One Bed

Chapter 2

Chapter Two

G ibson Caddell glanced in his rearview mirror, watching as the wind plastered her white and brown patterned dress to her shapely body. Puncture Girl was tiny, five-three or five-four, she didn’t even reach his shoulder, but she was a sexy woman. A casual glance would peg her in her mid-twenties, but the fine laughter lines at the corner of her amazing eyes – were they blue or grey? – made him revise his estimate upward, putting her in her early thirties.

She disappeared from view as he rounded the corner and Gib shoved his shades into his hair to rub one eye, then the other, trying to ignore the flash of lust, the punch of want. Was that what sexual attraction felt like? It had been so long, he’d forgotten. When was the last time he had sex? Six months ago? He rolled back through his memories and realised it was closer to a year.

Fuck me.

Or, to be accurate, no fuck me. And, if anyone needed him to, he could testify that solo sex didn’t make you go blind.

Dating himself was all he had time for this past year. As the CEO of Caddell International, the production company his father and uncle had established that now included a worldwide talent agency, an event company, a PR consultancy firm and a music label, he had a million balls in the air. He’d just come off a four-day conference on AI and, before that, he’d spent two weeks in company seminars, one in London, one in New York. He was peopled out.

All he wanted to do for the next two weeks was spend time on the water in the kayak, drink the odd beer and read the odd book. Binge-watch a series. Contemplate his navel.

What he didn’t want to do was to talk to anybody. About anything .

As the new face of Caddell International, he’d stood in the limelight for the past year and had batted away questions about his love life, his past, his parents’ deaths when he was sixteen, where he intended to take the company and how far. He happily answered questions about Caddell International, but ignored any about his personal life. His being an orphan (and his guilt), and whether he was in a relationship (not on the cards) had no bearing on how he did his job.

He was super sensitive – thanks, Mom! – to any invasion of his privacy and personal questions made him feel defensive and uneasy. And after a year of non-stop curiosity about how he lived his life, and who was in it, he was stick-a-fork-in-him done . He badly needed time out, and hiring the cottage on Golly’s Santorini estate was his way to get the quiet he needed.

He was so burned out that even talking to Puncture Girl had been an effort. The only people he could stand to be around were Navy and Navy’s dad, Hugh. But Navy had his hands full with his agency and his author clients, and Hugh, now Chairman of the Board of Caddell International, was covering for Gib as he took some much-needed time out.

Life would’ve been easier for him if Navy was still with the company, but both he and Hugh knew Navy would one day jump ship to follow his lifelong dream of working in the publishing industry. While Gib loved the cut and thrust, the high-octane lifestyle of running a massive international company, Navy did not. It was Hugh – smart and supportive – who’d pushed his son into following his dream, who gave Navy permission to walk away from the company that Hugh and his brother, Gib’s father, established and Hugh built and grew.

Gib’d met Golly at The Ivy in London. He’d been keeping Navy company while he was waiting for Golly to arrive for their lunch meeting. She wore an aqua sheath with an acid-yellow half jacket, biker boots and carried an unlit cigarillo. Her fingers ended in inch-long, vampire-red nails and her accent was Upper West Side arty. Her attitude was pure Brooklyn street fighter.

After a drink at the bar, a G it was the smell of Bea’s childhood, of safety, of home .

‘It’s so bloody lovely to see you, Bea-darling.’

Bea smiled. She’d last seen Golly ten days ago in London and had spoken to her several times a day since, but Golly always greeted her as if they’d been separated for months, if not years. Bea stepped back from her to greet Reena, who’d only tolerate a quick buzz on her wrinkled cheek.

Reena’s steel-grey eyes were overshadowed by strong, bushy black-and-white eyebrows. Her snow-white hair was cut close to her head, mostly because she couldn’t be arsed to brush her hair every day. She wore her usual outfit of a polo shirt over jodhpurs and riding boots.

Reena smelt of hay, horse and summer. ‘Have you just come in from a ride?’ Bea asked.

‘I went to a neighbouring farm and exercised their nags for them. There’s no one to ride them and they are getting fat and lazy.’

