That evening, I finally got around to visiting Kat's home. She lived with Mo in a second-floor apartment two streets away from my hotel. We met at Coral Cove and walked there together.

"Mo's making dinner," she said. "He finished work earlier than me, and besides, he's the better cook. I think we're having pasta."

Carb overload. My absolute favourite. Well, except for dessert. Dessert trumped carbs every time. It was in a class of its own.

"You had to work late again?" I asked.

Kat made a face. "Yeah. Irina, the other instructor? Well, there's no sign of her. We went to her apartment, and one of the guys climbed in through an open window. There was nobody home, but it looked as if all of her belongings were still there."

"What if she took a trip? Or went home for a while? If she did that, she wouldn't have to take much with her."

"That's what the police said."

"You spoke to them?"

"Yes. Well, not personally. A couple of her other friends went to the station. They said the cops were spectacularly unhelpful, which is par for the course around here, unfortunately."

"I suppose there's not much for them to go on."

"No, I guess not, but it still doesn't help Irina. Maybe she really did go home. It's odd, though. A similar thing happened a few months back as well, with a waitress Simone knew. She just vanished one day. The police said she must have flown home to Indonesia, but she never got there. The odd thing was, she had a flight out booked for the following week, but she didn't take it."

Another shiver ran through me. I was going to be looking over my shoulder from now on.

Kat must have noticed my worried expression. "I'm so sorry—here I am, supposed to be cheering you up, and I'm worrying you. No more depressing talk. Let's have dinner and then we can watch a movie."

Dinner was amazing. I'd been expecting something average, but the pasta was homemade, and the carbonara sauce—sans bacon of course, since we were in Egypt—was so delicious I troughed down the whole lot, calories be damned.

"Where on earth did you learn to cook?" I asked Mo. "Are you secretly Italian?"

He shifted in his seat and blushed. "Before I learned to wakeboard, I worked in the kitchen at an Italian restaurant."

"Well, if the watersports thing doesn't work out, you can always open your own."

He gave me a shy smile, and when I moved to take my plates to the kitchen, he waved me away.

"No, no, I'll do that. You sit with Kat."

I wasn't about to argue. It was movie time. Kat already had her laptop out, and as she flicked through the menu, I leaned in close.

"You really need to keep him."

She turned to me with a look in her eyes that I'd never seen before. It took me a few seconds before it clicked. It was love.

"I know," she whispered. "He's different from all the others. I know now what I've been searching for."

I gave her a hug as a tear rolled down her cheek.

"I'm so happy here. But sometimes it just feels a bit overwhelming."

Aw, sappy Kat was cute. But the gaping hole in my chest taunted me, and I swallowed back tears of my own.

"Can we just put the movie on?" I asked.

She sprang back. "Of course. I'm so sorry! I should have remembered, you know... Right, enough relationship stuff. Let's do Hollywood. Hot men and explosions."

I appreciated her understanding. "What are we watching?"

"Ben Sharp's new movie. He's so dreamy."

"What happened to Scott?"

"Scott's so last week. It's all about Ben now. I hear he takes his shirt off in this one."

That was the Kat I knew and loved. The movie wasn't bad, either.

Mo and Kat both walked me back to the hotel at ten so I could catch up on some sleep. After all the talk of disappearances earlier, I'd gratefully accepted the company when they'd offered.

I slept better than I expected, happily with a semi-naked Ben Sharp flitting through my dreams rather than Bryce. Except at one point, he looked at me, and he had Adam's face. What was that all about?

It was the wine. It must have been.

I was up and dressed before a waiter knocked on the door at eight thirty bearing a tray. Breakfast again.

"Who sent this?" I asked him.

He shrugged and shook his head. "I do not know, Miss Callie. The kitchen just told me to bring it. Is there something you don't like?"

"No, no, I'm sure it's delicious. Thank you." Later, I'd have to try to find the person who took the order.

I ate a few pastries and had a cup of coffee, then kept a wary eye out for Eid as I walked to the dive centre. Just in case. As usual, Adam was there before me. How did he get up so early? Didn't he understand he was supposed to be on holiday?

"Sleep well?" he asked.

Heat spread across my cheeks as I remembered his face in my dreams. "Y-y-yes, thank you." Where were my manners? "How about you?"

