That One Summer: A Collection of Steamy Contemporary Romance

Chapter 1

Wow... I can’t believeI used to look up to this woman!!!

It’s always the cute ones.

UNFOLLOWED!

I always knew she was a mean girl, lol... NO ONE is that nice.

Such a shame. I wonder what her mother would think of her now...

Three hours ago, before she had landed in Santorini, Olivia had thought it would be a good idea to load her comments section. Now, as she read the comments that had come in about her, knowing what people were saying about her and her family, she couldn’t remember why she thought it was a good idea to do so. It was even worse with the gossip column articles she’d downloaded.

But, like a train wreck, she couldn’t look away, scrolling through the endless comments that had flooded her page and absorbing every single one of them. Each one cut deeper than the last, especially when they talked about how disappointed her mother would be in her. And yet, she couldn’t fault them.

She had acted way out of character that night—hurt so many people and said such mean things.

No, she deserved every vile comment thrown at her. She deserved every article and meme made of her. She deserved it all and took it like the big girl she knew she was.

It was only once her comments stopped loading that she’d been reminded where she was.

She truly was a coward, as the people online said. Because if she wasn’t, she wouldn’t have been hiding away in an isolated hotel somewhere in Santorini, with no internet connection and walls so high it felt like the rest of the island didn’t exist.

Yes, she was a big, big coward. So, she subjected herself to the comments once again, letting each one settle inside of her, serving as punishment she knew she deserved for what she had done.

It had been two weeks already. Two weeks of constant hounding by the public and the paparazzi. Two weeks since she had last known peace. The constant scrutiny had taken such a mental toll on her she was paranoid about the littlest things. Every notification on her phone almost felt like a threat and every time it vibrated, her heart skipped a beat so hard her chest hurt.

Her usually vibrant outlook on life had slowly dimmed with every ping she received on her phone and for every phone call that went unanswered by her best friend. Her hair, usually a vibrant and fiery red mane of bouncy curls, was looking less bouncy and more flat—the red no longer its usual show-stopping asset on her. Her smile had completely vanished. She could barely master the art of moving her lips in the upper direction that curved into a smile, as they seemed to be permanently downturned.

Zayn and Jax were practically involved in a scandal every two to three business days. Is this what it was like for them?Not for the first time, Olivia had wondered. Her brothers had made such an infamous reputation for themselves that people worried when they didn’t hear about a recent scandal they were involved in.

There was no way they were intentionally involved in scandals if this is how it felt to be front and center in one.

Her mind swirled until it became too much. Unable to stand the silence surrounding her and the stiffness of a rarely used room, Olivia pushed up off her feet and explored the place she’d call her home for the foreseeable future.

The hotel room she’d been rushed to when she arrived on the hotel grounds stood isolated from the rest of the hotel. Well, it was more like a cozy flat than a room, with three bedrooms and an entertainment area on the top floor—which contained a beautiful assortment of musical instruments, along with a kitchen, a sitting room, and a dining room on the ground floor.

She was used to the sterile feeling of beige places that looked like they were a set for an interior design catalog than a house one lived in. Heck, even her own bedroom at her house lacked the warmth one would expect from such a room, with every piece of furniture staged and meticulously placed to give off the rich vibe her father was very particular about in their white and gold accented mansion.

Here, everything was colorful and cheerful, each room inviting you to stay and take it in with the vibrant colors and furniture made for sitting and not as decoration. By far, the best place had been her bedroom. It was much smaller than what she was used to, and yet, it was the best. What had drawn her to the room, though, were the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked a little piece of private beach on their already private beach property.

It was a shame though. All this beauty surrounded her and she couldn’t even appreciate it, as restlessness ate away at her bones.

It was the same type of restlessness that drew her back into the bedroom she’d been in just a few minutes ago as she frantically searched for where she had last left her phone. As soon as she found the tiny device, she logged into her phone and refreshed the page to check for new comments, only for the no signal bar to remind her she was truly disconnected from the outside world.

In a fit of anger, which even surprised her with its suddenness, Oliva threw her phone across the room. The sound of her phone pronounced the echo of her enraged scream hitting the wall in a loud thud before it bounced back and ended on the floor, face down. She didn’t have any illusions that it had survived the crash. She’d heard the screen crack, which is perhaps why she didn’t feel any remorse when she stomped on it.

The crunch that followed offered only a tiny sense of satisfaction that slipped away from her as soon as she’d had it, just like water slipping through one’s fingers. And then, she did it again and, once again, the satisfaction was fleeting. She didn’t stop until nothing but shards of a ridiculously expensive phone remained.

It was over an hour later, after playing out numerous scenarios that did nothing to relax her, that Olivia decided she needed to do her favorite self-care routine to find some release from the anxiety that was building. Her nerves were fried, her heart was pounding too heavily from her constant worry that she could feel it against her ribcage, and her feet were killing her due to the line she’d practically burned into the carpeted floor.

She didn’t have her usual luxuries, of course. Her bath bombs and bath salts were missing, and so was her favorite, wildly expensive—but so worth it—vanilla candle that gave off the most soothing smell and reminded her of a happier time. But she had to make do with what she had because she needed it!

In a bid to drown out the world, she put on a music player that came with the place and immediately, unknown up-tempo Greek music blasted through the speakers. She did not understand a word being said, but that didn’t matter because the music was serving its purpose.

In the bathtub, she tried to soak away her troubles and shame, pretending like none of it was happening—she was simply on one of her many trips and just enjoying a foreign land.

It kind of, sort of, worked but very briefly. However, that was more relief than she had felt in a minute, and at this point, any kind of relief, no matter how brief, was welcome.

Minutes later, when the water turned too cold for her to relax fully, she stepped out of the bathtub, draped one of the large bath towels around herself, and wrapped another, much smaller, one around her long hair.

Olivia had kind of gotten into the groove of the music and was stepping to it in earnest, feeling the freest she had been in a hot minute. She stepped into the bedroom once again, humming to herself as she rummaged through her bags for her lotion. She then went through the very soothing motions of pampering herself with her twelve-step skincare routine, which, before this, only happened every once in a while.

In the back of her mind, the nagging feeling of her worries beckoned her, but she refused to give in to it. She was determined to stay in this carefree moment right now—and she would, goddammit!

It was when she’d stepped into the kitchen moments later that the nagging feeling became a little too hard to ignore. Every step reminded her of everything she had read about herself from the public. Every move she made to the music as she tried to act like everything was okay reminded her that everything was, in fact, not okay.

Her hands shook as she reached for where she’d been told the cups were, but she couldn’t stop. She couldn’t stop humming and bobbing to the beat of the now muffled music, trying to pretend she had it all together. She moved toward the kitchen pot with the coffee that, thankfully, someone had brewed for her.

“Hello?” a deep voice unexpectedly came from behind her, slicing through the silence that hid behind the loud music.

Olivia let out a loud gasp at the unexpected presence in her private residence as she quickly swung around, the cup she’d been clasping slipping from her shaking hands and unintentionally hurtling toward the intruder.