Chapter 2
TWO
As Ellen had anticipated, Lucy’s home was absolutely incredible.
Just outside the main centre of Malaga town, on a road that was just starting to turn up into the hillside, Lucy’s pale-blue Renault pulled through black wrought-iron gates onto a square courtyard in front of the prettiest house Ellen had ever seen.
Two floors of smooth white stucco walls, a tiled roof and, behind a pretty tinkling fountain, a large archway led the way to a heavy wooden front door.
‘Wow.’ She saw her envy reflected in Robert’s eyes. ‘This is some place.’
Pulling the brake hard against the slight incline, Lucy pushed her sunglasses up onto her head and squinted through the windscreen at the house. ‘One of the perks of being married to a property developer. It was just a shell when we found it. Come and see inside.’
Thick and fragrant, the afternoon air was too hot for the jeans Ellen had worn for the flight and her t-shirt clung to her back. Aside from unbuttoning the neck of his shirt, Robert looked as fresh as Lucy. He’d always thrived in the heat.
Inside, a cool marble floor and air conditioning provided a welcome relief but Ellen couldn’t wait to peel off her damp clothes and take a shower.
Lucy threw open a set of dark wood doors into a granite-topped kitchen.
On the counter, an emerald-green bottle rested in a bucket of ice, accompanied by three crystal glasses.
‘Cava. From Joe’s special collection. We have to toast your visit properly, after all.
I’ll pour us a glass and then show you both to your room. ’
Further down the cool hall, two white doors opened onto a large, airy room.
A double bed in the centre with crisp white linen looked cool and inviting.
Along one wall, a cherry wood dressing table with a large mirror.
Lucy strode across the room and opened French windows onto a balcony that looked out onto a large azure pool.
She turned and smiled. ‘Will this be okay?’
Ellen couldn’t remember the last time they’d stayed somewhere this nice. ‘It’s wonderful. I might never leave.’
Lucy was back across the room and almost to the door when she paused beside Robert and touched him lightly on the arm. ‘Why don’t you both get your swimming costumes on and join me by the pool when you’re ready. Take your time.’
Robert had definitely cheered up since the flight and it wasn’t just the effects of the sunshine. ‘I don’t need asking twice.’
With a polite smile, Ellen nodded, but she was far less keen on the idea. She could already imagine how much better Lucy was likely to look than she would squeezed into her new ‘bodyshaping’ suit.
As soon as the door was closed, Robert started unbuttoning his shirt, his stomach toned and his chest muscular from his recent visits to the gym. ‘That pool looks amazing. Exactly what I need right now.’
Five minutes ago, she’d wanted to cool off, too.
But watching him undress, she wondered if they could take their time as Lucy had suggested.
Have a few moments to themselves first. Maybe even take a shower together.
Feeling the flush of anticipation, she pulled her own top over her head and dropped it onto the bed.
But when she turned around, Robert had already pulled on his trunks and was at the door. ‘Shall I meet you out there?’
She swallowed down her disappointment. Turned away to hide the embarrassment that her thoughts had been so different from his. That he wasn’t even going to wait for her. ‘I’ll be out in a minute. Don’t you want the suncream?’
He shook his head. ‘I’m getting straight into the pool. Bring it with you and I’ll put some on when I get out.’
She resisted the urge to tell him that he would need it on before he got in the water. She wasn’t his mother after all.
Speaking of being a mother, she sent both girls a quick text to let them know she and Robert had arrived safely.
Then she took a couple of photos of the room and added them to the thread.
Within a few moments, she got a love heart from Abigail and then her phone rang with a FaceTime call from Grace.
‘Hi, Mum. The place looks great, is that your room?’
‘It is. And we’ve got a balcony that overlooks the pool. Your dad is already out there.’
She wandered over to the window and pushed back the light gauzy curtain to see Robert below, chest deep in the pool, with his forearms resting on the marble tiled edge.
Beside him, legs dangling in the water, a glass of Cava in hand, Lucy was enviably slim and toned.
She clearly had no need for a swimsuit with panels to keep her sucked in.
With a large brimmed hat shading her face, she could’ve stepped straight from the pages of Ellen’s magazine.
Ellen thanked her lucky stars that she’d also grabbed the matching cover-all along with her new swimsuit, hoping its sheer fabric would float over her curves rather than accentuate them.
On the phone screen, Grace frowned at her. ‘Why aren’t you down in the pool with Dad?’
Though she missed the days of toothy toddlerhood, there were many advantages to having a daughter in her mid-twenties, not the least of which was having someone more than willing to give you honest fashion advice.
‘I’m trying to get up the confidence to let anyone see me in my new swimsuit.
It was the only one in my size and I’m worried it’s a bit low cut. ’
Grace rolled her eyes. ‘Show me.’
She pressed the screen to change the camera to looking outwards and – holding it aloft – stood in front of the mirror.
Staring critically at herself in the black costume, she could see the flesh bulging from the elastic at the top of her legs.
But she was more worried about the amount of skin that was exposed.
‘What do you think? Too much chest? Tell me the truth.’
‘Don’t I always? You look great, Mum. Your boobs look great.’
Obviously that meant she was showing too much of them. She pulled the top of the swimsuit upwards. ‘You should see Lucy. She looks about a decade younger than me. She probably thinks I’m a complete frump.’
On the screen, another eye-roll from Grace. ‘You need to stop worrying what other people think, Mum. You look great, honestly.’
Ellen sighed and dropped down onto the end of the bed. ‘Well, either way, I need to get out there. I told your dad I was only going to be a couple of minutes.’
