After the Honeymoon (11 page)

‘Mum, Mum!’

I don’t believe it, thought Winston, watching a black car screech to a halt at the bottom of the slope where the Villa Rosa’s grounds met the dusty lane. They were here already.

‘Dad got us an earlier flight,’ panted the boy as he ran up and flung his arms around Melissa’s waist. ‘And he arranged for a car to bring us here from the airport. Said it would be a nice surprise for you to have us early.’

I’ll bet he did, added Winston to himself. Couldn’t Melissa see what was going on here? Marvyn was trying to sabotage their honeymoon, for whatever reason. Jealousy? Maybe. He’d seen the way the man had looked at his wife, as though he hadn’t realised until now what he’d thrown away.

Well, it was too bloody late. She was his now! Winston folded his arms, grappling with the emotions that were rippling through him. OK. Compromises had to be made. If Melissa’s children were that important to her, he, Winston, would have to show willing. That scene earlier, when she’d talked about leaving him, had unnerved him.

‘Welcome,’ he said stiffly as the girl came tottering up the slope. What was she wearing? Those heels were totally unsuitable for her age – she was thirteen, not twenty-three – and she was actually wearing make-up.

Alice shot him a look that was made up of pure hostility. ‘Welcome?’ she repeated. ‘It’s my mum we’ve come to see. Not you.’

Say something, he wanted to tell Melissa. Tell your daughter not to be so rude. But Melissa was hugging both of them as though she hadn’t seen them for weeks instead of hours and there was a look on her face that made him realise something. Melissa was overjoyed they were here. In fact, she was a completely different woman. So he wasn’t enough for her … Not on his own, at any rate.

‘Isn’t it wonderful?’ she exclaimed, all shiny-eyed. ‘We’re here together as a family.’

Family? The girl scowled at him from under her mother’s arm, clearly thinking along the same lines. There was no way they could ever be a family. Who was she kidding?

‘You’re going to love it here,’ continued Melissa, unaware of the faces her daughter was making at him. ‘There’s a lovely swimming pool and there’s a banana boat and lots of little places to explore on the beach.’

The girl’s eyes were rolling now and she was muttering something that sounded like ‘Boring’. Winston could read her like a book. Much as he hated to admit it, there was something in her that reminded him of being that age himself.

There was a small, polite cough beside them. ‘There’s a disco, too, in town, with special under-eighteen nights.’

Winston had forgotten that the owner’s son was still there. Was there no privacy in this place? Then he became aware of something. Alice had stopped rolling her eyes. Instead, she was extricating herself from her mother’s arms and adopting a lolling position on the boulder by the villa sign.

‘I’m Jack, by the way,’ said the boy in that casual way which boys adopted at that age when they were trying to impress a girl. (Oh yes, Winston could remember that one all right).

‘I’m Alice,’ squeaked the girl in a contrived voice that was so ridiculously artificial that Winston almost laughed out loud.

‘Cool.’ Jack was edging from one foot to the other. Meanwhile, Freddie was staring up at the older boy with admiration all over his face.

This might not be so bad after all, Winston suddenly realised. With any luck, Jack might come in handy, if only to distract his stepkids.

Catching Melissa’s eye, he smiled. Instantly she visibly relaxed. ‘Thank you,’ she said, tucking her arm into his as they followed the kids up to the villa. ‘Thank you for being so good about all this.’ She gave a little sigh. ‘I thought it all seemed a bit too convenient when Marvyn said he could have them.’ Winston gave her a comforting hug, then stopped briefly to brush his lips against hers. Instantly, as if through some magic detection radar, Alice whipped round and shot them a
how dare you kiss my mum
glare. He felt Melissa stiffen with embarrassment.

‘Give them time,’ she whispered softly.

He nodded, but inside, Winston was seething. This was their honeymoon! He was entitled to show some affection, wasn’t he? Anyone would think that
he
was the one who shouldn’t be here, not the children.

Uncomfortably, he recalled a statistic he’d happened to spot in the paper on the plane out here. Something about one in two second marriages failing, because of existing children. Well, that wasn’t going to happen to them. He wouldn’t let it.

As he looked down at the bay he thought he saw a light. Just a flicker, as though someone was taking a photograph.