"Very well. This place is growing on me."

"I know what you mean. It's like time slows. Things that were problems before you arrived suddenly don't seem so bad anymore, do they?"

"No, they don't. I was talking to the barman last night, and he told me there's an old legend that says the mountains here can heal your soul."

"I could do with that."

"The town's name, Fidda Hilal, means 'silver crescent moon.' They say that if you go up into the mountains as the moon rises through a gap in the peaks, when its light hits you, all your worries will disappear."

"Where do I sign up?" I asked in complete seriousness.

He laughed. "I'll try to find out for you."

I heard footsteps behind us, and then Gabe's voice.

"You're up early this morning, princess."

"I had an early night. And yes, I've eaten breakfast. My mystery admirer sent it again."

"Well, good. Every girl should have one."

I wasn't so sure. I'd much rather know who it was.

"So, where are we diving this morning?"

"Nowhere. We've got a nice, challenging, classroom session."

Adam and I both groaned. That was one thing we agreed on.

"I know, I know, but we have to get it out of the way. Then we'll go out somewhere nice this afternoon. We might even see another turtle."

He wasn't kidding when he said "challenging." We were supposed to be using tables to work out how long we could safely dive for without getting the bends. Or decompression sickness, as the textbook called it. The safe amount of time varied with depth, and we had to understand how to calculate it.

I was okay with the first bit, but when Gabe introduced the added complication of making two dives in one day with a surface interval in between them, I wanted to cry in frustration. It didn't help that Adam seemed to comprehend it perfectly.

"But why is it forty-seven minutes? I have thirty-six minutes. I don't get it."

Gabe sat with me and patiently went through the little charts and lines and boxes yet again. Nope, I still didn't understand. It was like being back at secondary school all over again. Maths had never been my strongest subject. C-minus, must do better. I'd have found it easier to represent England at gymnastics than solve a quadratic equation, and I couldn't even do a handstand properly.

"I might as well quit right now. I'm never going to pass this. It's like you're speaking in Swahili."

"Shall I explain it again?"

I glanced over at The Ass, who was staring out the window. He must be bored out of his mind, waiting for me to finish.

"I think you'll have to. I'm sorry this is taking so long, Adam."

He drew his gaze away from the beach outside—where six shirtless guys were playing volleyball—and faced me.

"How about we give this a break? We'll go diving, and I can help you with it later on. Sometimes if you focus on something else for a while, when you go back to the thing that had you scratching your head, it all suddenly makes sense."

That sounded like a good plan. But hang on...he would help me? What about Gabe?

Gabe cut in. "Excellent idea. We can stop for lunch on the way. I'll fetch the car."

"Maybe we should just go over it again now?" I suggested.

I'd much rather Gabe help me. The thought of being alone with Adam made me nervous.

"Nah, I'm hungry," Gabe shot back over his shoulder as he walked out.

We stopped for lunch at a little café right next to the sea. Gabe pointed to a tattered flag flapping on a stick about thirty yards away. "That's the dive site. See, isn't this convenient?"

After we'd unloaded the gear, we settled down on cushions in front of a low table. An Egyptian wearing the traditional flowing white robes of the Bedouin came to take our order, but the butterflies in my stomach decided they weren't hungry. They were too busy flapping around, trying to find an excuse to skip Adam's explanations later.

"I'll just have fruit juice, thanks."

Except when Gabe's burger and fries arrived, I couldn't resist stealing one. Handful.

"You should have got your own," he said with his mouth full.

"I didn't think I wanted any at the time."

He rolled his eyes. "Women!"

Adam slid his plate over to me. "Here, have some of mine. I won't eat them all."

Suddenly I lost my appetite again. The Ass confused me when he was nice. It was far easier to be around him when he acted moody with a touch of grouchiness.

I tried to change the subject. "Did you hear about those missing girls?" I asked Gabe.

"What girls?"

"One of the windsurfing instructors Kat works with disappeared, and a few months ago, a waitress vanished as well."

"I heard about the waitress, but everyone assumed she'd gone travelling. From what I heard, she was backpacking around the world."

"Kat said she was supposed to fly home and she didn't. And the police won't even look for Irina, the windsurfer."

"That doesn't surprise me."

"Really? Why won't they do anything? I mean, there's a girl missing."

