Page 30 of An Island in the Sun

With his face wrinkled in disgust, Raff picked up the bowl of sick and headed towards the bathroom.Good,he deserves to clear that up, Tabitha thought as she started gathering together the empty bottles.

Emilio spoke to his wife in Portuguese, but his voice was strained. There were large gaps of silence where Tabitha assumed he was getting an earful from an irate wife at home with a baby.

Bailey trotted in and jumped onto the armchair he liked to sleep on in the morning, kicking off the cushion and turning round and round until he settled down.

‘You’re finally comfortable, eh?’ Tabitha scratched the top of his head. She looked towards the garden, expecting to see Fudge somewhere close by. She frowned. ‘Where’s your buddy?’

Aware of Emilio’s voice getting louder, Tabitha walked past him out onto the terrace and shaded her eyes as she peered down the garden. Misty usually disappeared all day, only returning in the evening, but Fudge was either stuck to Bailey’s side or following her.

She wandered round the side of the pool and onto the lawn. The tense sound of Portuguese drifted out, fading the further she walked as she peered between the bushes and the clusters of palms and banana plants for any sign of Fudge. At the bottom of the garden, she turned back and squinted, trying to see if he’d somehow slipped past.

With her heart thudding, she made her way back up the garden, double-checking as she went, walking along the length of the pool closest to the villa. It was unlike Fudge to disappear. Panicked, she rounded the side of the villa, wondering if he’d wandered around to the front. It was shady on this side with a patch of grass and palm trees straining towards the sun. Tabitha walked between the bushes that screened the garden from the driveway and her heart sank.

Fudge was nowhere to be seen and the gate was wide open.

13

Tabitha rushed back into the villa, hoping beyond all hope that she’d been mistaken and Fudge was somewhere inside. She heard the desperation in her voice as she called his name. Emilio was still on the phone and Bailey was still curled up on the armchair. Fudge wasn’t anywhere.

Her heart faltered at the sound of footsteps coming along the hallway. Tabitha turned on Raff the second he entered the living room.

‘You left the gate open.’

‘What?’ He frowned at her.

‘Last night, when the two of you turned up pissed, you didn’t close the gate behind you. I can’t find Fudge.’

‘I’m sure he’s here somewhere.’

‘And what if he’s not?’ Her nostrils flared as she challenged him with a glare, anger and worry coursing through her, along with annoyance at his lack of concern or urgency.

Emilio ended the call and muttered something in Portuguese.

‘Everything okay?’ Raff asked in a tone that Tabitha assumed meant he knew that everything was far from okay but he felt he should ask anyway.

‘Não. Inez is coming to get me.’ He looked even more washed out than when he’d woken up. He looked from Raff to Tabitha. ‘Can I use the bathroom?’

‘Do what you like.’

Tabitha didn’t care that she was snappy. She was incensed, although her anger needed to be directed at Raff and not his mate, who was going to get a big enough bollocking from his wife.

As soon as Emilio disappeared into the bathroom, Tabitha turned on Raff. ‘You’re an idiot. I don’t know what you were thinking coming back here last night. And to leave the gate open…’

‘I honestly thought we’d closed it.’

‘I’mresponsible for the dogs while your parents are away.’ Tabitha’s voice rose with each word. ‘I don’t know what issue you have with them and I don’t care if you don’t care about them, but the dogs at least—’

‘Hey, Tabitha, calm down.’

‘No, I won’t calm down! You’re full of yourself. You turned up here in the middle of the night, treating the place like you live here, despite the fact I’m the one looking after it.’ Feeling slightly better for releasing some of her pent-up emotion, she took a deep breath. ‘We spent a lovely day together and I fell for your charm, but I understand now that it was all a ruse just for you to stay—’

‘That’s not true.’

Tabitha held up her hand. ‘You bugger off to a friend’s and I think I have the place to myself again, but no, you waltz back with booze and treats because you two need a place to party. At least his wife had the sense to kick you out, which is exactly what I should have done in the first place. You’re the one in the wrong. You need to leave. I should have made you go the night you got here. You’ve been bullshitting me all along. No wonder your parents don’t want anything to do with you.’

‘Oh, that’s low.’

‘Well, what do you expect me to say? Oh, it’s fine? Yes, they may be your parents but you’ve crashed their place without them knowing, and invaded my privacy.’

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