Sunrise on the Coast: The perfect feel-good holiday romance (Island Romance Book 1)

by Lilac Mills

  ‘Hello, love, how’s Hugo?’ Mrs Tiggywinkle asked. She’d been asking about him regularly since the operation, and Sophie told her what she’d told Dominic.

  ‘He’ll soon be back to full fitness, then,’ Mrs Tiggywinkle observed, and Sophie’s heart sank. Yes, he would, wouldn’t he? She really must get a move on and do something about her future.

  ‘Ready?’ Dominic appeared at her elbow and took her shopping bag from her, leaning over to put it behind the counter. ‘You can pick it up on the way back.’

  They wandered out of the shop, Paco padding behind them, and headed for a row of bars and cafés.

  ‘You didn’t answer my question,’ Dominic said. ‘I asked why you looked so glum.’

  She hesitated, wondering where to start, but knowing it shouldn’t be with Alex. In fact, she shouldn’t mention Alex at all. ‘Oh, you know, just worrying about the future and stuff.’

  Dominic frowned. ‘What do you mean? Shall we sit here?’ He indicated a collection of tables and chairs arranged outside a café, and she took a seat.

  They ordered a couple of drinks and a slice of cake each, then Sophie tried to explain what was on her mind, without mentioning what was really on her mind right at this very moment – Alex.

  ‘So you see,’ she concluded after explaining her job and home situation to Dominic, ‘I’ve got some big, life-changing decisions to make, and I really don’t know what to do.’

  ‘You’ve got to go with your heart,’ he said. ‘Life’s too short to do anything else.’

  ‘That’s easy for you to say; you’ve got a job and somewhere to live. I’m assuming you have your own place, and even if you didn’t you could live with your parents.’

  ‘Yes to the somewhere to live bit, but the job isn’t as secure as you think. I’m on a contract, and there’s no guarantee it’ll be renewed when it’s up, because it depends on a number of factors, like listener figures and advertising revenue. It’s the advertising that pays for the station to broadcast – more or less – and the advertising is only as good as the number of people who tune in. It can be quite a fickle business.’

  ‘You’re still better off than I am,’ she grumbled.

  ‘I know. I have what I think is the perfect lifestyle. I’ve got a job I love, which gives me loads of time to do what I love – surfing, natch – a great apartment with sea views, a— Wait a sec. I’ve got an idea. How about if you move in with me?’

  ‘What?’ Sophie had just taken a sip of hot coffee and nearly choked on it. She stared at him, her mouth open. ‘You want me to move in with you?’

  ‘Think about it. We get on well, and it would solve your accommodation problem.’

  It would certainly do that all right, but she’d only known him for a couple of weeks and they’d only been on one date. It was all happening a bit too fast for her liking.

  ‘Er… um…’

  ‘You don’t have to decide now. Think about it and let me know, yeah? You said you’ve got a couple of months left at Hugo’s place.’

  Sophie was astounded. Never in a million years had she expected Dominic to ask her to move in with him, and especially on such a short acquaintance. He knew nothing about her, for goodness’ sake, nor she him.

  But, she mused as she walked back home, it had given her something to think about, and as long as she made it clear there was to be no funny business and that she was there as a lodger only, then it could be the answer to her prayers in the short term. She was under no illusion that it would be a permanent thing. It was just until she sorted herself out.

  What did she have to lose? She could renew the lease on the storage unit back in the UK, and if things didn’t pan out, then she could always return to England. She’d not be any worse off. And it might be exactly what she needed to enable her to remain in Tenerife. Besides, she didn’t have to decide just yet. She wanted to get to know Dominic a bit better first, and she decided that as soon as she felt she could leave Hugo for a decent stretch of time, she’d take Dominic up on his offer of bodyboarding lessons.

  Feeling suddenly more optimistic and positive about the future, she almost skipped back to the villa.

  But before she got there, the image of a certain dark-haired, dark-eyed volcanologist popped into her mind, and all she could think about was that she wished it was Alex who had asked her to move in with him.

