It was an eye-opening time for me in more ways than one. For most of the time it was hard, physical labour. It was hot and incredibly humid, and the closest I got to a shower was a dip in the river, but I liked seeing the building take shape. Every day we could stand back and see the results of our labours, and we forgot that our hands were dirty, our nails broken, our hair tangled.

When I think back to that time what I remember most is the laughter. Children laughing, women laughing, everyone laughing together. I’d never met a community that found so much humour in their everyday lives. The people of Aduaba humbled me with their openness, their friendliness and their hospitality, and I cringed when I remembered how dismissive I had been of their huts when I first arrived. When I was invited inside, I found that the mud floors were swept and everything was scrupulously clean and neat.

‘Why can’t you keep your house like this?’ I asked Phin.

The women particularly were hard-working and funny. A few of them had some words of English or French, and I learnt some words of their language. We managed to communicate well enough. I kept my hair tied back, as that was only practical, but I forgot about mascara and lipstick, and it wasn’t long before I started to feel the tension that was so familiar to me I barely noticed it most of the time slowly unravelling.

I learnt to appreciate the smell of the rainforest, the way the darkness dropped like a blanket, the beauty of the early-morning mist on the river. I began to listen for the sounds which had seemed so alien at first: the screech of a monkey, the rasp of insects in the dark, the creak and rustle of vegetation, the crash of tropical rain on the tarpaulin and the slow, steady drip of the leaves afterwards.

But most of all my eyes were opened to Phin. It was a long time since I had been able to think of him as no more than a bland celebrity, but I hadn’t realised how much more there was to him. He was in his element in Aduaba. He belonged there in a way he never would in the confines of the office.

Wherever there was laughter, I would find him. He spoke much more of the language, and had an extraordinary ability to defuse tension and get everyone working together, sorting out administrative muddles with endless patience. I suppose I hadn’t realised how competent he was.

I remember watching him out of the corner of my eye as he hammered in a roof joist. His expression was focused, but when one of the other men on the roof shouted what sounded like a curse he glanced up and shouted something back that made them all laugh. I saw the familiar smile light up his face and felt something that wasn’t familiar at all twist and unlock inside me.

At night I was desperately aware of him breathing nearby, and knew that he was the reason I wasn’t afraid. He was the reason I was here at all.

He was the reason I was changing.

And I was changing. I could feel it. I felt like a butterfly struggling out of its chrysalis, hardly able to believe what was happening to me.

That I was enjoying it.

It wasn’t all work. I played on the beach with the children, and helped the women cook. One of the men took us into the forest and showed us a bird spider on its web. I kid you not, that spider was as big as my hand. None of us thought of wandering off on our own after that.

Once Jonathan and I took a little boat with an outboard motor and puttered down the river. I felt quite comfortable with him by then. My mind was full of Aduaba and our life there, and I’d almost forgotten the desperate yearning I had once felt for him.

We drifted in companionable silence for a while. ‘It’s funny to think we’ll be going home soon,’ said Jonathan at last. ‘I’ll admit I was dreading this trip, but it’s been one of the best things I’ve ever done.’

‘I feel that, too.’

‘It’s made me realise that I never really knew you before, when we…you know…’ He petered off awkwardly.

‘I know,’ I said, trailing my fingers in the water. ‘But I think I’ve changed since I’ve been here. I wasn’t like this before, or if I was I didn’t know it. I thought I was going to hate it but I don’t.’ I remembered my bet with Phin and shivered a little.

‘I know you and Phin are good together,’ Jonathan blurted suddenly, ‘but I just want you to know that I think you’re wonderful, Summer, and if you ever change your mind about Phin I’d like another chance.’

I stilled for a moment. How many times had I dreamt of Jonathan saying those words? Now that he had, I didn’t know what to say.

I pulled my hand out of the water. ‘What about Lori?’ I asked. It wasn’t that long since he’d been mad about her.

‘Lori’s back with her ex. It was quite intense for a while, but I think I always knew she was on the rebound, and now that she’s back with him I realise how close I came to making a big mistake.’

So I couldn’t use Lori as an excuse to say no, I thought, and then caught myself up. Excuse? What do you need an excuse for, Summer?

‘I know I didn’t appreciate you when I had you, but I can see now that you were so much better for me than Lori,’ Jonathan was saying. ‘We’ve got so much more in common.’

‘Yes, I suppose we have,’ I said slowly.

He leant forward eagerly. ‘We’ve got the same outlook, the same values.’

It was true. That was exactly what I had loved about him, but why did he have to wait until now to realise it? Frankly, his timing sucked.

‘Jonathan, I-’

‘It’s OK,’ he interrupted me. ‘You don’t need to say anything. I know how things are with you and Phin right now. I just wanted to tell you how I felt-to let you know that I’m always here for you.’

Why did he have to be so nice? I thought crossly as we made our way back. It would have been so much easier for me if he had turned out to be lazy, or a whinger, or even if he just hadn’t liked Cameroon very much. Then I could have decided that I didn’t love him after all. But in lots of ways I had never liked Jonathan as much as I did then.

Jonathan knew Phin’s reputation as well as I did. He wouldn’t have said anything if he hadn’t thought there was a good chance that my supposed relationship with Phin would end sooner or later.

As it would.

Everything was working out just as Phin had said. It was just a pity I didn’t know what I really wanted any more.

