with the shorts and vest she had on, a pack of mints, a mascara that promised to give you ‘Hollywood eyes’ and her trusty liquid eyeliner, a packet of painkillers, her wallet and passport and a book on walking the Amalfi coast. She didn’t even have her mobile phone with her, she realised with a lurch, because she’d packed that into her missing luggage too, determined to only use it for emergencies on the trip so that she’d make the most of the scenery and social life and not be constantly diverted by the online world.
After packing everything carefully back into the bag, she took a refreshing shower in the floor-to-ceiling marble bathroom, lathering herself with the zingy-smelling complimentary shower gel, before sliding between the crisp cotton sheets of the bed.
What luxury!
Stretching herself into a starfish shape, she brushed her fingertips over the smooth mahogany headboard and sighed hard, painfully aware of how much empty space there was on either side of her.
The cruel irony of staying in the honeymoon suite had not been lost on her.
In a parallel universe—where Gavin hadn’t fallen in love with another woman—she’d be tumbling into bed with him right about now.
What would he have said about staying in this room? She pictured them laughing about it, ribbing each other about how much sex they should be having to keep up with all the former inhabitants. Out of nowhere a feeling of utter desolation hit her right in the chest. It had been three months since they’d split up and she’d not allowed herself to fall apart since the day it had happened, keeping herself busy and using this holiday as a bright spot to look forward to when she felt glum. But the realisation that this was it—that she was here now, on her own, and this was the reality of her situation suddenly brought her low.
She thumped the mattress on either side of her. She was not going to let it get her down.
As she’d learnt from an early age, crying and whinging didn’t get you anywhere. That was what growing up in an all-male household and having four smart, alpha, and now highly successful older brothers would teach you. She’d never won an argument or topped a challenge by turning on the waterworks or asking for special dispensation, and that was the way she preferred it. Everything she’d achieved had been on her own merits. She’d fought just as hard—if not harder—than her brothers for her successes and she was proud of what she’d achieved.
Unfortunately, Gavin hadn’t understood that drive to succeed on her own, and had cited her desire to pour too much time and energy into making her café a success and ‘excluding him from parts of her life where he wasn’t necessary’ as the catalyst for their breakup. According to him, she treated him like one of her projects and acted as if she had more love for the strangers who frequented the café than for him. That had been particularly gutting to hear because she liked to think of herself as a perceptive and caring partner.
Pushing away the threatening gloom, she sat up and punched her pillows back into shape before flopping back down and wriggling further into the sumptuous bed.
Well, from this point on she was looking after herself.
Whilst she was here she was going to get some fresh air and exercise, meet people outside of her small sphere of work and recharge her batteries before returning home feeling refreshed and more positive about her future.
As she lay there, willing away the lingering tight feeling in her chest, something about her earlier head-to-head with Julien suddenly occurred to her. He’d conducted his whole conversation, even the bit with the receptionist, in English. Had he done that so as not to exclude her? Or was he just better at English than Italian? From her experience with him so far, she got the impression he’d be good at everything he did—he certainly exuded that kind of confidence.
Except for that moment when he’d talked about how intense his day had been. There had been a vulnerability to his voice that hadn’t been there for the rest of the time.
Whatever could have affected him so deeply? Could it have something to do with his failed marriage?
Perhaps he, too, was here to get a new perspective on life after a bad breakup.
She knew first-hand how demoralising it could be going through a divorce. Gavin, her ex, had been an utter mess when he’d first moved into her spare room—which she’d offered to him as a favour to a friend of a friend after his wife demanded they separate. At that point it had been six months since her father had passed away and she was finding it very lonely living in their empty family home without him, so it had been nice to have the company.
She’d found comfort in taking care of Gavin: making him healthy meals when she discovered he wasn’t eating properly and sitting with him, listening to him talk through his pain and humiliation for hours and hours.
At the time, she hadn’t anticipated it turning into a relationship, but there it was. In retrospect, it seemed inevitable now that something more would have developed between them, especially when they’d grown so emotionally close.
A prickle of disquiet ran up her spine.
She really should have asked Julien if he was okay when he’d mentioned his divorce. In her experience, whenever people brought up things like that it was usually because they wanted to talk to someone about it, but she’d blithely ignored his prompt, more concerned about rebutting his teasing. It was possible she could use her experience to help him out in some way, though. As one concerned human being to another. Considering he was here on his own, she wouldn’t be surprised to find he didn’t have anyone at home he could talk to about what he was going through.
Turning over and letting out a huge yawn, she told herself that if she saw Julien again on the walk she’d make an effort to check that he was okay, just to set her mind at rest. But that would be it. The whole experience with Gavin had made her very wary of getting romantically involved with a divorcee again—she never wanted to be someone’s rebound relationship ever again.
So for now, she was going to put the sexy Frenchman—unnervingly close on the other side of the door—out of her mind.
The Ravello Circuit. A tricky walk with lots of steps. We recommend breaking the walk at the magnificent Villa Cimbrone gardens before visiting Ravello, then stopping for a scenic lunch break in Pontone...
JULIEN MOREAUX AWOKE to find the sun streaming in through the large windows of the honeymoon suite. He rubbed a hand across his bleary eyes, forcing his thoughts into some kind of coherent arrangement.
He was here, in Amalfi. Finally.
It hadn’t mattered to him exactly where he’d end up when he’d asked his PA to book this break for him—all he’d stipulated was that he wanted somewhere where he could move from one place to another so he didn’t feel trapped into having to see the same people in the same place every day—and he was pleased with her choice.
This walking holiday had been marked in his mind for some time as the beginning of the return to the way things used to be, and he’d been looking forward to losing himself in the monotony of hard exercise and self-imposed solitude.
Not that the solitude part had worked out well so far.
He grimaced as the events of the previous evening came back to haunt him. Sharing his suite with a bohemian idealist with an
