Soul Storm (25 page)

‘Let’s try this one. Not like we can get any wetter, is it?’ And he sets off up the middle path.

After about ten minutes, we’re no closer to anything that looks familiar, and so we stop a passing buggy driver, who insists on personally leading us back to the Tiger Lily Villa.

The whole complex seems deserted.

Yet that feeling of being watched has returned – which is completely illogical, because this has to be about the most remote, most secure place I’ve ever stayed at in my entire
life.

Lewis unlocks the front door and, as we squelch along the entrance hall to the dining area, rainwater drips from our clothes onto the white marble.

‘Hear that?’ I ask Lewis. My toad’s back, and it sounds as though he’s brought all his mates round for a pond party. They’re as loud as the thunder.

‘What the hell?’

‘Toads. I found one in the water earlier on.’

Lewis takes his phone out, taps away, then smiles. ‘You were almost right. They’re bullfrogs. Says here you can eat them. If they keep going into the night, they could well end up as
a microwaved midnight snack.’

I laugh. ‘Bullfrog burgers don’t appeal, but I am getting hungry again. Which is a good sign, right?’

‘Early dinner, then? I’ll reserve their fusion restaurant, makes sense for us to be well-nourished before tomorrow’s adventures.’

I look down at my sodden clothes, and run a hand through my hair. How could he
ever
see me as anything more than the tomboy kid sister he never had? ‘I may need some time to get
ready.’

‘You always look great, Ali, even soaked to the skin, but I know you girls do like to dress up.’ He’s taking the piss, but gently. ‘An hour give you enough time to dry
out?’

I nod, turn towards my ‘wing’ of the villa. ‘Hey, the door’s locked.’

‘The turndown lady must have been. Here, I forgot to give you your key. Both wings are uber-secure – I think that’s pretty important to the average Russian billionaire. They
probably can’t even trust their friends.’

The key card unlocks the door, then I close it behind me with a solid clunk. If billionaires feel safe here, then a seventeen-year-old schoolgirl should be fine.

The full-length mirror in the bathroom is unforgiving. ‘Drowned rat’ doesn’t even begin to describe me. My backpack’s still on the bed, where I turned it upside down
before. Did I pack anything suitable for a posh restaurant? I had no idea Lewis was going to bring me anywhere as fancy as
this.

Right at the bottom there’s my go-anywhere dress in sky-blue, made from that silky, crinkly fabric that looks fine even if it’s been scrunched in a ball. That’ll do. But I have
no shoes except the ones I’m wearing. I can’t go to a restaurant in a swingy dress with soggy wet trainers on my feet. What was I thinking?

I wasn’t thinking, though, was I? Yesterday, I didn’t really care what I looked like in front of Lewis. He was a mate. Why would I?

But now . . .

When I look up at my bedraggled reflection again, I realise I’ve blushed bright crimson.

I’ve got it bad.

Lewis grins when I walk back into the lobby.

‘Wow! You
shall
go to the ball, Miss Forster.’

I shrug it off, even though it’s taken all my ingenuity and what I can remember of Meggie’s sisterly beauty tips to achieve the transformation – not to mention the vast array
of freebies in the villa bathroom. Plus the most welcome pair of complimentary flip-flops since Cinderella took delivery of her party shoes.

‘Yeah, amazingly, my fairy godmother managed to locate me just in time.’

He laughs, then frowns. ‘Have you heard from Cara yet? About whether your parents know what’s going on?’

I’d been too busy blow-drying and eye-lining to remember. Not because I think I’ll somehow convince him I’m beautiful or anything. I just don’t want to show him up at the
fancy restaurant. I take my phone out of my bag. Two messages:
The eagle has landed. Things getting hot here. Time to send that email to yr folks. Hope you’re OK.
Love, C xxxxx

That one arrived . . . I do the calculations in my head . . . around the same time we got back to the villa. So, one hour ago. And the second one, only a few minutes ago:
Honey, for my sake as well as yrs, will u email yr mum? She’s not happy. C xxxxx

Lewis has opened up his laptop and I search for the email I’ve already typed out in my drafts folder. It says sorry in twenty different ways, but it doesn’t tell her where I am.
Lewis and I agreed it was the only way; if they have to track me down, it buys us more time.