  She might even have said yes…

  Chapter 25

  The villa was empty and the car wasn’t in its usual spot, so after she’d put her purchases away, feeling unduly restless, she decided to take advantage of Hugo’s absence to give his bedroom a thorough clean. It could certainly benefit from it, and doing something useful might help burn off some of the energy surging through her. She had an urge to clean Alex’s room too, but she fought it off. He’d be gone soon enough, and once he was, she could clean and scrub to her heart’s content. Anyway, doing so now would be an invasion of his privacy.

  Hugo, though, was an altogether different matter, because she went into his bedroom on a regular basis to do things like change the sheets on his bed, gather his dirty laundry, or throw open the window and let that wonderful sea air blow through.

  Today she intended to do those things and more. She hadn’t given the room a good cleaning since he’d come out of hospital, and it could do with a proper scrub down.

  Rolling her proverbial sleeves up, she grabbed a dustpan and brush, ran some hot soapy water into a bucket, retrieved a duster and a tin of furniture polish from the cupboard under the sink, and prepared to do battle.

  Half an hour later, she had stripped the sheets off the bed, cleaned the window, and taken the rug onto the terrace and beaten it to within an inch of its life until her arm ached and she was breathless. She’d also turned the mattress over and was now vigorously sweeping the floor and thanking God that whoever had built the villa had used marble tiles on the floors and not carpet, because Paco’s fine fluffy fur got everywhere. It didn’t seem to matter how frequently or how thoroughly she groomed him, she still found it all over the place. Vacuuming every day would be an absolute pain, but giving the floor a quick sweep had soon become part of her daily routine and it only took a few minutes. Unless she was giving it a deep clean, like today, when she was actually moving furniture and dusting skirting boards, when it took quite a bit longer.

  Putting the brush down and being careful not to tread in the small pile of debris she’d already amassed, she eyed Hugo’s humungous chest of drawers with trepidation. She knew that the wardrobe – dark wood and immensely solid – was beyond her ability to shift, although she did her best to squeeze the brush underneath it, and awkwardly flicked the duster behind it, to get at as much dust as possible. But the chest of drawers, for all its impressive dimensions, could surely be moved. If she pulled one side of it out from the wall, then the other, alternately, she could manoeuvre it until she could reach behind the darned thing with her brush.

  Determined not to be defeated by a piece of furniture, she set to work, dragging and pulling with all her might. Crikey, Hugo must be storing bricks in it, she mused as she heaved and panted, even though she’d put enough of his clothes away in the drawers to know exactly what was in them.

  Finally she had the thing where she wanted it, and she took a moment to wipe the sweat from her brow and drink a glass of cold water. Who needed to go to a gym when this lot wanted cleaning? Between the garden, walking Paco and lugging great lumps of furniture about, she was probably fitter now than she’d been in a long time. And healthier too. Being outdoors a lot helped, as did the mainly Mediterranean-type diet she was eating, despite Tenerife being nowhere near the Med and her occasional forays into British comfort food.

  She grabbed the brush again and walked around the back of the chest. Gosh, it was a bit of a mess. There was a thick layer of dust on the skirting board and all kinds of nasty stuff on the floor behind: dust bunnies, what looked like a fossilised piece of bread (God knows how that had got there), a couple
of folded pieces of paper stuck together with sticky tape, a button, a small screwdriver and a smattering of dog biscuits. Lovely.

  She picked up the paper and the screwdriver and placed them on top of the chest of drawers, then swept the rest of the rubbish into a pile and brushed it into the waiting dustpan. Finished, she began pushing the hunk of stubborn wood back into position, shoving and shunting until she was happy that it was in the exact same place as before.

  Then she turned her attention to the pieces of paper, wanting to give them a quick once-over to make sure they were nothing important before she tossed them in the bin. Gingerly, she prised them open, and when she saw that the topmost piece of paper was a bank statement, she realised it was too important to throw away.