Bea helped herself to a sip of Golly’s G&T, her eyes widening. There couldn’t be more than a splash of tonic in her glass. ‘Has the electrician arrived?’ she asked, darting another look at the Jeep.

Reena answered her. ‘It’s Sunday, Bea. He said he’d be here either Wednesday or Thursday.’

That wasn’t an issue because the lights only needed to be up by the next weekend. They had plenty of time. ‘OK, not a problem.’

Golly looked at Reena, who shook her head, seemingly unmoved by her beseeching expression. ‘No, you invited them, I had nothing to do with it. If you want lights, you tell her.’

Invited who? Tell her what? ‘What have you done?’ Bea asked Golly, narrowing her eyes.

Golly’s eyes slithered away, a sure sign that she knew she was skating on thin ice. Then she attempted to look innocent, and Bea winced. Oh, this was going to be bad. ‘I’ve invited some people around for a cocktail party Tuesday night … you know, just the early arrivals. I would like the lights up before then.’

Bea looked at Reena, who lifted her hands in resignation. ‘Not my idea.’

Bea’d hoped for a few quiet nights to gather her energy, to soak in the calming atmosphere of the island, to pull herself towards herself. ‘How many people did you invite?’ she asked through gritted teeth.

Golly hummed, a sure sign she was about to lie. ‘I’m not quite sure… Ten? Twenty?’

Bea knew her well enough to know the number would be, at least, double that. ‘Be a dear and organise some more champagne and canapés, Bea-darling.’ Golly’s request was accompanied by a charming smile. ‘I want to have it on the esplanade, but it would be lovely to have the lights up in the courtyard.’

Sure. Now where did she leave her wand? She could argue, but nothing she said would change Golly’s mind. Bea bit the inside of her lip, thinking hard. What Golly called the esplanade was a long, open, level area a little way from the house, overlooking Oia and the caldera. A waist-high low concrete wall stopped guests from tumbling down the hill, and a vine-covered pergola stood over the outside bar, pizza oven and outdoor kitchen. The ‘esplanade’ had the best views of the caldera on the property. It was the perfect place for a cocktail party on a warm summer or still warm autumn evening.

Champagne was easy enough to source, but getting someone to provide canapés for forty would be tricky. Did Golly think she was a miracle worker? Honestly, she was impossible!

‘I need to speak to Cass,’ Bea said, pushing her hair behind her ears. She could walk to the villa and find her, but calling her was quicker. While she waited for Cass to answer, she poked two fingers at her eyes, and then pointed them at her godmother. Golly just grinned, unrepentant.

She darted a glance at the Jeep, her curiosity growing. Who was he and what was he doing here?

Cass answered and, because this wasn’t the first time they’d spoken today, didn’t bother with a greeting.

‘What does Golly want this time?’ she asked, in her always cheerful tone. Cass was a ‘can do’ person, and very little fazed her. Thank God, because Golly changed her mind often, and arranging her birthday/retirement weekend was like trying to wrestle a twelve-legged octopus. ‘A merry-go-round? A Mexican death ritual? The merry-go-round might be a possibility, the death ritual difficult.’

Bea laughed. ‘Neither. She’s hosting a cocktail party and wants champagne and canapés on the esplanade at sunset.’

‘Tonight?’ Cass squeaked.

‘No, Tuesday night,’ Bea hastily assured her.

‘Oh, that’s doable,’ Cass replied, sounding relieved. ‘But I saw her an hour ago, why didn’t she ask me then?’

Bea relayed the question to Golly.

Golly shrugged. ‘I only started making calls about twenty minutes ago.’

Good God. ‘Number of guests, Bea?’ Cass asked, ridiculously calm.

‘No idea. She mentioned twenty, but it could be a lot more.’

Cass was silent for a minute. ‘Nadia can whip up a selection of simple canapés. I ordered tons of champagne on consignment, we can spare a few cases. There’s enough liquor to float several battleships. If Golly can keep it to under forty, it shouldn’t be a problem.’

Nadia was Cass’s wife, and together they could pull purple-spotted rabbits out of hats.