Every nerve in his body tightened. It was like being in the field all over again.

‘What is it?’ asked Melissa.

Winston didn’t answer for a second. Each one of his senses was focussed on the spot where he’d seen the light, close to the second holiday cottage. The one with the drawn curtains that he’d glimpsed this morning, next to the place where the plump blonde and her husband were staying.

Had he imagined it? Was it just the sunlight glinting through the trees?

Maybe.

Maybe not.

‘I was just looking at the sea,’ he replied evenly. ‘By the way, Jack, who’s staying in that second holiday cottage?’

The boy, who’d been walking shyly alongside Alice and Freddie, shrugged. ‘Some French couple. They’re on honeymoon too.’

So that was the end of his photographer-in-hiding theory. Winston shook himself. He was getting too bloody paranoid. ‘Shall we go and find some lunch?’ he said, changing the subject. ‘I noticed a place on the beach that might be worth checking out.’

‘Great, Mum,’ said Freddie, swinging from his mother’s arm as though she had made the suggestion and not him. ‘I’m starving!’

Bloody hell, thought Winston crossly as he watched his wife run along the sand with the kids in some giggly, silly game of Catch.

He might as well not be here at all …

One in five couples have doubts about their other half during their honeymoon.

Charisma
bridal special survey

ROSIE

She’d break it off, Rosie told herself firmly, after negotiating a rather satisfactory deal with a shrewd crockery manufacturer. It was all very well letting your hair down away from home, but, as Cara had warned her years ago, you couldn’t have a love affair with someone on this little island unless it was serious. And she wasn’t ready for that.

Not with Greco.

But then she’d found him waiting for her back at the Athens hotel, standing at his bedroom door with that look on his face. He’d gently pulled her towards him and she’d been lost all over again.

Now, as she lay in his arms in the wide, comfortable bed overlooking the square outside, with the gentle trickling sound from the fountain, they seemed so right together that she wondered why she’d resisted his advances for so long.

‘I knew you’d be beautiful,’ murmured Greco as they lay on their sides facing each other, with the late-afternoon sun streaming through the shutters. ‘But I hadn’t realised just how gorgeous.’

He bent down and took her right nipple in his mouth, twisting it with his teeth. Rosie let out a little yelp, partly because it actually hurt and partly because the movement was so unexpected.

‘I never understood why you didn’t take a lover long ago,’ continued Greco, moving to her other breast. Rosie braced herself but then realised he was gently licking her with small, darting actions. Practised actions.

‘I wasn’t ready,’ she began but then stopped as Greco moved further down her body. Oh God.

She could feel bits of herself twitching that had nothing to do with the parts that Greco was … well, investigating. Heavens! She was jerking like a puppet. Part of her felt rather silly – none of it felt very real. But another part, that she hadn’t known she even possessed, didn’t want him to stop.

Oh God.

He
had
stopped.

‘Why?’ she asked, confused, as he rolled away. Had she done something wrong? It wouldn’t be surprising if she had. Sex wasn’t like riding a bike. It was easy to forget the script. Especially if you’d never had much experience in the first place.

He ran a finger teasingly down the side of her face. ‘Because it’s even better when we start again. That’s why.’ He leaped out of bed and Rosie had a flash of that sleek brown body slipping into a pair of pale blue jeans. ‘Until yesterday,’ he said, tossing over her white shorts, ‘I always thought you were a bit of an ice maiden.’ His eyes glinted. ‘I used to wonder if Jack was an immaculate conception.’

Rosie wasn’t Catholic but she knew that Greco went to mass every Sunday, and his flippancy shocked her. ‘Of course he wasn’t.’

‘So what’s the story there, then?’

His question, so swift on the heels of her disappointment (was she
really
so useless in bed that he simply couldn’t be bothered to continue?), took her by surprise. Usually, she had her answer carefully crafted, as protection against those guests who were forward enough to ask about Jack’s father. The locals were already well aware of the tale she’d put about via Cara. Whether they believed her was another matter.

Greco clearly didn’t.

‘You know what happened,’ she said curtly, ignoring the shorts and heading for the shower. All the earlier intimacy had now disappeared, replaced by anger at his question about Jack.

