did you know Clarice was once involved with Reuben? Romantically, I mean.’

  ‘I’d guessed as much.’

  ‘What you might not know is that it was years and years ago, and it was very brief.’

  That did surprise Sophie. From the way Clarice had behaved, she’d assumed the woman had felt usurped in some way.

  ‘Reuben was just starting to make it big,’ Mark went on, ‘and Clarice came from a privileged background. She’d never been denied anything her heart desired, and she wanted Reuben. Seems she never really got over him. At least that’s my opinion. My brother’s blissfully unaware of the torch she still carries for him. Thing is, Clarice tends to be a little jealous of any woman Reuben shows an interest in. So what I’m saying is: don’t take anything she said to you to heart, okay?’

  At least that part of the last few days was beginning to make sense now. The reason Clarice had spoken to her wasn’t so much because she stuck out like a sore thumb in their social circle. What it all came down to was good old-fashioned jealousy. Sophie felt a sudden pity for Clarice. ‘You know what I find so weird about the last couple of days?’

  Mark shook his head.

  ‘I really didn’t think we were being that obvious.’

  ‘Oh, you weren’t,’ Mark assured her. ‘Only I know him well enough to pick up on it, and Clarice is jealous of any woman under the age of fifty who spends any time with him.’

  Sophie relaxed a little.

  ‘You know what struck me most? My brother’s more relaxed than I’ve seen him since we were boys,’ Mark said, thoughtfully. ‘I’d go so far as to say content.’

  Sophie knew she probably had a look of pure joy on her face and she didn’t care if Mark saw it. ‘Well, he’s had a couple of near-death experiences with me. That’ll do it for some people.’

  ‘I’m not even going to ask what you mean.’

  ‘Thanks, Mark. For telling me this.’

  He nodded. ‘Don’t mention it.’

  ‘I won’t,’ Sophie said and smiled at him.

  ‘Go well, Sophie.’ Mark stepped forward to hug her, then strode back to the house.

  Sophie couldn’t manage a bite of lunch, and the paperwork covering her desk could not hold her attention for longer than a minute or two. Best she could do was shuffle it into neat piles to be dealt with later in the day, or tomorrow. She tried to do some work on her laptop, but ended up gazing out of the window at a sky that had faded in the midday heat.

  Just before two o’clock, she decided to go to the cottage, just in case Reuben came to say goodbye to her. He said he’d try; it hadn’t been a definite arrangement. But what if he’d gotten away earlier and she’d missed him? Sophie raced to the cottage. Her hand shook as she unlocked the door.

  Reuben looked at his watch as he replaced the handset at the end of yet another call, another complication he’d had to sort out in London. Two-thirty. The luggage was loaded, guests were getting ready to leave, and all he could think about was one long-legged, copper-haired woman in khaki.

  He jumped up from his chair and rushed from the room, racing along the passage. ‘Tell everyone I’ll be ready in ten minutes,’ he said to a startled Beauty as he rushed towards the back of the house. He took the stairs into the garden two at a time, walked quickly across the lawn, then broke into a run.

  Damn it! She might have thought he wasn’t coming and gone out again. He needed to see her, hold her in his arms, perhaps for the last time.

  Reuben reached the cottage and banged his fist against the door.

  ‘It’s open,’ he heard her call. He thought his heart would explode with relief.

  She was standing in the centre of the room and turned to look at him. Green eyes, large and moist. Full lips parted. He rushed to her and gathered her in his arms.

  She let out a small cry, buried her face in his neck and clung to him. He held her tightly, breathing her in. Willing himself to remember the way she felt against him, her fragrance. Not perfume, which would give her presence away to animals in the bush. Fresh soap and warm skin. Utterly unique to Sophie. His one-of-a-kind girl.

  ‘I didn’t think you were coming,’ she said, and there was a hurt in her eyes he could not stand to see, so he kissed her. She returned his kisses with a fierceness that caused every thought to flee. He experienced her as he always did, as if he’d come fully alive, every sense heightened to a blinding sharpness.

  But eventually reality intruded. It had to. There was his real life beyond this farm, outside the spell she had woven around him. There was luggage loaded into cars, guests and chauffeurs waiting for him.

  ‘I have to go, Sophie,’ he said gently, pulling away from her. He moved back, looked away from the moistness in her eyes to the tension around her beautiful mouth. He knew she was trying hard not to cry and that tore him to pieces. He kept hold of her hand, took a step back. Another step, and their hands slid from each other’s grasp. She opened her mouth to speak. He waited, but she said nothing, so he turned and strode from the room.

  All through the journey to the airport, Reuben thought of Sophie. He hadn’t wanted to leave her behind. Everything in him wanted to rush back to the farm, find her and say, ‘Quick, pack a bag. You’re coming with me.’