There was a party on our last night in Aduaba. We drank palm wine in the hot, tropical night and listened to the sounds of the forest for the last time. Then the music started. There’s an irresistible rhythm to African music. I could feel it beating in my blood, and when the women pulled me to my feet I danced with them.

I must have looked ridiculous, stamping my feet and waggling my puny bottom, but I didn’t care. The only time I faltered was when I caught Phin watching me, with such a blaze of expression in his eyes that I stumbled momentarily. But when I looked again he was laughing and allowing himself to be drawn into the dance and I decided I must have imagined it.


I ran my fingers over my keyboard as if I had never seen one before. It felt very strange to be back in the office. My head was still full of Africa, and I had found the tube stifling and oppressive on my way into work that morning.

Unsettled, I switched on my computer, and sat down to scroll through the hundreds of e-mails that had accumulated while we’d been away. It was hard to focus, though, and my mind kept drifting back to Aduaba and Phin.

Phin stripped to the waist like the other men, his muscles bulging with effort as they lifted the heavy timbers into place.

Phin laughing with the children in the river.

Phin looking utterly at ease in the heat and the humidity and the wildness.

He strolled in some time after ten, and all the air evaporated from my lungs at the sight of him. I was annoyed to see that he seemed just the same as always, while I felt completely different.

I looked at him over the top of my glasses. ‘I see you didn’t invest in that alarm clock,’ I said crisply, to cover the fact that my heart was cantering around my chest in an alarmingly uncontrolled way.

‘No, but then I don’t need to turn up on time every day, do I?’ said Phin, not at all put out by the sharpness of my greeting. ‘I’m not the one who lost the bet.’

The mention of the bet silenced me, and I bit my lip. Nothing more had been said about it, and I’d convinced myself that Phin hadn’t really been serious. It had just been joke…hadn’t it?

Much to my relief, Phin didn’t say any more, but went into his office and threw himself into his chair. ‘So, what’s been happening?’ he asked. ‘Is there anything that needs to be dealt with right away?’

Grateful to him for behaving normally, I took in my notebook and ran through the most urgent issues. ‘Shall I make some coffee?’ I said, when I had finished scribbling notes.

‘Not just yet,’ said Phin. ‘There’s the small matter of the bet we made.’ He smiled at me as I stared at him in consternation. ‘I think you owe me.’

It was typical of him to let me relax and then catch me off guard. I should have known he’d do something like that.

I swallowed. ‘Now?’

‘I always think it’s best to pay debts straight away, don’t you? Do you remember the terms?’

Drawing a breath, I took off my glasses. ‘I think so,’ I said.

Now that it had come to it, I felt a flicker of excitement. I met Phin’s eyes and wondered if he was waiting for me to renegotiate, and I knew suddenly that I didn’t want to do that.

‘You were right,’ I said clearly. ‘I loved it.’

Calmly, I got to my feet and went round the desk to where Phin sat in a high-backed executive chair. He was silent, watching me as I leant back against the desk and very deliberately pulled the clip from my hair, so that I could shake it loose and let it tumble around my face.

How embarrassing, my sensible side was saying. How unbelievably inappropriate. How tacky.

It was bad enough making a bet like that with your boss, without playing up to his patriarchal male fantasies. How had I got myself into a situation where I was feeling a bit naughty, a bit dirty, a bit sexy in the office?

How could I possibly be turned on by it?

But I was. I can hardly bear to remember it without cringing, but at the time…oh, yes, I certainly was.

I smiled slowly at Phin. ‘How am I doing so far?’

‘Perfect,’ he said, but his voice was strained and I felt a spurt of triumph, even power that I could have that effect on him just by letting down my hair.

Levering myself away from the desk, I moved closer to him. One by one I undid the buttons of my jacket, even though I was having one of those out-of-body experiences again and screaming at myself, What are you doing? Stop it right now!

Phin said nothing, but his eyes were very dark as he watched me, and I could see him struggling to keep his breathing even. When my jacket was open to reveal the cream silk camisole I wore underneath, I leant down and pressed my mouth to the pulse that was beating frantically in his throat.

I heard Phin suck in his breath, and I smiled against his skin, slipping my arms around his neck and easing myself onto his lap so that I could kiss my way slowly, slowly, along his jaw to the edge of his mouth.

‘Am I doing it right?’ I whispered.

‘God, yes,’ he said raggedly, and his arms came up to fasten around me as I kissed him at last.

His lips parted beneath mine, drawing me in, and the chair spun round as his hand slid possessively under my skirt. It might have been tacky, it might have been deeply, deeply inappropriate, but it felt so good I didn’t care.

I have a hazy memory that I thought I should be in control, but if I ever was I soon lost it. It wasn’t as if Phin was in control either. That kiss was stronger than both of us. It ripped through our meagre defences, rampaging like wildfire in the blood, sucking us up like a twister to a place far from the office where there were only lips and tongues, only hands moving greedily, insistently, only the pounding of our hearts and the throb of our bodies and the sweet, dangerous intoxication of a kiss that went on and on and on.

Sadly, the office hadn’t forgotten us. The sound of a throat being loudly cleared gradually penetrated. We paused, our mouths still pressed together, our tongues still entwined, and then our eyes opened at exactly the same time.

The throat was cleared again. As if at a trigger, we jerked apart, and I would have leapt off Phin’s knee if he hadn’t held me tightly in place as he swung his chair back to face the door.

Lex Gibson was standing there, looking bored.