Page 89 of The Island Villa

“I do, but I don’t have a traditionally romantic view of it. I think when you feel an instant connection with someone across a crowded room, that’s physical attraction, not love. And I don’t think there’s such a thing as the one. How can there be? There are eight billion people on the planet. If there was only one person for us, we’d all be single.”

He laughed. “That’s true.”

“But despite that, I’m still loving this story. I don’t know what that says about me.”

He leaned across and brushed sand from her leg. “It says you’re turning into a big old romantic, Dr. Swift.”

“Okay that’s a scary thought.” Laughing, she slid her e-reader back into her bag. “I’m relieved, to be honest. I was dreading reading it, but it’s a heartwarming story, although obviously I haven’t reached the part where he dies.”

“Death does have a tendency to interrupt things.” Stefanos rubbed his hair dry with a towel. “Does your mother know about this book?”

“Yes, but she hasn’t read it yet. Cassie only gave it to us late last night. She’s probably reading it right now.”

He draped the towel round his neck. “You don’t think it will upset her, given that she’s remarrying your dad?”

“I wondered about that. I think Cassie wondered too, although to be fair, our mother didn’t share what was happening so there’s no blame attached to Cassie. I was scared of reading it, but there are no triggers for me.” There was nothing controversial in it. Nothing that seemed too personal. Just a straightforward love story that ended in tragedy. From what she’d read so far, she felt reassured. And also relieved, because part of her had been dreading that this might drive a wedge between her and her sister.

“So you think your mother will be okay with it?”

She smiled at him. “The one thing I do know about my mother is that she is an incurable romantic. I can say with complete confidence that she is going to love the book.”

19

Catherine

Catherine leaned over the toilet and lost the contents of her stomach.

“Catherine?!” Andrew hammered on the bathroom door.

She sank down onto the floor and leaned her head against the cool tiles of the bathroom, trying to settle her insides.

Her life and her lies had caught up with her.

She crawled back to the toilet and retched again. Andrew rattled the door.

“Catherine? Are you okay?”

No, she wasn’t okay.

The pages of Cassie’s novel were strewn across the floor where she’d dropped them. Page 96 had slid to the opposite side of the bathroom and page 208 had somehow drifted inside the walk-in shower, the print gradually blurring as droplets of water from Andrew’s earlier shower soaked through the paper. The other pages were an untidy jumble, mixed up, out of order. It didn’t matter. She knew she was never going to read the words again.

People said you could leave the past behind and move on, but it wasn’t true. You could pretend to move on, you could say to yourself I’m doing great, but that thing you were trying to forget was always there in the corner of the room, waiting to pounce.

“Damn it, Cathy.” Andrew banged the door and she staggered to her feet and held onto the washbasin.

She stared at herself in the mirror. This is your fault. You did this.

That was what happened when you wrote romance for a living. It became harder to separate fact from fiction. You spent so much time in the land of happy endings that you forgot it was a job, and thought it was life. You started to think that anything was possible and maybe Prince Charming really would have searched his kingdom for the woman who was dumb enough to wear a glass slipper (glass? Seriously?).

She made it back to the toilet just in time and dimly heard a scraping sound and then the sound of the door opening.

“Cathy, sweetheart?” Andrew was on his knees next to her, holding her hair back, stroking her shoulders and telling her that everything was going to be fine, which she knew for a fact wasn’t true because everything definitely wasn’t fine and she couldn’t see how it ever could be again.

She heard the sound of taps running and then felt the bliss of a cool flannel against her burning forehead.

“Was it something you ate? It couldn’t have been lunch. We both had the lamb and I’m fine.” He noticed the pages scattered across the floor. “Is that Cassie’s book? Is this about the book?”

It wasn’t about the book, exactly. It was about her life. Her choices. Her mistakes.

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