Chapter 1
Chapter One
Phoebe
Two Months Later…
“ C abin crew, prepare for landing.”
I glanced at Bailey on my left, then turned to look at my other best friend Rhea on my right, who flashed me one of her signature winks.
These two constants of mine were all I needed as we flew through the sky toward the holiday of our dreams just two months after being betrayed by the man I’d wasted too many of my youthful years on.
For eight weeks, I’d had to endure his ridiculous attempts to get me to talk.
Despite his threats, it turned out that being the first person to ever walk away from Rob O’Connor had had the opposite effect he said it would.
He hadn’t let me leave and forget about him.
He’d seen my rejection as a new challenge—one far bigger than before—and Rob loved nothing more than a challenge.
You were always so busy working , one text had read. Three jobs take up a lot of your time, Phoebe. What’s a man supposed to do? Wait around?
It didn’t matter that one of those ‘jobs’ happened to be voluntary at my grandfather’s care home for a few hours a week to give the residents some company. To Rob, that ‘job’ took up time where I could have been worshipping at his altar.
Maybe if you’d been more attentive , said another. Put your crappy books down once in a while. Paid a bit more attention to us. Been a bit more spontaneous.
Telling him I read those books to lose myself in the kind of love I really wanted seemed pointless when Rob only ever heard what he wanted to hear when anyone else talked.
You were always so worried about your parents’ relationship, I think you forgot to worry about ours. Shit like that takes its toll, babe.
I didn’t even have a response for that.
I’m just asking you to see it from my point of view, you know?
The more he tried to gaslight me, the more I turned against him. Against all men. I may have been Derbyshire’s biggest people pleaser before finding that photograph, but now I wanted none of it.
Rob O’Connor could go to hell.
For the next two weeks, it was goodbye to my old reality, hello paradise, and that had to be my focus from now on.
So, when the plane finally began to descend, I reached out to take my best friends’ hands, and I gave them a squeeze as I faced forward, wearing a smile that hadn’t been there for far too long.
“You ready for this?” Bailey asked.
I gave her a small nod. “I can’t believe we’re really doing this.”
Rhea squeezed my hand tighter, drawing my attention her way. “Well, believe it. You’ve got two weeks to really let your hair down, Bee. You can be anyone you want to be out here.”
My heart soared at the possibilities of it all.
Lazy mornings.
Sunshine.
The sand between my feet.
Pina coladas for breakfast.
My books ready to whisk me away to other worlds. Ready to make me forget Rob ever existed, because that’s why I was really doing this, wasn’t it? To prove to myself I was strong. To prove he’d meant nothing all along. To reset my factory settings and remember how to be myself again for a while.
Time to be selfish, I thought. No should-be-divorcing parents, no worries about others’ feelings, and no rotten, cheating ex was going to get in the way of this beautiful break from reality now.
Especially no men. If there was one thing I didn’t need to find when I stepped off this plane, it was a distraction in male form unless it was fictional.
The girls beside me could do what they wanted with who they wanted.
Me, though? I forbade it.
I’d rather fly back home the next day than fall into the arms of another man any time soon.
I’d just hit ‘block’ on Rob’s number to ensure no distractions when Bailey’s voice rang out around our small apartment.
“It’s everywhere! Of course it is. Why wouldn’t it be? This stuff only ever happens to me,” she whimpered.
We’d been unpacking our bags for a mere three minutes when a shampoo explosion in Bailey’s suitcase threatened to ruin her holiday before it had even begun.
Reliable “The Matlock Rock” Rhea fussed around her, removing the clothes that hadn’t been soaked, sorting them into piles, while I began to rinse the affected bikinis out in the bathroom we shared.
If you could even call them bikinis. Baileys garments looked more like pieces of dental floss than actual clothing, but more power to her for being able to pull them off.
I certainly didn’t have the confidence for them.
“You’ll look back on this tomorrow and laugh, Bails.” Rhea wrung out a barely-there top of Bailey’s that looked like two pieces of fuchsia cloth held together by the tiniest length of string, her brows creased as she studied it.
“It’s like you don’t even know me,” Bailey hit back with a huff.
I sure did love her fierceness and unwavering loyalty, as well as her readiness to burn the body of anyone who dared to hurt those she adored, but when Bailey wasn’t happy, the whole world knew about it. Especially Rhea and me.
