The Bed and Breakfast on the Beach: A gorgeous feel-good read from the bestselling author of One Day in December. Kat French

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      Frankie pulled her laptop from her bag, her wide, copper-flecked eyes flaring with wary anticipation.

      ‘I’ll see if I can book us some flights.’

      Winnie stared at her old single bed, which at that moment was barely visible beneath summer clothes, swimsuits, bumper-size bottles of factor 30 and beach towels. How do you pack for a one-way trip to Greece? She wasn’t sure if she should pack for a week or throw her entire wardrobe in her suitcase, because she didn’t know if they were heading back to Skelidos for a week to try to wriggle out of the contract or for a lifetime to start a new chapter. Thanks to the lethally large cocktails, she also wasn’t sure whether Ajax was their fairy godfather or had played them like a crack hot conman. He’d kept them fuelled up on his secret recipe gin and lured them in with tales of his bucolic life on the island, and, their tongues loosened by the alcohol, they’d poured out their woes faster than three leaky jugs.

      He hadn’t even directly suggested that they buy the villa, at least not at first. He’d talked around it, and let them think it was their idea. It was just damn good fortune that Nikolas happened to be the local property notary and had had the sales paperwork already drawn up in preparation for the planned sale which had just fallen through at the last moment. Convenience, or fate? Either way, he’d had them signing on the dotted line and arranging bank transfers with lightning speed, all buoyed up by Ajax and his constant supply of free drinks and his endless tales of how marvellous life on Skelidos was going to be for the three women. What an adventure they’d have! What a brave and smart move to leave grey old England behind for the idyll of sunny Greece! He’d sealed the deal with big fat tears as they signed, tears of joy tinged with sadness that his wonderful B&B was now in new hands and that he’d forever leave part of his heart there when he and Nikolas moved to Athens in a few days’ time. Nik had accepted a high-profile job over on the mainland, and much as they adored their one-long-honeymoon island life, the bright city lights were calling.

      Ajax was in no doubt; fate had conspired to bring Winnie, Stella and Frankie to his island at that precise moment because this place was now their destiny, not his. At heart, Winnie was a believer in fate and superstition; the idea that she’d been guided to the island charmed her all the way to the bank. Frankie, of course, felt more guided by Marcia’s instruction to find adventure; she’d needed little in the way of persuasion to realise that this would certainly be that. Stella had been perhaps the most hesitant of the three, until Frankie and Winnie had decided that they’d find a way to buy it together even if Stella decided it wasn’t for her. The idea of missing out on a potential business opportunity and a life in the sun with her best friends had proved too tempting to pass up, and in the end she’d signed on the understanding that she could always pull out after a year if she wanted to. They each had their own reasons for signing, and for all of them there was an element of running away and an element of looking for a new place to call home.

      A text alert vibrated her phone, making it rattle and jump around on the little pine bedside table. Winnie lunged for it before it slid off the edge, momentarily grateful for the distraction until she saw who had sent the message.

       Did I really need to hear you’re leaving the country from Stella’s sister-in-law? What am I supposed to do, send the divorce papers by carrier pigeon? I’ve never even heard of the fucking place.

      Winnie closed her eyes and took a few measured breaths so she didn’t text back the response hovering on the tip of her fingers.

       Did I really need to hear you were screwing the girl from the canteen from your secretary? What was I supposed to do, make your favourite dinner more often and be more adventurous in the bedroom? You’ve no fucking right to question me.

      God, it was tempting and Rory completely deserved her animosity. She didn’t write the message though, because she was slowly coming to realise that the person her anger hurt the most was herself. He’d probably check his phone, roll his eyes and delete the conversation before his precious receptionist realised he’d sent a text to his ex-wife. Winnie, on the other hand, would feel the after-effects of their exchange like a hangover without any of the fun first, miserable and heartsick until she could return the whole sorry situation to its box at the back of her head.

       The internet works perfectly well in Skelidos. Please send all solicitors’ correspondence via email and I’ll make sure it gets back to England without delay.

      Bloody man! He wouldn’t even have known she wasn’t around if Stella’s sister-in-law didn’t work for the same law firm. Oh, well. What did it matter anyway? As long as he didn’t intend on booking a romantic Greek holiday with his lover and wind up at Villa Valentina, then it’d probably be all right. Winnie sat down on the edge of the bed and let herself imagine him booking in unaware, and her inadvertently killing him with a really heavy frying pan then leaving him in the garden for The Fonz to feast on. Were donkeys even carnivores? She doubted it; it’d make seaside donkey rides an insurance nightmare. She’d just have to hire a boat and chuck him overboard with bricks in his pockets instead. Sufficiently bolstered by the fantasy, she pressed send on her polite response and chucked as much in her suitcase as was physically possible without breaking the zips. She wasn’t going to Skelidos for a week; she was going for as long as she could possibly stay.

      A few miles away in a small café with insufficient air conditioning, Frankie drew a line down the middle of a blank page of an exercise book and wrote ‘for’ and ‘against’ at the top of the two columns. It wasn’t exactly a spreadsheet, but its practicality was a comfort nonetheless.

      Under ‘against’, she noted her only real sticking point; or two points, technically. Joshua and Elliott. Her beloved, boisterous boys, the reasons she’d put the last half of her own life on hold. It was hard to imagine that she’d given birth to them at the same age as they were themselves now; they were still her babies and the thought of them as fathers right now was utterly incomprehensible. Please let them have at least another ten years of freedom first, she murmured. Please let them make a million mistakes that don’t matter rather than one huge one that changes their lives for ever.

      Tapping her pen against her teeth, she considered what to write next. There really wasn’t much she could think of to add to the ‘against’ column, and in truth the boys didn’t really need her around at home any more. Josh was living away at a sports academy for the most promising youth footballers in the country, and Elliott had won a hard-fought-for apprenticeship with one of the luxury car brands he coveted and moved into a shared house forty miles away. Fierce pride bloomed bright in her chest at the thought of how well they were doing; if there was one thing she was certain of it was that her sacrifices had been worth it, and that she’d do the same all over again to ensure that her kids were set on the right path.

      After a second, she wrote ‘Marcia’ in the ‘for’ column, followed by ‘find an adventure’. Then she added ‘sunshine’, ‘friendship’, ‘new start’, ‘excitement’ and ‘not lonely any more’ to the list in quick succession. Her hand hovered over to the ‘against’ column to add ‘money’, but in fact going thirds on the villa had still left her with a decent chunk in the bank, so it really wouldn’t be accurate to put it down as an against, exactly. That made seven for, and two against. Quite definitive, really, even though the thought of living in a different country from Josh and Elliott made her feel queasy. Perhaps if she framed it in her mind as an exploratory trip, then it would be less of a wrench. Three months or so, and if she missed the boys too much, she could always come home again. She closed her book, laid her pencil neatly on top and unscrewed the lid from her bottle of water.

      If the spreadsheet said it was a good idea, then it had to be right.

      In a dressing room in the department store in town, Stella stripped off and jiggled herself into СКАЧАТЬ