Those years had not been kind to the villa.
King Ludano had died and Sofia had been left alone with only her memories to warm her in their love nest. Alone without her lover to call whenever something needed fixing.
It was an old house, there were storms in the winter and the occasional rumble from the unstable geology of the island.
The pink was faded and stained where rainwater had run from broken and blocked gutters. There were some tiles missing from the scullery roof and there was a crack in the wall where the stucco had fallen away and a weed had found a home.
Posy’s wonderful bequest from her godmother needed some seriously expensive TLC and she would have been lumbered with something of a white elephant if it weren’t for its location.
The Villa Rosa was the only property on this spectacular part of the coast. It had a private beach hidden from passing boats by rocky headlands that reached out into the sea like sheltering arms and, thanks to the island’s volcanic past, a pool fed by a hot spring where you could bathe even in the depths of winter.
As soon as she put it on the market she would be swamped with offers.
The sea sparkled invitingly in the low angle of the sun, but this early in March it would still be cold and all she wanted was hot mint tea and somewhere to sleep.
Tomorrow she would go down to the beach, feel the sand beneath her feet, let the cold water of the Mediterranean run over her toes. Then, like an old lady, she would go and lie up to her neck in a rock pool heated by the hot spring and let its warmth melt away the confused mix of feelings; the desperate hope that she would turn around, Cleve would be there and, somehow, everything would be back to normal.
It wasn’t going to happen and she wasn’t going to burden Cleve with this.
She’d known what she was doing when she’d chosen to see him through a crisis in the only way she knew how.
She’d seen him at his weakest, broken, weeping for all that he’d lost, and she’d left before he woke so that he wouldn’t have to face her. Struggle to find something to talk about over breakfast.
She’d known that there was only ever going to be one end to the night they’d spent together. One of them would have to walk away and it couldn’t be Cleve.
Four weeks ago she was an experienced pilot working for Goldfinch Air Services, a rapidly expanding air charter and freight company. She could have called any number of contacts and walked into another job.
Three weeks and six days ago she’d spent a night with the boss and she was about to become a cliché. Pregnant, single and grounded.
She’d told the border official that she was running away and she was, but not from a future in which there would be two of them. The baby she was carrying was a gift. She was running away from telling Cleve that she was pregnant.
He would have to know. He would want to know, but the news would devastate him.
She needed to sort out exactly what she was going to do, have a plan firmly in place, everything settled, so that when she told him the news he understood that she expected nothing. That he need do nothing...
She sorted through the keys, found one that fitted the back door. It moved a couple of inches and then stuck. Assuming that it had swollen in the winter rain, she put her shoulder to it, gave it a shove and her heart rate went through the roof as she was showered with debris.
‘Argh...’ She jumped back, brushing furiously at her hair, her shoulders, shaking herself, shaking out her hair, certain that there would be spiders...
* * *
Cleve tossed his cap onto its hook and crossed to the white board listing the flight schedule.
‘Where’s Miranda?’ he asked. ‘I don’t see her on the board.’
‘She’s taken a few weeks’ leave.’
Leave? He turned to Lucy, his office manager. ‘Since when?’
‘Yesterday afternoon. She flew down to Kent in the morning and picked up the guys from their golf tournament but she wasn’t feeling too good after lunch,’ she said, without looking up from her VDU. ‘She hasn’t been looking that great for a few days.’
‘She’s sick?’ His heart seized at the thought.
She shrugged. ‘She appears to have picked something up. The punters take exception to the pilot using the sick bags so I told her to take a few days off to get over it.’ Lucy finally sat back, looked up. ‘She hasn’t taken more than the odd day off since last summer so she decided to make it a proper break.’
‘As opposed to an improper one?’
‘Let’s hope she gets that lucky.’
He bit down hard in an effort to hold in the response that immediately leapt to his lips. ‘Why didn’t you run this by me?’
‘You’ve been in Ireland for the last three days.’
‘You’ve heard of email, text, the phone?’
‘I’ve heard you tell me not to bother you with the minor details,’ she reminded him. ‘If you want me to call and ask you to approve time off for someone who never takes a day off sick, who hasn’t had a holiday in nearly a year, then you need to start looking for a new office manager.’
‘What? No...’ Lucy might be a total grouch but he couldn’t run the office without her. ‘No, of course not, it’s just that...’ It was just that he’d finally geared up the courage to face Miranda, talk to her. ‘She’s...that is everyone...is supposed to give a month’s notice before taking time off.’
‘She could have taken a week’s sick leave,’ she pointed out, clearly not impressed with his people skills.
‘I know. I didn’t mean...’
He turned to the gallery of Goldfinch pilots on the office wall. Miranda looked back at him from her place in the top row, her calm, confident smile never failing to instil confidence in her passengers and guilt, sitting like a lump of lead in his chest, exploded.
He’d broken every rule in the book. He’d lost control, taken advantage of her kindness, behaved in a way that he would have utterly condemned in anyone else.
He’d been a wreck and Miranda’s sweet tenderness had been a healing balm, a gift that he could never repay. Her scent, the softness of her skin, her hair falling from its pins and tumbling over his skin, the life-giving sweetness of her mouth...
Every time he thought about her he was swamped with the memory of that night. Waking with her spooned against his body, the curve of her neck just inches from his lips. Fighting the temptation to rouse her with a kiss and take more of her precious warmth.
Not moving because he knew what he would see in those tender green and gold eyes.
Understanding, pity, a smile that let him off the hook and the awkwardness of a morning after that neither of them knew how to deal with.
Not moving, because the moment she woke it would be over.
He’d drifted back into the kind of sleep that had eluded him for more than a year and the next time he woke, hours later, it was to a note propped against a cold mug of tea.
I’m taking the new aircraft back to base. Take my two-seater, or the train runs hourly at seven minutes past.
See you Monday.
M.
Bright and businesslike, a forget-it-and-move-on message. He couldn’t leave it like that and he couldn’t wait for the train.
He’d flown her little aircraft back to base, his need to see her, reassure her, overriding the PTSD he’d