‘I’ll tell her. And have I told you how unbelievably amazing you are and that I am going to organise a fat bonus for you when we’re done?’

Cass laughed. ‘I am amazing and I’m going to hold you to that bonus. This assignment has been a … challenge.’

Diplomatic Cass. ‘It’s been a raging headache and a full-on pain in the arse!’ Bea corrected her, scowling at Golly. Golly didn’t even look remotely chastised.

‘By the way, I’ve arrived at the villa, and I’ll wander up to say hello later.’ Bea disconnected and pointed her phone at Golly. ‘Keep it to under forty guests.’

Golly blew her a kiss, not for a milli-second doubting that she’d get her way. Oh, to be that confident and assured. Bea rolled her head, trying to work the knots out of her neck. She’d wanted to spend a little time working this afternoon – if she could get the bare bones of the new series arc down she’d feel a little more in control – but now she had to help Cass prepare for Golly’s spur-of-the-moment soiree.

Not being at her laptop for a few days, even for a few weeks, wouldn’t stop the world from turning. She was always several weeks, sometimes months ahead of her deadline but she hated not working, taking time off. It made her feel like a slacker, like she wasn’t professional and that she wasn’t taking her job seriously.

She was and she did, but doubts hid in dark corners waiting to ambush her.

When would she feel like she’d made it, when would she stop feeling like a fraud? Was it at fifteen books? Twenty? Fifty? When would she feel like she wasn’t some imposter calling herself a writer? Would there ever come a time when she emailed off her first draft and didn’t immediately wish she hadn’t, that she’d taken the time to read it over once more, and make some changes? When would she feel confident in her talent? Would she ever stop second-guessing herself?

Bea rubbed the back of her neck and pushed her hair behind her ears. It was time to get her luggage into the cottage, so she opened the back passenger door and handed Reena her clothes bag and Golly her toiletry bag. She still had to ask about the owner of the Jeep and why he was here.

But first things first. ‘Have you had any more RSVPs for the weekend?’

A lot of people had replied to Golly directly instead of using the email on the invitation, and Bea knew the final count could be somewhere between 150 and 220 people.

‘No idea. Reen?’ Golly asked. Her glass wobbled, sloshing liquid over her hand. Golly sucked it up, leaving a bright red lipstick smudge behind.

Reena pulled Golly’s phone from the pocket of her godmother’s kaftan and peered at the screen. ‘Nothing so far today, but we’re still expecting a couple of twats to respond at the last minute.’

Reena didn’t suffer fools. If she thought you were a useless waste of space, then she had no problem telling you so. Hers and Golly’s friendship went back to their university days at Magdalen College, Oxford. They’d met on a march through central London in 1960 to protest against the massacre of sixty-nine unarmed South Africans atSharpeville. The following year, they were arrested at a Ban the Bomb demonstration and sharing a cell cemented their relationship.

Reena was as much a part of Bea’s life as Golly, and the only other person who knew Bea was Parker Kane. Reena was a vault, and anyway, Bea suspected she’d long ago forgotten her pseudonym. Reena wasn’t a reader, unless it was Horse and Hound and horse-racing forms.

‘Fabio Rossi sent his regrets?—’

‘Had an affair with him, would absolutely recommend,’ Golly stated, holding Bea’s overfull toiletry bag to her chest. ‘Younger than me, such an amazing lay.’ She smiled. ‘Men love me, Bea-darling.’

God, she was a few sips off being properly pissed, and needed food to soak up some of the alcohol. ‘Lunch?’ Bea asked Reena.

Reena nodded. ‘Good plan. Dump your stuff in the cottage and come to the villa. Nadia’s made a Mediterranean salad.’

Awesome. One of the best things about the next week was that with Nadia cooking their meals, she’d be spared Reena’s kitchen experiments. Reena was addicted to hot food and everything she made had the kick of a stroppy mule. Golly had the domestic skills of a pot plant.

Bea hauled her suitcase out of the car – so heavy – and nodded at the Jeep. She had to ask, her curiosity was killing her. ‘Who does that belong to?’