“Silly me.” Rhea snickered. “For a moment there I forgot you struggle to laugh at your own misfortunes.”
“We don’t all hide behind our humour like you, Rhea.”
“You should try it. Gives you less wrinkles.”
Bailey reached up to brush her fingers over her furrowed brow, her lips parting as she felt for lines that weren’t there on her twenty-three-year-old forehead.
Rhea laughed again, and Bailey quickly reached for the rogue hairbrush on her bed before she launched it at Rhea’s head, only missing thanks to Rhea’s well-timed duck.
“Hey!” Rhea cried. “How many times do we have to go over this? Violence solves nothing.”
“Shut up and be a real friend.” Bailey turned my way, a ruined towel now in her hands as her sad eyes found mine. “This is why you should have been the one to share a room with her , Bee, not me.”
I couldn’t help my half smile and eyebrow raise. “You were the one who made us play rock, paper, scissors for our rooms and said all decisions were final. No transfers.”
“Fine. At least tell her not to start with me so soon into this trip, then.”
“Stop being so sensitive, woman.” Rhea rolled her eyes.
“Don’t gaslight me.”
“Why is every form of criticism considered gaslighting these days?”
I held my hands up to silence them both. “Here’s an idea. How about you both stop, take a breather, and I’ll go down to the bar to grab us a cocktail each so we can at least get a little buzzed before we go figure this place out, huh?”
Rhea pressed her hands into a prayer, mouthing her thank you at me.
“This is why you’re the best of us, Bee,” Bailey said with a sudden smile on her face. “Whatever you order, make mine strong. My stress levels need calming.”
With a nod and a flat smile, I picked up my bag and slung it over my shoulder before I made my way out of there.
As soon as we arrived at our apartment, I’d changed into my white bikini and a cute pair of cut off, denim shorts, which I was grateful for now as I stepped back out into the midday Greek humidity to make my escape.
As much as I adored my friends and their commitment to making me happy, there was only so much of them I could take when they got that way with each other.
I’d barely even let the door close behind me before I heard the two of them bickering again.
Bails and Rhea were like chalk and cheese, and neither one of them knew how or when to back down. My role in our three-way friendship had most definitely become the peacemaker over the years, and that suited me just fine. Confrontation and I usually went together about as well as oil and water.
Until recently, anyway.
Then again, I was surviving on my last nerves after the breakup with Rob, and then the whole saga with my clueless parents and their loveless marriage.
I’d spent years as their only child, sidestepping their battles, pretending to ignore the dangers of the warzone we lived in that they affectionately called our “home”.
For the last fifteen years of my life, I’d prayed they’d just part ways and call time on their marriage, but every time I’d tried to voice it they’d shot me down, telling me they were perfectly fine; I’d been imagining their struggles.
If Bailey wanted a real lesson in gaslighting, all she had to do was spend a weekend among my parents to realise Rhea had nothing on either of them.
Despite only being on the island of dreams for a matter of hours, the very thought of my parents had me automatically reaching into my bag and pulling my phone out to check for any missed calls or messages from my mother—the one parent who seemed to need me these days more than I needed her.
Old habits die hard, and I was about to chastise myself and throw the phone back in my bag when the message alert caught my eye.
Mum
I’m only checking in to make sure you landed okay. Hope you have a good trip, Phoebe. Don’t worry about us. I really mean that. Mum.
Guilt tried to take over every other emotion I held inside, because I knew this vacation had come at a bad time for her, so I quickly shoved that guilt down and shot off a quick text to tell her I’d landed just fine, and I’d speak to her later.
Remember why you’re doing this, I told myself as I dropped my phone back into my bag. It’s not selfish to put yourself first for once. Sometimes it’s vital. You hit your vital, girl. Home won’t crumble without you, but you would have crumbled if you’d stayed at home.
After blowing out a breath, I shook out my arms, and it was with that renewed sense of power that I hit the bottom step of the descending staircase to the pool area, and I stepped out into the ridiculously hot sunshine, only to immediately become blinded by its brightness and beauty.
I covered my eyes with my hand, just not soon enough, and slammed straight into a rock-hard chest smothered in sun lotion, aftershave, and the kind of masculine sweat that set a woman’s pheromones on fire.