Page 35 of Sunshine and Secrets

What was going on? Why was she feeling like this? And why on earth had she kissed Zach, especially after spilling out her deepest darkest secrets to him? The only explanation she could come up with was that she had felt so relaxed and comfortable in his company that she had succumbed to the exhaustion caused by the traumatic events earlier in the night and drifted off into a blissful sleep.

Oh, God! Had she been snoring?

And what was she going to do now? Did she really want what could only be a brief holiday fling with Zach? Yes, Pippa and Jen would be over the moon to hear that she had taken their advice about moving on. And yes, a no-strings-attached Caribbean romance would certainly help to paper over the cracks in her heart, especially with someone as gorgeous as Zach who made her senses zing with pleasure. She could still feel the remnants of the passion their kiss had instilled, like a glowing ember of desire that would take very little to be rekindled. Maybe if they had met at Claudia’s UK cookery school branch in the Cotswolds, things could have been different?

However, if she was honest with herself, their blossoming friendship meant so much more to her than a convenient stepping stone towards her recovery from heartbreak, and she did not want to risk spoiling what they had achieved. Zach had been the first person outside her family she had opened up to about the way Luke had ended their relationship. She hadn’t felt ashamed, or judged, when she had unloaded the burden she had been carrying in her chest like a block of concrete for months. Zach had simply listened, and shared some of his own history, and that had been all it took to make a difference.

She stared at herself in the mirror. She stilllookedlike Amelia Harper, with her wild corkscrew curls and the irritating sprinkle of freckles over the bridge of her nose, but shefeltlike a different person; lighter, freer, happier. The whole day stretched ahead of her and she was excited to see where it took her.

She jumped into the shower, luxuriating in the warm water, washing away the last vestiges of tiredness and the awkwardness of what had happened last night, both with Jake and her disclosures to Zach about what had happened with Luke. Now that she had told her story once, and had not been ridiculed by her audience, she felt as though she could do it again. The pain was still there, but it had shrunk to a pebble instead of a boulder and a surge of gratitude for Zach’s personal brand of sarcasm and wit flooded her veins. Whilst she was in St Lucia, she would trade romance for friendship every time.

She had just finished towel-drying her hair when she heard a sharp bark from outside the window.

‘Millie! Millie! We have to go!’

‘Okay.’

‘Hurry up. We’ve got to get down to the Parrot. Now!’

The urgency in Zach’s voice told her that something was wrong.

‘What’s happened?’ she asked when she saw Zach was already waiting for her in Tim’s Roadster.

‘Jump in. I’ll tell you on the way.’

Within seconds, they were heading down the hill towards Soufrière and Zach was filling her in on a conversation he’d had with Dylan whilst she was in the shower.

‘So no one’s seen Jake since he left the restaurant last night?’

‘No. When he didn’t turn up for his morning shift, Lottie tried calling him but he’s not answering his mobile,’ said Zach, taking a corner at speed. ‘She was so angry with him for ditching you that she went storming round to his flat to give him a piece of her mind but there was no sign of him.’

‘Maybe the call he got was from a girlfriend and he… erm… he decided to spend the night with her?’

‘It’s certainly possible, but it’s nine o’clock. He should have been at the Purple Parrot for his shift at eight. And something else Dylan said is strange. Apparently when Lottie asked Andrew whether he knew where Jake was he tore into her like a lion denied his lunch, telling her he was Jake’s boss not his keeper. Something’s going on.’

When they reached the outskirts of the town, Millie remembered that Ella would be arriving at the villa to whip up the very last chocolate-infused recipe on their list before they photographed it and sent it with a celebratory email to Claudia. She left a quick message on her voicemail to let her know she was safe and would catch up with her a little later than expected. She also added an undisguised plea for Ella to appeal to Fitz’s slumber-drenched conscience to see if that would speed up the work rate on the kitchen. There were only two days remaining and Millie knew it would take a miracle to finish on time, but she had other things to occupy her mind right now. One trauma at a time!

They arrived at the Purple Parrot and found a parking space in the alleyway that separated the bar from the bicycle-rental shop next door. Instead of using the front door of the bar they jogged around the back. Millie stumbled and tripped over the untied lace of her Sketchers, and Zach shot out an arm to catch her before she fell head-first onto the ground. She looked over her shoulder to see that her carelessness had dislodged the lid of a wooden crate crammed with produce.

Millie exchanged a look with Zach. Instead of rubbing her ankle to disperse the pain, she bent forward to investigate further.

‘Oh, my God!’

‘What?’

‘These crates are filled with cocoa pods. What does Andy need two crates of cocoa pods for?’

Zach removed one of the pods. As he lifted it from the box, the pod fell open in his hand. The leathery exterior had been left perfectly intact, but its white fleshy interior had been carefully scraped out to leave just an empty shell.

‘Hi, guys. Am I glad to see you!’ declared a clearly harassed Lottie. ‘Dylan and Ryan have gone up to the Blue Oyster to ask if anyone saw where Jake went after he left Millie stranded there last night.’

‘Lottie, what are these doing here?’ asked Zach, still staring at the cocoa pod nestled in his palm.

‘Oh, Andy uses the liquidized flesh in the Andy’s Blast cocktail – delicious! Now let’s go. I promised we’d do a sweep of the bars.’

They strode past the colourful shops displaying their wares to the tourists who had begun to emerge from their hiding places, fingering the brightly dyed sarongs, the flimsy beachwear, the carved mahogany masks. But Millie didn’t notice any of these retail diversions. A sense of dread had taken up residence in the pit of her stomach and the hackles on the back of her neck cautioned her instincts that something was not how it should be; that Jake hadn’t meant to leave her after all, and that something awful might have happened to him.

They arrived at Jake’s studio flat above a local barber’s shop on the outskirts of Soufrière and Lottie’s expression reflected Millie’s hesitation.

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