Page 41 of The Island Villa

“But...” Her mother turned to her father. “Andrew, say something. Do something. We can talk about this. This was supposed to be a memorable evening.”

It was definitely memorable.

Adeline kept walking, and to her father’s credit, he shook his head and pulled her mother back.

“Give the girls some space, Cathy. I’m sure they’ll have questions, but we need to give them time.”

Adeline almost stopped. No one called her mother “Cathy.” Even her father didn’t call her “Cathy.” Except, apparently, he now did. It seemed there was a great deal she didn’t know about her father.

And they didn’t know her.

Cassie is very sensitive and emotional.

What did they think she was? A piece of rock? Did they really think she didn’t feel emotion?

Right now she was feeling more emotions than she knew what to do with, which might have surprised them if they’d managed to break eye contact for long enough to notice.

And yes, she had questions. She had a whole damn list of questions and at some point she’d be asking them.

But first she was going to check on her sister.

11

Cassie

Cassie sat in darkness on the beach that nestled below the villa. In the distance, she could see the blur of lights from the fishing village down the coast, and the occasional flash of light from a yacht moored in the bay. The sky was inky black and scattered with stars. She’d abandoned her shoes somewhere on the path and she could feel the sand, grainy and cool under her bare feet. This wasn’t the way she’d expected to spend the evening.

She’d been excited to meet the man her mother had fallen in love with. She hadn’t cared that she didn’t know anything about him. It had seemed romantic to her, and she was prepared to love anyone her mother loved.

But Andrew? Adeline’s father? Her mother’s first husband?

That was a plot twist she hadn’t seen coming.

Her mother had left Andrew when she’d fallen in love with Cassie’s father because theirs was a love so huge and overwhelming that nothing, no force on earth, was going to stop it. She was the product of that love. She’d grown up knowing that. It had cushioned her. The story of her parents’ relationship had underpinned everything she believed about love. It had made total sense to her.

Until now. Now, it no longer made any sense.

The breeze cooled her skin and she shivered and rubbed her arms. Despite the darkness, the air still throbbed with heat. There was no reason for her to be cold, but she was. The cold came from the inside, creeping through this new tear in the fabric of her past.

Her mother was back with Andrew. What did that say about everything that had gone before? That she’d made a mistake leaving him in the first place? That her love affair had been a mistake? That Cassie herself was a mistake? If her mother hadn’t become pregnant, what would have happened? Would she and Andrew have fixed things, stayed together? No, surely not. Her parents had been in love. Hadn’t they?

She covered her ears with her hands, trying to mute the thoughts fighting for attention in her head. Everything Cassie had ever believed about her parents’ relationship was now under question.

She kept hearing Adeline’s voice.

She had an affair. She had a baby.

That was her. She was the baby. And standing there on the terrace, hearing it spelled out like that in calm logical tones, Cassie had felt truly awful. And like an intruder. This was her home, but for the first time in her life, she felt as if she didn’t belong. And no matter how illogical it was for her to take the blame, she still felt at least partly responsible. Andrew, Adeline and her mother had once been a family, and now they were going to be a family again. People always said that you couldn’t put the clock back, but it seemed Catherine and Andrew were going to do exactly that. So where did that leave her? Her part of the story would be deleted. She was definitely a mistake.

Her eyes stung with tears and she felt hideously homesick for Oxford. Which was ridiculous because Corfu was her favorite place in the world. It was home. When she was here, she never wanted to leave, but right now if there had been a way to easily leave the island she would have taken it.

All she wanted right now was to be back in the little terraced house she shared with Oliver.

To calm herself, she focused hard on that. What would they be doing if she were there now? They’d probably be in the garden, sprawled on a picnic rug on the small lawn that was sheltered from prying eyes by the trees and dense foliage that bordered the garden. Oliver would be leaping up to pluck a dead leaf from a plant or tug up a weed that had managed to sneak in when he wasn’t looking. She teased him about it, but secretly she loved the garden and was more than happy to enjoy the fruits of his labor. Recently, he’d strung solar lanterns between the trees, and it had turned the garden into cozy sanctuary in the evening as well as daytime.

Whenever she was upset, he’d make her a large cup of tea and he’d sit and listen, giving her his full attention, plants forgotten. He was the best listener and always managed to make her feel better. Right now, she needed to feel better.

She pulled out her phone and messaged him, but there was no reply. She imagined him in a pub somewhere, the noise drowning out the ping of his phone. Or maybe he was on a date that was going so well he hadn’t thought about his phone since he left the house. And even if he did see her message, he was hardly likely to ditch his date just because his best friend had messaged him. Dates over mates.

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