  She was about to fold the sheets of paper back up, when the summary figures at the top of the page caught her attention, and once she’d seen them, it was impossible to unsee them.

  Hugo was overdrawn. Badly.

  Her heart sinking to her pumps, she looked at the date. Two months ago.

  Feeling a heel but unable to stop herself, she checked the other papers. One was a letter from the same bank as the statements. The other was from a company called The Zykov Corporation, and it had an elaborate logo of an intertwined T, Z and C emblazoned across it. What drew her eye, though, was the mention of a large sum of money in euros. Both letters were in Spanish. All three documents had been hidden, she realised, as she abruptly understood what the sticky tape had been for.

  And she would never have discovered them if she hadn’t decided to clean Hugo’s bedroom from top to bottom, and even then she might not have noticed them if the sticky tape had done its job. Hugo hadn’t anticipated either of those things, and she was tempted to put the documents back where she’d found them. After all, Hugo’s financial affairs were none of her business.

  But she didn’t.

  Instead, she fetched her phone from her room and used an online dictionary to translate Spanish to English.

  Then wished she hadn’t.

  Hugo was drowning financially. The bank said so. His bank statements corroborated it. The letter from The Zykov Corporation contained the offer from the organisation that wanted Hugo’s land. She might be naive and more used to UK property prices, but the figure TZC mentioned in the letter seemed ridiculously low. And, if the translation was correct, they’d upped it from a considerably lower one. It still wasn’t enough, she thought, but it should be sufficient for Hugo to buy a small apartment and not have to worry about money for a long time. If ever. Together with his pension, he would have plenty to live on, as long as he wasn’t rash.

  Sophie had no idea what his total outgoings were, but from what she could tell, he still had to pay a considerable amount in tax for the banana fields, even though he was in no position to farm them and hadn’t done for quite some time.

  Paco gave a low woof and Sophie jumped.

  She paused, listening intently, and after a moment the sound of an engine reached her.

  Alex and Hugo were back.

  Rushing now, not wanting to be caught, she folded the papers and stuffed them down behind the chest of drawers. With any luck, Hugo would never know she’d been snooping. Hastily, she gathered up her cleaning things and darted out of the room.

  She was busy putting Hugo’s washing into the machine when uncle and nephew sauntered back into the house. Hugo was walking-stick-free and grinning widely.

  ‘Did it go OK?’ she asked, hoping they would mistake the heat in her cheeks from having been bent over. She straightened up. Should she say anything to Alex? Did she have any right to?

  ‘I had the stitches removed and they are pleased with the wound.’

  ‘He has to go back in another two weeks, and they’ve given him additional exercises to do at home,’ Alex said.

  ‘I will soon be as fit as a guitar!’ Hugo announced, and Sophie laughed.

  ‘Yes, you will,’ she agreed. He was making excellent progress, performing his exercises diligently, and being careful to move only in the way he had been shown so as not to overextend his hip.

  She wondered if his desperation to get fit again had more to do with the hope that he could farm his fields once more. Because if he couldn’t…

  Making a decision, she waited for Hugo to go into the living room, then brushed past Alex and whispered in his ear, ‘I need to talk to you in private, and you’re probably not going to like it.’

  With that she grabbed an armful of clean bed linen out of the cupboard, so she had a legitimate reason to be in Hugo’s room, and when she was satisfied that the two men were out of her line of sight, she reached down the back of the chest of drawers and wriggled her hand into the gap. Wincing with the effort of stretching as far as she could, her fingers finally touched the folded pages. Carefully, praying that she wouldn’t drop them, she pulled them out.

  She might be doing wrong, but her conscience would not allow her to let it lie. She knew she wasn’t in a position to help Hugo, but Alex might be, and she’d never forgive herself if she didn’t at least try. Even if it cost her her home and her job.