But it does make tomorrow’s trip all the more urgent.

I read the email, add yet another ‘sorry’ and a whole line of kisses, then press
send
, checking my sent items folder to make sure it’s gone.

‘I feel like crap for doing this to them,’ I say to Lewis.

He puts his arm around me. ‘Once they get the old Alice back, it’ll be worth it.’

Then he lets go suddenly, as though my skin is hot to the touch.

The doorbell chimes: weird, it sounds exactly like a normal doorbell, which seems so wrong here in paradise.

‘Your pumpkin carriage awaits,’ Lewis announces. ‘Actually, it’s a golf buggy but if you close your eyes then you can imagine you’re being drawn by liveried mice.
And we can’t risk cycling – it’d be a shame to get wet when you look so lovely.’

I head into the dimly lit hallway, glad he won’t see me blush all over again. It’s becoming a habit when Lewis is around.

The restaurant is amazing. The food is incredible. The service is six-star.

But I could be eating fish and chips on a wall round the back of the Tesco bins and it wouldn’t matter, because it’s Lewis that is making this so special.

‘After this, Ali, what do you want?’

‘I don’t think I’ve got room for pudding.’

He laughs. ‘Yeah, because that’s
really
what I meant. What about the rest of your life?’

‘I don’t really think about that.’

‘If it’s not too cheeky of me, can I suggest that you
should
start thinking about it? You could have a brilliant future, Ali.’

‘I don’t think so. My sister was the one with the world at her feet, Lewis. A way more dazzling future than mine.’

‘But you’re not her, are you? Maybe she was all fireworks: brilliant, but gone in a moment. Your future might be more of a slow build-up to something incredible.’

‘I’m not incredible.’

‘I
think you are.’

I stare at the dessert menu. I haven’t read it, even though the waitress has been back twice to ask if we want anything else. ‘
Don’t
.’

‘Don’t what?’

‘Pretend. It’s embarrassing. I respect you, Lewis, but I’ll respect you less if you tell me white lies.’

Lewis shakes his head. He looks pretty incredible himself tonight, though I felt too shy to take the piss the way I normally would. He’s caught the sun already, and his hair looks lighter
too. The white shirt he’s wearing smells of fresh air and he wears old-fashioned cufflinks shaped like black cabs.

I wonder how fiddly it is to undo them . . .

‘Ali?’

I look up from the cufflinks and gulp. ‘Sorry.’

‘I was just saying that it’s rude to ignore someone if they’re paying you a compliment.’

‘Sorry. It must be the jet lag, I didn’t hear—’

‘Let me tell you again, then. You’re incredibly bright. Kind, almost to the point of doing
too
much for other people – though that’s not a fault to be ashamed
of. You make me laugh more than any girl I’ve ever met. Frankly, women aren’t often funny, in my experience—’

‘Sexist,’ I say, glad to have a reason to interrupt because I’m getting more and more embarrassed.

‘Is it also sexist of me to say . . .’ he pauses, ‘. . . to say that you’re also really, really beautiful?’

At first I think I misheard. Then I notice Lewis blushing, too, and my own cheeks burn hotter than ever.

Now he’s the one hiding behind the menu. ‘Damn. A thousand apologies, Ali. Blame the heat and the wine. Completely inappropriate. Sorry. We’re friends. You don’t see me
that way. Blah blah. Put it behind us. Note to self, Lewis, you’ve made a fool of yourself – but what else can you expect from a geek who is brilliant at handling microchips but
doesn’t have a clue when it comes to girls?’

‘Lewis?’

‘Hmm.’ He peeks over the menu, a grim expression on his face.

‘Stop apologising.’

He nods. ‘I’ll sign for the bill and then let’s get to bed—um, I mean, have an early night—’

I hold up my hand to shut him up. In the seconds that follow, I fast-forward in time.

If I ignore what he just said, we’ll have an awkward end to the evening but tomorrow it’ll all be simple again. Forgotten. Easily the best, most straightforward option.

If I agree with him about the heat of the moment, the jet lag, the drama of the situation and insist that, yes, we’re friends and that’s all it should ever be, then it saves his
embarrassment and mine. Except . . . I will be lying.

The third option is the most dangerous. The kind of thing that Cara would do but I never could. A risk not worth taking. In my head, I run through the best way to change the subject . . .