Golly looked at Reena and Reena at Golly, and neither of them answered. Bea frowned at her godmother. ‘What’s going on, Golly?’

‘It’s not a big deal, darling.’

Oh, shit.

‘I just had a senior moment.’

Golly never had senior moments, she was the sharpest septuagenarian she knew. ‘What have you done?’ Bea asked through gritted teeth.

She’d barely finished her sentence when she saw her rescuer walking towards them from the direction of the cottage. His now unbuttoned shirt gave her tantalising glimpses of his tanned chest. Her eyes widened at his Jack Reacher body.

He slowed down as he approached them, his face unreadable. Bea managed to pull her eyes off his body onto his face and into his silver-blue-grey eyes. The dude from the Oppenheimer movie eyes, Pip’s eyes…

Oh, God.

‘We meet again,’ he said, casually buttoning up his shirt. He didn’t seem overly excited to see her, damn him.

‘Gibson Caddell, meet Bea Williams, my goddaughter. Bea-darling, Gib is the CEO of Caddell International.’

She’d heard of Caddell International. Pretty much everyone with a pulse had.

Golly drained her glass. ‘Gib and his cousin, Navy Caddell, met me for lunch at The Ivy a few weeks ago.’

Navy Caddell? Golly’d had lunch with the new shit-hot agent on the block? What the hell? Bea flinched. ‘Why were you lunching with Navy Caddell, Golly dear ?’

‘I am looking for someone to take on Parker Kane, Beatrice , since the bloody woman is dragging her feet.’ Golly’s eyes narrowed. ‘Navy only set up his literary agency a year ago but already has an impressive list of clients and has made some eyebrow-raising sales.’

Bea’d told Golly, more than once, that she wouldn’t be pushed into meeting agents until she was ready. Which wasn’t now, and just might be never. What the hell was Golly thinking going behind her back and vetting agents for her?

‘Maybe Parker isn’t ready to take that step and would like to make that decision herself,’ Bea said through gritted teeth. ‘You know she hates it when you overstep the mark, Golly.’

‘Well, she needs a swift kick up her arse!’

Golly was angling for an argument, but now wasn’t the time. They had company. Bea rubbed the back of her head, trying to ignore her headache. It was noon, but it felt like she’d already put in a ten-hour day. She had things to do, and an unexpected cocktail party to organise.

But Gibson Caddell’s rough sexiness scrambled her brain. Wait, hold on…

Why had he walked from the direction of the cottage?

‘What exactly did you mean by ‘senior moment’ just now, Golly?’ Bea asked, her eyes narrowed.

‘What are you accusing me of now, Bea?’ Golly asked, her eyes guileless. Oh, sod it. When Golly sounded innocent, it usually meant she was about to drop a conversational nuclear bomb. Bea’s stomach went into free fall.

‘ Golly! ’ Bea snapped. She wasn’t in the mood for games. Not today.

‘Well … I sort of promised you both the use of the cottage,’ Golly airily replied. Her expression was pure whimsy, as close to ‘ oh shucks ’ as Golly got. Bea didn’t buy it. Golly was working some angle and Bea wasn’t going to let her.

‘I have been staying in the cottage since I was sixteen years old, Golly, and I am organising your weekend,’ Bea told her, heat creeping into her voice. ‘I’m sure Mr Caddell can find somewhere else to stay.’

‘I’ve paid a lot of money to hire her cottage, so if anyone is moving out it’s you,’ Gib replied, sounding properly pissed off. She didn’t blame him. Bloody Golly.

Golly waved her empty glass around. ‘I’m sure you two can find a solution to my faux pas. Of course, alternative accommodation would be the answer, but the island is also hosting the ginormous wedding of a stunningly wealthy Greek industrialist’s daughter on Saturday. The week-long festivities started yesterday, and you might struggle to find a decent room.’

What was her point? Did Golly expect her to share her cottage? Her one - bed cottage? That wasn’t, on any level, acceptable.