Why had she been so stupid as to fall for the local lothario, who would probably now go home and tell everyone that Rosie was a lousy lay? Was it just because of being away from the island? If so, she had been daft – really daft – to let down her guard.

‘I told you before. Jack’s father is dead. I’m a widow.’

‘Yeah. Right.’ Greco was coming towards her now, his eyes serious. ‘So why don’t you have any pictures of him?’

When Jack had asked that, she’d brushed him off with something about leaving everything in England, but Greco wasn’t so easily fooled.

‘You were only eighteen when you got here. Only just old enough to be a bride, let alone a widow. Come on, Rosie. We were man and wife just now. You can tell me the truth.’

Man and wife? The phrase had a peculiar – but not unattractive – ring to it. Nevertheless, still cross and embarrassed, Rosie turned away, shutting the shower door behind her. Immediately she was aware of it opening. He was behind her, naked again. Cradling her body as though he had never left it, cupping her breasts with both hands and pushing himself into her from behind.

For a minute she could hardly breathe. ‘It is the truth,’ she moaned. ‘He is dead.’

So was she. Greco was pinning her now against the shower wall, so that she had to grab the pipe in order to stay upright. Every part of her was exploding into tiny pieces; including any remnant of common sense.

He’d been right, Rosie thought as everything washed over her. It
was
better when you started again. Indeed, Greco’s own moans indicated that perhaps she wasn’t as hopeless as she’d thought.

The realisation gave her a sense of empowerment. A little bit like the last time. Sixteen years ago.

She’d been known as Rosemary then. Not Rosie.

‘Coming to the youth club disco on Saturday?’ her best friend Gemma had asked hopefully as they’d ambled back from school together, hoisting their heavy book bags from one shoulder to the other. It had been the year before A-levels and the pressure was on. ‘If you carry on like this,’ the English teacher had told Rosemary with an excited edge to her voice, ‘you can apply to Oxbridge.’

Mum would have liked that. So too would Dad, although he rarely let his emotions surface. Even when Mum had died, he’d muttered something about ‘getting on with it’ and that’s just what they had done. As she got older, Rosie learned to keep house for her father and have dinner ready for him when he got back from work.

‘I’d like to,’ Rosemary had said wistfully, ‘but I need to finish that essay on the Romantic poets.’

Gemma, who was normally as conscientious as herself, gave her a little nudge. ‘Treat it as romantic research! Apparently, that new girl is bringing her cousin and some of his friends from the Marine training base. Could be fun.’

‘Fun’ was a word Rosemary’s father viewed with deep suspicion, although she was pretty sure that her mother had had a different approach to life. She might only have been nine when she’d died, but Rosemary had a distinct memory of her mother – who’d been blonde, just like her – whistling tunefully to the radio.

Then again, maybe that was just her mind playing tricks on her.

‘You need to lighten up, Rosemary,’ her friend had insisted. ‘Remember what they say about all work and no play.’ They’d stopped now, outside Gemma’s house. Inside she knew that Sally, Gemma’s mother, who used to be a good friend of Mum’s, would be waiting, keen to find out about her daughter’s day. There’d be a cup of tea and a slice of warm raspberry sponge cake, a treat which Rosemary was often invited inside to share.

‘Want to come in for a bit?’ asked Gemma. She was so nice, thought Rosie. Such a good friend. But there were times when it hurt too much to have a glimpse of a proper family home when you knew that afterwards you had to go back to a cold, silent house with a resentful dad and photographs of a mother you could barely remember.

Maybe that was why she, Rosemary, was always smiling; something else that infuriated her father. Her mother used to smile, according to Sally. And anything that her mother had done, she wanted to do too.

‘Not tonight, thanks.’ Rosemary patted her school bag. ‘Not if I’m going to finish this essay early so I can go to the disco.’

A delighted beam spread across Gemma’s face. ‘That’s great. Tell you what! You can wear my new skirt if you want. The one that Mum got me from town.’

That was so typical of Gemma, to offer an outfit which she had hardly worn herself. Of course, it was because she knew Rosemary’s dad rarely gave her anything for new clothes. Until recently, both girls had had a Saturday job – she’d worked at the local stables where she was allowed to ride – but at the English teacher’s suggestion, Rosemary had given up to concentrate on her work.