She glanced out of the window again. She couldn’t make out Robert’s face, but she heard the splash of him moving his arms and legs in the water and the tinkle of Lucy’s laugh.
That was the thing with Robert, he never wanted to go anywhere, or see anyone, but when he did, he was the life and soul of the party.
Grace was clearly bored of the swimsuit conversation. ‘Anyway. Back to me. I wasn’t going to call and tell you this when you were on holiday, but then you texted me and I assumed it would be okay.’
The hairs on the back of Ellen’s neck rose with a kind of motherly sixth sense. What was she going to say? Please let it be something positive. ‘It’s always okay for you to call me. What’s up?’
‘Well, Max has got to go on a last-minute business trip to Dubai. Someone from our office was supposed to go but they’ve come down with a bug. So, they’ve asked Max to go. This Friday.’
She could tell by the excitement in Grace’s voice what was coming next. ‘And?’
‘And he’s asked me to go with him.’
Of course he had. ‘That’s lovely, sweetheart, but how will you get the time off work so quickly?’
Grace scrunched up her nose. ‘Okay, I know that you’re not going to approve of this, but I think it’s genius. I can call in sick on Friday morning with the same bug that Jack – he’s the one who was supposed to go on the trip – has. It’ll be totally believable.’
Ellen wasn’t so sure about that. ‘But what if work find out, Grace? You could lose your job.’ Still at the window, Ellen watched as Lucy slipped effortlessly off the side of the pool into the water with barely a splash. Still wearing her wide-brimmed hat, she obscured Robert from Ellen’s view.
There was a big sigh on the other end of the phone.
‘I knew you’d think it was a bad idea. But we’ve planned it all.
We won’t put anything on social media about being there.
Max doesn’t like me putting anything on social media anyway.
So it’ll all be off the radar. I won’t even be flying with him because he’s going first thing in the morning and he’s flying Business Class.
I’ll fly later in the day after I’ve called into work and told them that I’m sick.
No one knows about us at work anyway, so it’ll all be fine. No one will suspect a thing.’
Could she not see all the red flags that Max was practically waving in her face? ‘You still haven’t told anyone at work about the two of you? Not even the girls you live with?’
Another sigh. ‘We’ve talked about this before, Mum. It’d be really awkward for me at work if people knew we were together. He and his wife only separated last year. People would think badly of us.’
The more she heard about Max, the more Ellen suspected that he and his wife were not separated at all, but she knew better than to repeat this theory to her eldest daughter.
She saved her compliance and forgiveness for her boyfriend: Ellen was in the wrong whatever she said or did.
‘I just think it’s a big risk to your job to be doing this. ’
Grace pouted. ‘Well, I thought you’d be excited for me. Haven’t you always told me that I should travel and see the world?’
She had said that, but she’d meant for her daughter to forge her own path, not trail behind someone else.
Particularly someone who, whether he and his wife were genuinely separated or not, was still technically married.
Saying all that to Grace was out of the question.
‘Just think about it before you make a decision.’
‘I will. And then I’ll send you a picture of me in Dubai.’
The patio around the pool was warm – even through her sandals – and, now that Ellen wore only the diaphanous cover up and her swimsuit, the heat of the late afternoon was far more pleasant.
Trying her best to appear more confident than she felt, she headed for the sunbeds on the other side of the pool.
Robert was frowning at something Lucy was saying. As she got closer, he looked up and gave her a wave. ‘I was wondering where you’d got to.’
‘Grace called. I’ll fill you in later.’
Lucy turned in the pool, the ripples caused by her movement circling outwards. ‘I was just telling Robert how good he looks. Very fit for a man his age.’
Given how long it was since they’d spent time together, this seemed more than a little forward.
She wasn’t wrong, though. Robert did look good.
His dark hair was still thick with only a touch of grey and, though he was slim, his body still had the same definition it’d had more than twenty years ago. ‘Yes, I’m a lucky woman, aren’t I?’
Due to the hat and sunglasses, it was difficult to read Lucy’s expression, but her voice had a definite edge to it. ‘You certainly are.’
At university, Lucy had always been the flirtatious one.
She’d thought nothing of walking up to a group of boys in a bar and beginning a conversation.
When you looked like she did, you didn’t often have to worry about encountering rejection.
It was just her way, to talk to people like this.
It wasn’t something Ellen should be worried about.
Right now, she was more concerned about what was going through her husband’s mind.
Robert was a man, after all. And it was impossible not to look at her and Lucy and find Ellen lacking.
Which is why she had no intention of removing the dress and getting in the pool.
Instead, she slid onto the sunbed and lifted her legs up onto the footrest, trying as best she could to arrange herself into a flattering posture.
Robert called out to her. ‘Are you not getting in? It’s lovely in here.’
She smiled at her husband and shook her head. ‘No, I’m fine here for a bit. You enjoy it.’
Fully expecting him to launch himself into lengths of the pool – he usually couldn’t keep still for a moment – Ellen was surprised that he stayed where he was, the only movement an occasional kick of the legs.
Meanwhile, Lucy swam back and forth in front of him, her voice too low for Ellen to catch.
For a brief moment, the sun disappeared behind the one cloud in the sky and a shadow passed across the patio.
Ellen shivered. When was the last time that Robert had looked at her the way he was looking at Lucy?
And what was Lucy up to? It was Ellen who’d made the arrangement to come out here, but Lucy seemed to have eyes only for Robert.
Had it been him that she’d actually wanted to see?
Was Ellen being paranoid or was she keeping her voice purposefully low enough for Ellen to be excluded from their conversation?