‘This island can sleep roughly seventy-thousand people, Golly, I’m sure Mr Caddell can find somewhere else to stay,’ Bea said through gritted teeth. She needed to stay at the cottage, being anywhere else was inconceivable. The cottage was where she felt most inspired, and utterly relaxed. It was her home away from home.

‘ Mr Caddell will be staying where he is,’ Gib stated.

Golly ignored him. ‘That’s at the peak of summer, Bea, when all the hotels and rooms-to-let are available. Many have closed now the season’s over.’ Golly waved her hand, tipped with coffin-shaped nails. ‘Now don’t be so square and unaccommodating Bea-darling and Gib. You two can share the space for less than a week, the bed is big enough to sleep four, and then Bea can move into the main house. Besides, you’ve shared before.’

‘What?’ Given that Bea’s love life was desert-sand dry, she definitely would’ve remembered sharing a bed with Gibson Cadell. He looked equally confused. ‘What are you talking about, Golly?’

‘Gib stayed here when he was about ten or eleven, I had a full house that summer and you two shared a room.’

Bea cocked her head to the side, as the memory of a gangly boy, with too-long hair and knobbly knees came into focus. While she’d been happy, OK, resigned to sharing a room with him, he’d thrown a wobbly, loudly protesting he didn’t want to share with a kid , and worse, a girl . She remembered him making his dad promise he’d never tell someone – he couldn’t remember the name – that he’d been forced into what he considered an atrocity . She’d needed to look that word up in Golly’s dictionary and was hurt by the harshness of the definition.

Later, after noticing he never spent any time reading – the greatest sin in her six-year-old eyes! – Bea realised he probably didn’t even know what the word meant. But most stupefying of all was that she’d modelled her beloved Pip on that long-ago boy who ran wild. The memory of him must’ve lodged in her subconscious because she never gave him another thought after they’d parted at the end of that summer. She met his incredible eyes.

‘Your dad taught me to swim,’ she told him.

‘You always had your nose in a book.’

‘You never did,’ she countered.

He shrugged. ‘Too many fun things to do outside…’

Their conversation petered out. Right, she remembered they’d struggled to connect back then, too. She’d barely seen him that summer: he woke early, spent all of his time at the beach or on a bike his father bought him, and he’d made friends with a gang of kids he’d met somewhere. In his eyes, she’d barely existed and was way beneath his notice.

Now Golly was expecting her to share the cottage with him on the very flimsy basis that they’d once shared a room? Was her godma rowing with only one oar in the water?

Why couldn’t Golly refund Gib his money and send him on his way? And, dammit, why did he make her skin prickle? He looked like Pip all grown up, and his voice made her think of long kisses under a velvet moon. A velvet moon? Jesus! She was a writer but that was way too much purple prose.

The point?

He was a stranger , and she didn’t share beds with strangers . Dear God, Golly was ridiculously free thinking, but this was patent nonsense.

Gib spoke before she could. ‘I’m not moving. I paid my money, and I like the cottage. I also like my privacy.’

He lifted an arrogant eyebrow, and his eyes met Bea’s. Her stomach did a complicated backflip. Stupid thing.

‘I’m sure there’s a couch you can sleep on in the main house,’ he added.

‘Nobody is sleeping on any couches in my house,’ Golly told him, her tone suggesting he not argue. ‘I have not, and never will, let people sleep on my furniture. That’s what beds are for.’

‘You’re shit out of luck then,’ Gib told Bea.

Bea glared at him and thought fast. There were two couches in the cottage’s lounge. One was a horsehair-stuffed divan of questionable origin. Sleeping on it was like lying on springs and nails, and it left bruises on butts and backs. The other couch, an Art Deco sofa, was more beautiful than it was comfortable, and sleeping on it would require four sessions at a chiropractor when she returned to London.

Bea had a thousand things to do this weekend, she’d be useless if she didn’t get a solid night’s sleep. With Gib taking the big bed in the room next door and her lying on one of the couches-from-hell, there was no way she was going to get enough rest. But she didn’t have time to argue the point. ‘I’ll sleep on a couch in the lounge,’ she muttered, annoyed she was conceding.