  But Sophie’s work, no, her passion, was the farm. What would she do in London? He could not imagine her away from her animals and the veld. Far from blue skies and wide open spaces. That was where Sophie belonged. It would be cruel to take such a wild and magnificent creature and put her in an apartment, in a city. How long would Sophie continue to be Sophie in such a setting?

  That first image he’d had of her—striding across golden veld in her white lacy bra, rifle in hand—came to mind and Reuben smiled to himself.

  She was so different to any woman he’d ever known. That, he was sure, was part of the attraction. But it was also part of the problem. Exotic could be intoxicating, but uproot the exotic and it often did not survive in its new habitat. Would Sophie even want to try? He was sure she wouldn’t.

  It was as he sat in the first class lounge at Cape Town International Airport that he was startled by the questions that had plagued him since he’d left the farm. Was he thinking of a more permanent arrangement with her? Something more formal; a commitment of some sort? But they had no middle ground. Sophie was Sophie: passionate conservationist, strong, stubborn, dedicated, outspoken, unsophisticated. A diamond in the rough.

  While he was at home in the high-flying world of shares, deals, dinner parties and mergers. Stubborn, strong and dedicated, too. A man who had spent years polishing himself, carving out an identity in a world that measured one only by the size of your corporation and the illustriousness of your contacts.

  By the time Reuben boarded the plane
, he was sure of only one thing: that his relationship with Sophie could not continue the way it had. He had to decide which way to go from here, and he had three weeks in which to do it.

  Chapter Nine

  Sophie threw herself into her work. By day, she, Sipho and Isaac would load up the vehicles and travel out before sunrise, and she’d work until the sweat trickled down her back and her muscles ached.

  Evenings she would have dinner at the house and spend a little time in the rec room with the staff, before making her way to the cottage.

  Nights were a little trickier. She took work back to the cottage. She had begun to carefully document the plants, trees and soil quality on the farm and would work late, creeping into bed only when she was too tired to see straight.

  Even in sleep she couldn’t escape him. In dreams he held her in his arms and she would feel the dip and curve of powerful shoulders, the flex of muscle and smooth skin beneath her fingertips. But as the days wore on and she heard nothing from him, the nature of her dreams changed. He would stride away from her, she racing after him, calling his name, but no matter how fast she ran, she was never able to close the distance between them.

  Sophie would wake from these dreams, her heart pounding, a tightness in her stomach. And still he did not call. She knew he kept in contact with the Bosmans, phoning or e-mailing almost every day with a query or instruction. How could she not be hurt when Sara or Rolf mentioned another call from Reuben, while he kept a stony silence with her?

  Ten days after Reuben and his guests had left, most of the staff were seated at the table in the kitchen, finishing dinner, when Beauty let out an excited squeal and pointed to the television playing silently in the corner.

  ‘It’s Mister Reuben,’ Isaac said.

  ‘Quick. Turn it up,’ Patience urged, elbowing Sipho in the ribs.

  ‘Model and businesswoman, Kate Atkinson, was seen attending the glittering function in aid of The Prince’s Trust last night. She arrived on the arm of business tycoon, Reuben Manning, giving rise to speculation…’

  To the casual observer, Sophie seemed unfazed by this news, but in reality her heart hammered painfully as she watched him incline his head and whisper something in the model’s ear. The beauty looked delighted, smiled broadly at his comment and leaned against his side.

  Sophie wasn’t sure how she managed to keep up the charade of finishing her dinner as if she didn’t have a care in the world, when she wanted so badly to run from the room. She shovelled a few forkfuls of food into her mouth before taking her plate to the sink, wishing everyone a goodnight and, at last, dashing for the refuge of the cottage.

  She was at the end of the path when a dark shadow moved suddenly in front of one of the garden torches staked in the ground.

  ‘Mr Solomon,’ Sophie said. Her heart was broken; all she wanted to do was get to the cottage, where she could deal with the emotions that were tearing her apart.

  He took a step towards her, peered up into her face. His eyes narrowed, he shook his head, and for a moment Sophie felt transparent as a jellyfish.

  ‘Come with me,’ he said, turning and walking stiffly down the path.

  ‘I’m not feeling well this evening, Mr Solomon. Perhaps another time.’

  He stopped, turned back to her and with a beckoning hand, said, ‘Come!’

  Sophie sighed and followed him down the path. He stepped off the paving, tottered onto the lawn and around a corner. Sophie came to a stop beside him in front of an enormous bush, bowed beneath the weight of a glorious display of yellow roses.

  ‘What d’you see?’ he asked her.

  ‘A rosebush.’

  ‘Just a rosebush.’ The old man sounded disdainful.

  ‘A very large rosebush with lots of blooms,’ Sophie tried again.

  ‘They said it was dead. Near the back porch. Wanted it pulled out. “Throw it away,” they said. But I wouldn’t do it.’ He shook his head. ‘It wasn’t dead. I knew that. Could see it straight away. It’d been tested with bad soil and poor light and still it survived. So I moved it here.’