  Chapter 26

  Sophie waited until Hugo retired for the night before she said anything more to Alex. Alex kept sending her meaningful looks, but every time she met his curious gaze, she shook her head, a tiny movement so as not to alert Hugo.

  ‘What is it?’ Alex asked, as soon as Hugo had closed his bedroom door. ‘Please don’t tell me you are returning to the UK and leaving Hugo to cope alone?’

  ‘No! What makes you think that? It’s—’

  Alex jumped in before she was able to explain. ‘Because you warned me that I’m not going to like what you’re about to tell me, and I am aware of your predicament.’

  Sidetracked, Sophie gawped at him. After the intimate moment they had shared in the lava tube, she assumed that he’d realised she was a better person than he’d previously thought. But clearly he was still of the same opinion. Which made those exquisite and wonderful kisses all the harder to reconcile with the way he thought of her. Obviously her instinct had been right last night, and he had merely seen an opportunity for a snog and had taken it. More fool her for encouraging him.

  ‘I might not have a “predicament” anymore,’ she informed him smugly, although she’d not yet made her mind up regarding Dominic and his generous offer. It was nice to have options, though, and nicer still to be able to tell Alex about it. He’d probably think even less of her now, but she honestly didn’t care. ‘Dominic has asked me to move in with him.’

  As soon as she said it, she realised it sounded as though she was going to be living with him as boyfriend and girlfriend; but if she backtracked now, she’d probably dig herself a deeper hole than the one she’d already dug. So she let the words hang there, without further embellishment or explanation. Alex wouldn’t care anyway. He was leaving tomorrow, and he had someone waiting for him in Iceland. It made no difference to him what she did.

  She did address what she thought was worrying him, though. ‘Of course, I’ll stay until Hugo no longer needs me,’ she said.

  ‘I see.’

  Alex’s expression was blank, though she was certain there was a hint of disappointment in the depths of those chocolate-brown eyes.

  ‘But that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about,’ she added.

  He cocked his head to the side slightly. ‘I’m all ears.’

  She ignored his sarcastic tone. Hugo’s plight was more important than picking a fight with the most obnoxious man she’d ever met.

  ‘Wait a sec.’ Biting her lip, she fetched the documents from where she’d secreted them in her own room, and then wordlessly held them out.

  He gave her a long look before he took them from her, and she held her breath while she waited for his reaction as he studied them.

  When it came, it wasn’t what she expected.

  ‘Where did you get these?’ he demanded, his lips a thin line, his jaw clenched.

  ‘Th
ey were in Hugo’s room, behind—’

  ‘I don’t believe this,’ Alex interrupted her, his voice hard.

  ‘Neither did I, at first. Of course, I couldn’t read the letters straight away, but I translated them on my phone and—’

  ‘I can’t believe that you thought it was OK to snoop in my uncle’s personal things,’ he snapped. ‘You are taking advantage of your position.’ He waved the papers at her. ‘These are private.’

  ‘I know, but—’

  Alex slapped them down on the table, making her jump, and glared furiously at her. ‘There is nothing you can say that will excuse what you did.’

  ‘What?’ She didn’t believe what she was hearing. There she was trying to help, and all this man could do was accuse her of the most horrible things. She had not been snooping. She hadn’t. But she could see that it wouldn’t do any good to try and explain, and she wasn’t sure she actually wanted to now. How could he think that of her?

  Tears pricked the back of her eyes and she blinked hard. There was no way she was going to let him see how upset she was, nor how much his words hurt. If he wanted to believe she’d been rooting through Hugo’s private things, then let him.

  ‘Fine,’ she said. ‘Believe what you like, I don’t care. I was only trying to help.’ She marched off to her room, shut the door firmly (she really wanted to slam it, but she didn’t want to disturb Hugo) and flung herself on the bed, letting the hot tears fall.

  She had no idea how long she lay there sobbing quietly, but when there was a soft knock on her door, she was more or less done. Her weeping had finally trailed off to hiccups and lots of nose blowing, and she felt drained and exhausted.