One of the Girls(81)

The sea licked at the boat.

Her heart rate flaring, Bella fought to steady her voice: ‘I think about you: Sam Maine’s fiancée. I think about you every single day. Try to imagine who you are. How your life has changed. I think about the wedding day that you never got to have. I think about your wedding dress – and wonder whether you’d already chosen it, whether you kept it, whether you get it out of your wardrobe some days and try it on.’

‘It’s in the spare room. I kept it. Will always keep it. But I’ve never put it on.’

Bella nodded slowly. ‘You know what Sam told me when I was teasing him about the comic you’d brought in? He told me, “I’m the luckiest man in the world.” That’s what he said.’

Eleanor tipped back her head. Looked up to the stars as if she could see something there that Bella could not.

Bella locked her arms tighter around herself, nails digging into her flesh, waiting. Whatever was coming, she knew she deserved it.

Out of all the words she could have responded with, Eleanor chose only two: ‘Thank you.’





74

Lexi

Lexi hurried up the stone steps towards the villa. Her breath was high in her chest. Her thoughts felt hot, scattered. She didn’t want it to be true: Ed was Luca’s father.

He’d been lying to her.

Ana had been lying.

Bella had known.

Behind her, lost high in the distant cliffs, she thought she heard a shout. She paused, listening.

Beyond the chorus of cicadas she could hear nothing but her racing pulse.

She hurried towards the darkened villa. There was no breeze away from the sea and she felt sweat prickling against her skin. A wash of nausea rose from her stomach. She took a deep breath – concentrating on setting each foot firmly in front of the other – and gradually the sensation subsided.

When she reached the terrace, she hesitated. The villa lights were off to keep the mosquitoes from flooding in, and now the building looked eerie – as ancient and unyielding as the cliff from which it was hewn.

In the distance, a vehicle light trailed over the mountains like a search beam. She moved towards the front of the villa, thinking how strange it was to see headlights carving through the night when the road ended here, at the villa.

She listened as the low roar of an engine grew louder. Then suddenly a car crested the top of the hill, full beam startling her as it swung into the drive. Instinctively, she raised her hands, shading the blinding light from her eyes.

A taxi.

The passenger door opened, and a figure stepped out.

Dazed, she squinted into the glare.

A man crossed the driveway, coming straight towards her.

She stepped back.

His shape, the breadth of his shoulders, the length of his stride – were familiar. ‘Ed?’

Then he was standing in front of her. Right there, in Greece, saying her name.

She stared back at him, lost. Here, out of context, he seemed unrecognisable to her. A stranger.

The taxi pulled away in a spray of gravel, casting Ed in the eerie red glow of the taillights. Rising dust from the drive made him seem faint, unknown, his smile wavering.

He swallowed. ‘Hello, Lexi.’

She and Ed faced one another in the dark. The lingering smell of petrol and dust hovered in the still air.

‘What are you doing here?’ Lexi asked, her voice sounding strange, narrow.

Ed didn’t step closer. He was wearing a white shirt, unbuttoned at the neck, which looked ghostly in the moonlight. ‘We need to talk.’

She stared at him: her fiancé; Luca’s father; Ana’s lover, once.

‘Shall we go inside?’

She glanced towards the villa, with its cave-thick walls. For some reason she didn’t want him in there, as if that space were for other things, not him. ‘We’ll go onto the terrace.’

She turned; he followed.

Neither of them noticed the shape of someone standing in the shadow of the lemon tree, back pressed to the trunk, watching.





75

Robyn

Robyn was breathing hard, calf muscles burning as she ran. Tiny pebbles stabbed against her bare feet as she made for the shoreline, where the rowing boat was drawing in. It had come into view only minutes ago and now she was squinting through the darkness, able to make out the shape of one … two people on board.

She lurched into the shallows and, as the boat came towards her, she could see Eleanor rotating the oars. At the back, Bella was huddled beneath a blanket, wet hair pasted to her scalp.

‘Bella! Oh Bella!’ Robyn cried, water splashing up her legs as she grabbed the nose of the boat. ‘You’re alive! My God! You’re safe!’

Hunched within a blanket, Bella glanced up, face pale in the moonlight.

‘Are you hurt?’

‘No,’ Bella claimed, although Robyn caught the way she winced as she shifted in the boat.

‘When you went over the edge … I … thought we’d lost you.’ Robyn’s voice was broken with emotion. ‘I’m sorry … It was all my fault … I’m so sorry, Bella! For all of it!’

Eleanor cut across her, saying, ‘Let’s get her back on land. Warm her up, shall we?’

Robyn nodded quickly. ‘Sorry. Yes. Here.’ She guided the boat towards the beach, the hull grinding along the pebbled seabed.