  Sophie turned to the little man, laid a gentle hand on his shoulder. ‘You’re very special, aren’t you, Mr Solomon? You see more than most people do; that’s a gift.’

  He stepped towards the rosebush and stroked the petals of a bloom with tender fingers. ‘People talk too much,’ he said, pulling a face. ‘They miss all the things that aren’t said. They look at all the signs but don’t see. They’re there though. You just have to look.’

  He took a small pair of garden shears from his pocket, snipped off a rose and handed it to her.

  ‘I’ll dry it when it’s past its first bloom; as a reminder of a very important lesson,’ Sophie said. ‘Thank you.’

  She put the magnificent yellow rose in a glass of water when she reached the cottage, took her clothes off, pulled on a t-shirt and crawled into bed, where she lay staring up at the ghost-white mosquito net.

  It served her right, of course. It was the dose of reality she’d been waiting for. She just hadn’t known how ice-cold the dousing would be.

  The image of Reuben with another woman felt like a knife through her heart, but she pushed it aside with all the self-preservation and stubbornness she could muster, because in real life, love did not always conquer all. In fact, if you weren’t careful, and you were disappointed often enough, it could make you bitter. Sophie was determined that would never happen to her.

  She was not angry with Reuben. How could she be? He’d only ever been honest with her. Her broken heart was her own doing. She had thought she was more sophisticated than she really was. She’d fallen in love with him and, hoping he too had feelings for her, she’d tried to create a different reality.

  But the experience had taught her a few important lessons about herself. She was not a woman suited to casual affairs. She would not make that mistake again. She was a simple outdoor girl from the other side of the world and she was utterly comfortable with that. In fact, now that she held up her own life and compared it with Reuben’s, she couldn’t figure out what she’d been thinking. The idea of a deep and lasting relationship with business tycoon, Reuben Manning, was laughable. She felt a little embarrassed if truth be told. It was time she grew up.

  Sophie turned her head, catching sight of the rose in the glass on the bedside table. It stood out pale in the moonlight and she could smell its sweet perfume. Tears squeezed out of the corners of her eyes. A broken heart was a broken heart, but tomorrow she would start to put the pieces back together again.

  Chapter Ten

  Two weeks later, Sophie was in the hut near the boma, chatting to a group of fourteen-year-olds about long-term veld and game management programmes, when Reuben walked in with Isaac beside him.

  She had put so much effort into clearing him from her mind that for a split second she didn’t believe her eyes. Too many times he’d stepped into her dreams uninvited, or she would think she heard his footsteps, or his laughter on the path around the corner. Each time this happened she would discipline her mind to think of other things.

  Now he stood at the back of the room in chinos and a loose-fitting shirt. His dark, wavy hair was shorter, skin a little paler, but the navy blue eyes were exactly as she remembered them and they were fixed on her.

  Sophie’s skin tingled, and the tiny hairs that stood up on her arms told her this was not a dream. There had been no time to prepare for this meeting. A week ago, Sara had been telephoned by a secretary who told her he would be delayed for at least another few weeks. Sophie had wondered if he’d ever return. The thought had left her desolate, but part of her had seen it as a way out—the decision of where they should go from here taken out of her hands.

  Sophie faltered in her description of the particular characteristics of renosterveld and the children turned to follow her gaze. There was no smile from Reuben, no look of meaningful reunion.

  Swallowing, she took a deep breath and continued her talk. Moments later, when she dared to
look his way again, his arms were folded across his chest and he seemed to want to look anywhere but at her.

  Usually she loved sharing her passion for plants and animals with children—it was a talk similar to this that had kindled her own passion for wildlife as a child—but today was an ordeal and every sentence seemed to drag out, her eyes continuously sliding towards him.

  At that moment, Isaac was pointing to one of the posters on the wall, but Reuben’s body language said it all—he was half-turned towards the door, itching to get out, away from her.

  Sophie forced steadiness and strength into her voice. Ignored the way her legs wobbled and her stomach churned. What she held onto in that moment was love of her job, and her pride. She looked at the faces turned up to her. Forced a smile onto her lips, animation into her voice. No matter how hard, she would keep doing her job and would never let Reuben see that he had broken her heart.

  He had told himself he was leaving England early because he wanted to be at Labour’s End when the first consignment of animals arrived. But then he’d never been very good at deluding himself.

  In reality he was rushing back to Sophie. She was almost all he’d been able to think about since he’d left. He had thought he’d step effortlessly back into life in London. Pick up where he’d left off. The trip to Africa was meant to have been nothing more than the viewing of an asset he could use as a possible retreat if the place agreed with him.

  But the penthouse apartment in London had seemed empty no matter how many lights he turned on, and it seemed strange that he would long for a verandah that faced the sunset over a Cape Town mountain range.

  In meetings he would find himself staring out of a window, or realise he’d been looking at a particular page of a document for long moments without seeing whatever pressing business demanded his attention.