A pang of guilt twanged through her as she thought about her sister. How bad had things on the island really had to get for Sancia to call her? And how mad would Anna be that Rosa had left her to deal with it?
The thing was, it wouldn’t have mattered if Rosa had taken the first flight out. Anna, based over in Oxford, would still have beaten her there by sheer virtue of time zones and air miles. Which meant that Anna would have already taken charge, and taken over the island.
Anna had always made it very clear that she expected to do everything herself, her way, and to feel martyred about it afterwards. So really, what point had there been in rushing?
Besides, it wasn’t as if Sancia had dragged Anna away from anything important. Probably. Last time they’d spoken, Anna had been busy living up to their father’s academic ideals, and giving up any semblance of fun or a social life to mother him excessively in Sancia’s absence—despite the fact Professor Ernest Gray was an intelligent, grown man who could clearly take care of himself.
Rosa couldn’t really imagine that that situation might have changed in the last three years.
Three years. Had it really been three years since she last spoke to Anna? Three years since their grandfather died? Three years since she’d yelled back a whole host of home truths at her sister, then left the country? Three years since she’d been back in England, or to La Isla Marina? Three years since...well. She wasn’t thinking about that. About him.
She’d made a point of not thinking about Jude Alexander for a grand total of thirty-six months. She wasn’t breaking that streak now.
It was just that it was all tied up together in her head. That awful argument with Anna, everything that happened with Jude, why she had to get out of the country...and now, knowing she was about to see Anna again had brought it all back.
Well, tough. She was going to rock up to the villa, deal with her sister, hug her mother, accept the inevitable offer of a glass of wine, check that everything was fine now, and make plans for leaving again.
Easy.
Hopefully.
With a sigh, Rosa shifted her bag higher on her shoulder and carried on walking. She’d already lingered on the side of the path longer than necessary. The last thing she wanted was one of the guests reporting some suspicious character with a bag loitering in the greenery.
She frowned. Actually, she hadn’t seen any guests. At all.
It was late May; the island should be teeming with holidaymakers, enjoying all the luxuries the resort had to offer. So where was everyone?
Unless things were worse than she thought...
Rosa quickened her step and, in a brief few minutes, found herself standing in the cool, tiled reception area of the central villa. White arches soared overhead, leading to small, secluded balconies with wrought-iron bars and plenty of brightly coloured cushions on their chairs. Just beyond the main area, through wide open doors, was the central courtyard, with reflecting pool and more lush potted greenery, and plenty of places to sit and take in the view. In high season, it was used as the main restaurant area for breakfasts, and even now it should be buzzing with early evening cocktail seekers.
It was empty. As was the reception desk.
Refusing to ring a bell in her own home, Rosa dropped her bags by the desk, bypassed the winding staircase to the upper levels, and the hidden doorway that led to the private, family quarters. Instead, she moved through the courtyard, and out the other side of the villa onto the sheltered patio that overlooked the beaches and the wide expanse of turquoise sea on the more exposed side of the island.
There, at last, she found signs of life, and her family. If not exactly the ones she’d been expecting.
She froze, her chest tightening, as if she were preparing to run—or hide. Surely her eyes were playing tricks on her?
‘Dad?’ Rosa pulled her sunglasses off to be absolutely sure of what she was seeing. Nope, she hadn’t imagined it. There, looking incongruous in a white shirt and stone-coloured jacket over chinos, and a panama-style hat, sat Professor Ernest Gray himself, a thousand miles and more away from where Rosa had expected him to be, locked up in the ivory towers at Oxford.
Of course, he was playing Scrabble with a dark-haired guy who had his back to her, so he was still finding some way to demonstrate his mental prowess. As usual. Rosa pitied his opponent.
Except now she’d drawn his attention, she’d given him a new target. It could only be a matter of time now before he turned his sharp mind and sharper words onto her—her choice of career, her lack of education, her inability to stay in one place, her unreliability... How could he possibly get through all her faults in one short visit?
‘Rosa.’ Her father inclined his head towards her, without smiling. ‘Your mother told us you’d be joining us. Eventually.’
And that was about all the family love and welcome she could expect from him, Rosa supposed. What was he even doing here? As far as she knew, he’d had as little contact with Sancia as possible, after she left, and they’d been separated ten years or more now. In all that time he’d certainly never visited the island that she’d escaped to. Why would he? Following Sancia to La Isla Marina would have been tantamount to admitting that he’d made a mistake, given her reasons to leave him. And if Rosa understood one thing about her father it was that Professor Ernest Gray would never admit that he was wrong.
So what could have brought him here now? Were things worse than she thought? Maybe it wasn’t the island that had Sancia panicked. Maybe it was something else. She should have got here sooner...
Her heart raced as all the worst-case scenarios flooded her mind. Rosa grabbed for the memory of meditation practice in India, two years ago, and focussed on her breath until she had it under control again.
No point getting worked up until she had some answers. Which meant asking questions. ‘Where is Mama? And Anna? And the guests, come to that? I was expecting—’
She didn’t get any further, because as she started talking her father’s Scrabble companion turned around and Rosa got a good look at his face, pale and shadowed in the cool of the patio shade but still absurdly perfect, with cheekbones that emphasised the beautiful shape of his face, and the incredible blue of his eyes.
It was too late to run. Too late to hide. And Rosa didn’t even know how to fight this sudden intrusion. Her whole body seemed fixed to the spot as a hundred perfect memories ran through her mind, racing over each other, all featuring the man in front of her.
Whatever she’d been expecting from her return to La Isla Marina faded away. Because there in front of her, on her Mama’s back patio, sat the last person she’d ever expected to see again—and a perfect reason to join Sancia and start panicking.
Jude Alexander.
* * *
La Isla Marina, Jude had decided within a few hours of his arrival, was the perfect hideaway from the real world. It had sun, sand, sangria and—most importantly for him—solitude. In fact, he wasn’t all that bothered about any of the first three items on the list, as long as he was left alone while he was there.
Fame, it turned out, was overrated. Especially the sort of fame that meant he couldn’t go anywhere without being recognised, or do anything without the world having an opinion about his actions. It might have taken him a while to see the downsides of celebrity, but now that he had...well, Jude was experiencing them in spades.
So it was sort of ideal that his main companion on the island was an ageing Oxford professor who hadn’t got the slightest idea who Jude was. Professor Gray was perfectly content to play Scrabble for hours, or talk about events of the last century, or the one before—without ever asking a question about Jude’s own life. The man’s self-absorption—or perhaps his preoccupation with the historical world—made Jude’s quest to escape the person he’d become all the easier.