Gabe shrugged. "I'm not sure whether they're lazy, incompetent, or just corrupt."

"Can't somebody put in a complaint?"

He gave a wry laugh. "That's not how it works around here. It's not like England. In Fidda Hilal, the police have all the power, and they like to abuse it. One time, they inspected a friend's dive boat, and as they boarded, the deckhand asked them to remove their shoes the same as everybody else. They took offence and refused to let the boat out of the harbour all day."

"How can they get away with that? What happens if there's an actual crime?"

"Usually whoever did it gets away scot-free. Or sometimes, they arrest any old person to look as if they're doing something. People tend to sort out their own problems, especially the Bedouins."

I shuddered. "That actually sounds a bit scary."

"The majority of people around here are friendly. They just avoid the police and things work okay."

"Really? But what about kidnappings and stuff? I overheard someone in the hotel restaurant talking about those. They take tourists."

Gabe laughed again, but this time in humour.

"What?" I asked.

"Most of the kidnappings aren't really kidnappings, per se. They're more like compulsory hospitality. The Bedouins do it to make a political point. They round up a busload of holidaymakers and announce that they've abducted them. The media gets excited, but in reality, the Bedouins take them out to the camel races and then feed them dinner. Most of them quite enjoy it."

"Seriously? That really happens?"

"Yeah. They had a bunch of bemused Portuguese people presenting the winning owners with their prizes a couple of months ago."

"That doesn't sound so bad, I suppose."

"Just another facet of life here in Egypt. You get used to it."

I guess I'd have to. I'd be staying there for five more weeks.

"So, what are we doing on this dive?" Adam asked. "Is it another easy one like yesterday?"

Gabe gave me a look of sympathy. "Sorry, but no. We're going to work on the same skills we did at the house reef yesterday, but deeper. And if you don't waste time getting distracted by pretty things, we can have a swim around at the end."

Why did Gabe stare at me when he said that? Adam looked in my direction too.

In the end, I found the dive much easier than yesterday morning's. Not only the exercises, but being close to Adam. I no longer jumped every time he touched me. And it showed in my air consumption. Since I was no longer huffing away like an out-of-shape marathon runner, my tank lasted longer.

That meant we could spend more time underwater, the consequence being that I was freezing when I got out. Despite the blazing sun, the chill in my core meant my teeth chattered as I stripped off my wetsuit.

"Are you okay?" Adam asked.

"Y-y-yes. J-j-just a bit cold."

"Where's your towel?"

He didn't wait for me to answer, just rummaged through the stuff in the back of the pickup until he found it, and then he bundled me up in it the way my mum used to when I was small.

"Better?" he asked.

I nodded, resisting the temptation to sag back into his arms. "Yes, thank you."

By the time the truck rumbled back into the dive centre, I'd warmed up and stopped shivering.

"Do you want to try a thicker wetsuit tomorrow?" Gabe asked. "It'll be warmer."

"Will it be easier to get on?"

"No. Perhaps a fraction more difficult."

Great.

"Don't worry, we'll manage," Adam said. "It's better than getting hypothermia."

We'll manage? He wasn't the one who'd lost three fingernails trying to get into the other one.

"I'll think about it," I said.

He gave me a look that said I'd be stupid not to. "Are you ready to study?"

Ah yes, the moment I'd been dreading, for more reasons than one. I nodded reluctantly.

"Great—your place or mine?"

Sorry, what? What was wrong with this place?

"I thought we'd use the classroom here."

"Sorry, no can do," Gabe said. "I need to lock up before I go."

Oh gosh, what to do? I didn't want to be alone with The Ass. Maybe we could go to the bar? No, because that would look as if we were on a date. And this most definitely wasn't a date. No, siree.

I wasn't sure I wanted to visit his man-cave. A small element of not trusting myself, perhaps? But if he came to my room, how would I get rid of him? Hey, what if we just sat on a bench somewhere?

Stop being ridiculous, Callie. It was only studying. And maybe dinner. And a few drinks. No! Definitely not drinks.

"I'll come to you." My mouth made the decision rather than my brain.

Adam beamed at me, and I blinked in the glare of the lights on his teeth.

"See you in ten?"

I nodded. My mouth had gone too dry to speak.