But my hand is ignoring my brain. It’s reaching forward, taking the menu from Lewis and then grabbing his hand.

‘I . . . think you’re pretty incredible too,’ I tell him.

He tuts. ‘Yeah. Well, whenever you have a hard disk that needs the kiss of life, I’m your man, but—’

Kiss.

Me.

‘Now who won’t take a compliment, Professor?’

He stares at me, and then down at my hand in his. He says nothing, but time slows as he leans in towards me.

He’s going to kiss me.

Right here.

Lewis is going to kiss me.

And, oh! How much do I want him to.

But then he leans back, though his hand is still where it was. He raises his other hand just enough to attract the waitress’s attention.

‘The bill, please,’ he says, then smiles at me. ‘And a buggy back to the Tiger Lily Villa, as soon as you can.’

Rain hits the fabric cover on the buggy like the heavens are clapping us home.

The restaurant was so plush and padded that we could barely hear the storm, but out here it’s still raging. Raw, but energising too. As we travel back, the resort goes dark, momentarily,
so we can see nothing but the path that the buggy’s dim lamps are lighting up.

‘Power cut,’ the driver says. ‘But no worries. We have generator.’

And sure enough, within seconds, all the villas are glowing again, softly, like fireflies.

Lewis and I say nothing on the journey. We don’t even touch. But my mind is working at a hundred times its normal speed as I try to work out what might happen when we get back to the
villa. Will he kiss me? How will it feel? Will it be the best kiss ever – or the most embarrassing, terrible thing that could possibly happen?

I try to slow down my thoughts. What would Cara say to me right now?

Never mind what he might do, honey. What do
you
want?

I
want
him to kiss me. Possibly more than anything else I’ve ever wanted.

There’s a warm light on outside the villa to welcome us home. The buggy driver holds up an umbrella so we don’t get wet. Lewis tips him and the man disappears back into the
night.

We walk down the central hallway, slightly apart. The sculptures and plants are lit from underneath, casting strange shadows across the fine white curtains which are all that divide us from
outside. The bullfrogs are mooing louder than ever.

In the dining area, I gaze out at the pool which is lit a brilliant blue. The lake beyond only appears when lightning bolts crack across the heavy red sky, though I can just make out a line of
flaming torches bobbing on the surface of the rain-ringed water.

Still neither of us says anything. Until . . .

‘Strange, isn’t it?’ Lewis says. ‘From the first day I met you I’ve always felt so completely comfortable around you, but now . . .’

I nod. The gap between us isn’t that big but it’s like we don’t know how to cross it.

‘The snug,’ he says. ‘You haven’t seen the snug.’

‘Let’s see the snug, then.’

He unlocks his door and the lights fade up gently as we step inside. I catch sight of myself in the mirror. Wow. I look . . . nice. But like myself, now, instead of like my sister. Funny, till
tonight I thought that I could only be attractive when I looked like her.

Flattering lighting must be part of the deal when you pay this kind of money for a villa. But how much is it? Three hundred pounds a night? Five hundred? A thousand, even?

For that you’re guaranteed to look almost as beautiful as your surroundings.

I don’t know if this ‘wing’ is bigger, or just arranged differently, but the ‘snug’ is lovely. The sofa is more like a superking-sized bed made of soft leather and
it takes up most of the room. On top there are vivid Thai cushions in oranges and reds, matching the torches we can see blazing on the lake opposite. The built-in bar has enough different spirits
to keep even Cara happy, plus a satellite-dish sized fruit bowl piled high with goodies.

At the other end of the room there’s a door. I catch a glimpse of Lewis’s bedroom before he closes it.

‘Drink, Ali?’

‘I guess. Um. Wine, please. A very small glass. Water, too.’ I perch on the end of the sofa. The bedroom has unnerved me. Lewis is older – not
much
older, the same age
as my sister, but he might expect . . .
more.
Especially after all he’s done for me.

When I was with Danny, we both knew that there was no future, so
more
was never an issue. And the boyfriends I had before weren’t that serious, not even Robbie.

Lewis could be serious. Could be
right.
But even though I know him better than I’ve known anyone, I need time. At home, there are a thousand excuses to take it slow, not least my
parents monitoring my every move. But here, with the bedroom just a few steps away . . .