Page 51 of The Island Villa

And she knew they weren’t going to talk about it now. They’d do what they always did, and pretend that it had never happened.

“What if they don’t accept this?”

“They will. Give them time.”

“But what if time isn’t enough?” It was something she hadn’t allowed herself to consider until now.

“It will be.”

She would need to find a way to help them understand.

People thought that you fell in love, got married and that was it. They didn’t know that the real story began there.

They didn’t realize that the really juicy stuff was what happened after.

13

Adeline

Her head was being hammered by a sharp object. Someone was removing her brain and had forgotten to give her an anesthetic. She was going to sue them.

Adeline opened her eyes, forgetting that when she’d eventually fallen into bed she’d been too tired to close the shutters. Sunlight dazzled, hitting bright white walls and bouncing off the cheerful blue paintwork. It was like being prepped for an interrogation.

She closed her eyes again. Exhaustion and anxiety clung to her brain. Through the open window, she could hear birds and the soft sounds of the ocean. It should have soothed her. This was what people did when they were stressed, wasn’t it? They listened to the steady sound of rainfall, or the rush ocean waves. And here she was, listening to actual ocean waves, and she’d never felt less relaxed in her life.

Her chest was tight, her muscles were tense, her head was crowded with something close to panic. None of those feelings had anything to do with the champagne she’d drunk, and everything to do with the events of the night before, which had destroyed all chances of meaningful rest. She’d thought she could make it through another of her mother’s weddings. After all, she’d attended her fair share. She’d thought she’d be able to grit her teeth, force a smile and maybe even say congratulations as she had on those other occasions. She hadn’t really cared who her mother was marrying because it hadn’t mattered to her.

It mattered to her now. And she cared.

Her father. Her mother was marrying her father.

She groaned and pressed her face into the pillow. The whole thing felt as weird as it sounded.

Anxiety sliced through her.

For the past weeks, she’d been imagining her father pottering around his beach house in Cape Cod, keeping himself busy, painting alone or with his artist friends, strolling barefoot along the sand, filling his day and his mind so that he didn’t have to think about the woman who had once been his wife getting married again. She’d imagined him awake at night, solitary and sad.

Now she was imagining him laughing with her mother. Kissing her mother. In bed with her mother.

Swamped by a rush of hot and then cold, she sat upright.

She didn’t want to imagine that.

She didn’t want to think about that.

She rubbed her fingers across her forehead, trying to chase the thought from her brain. Why would he choose to do this? She didn’t understand. It wasn’t right, or reasonable. She needed to talk to him, without her mother there. She had to reason with him. She had to give him the opportunity to explore his feelings. Was he trying to go back to the past?

Giving up on rest, she stood up and walked to the bathroom.

Through the large window, she could see the sea, shimmering turquoise and silver in the morning sunlight.

She’d been seven years old when her mother had bought the villa. That had been the first clue as to just how successful her mother had become. Before that, Adeline hadn’t thought about her mother’s career. Her family had seemed no different to anyone else’s. Her father worked in a bank, doing something that required him to wear a suit and leave their small house in the west of London before Adeline was awake. Her mother spent her time writing, which meant she was home with Adeline. Being home didn’t always mean being present, but Adeline understood that her mother’s work was different from other people’s. She learned that when the door to the spare room was closed, she wasn’t to go inside. Eventually her mother would emerge (smiling or stressed, depending on what sort of writing day she’d had) and they’d spend time together. They’d walked through parks, along the River Thames, through the historic streets of London and Adeline had treasured those moments when she’d had her mother to herself. Most of all, she’d treasured the moments when they read together, side by side on the sofa, listening to the rain hammering against the window. Sometimes her mother had made up stories just for her and those were some of her favorites. She’d felt happy, warm, loved.

And then came Summer Star, the book that changed all their lives.

Adeline had often wondered how her life might have looked if her mother hadn’t written that book, or if the public hadn’t been hungry for a book exactly like that one. The timing had been perfect. Publishing, she knew now, was fickle but that book had struck a chord. It was a time before social media, and yet that book had sold and sold, its growth fed by word-of-mouth recommendation from friends, family and bookstore owners. Summer Star had spent week after week at the top of the bestseller lists in multiple countries. The money had followed.

Memories flashed up from that time. Random. Disconnected. She’d been young, focused on herself, school, friends, their new puppy, but there were things she remembered. Her mother, coming out of the spare room after a phone call with her agent, tears rolling down her face and a look of excitement in her eyes. She’d been mouthing something indistinctly and it had taken Adeline a moment to understand what she was saying.

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