One Last Summer at Hideaway Bay: A gripping romantic read with an ending you won’t see coming!. Zoe Cook

brother were sailing today, from Newquay,’

      ‘I know,’ Lucy said, as her mind raced. She felt suddenly that she might be sick.

      ‘We don’t know exactly what happened yet but there was an accident, Lucy, I’m so sorry – ‘

      ‘What?’ Lucy’s voice shook, fear creeping through her body. ‘What are you saying to me?’

      ‘It was a very serious accident, Lucy. They’re in the hospital now; they’re doing everything they can for them.’

      ‘What the fuck are you saying to me?’ Lucy said, standing, her body shaking. This was the craziest, sickest thing anyone had ever done to her. She had no idea what was going on.

      ‘It’s a lot to take in,’ Geraldine said calmly, ‘ And you need someone with you. Is there someone we can call? An adult?’

      Lucy couldn’t think. Everything was failing her; she thought she might pass out.

      ‘My parents, my brother?’ she said, slowly. ‘Are they going to be okay?’ The words sounded ridiculous. Of course they would be okay. There was no other option. The whole scene felt like an evil joke.

      ‘I’m so very sorry. We’ll know more at the hospital,’ the man replied. ‘We’re here to help you in whatever way we can. But the first thing you need to do is call someone who can come and be with you here; someone you trust.’

      ‘I need to speak to Claire,’ Lucy said, numb, the words hollow in her mouth.

      ‘We can arrange that,’ Geraldine said, softly. ‘Have a think about who I can call for you now, to come over here and travel to the hospital with you, or take you somewhere else – whatever you want.’

      Lucy scanned through her brain for an appropriate response and found nothing. There was nothing in her that could cope with this. She couldn’t even process it. The words kept repeating over and over and over. In the pit of her stomach a sense of doom settled; a fear that she was never, ever, going to be okay ever again. Nothing could ever be alright if something happened to her family. They just needed to come home, that’s all that could happen. She just needed her parents and Richie to come home, like normal, and she’d be so grateful and it would all be okay. How could an afternoon so beautiful become such a nightmare?

      She felt a hand on her arm and the reality crushed her all over again; her legs folded and she collapsed back onto the lounger.

      ‘Call Tom’s mum,’ Lucy said, tears pouring from her eyes, her body stone-cold in the scorching heat, her heart threatening to stop beating all together. She just needed to get to the hospital and find out how they were going to make this all better.

      ‘Call Sarah.’

       14

      London, 2010

      Lucy looked around at the production office, which was a total mess. Clothes, make-up, and hair-straighteners as far as the eye could see – piled on top of papers, folders and keyboards. There were half-drunk glasses of champagne littering the desks and Lucy picked up the one nearest to her and downed the flat bubbles. She heard footsteps on the staircase and a saw a flash of black hair through the small pane of glass on the door. The door flew open, crashing into the wall behind with a terrible noise, even over the music from the party below.

      Emma’s face was expressionless and somehow more frightening than if she had been visibly angry. Lucy felt herself freeze and for a moment she thought she might wet herself. Emma strode towards her, stopping a few feet in front of her with a smile that didn’t meet her eyes. Lucy didn’t know what to say and she mumbled something incoherent before Emma raised a hand to her mouth in a ‘shhh’ gesture, dropping her smile. She pointed to Lucy’s desk and took another step towards her.

      ‘Take your things, and leave. Now!’ she snarled at Lucy. ‘You silly, silly little girl.’

      Lucy watched her turn and walk away, still glued to the spot. Her legs wobbled slightly as the door closed again and Emma disappeared down the stairs. She took a heaving breath in and tried to compose herself. She pressed her hands into her eyes; she refused to cry here. There was a large woven shopping bag in her bottom drawer, from some launch she’d been to with Warren. ‘Dream It, Live It,’ the slogan on the side read. Lucy couldn’t remember what the product or film, or whatever, had even been. She began putting the few personal things she kept at work into the bag. It wasn’t like in films, she noticed. It didn’t feel like the time for ceremony and she didn’t have the kind of things that you’d pause and look at meaningfully, remembering good times or hard times – or whatever. She essentially had a filing cabinet full of pharmaceuticals to her name. She grabbed handful after handful of pill packets, deodorants, blister plasters, eye drops, and dried-up eyeliners and mascaras. There were lanyards that she’d been given at events, VIP access passes for concerts and festivals and photo-booth pictures of her and various Spectrum colleagues incredibly drunk at different parties.

      She took the fire escape exit out to the car park, bypassing the party. She could hear Emma on the microphone addressing the crowd, people cheering her as if they adored her. The same people who, Lucy knew, in fact despised and feared her. But maybe it was more complicated than that, she thought, as she walked across the yard towards the main road. Maybe if she had the intelligence not to see everything in black and white, in good and bad and right and wrong, maybe then she wouldn’t have just lost the job she’d worked so hard for. Emma was a bitch, that was certain, but she employed all these people, she was successful and she could be kind when she wanted to be, when it suited her. Had Lucy just thrown away a career because she didn’t like her boss? Didn’t that just make her the biggest idiot of them all?

      On the Tube she tried to fight thoughts of what her life had become. She lived alone, had broken up with Scott, barely spoke to her sister and only seemed able to enjoy herself when she was almost totally out of it. She had singlehandedly lost herself her job tonight and she really didn’t know what she had to wake up for tomorrow. She thought of Tom, and Nina and Kristian. Wondered what they were doing. Tom was probably drinking a beer and watching the sea, looking at the stars, like he always used to. ‘Just magical, isn’t it?’ He always used to say at the sight of a glittering sky over the ocean. And she’d look at him, with his gaze fixed firmly up into the night, and study his beautiful, kind face in the moonlight, and think ‘yes, it is, Tom, it really is magical’.

      Back at the flat, she flicked her lamp on and sat on the sofa, suddenly tired from the evening’s events. She looked at her phone; it was 10pm, probably not too late to call Nina.

      ‘Hello?’ Nina’s voice answered. ‘Don’t tell me it’s Lucy Templeton!’ she feigned surprise.

      ‘Hello,’ Lucy replied, ‘Don’t moan at me. I’m sorry, I should’ve called you back ages ago but –’

      ‘But you’ve been very, very busy being a London media daaaarling,’ Nina said.

      ‘I’ve been busy fucking everything up, actually,’ Lucy replied, smiling with the relief of talking to her oldest friend.

      ‘Well, you know what would make it all better…’ Nina said.

      ‘I know what you’re going to say,’ Lucy replied.

      ‘And you know I’m right. I’m generally always right,’ Nina said, seriously.

      ‘I don’t know if it’s a good idea,’ Lucy said, and she meant it. ‘I don’t know if coming back there, being around Tom – all the memories. I don’t know if that’s not just the worst thing I could do right now.’