‘No!’ Gib responded. ‘I hired the cottage, and I’d like to have it to myself.’

Bea ignored him, as did Golly. She handed Bea her toiletry bag. ‘Actually, I had to burn one of the couches, it was riddled with woodworm.’

Freaking marvellous. ‘Crap,’ Bea muttered, thinking of the Art Deco couch and chiropractor bills. On the bright side, that horsehair POS-divan was finally gone. Fifty years too late, but yay!

‘I’m sure you can find somewhere else to stay,’ Gib told her.

Golly placed her pink and orange-tipped fingers on Gib’s huge bicep. ‘Absolutely not! This is Bea’s home, and she needs to be on-site to arrange things for me. Now do stop being difficult, darling.’

‘I am not the one who—’ Gib threw up his hands as Golly walked away. He looked at Bea, obviously irritated. ‘I was talking to her.’

‘She got bored with the conversation,’ Bea replied. She suspected it had been a long time since anyone had walked away from Gib mid-conversation.

Bloody hell, who would’ve thought that annoying kid with a sunburned nose, chapped lips and thin arms and legs would grow up into someone seriously gorgeous?

And masculine.

And he made her, for the first time in years, want. His arms around her, her mouth under his… She wanted to jump him. But he was too good-looking, too cool, too charismatic to look at her twice. If she was a four, maybe a five on good days, he was a friggin’ eleven. Thousand.

And no, she wasn’t putting herself down, at least, no more than usual. Her mother was stunning, Golly was glamorous, and Bea had been in a long-term relationship with the walking, talking definition of hipster cool. Realistically, Bea’s shoulder-length hair was thick but brown, her nose a little flat. Her eyes were a mix of grey and blue, and her teeth were good. She still carried the extra seven kilos Gerry had begged her to lose, telling her that no one wanted to nail a fat girl.

She sighed and dragged her hands over her face. Embarrassed by her thoughts, and sure that he could read her expression, she tugged at her heavy case again. It didn’t budge. Gib walked over to her, slammed the handle down, and picked it up with one hand. He plucked the toiletry bag from her hand and told Bea to grab her clothes bag. She automatically, and infuriatingly, obeyed his instruction. Argh! Annoying.

Reena turned around to tell her lunch would be served in the kitchen in thirty minutes.

‘G&T’s right now,’ Golly said, walking backwards, her good humour restored. Bea scowled at her, which Golly countered with a huge grin. Her godmother was up to something, and that something wasn’t good. It never was.

She’d have to have a come-to-Jesus talk with her as soon as she could shake Mr Muscles. ‘Don’t let me keep you from the beach,’ Bea told Gib. ‘That was where you were going, right?’

‘I think we first need to resolve the question of who is moving, and where to,’ he said, his voice hard. ‘And, newsflash, it’s not gonna be me. But it’s hot, so we’ll continue this discussion in the cottage.’

Bea was hardwired, conditioned by her childhood to put everyone else’s needs before her own – it was the primary reason she’d stayed with Gerry for much longer than she should’ve – and she often experienced guilt when she annoyed people, something she tried very hard not to do.

But, very strangely, she wasn’t going to move heaven and earth to accommodate this man, to find another place to stay. The cottage was her space, the place she needed and wanted to be. She wrote a good portion of her first book while sitting at the small wooden table on the deck, banging out the scenes while occasionally lifting her head to look out to sea as she searched for a word, a sentence or inspiration.

Too bad that Gib had paid Golly, even though she could refund him in a matter of minutes. And Bea knew there was a hotel, room or stable somewhere on the island where he could stay. Or he could hop on a ferry and go to Mykonos or Eos. He could go anywhere, he just needed to leave her in peace.

She had a party to organise, a new series to plan – her rough notes needed to be typed up and she suspected her premise needed a top-to-toe overhaul – and at some point, she grudgingly supposed she needed to think about finding a new agent, one who would understand her need to stay incognito.

Bea desperately wanted to sleep in that big California King alone, to breathe the island air, to calm her nervous system.

He needed to go. And she intended to make that very clear to him.

Her godmother, her cottage.