Page 16 of The Island Villa

Adeline’s shattered life had shattered still further. It was the ultimate rejection.

Her mother no longer wanted her around. She had a new husband and a new baby. Adeline was an inconvenience. A scratch on the smooth surface of her shiny new life. A permanent reminder of a marriage that hadn’t worked.

It was the moment she’d discovered that love wasn’t permanent. That it could end without warning. Snatched away. Withdrawn.

She’d learned the hard way how important it was to be independent emotionally. To always hold a little of yourself back.

Adeline adored her father, but in those early years, she’d had no confidence that his love would be any more reliable and enduring than her mother’s. It seemed to her, as she watched her father shrink before her eyes, that love was a game of winners and losers that no one remotely sensible would choose to play.

And then her mother’s new husband, Rob Dunn, had died in an accident. The press had called it a tragedy. The love story of the decade, cut short. Little Cassie had been just three years old.

By then Adeline’s father was taking art seriously, and he’d booked himself on an art retreat in the summer for two weeks. Adeline couldn’t be left alone, so it was decided that she would spend a few weeks with her mother and half sister on the island of Corfu, where Catherine now lived permanently.

Adeline had protested. She’d begged, but in the end had been given no choice. Her father, normally so easygoing and reasonable, wouldn’t flex. He’d insisted that this was a perfect time for her to get to know her little half sister, and mend fences with her mother.

But Adeline no longer trusted her mother and she’d arrived on the Greek island sullen and wary.

Her sense of isolation and rejection had deepened with each passing moment. Cassie’s sunny nature appealed to everyone and won hearts wherever she went. She was a content, good-natured child who seemed untouched by the scandal and tragedy that had cast a shadow over her life. It helped that she was too young to remember, but also she had Catherine who was a loving and protective mother, a fact that made Adeline feel worse. It might have been easier to handle had she been able to concede that some women just weren’t meant to be mothers, but Catherine was an excellent mother to Cassie. Which made the whole thing personal.

After that, she’d spent a few weeks every summer on Corfu with her mother and half sister, and by the time her eighteenth birthday came around, her mother was married for the third time and Adeline was old enough to decide for herself where she wanted to spend the summer. And that wasn’t with her mother and Cassie. She’d spent the summers touring Europe with her college friends, or staying in her father’s house on Cape Cod.

It had been years since she’d been back to Corfu, and she was dreading it.

“I can’t believe she won’t let you bring someone,” Mia said. “What if you’d suddenly decided to get married?”

“She knows there is no chance of that. Having her as a mother put me off marriage. It’s a huge decision, and one I’m not intending to make.”

Mia lifted an eyebrow. “Does robot Mark know you feel that way?”

“Don’t call him that.”

“Sorry, but I swear I’ve never seen him show an emotion. It’s unnerving. Do you guys actually talk about real stuff? How well do you really know him?”

“We’ve been together for a year.” She chose to ignore the comment about emotions. “Mark knows how I feel about marriage. He doesn’t care. He’s not romantic either. It’s the reason we’re good together. We’re both rational human beings. We approach our relationship with logic and reasoning.”

Mia rolled her eyes. “Be still my beating heart.”

“Stop it.” Adeline smiled. “What is romance, anyway? Some dreamy delusion that’s all in the mind. Expecting another person to fulfil unspoken wishes is absurd.”

“Is it?” Mia brushed a leaf from her skirt. “Isn’t that what intimacy is? Knowing someone? What you’re describing sounds more like a business deal than love.”

“A good relationship is like a business deal. You should share similar beliefs, support each other’s goals, encourage each other to grow. Our relationship works perfectly for us, probably because we both have realistic expectations. We both understand that emotion and impulse provide an unreliable foundation for a long-term partnership.” It was the one thing she was sure of. Although she sympathized with her father’s distress, it had been obvious to her for years that he and her mother were fundamentally incompatible. “This is where so many people go wrong. They expect romance and grand gestures, and when that all ends, as it inevitably does, they can’t handle the everyday reality of a relationship. Mark and I know exactly what we want.”

“To be bored rigid by each other?” Mia raised her hands. “Sorry, but I hate to see you settling for a relationship that’s so, so...”

“So?”

“I don’t know. Dull. Dry.”

“I haven’t settled. I’ve made a choice.”

“You’ve made a choice to keep yourself safe. You’ve picked a man you can’t possibly fall in love with. What’s wrong with romance? What’s wrong with grand gestures? Flowers? Chocolates? Theatre tickets?”

“If I want flowers, I’ll buy them myself. If I want a spa day, I’ll treat myself.” It was ridiculous to suggest she’d chosen a man she couldn’t fall in love with. She’d chosen Mark because he was right for her. She changed the subject. “Talking of theatre, I have tickets to see Much Ado About Nothing at the Globe next month if you’re interested.”

“Am I interested? Too right I’m interested.” Mia sat upright, momentarily distracted. “Those tickets are impossible to get.”

“I interviewed one of the cast for a feature. They sent me tickets.”

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