by Sunshine
Sunshine & Secrets
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Acknowledgements
The Paradise Cookery School
Copyright
To my wonderful family for their love, support and continuing willingness to taste-test all my recipes.
Chapter One
‘Have you checked in yet, Millie?’
‘No, but don’t panic, Jen. I told you that I’d make an extra special effort to arrive in plenty of time, didn’t I? I’m just grabbing a latte and a copy of Hello! before joining the queue – which, I have to tell you, is huge. Nice must be the place to be this month!’
Millie had no intention of admitting to her super-organized sister that the only reason she had arrived at Gatwick with time to spare was because Poppy had insisted on collecting her from her studio flat above Café Étienne that morning at a ridiculously early hour. Her friend and colleague had then driven them at stomach-wrenching speed to the airport and had marched her, still stuffing her passport into her hand luggage, to the check-in desk. Poppy had even offered to hang around until she made it through security just to make absolutely sure she didn’t meet with some diversion and miss her flight – not an unknown, or indeed infrequent, occurrence.
‘Great. I was hoping that you’d stuck to your usual schedule of taking every deadline down to the wire!’
Millie detected a note of excitement rather than impatience in Jen’s voice. ‘Why? What’s happened?’
‘Well, before you freak, just hear me out.’
‘Jen, what’s going on?’ A coil of panic began to wind its way around her chest, just as it always did whenever arrangements got changed. Millie knew her reaction was something she would have to live with for the foreseeable future. It was just another item on the lengthy list of newly developed fears she had Luke to thank for.
‘I know you’re super-excited about spending your break from the café with Mum in Lourmarin, but the most fabulous opportunity has come up. If I wasn’t booked to do a presentation at the Cornish Living show next weekend, I’d grab the chance myself.’
‘Jen, please, you’re killing me here.’
‘Sorry. Okay, do you remember Claudia Croft? The celebrity cookery book writer who also runs culinary workshops and classes at her country manor in the Cotswolds? I helped her to deliver a couple of her Christmas tutorials last year? It was the most fabulous fun I’ve had for years!’
Millie allowed herself to relax a little. If her sister was talking about cooking, a passion they both shared, there was no cause for anxiety. She scanned the check-in queue and decided it was time to join the line for her flight to the South of France.
‘Course I remember her. I also remember how envious I was when you got that gig!’
‘Well, now I can make up for it. I’ve just spoken to Claudia. Sadly, she’s broken her leg in a horse-riding accident. She’s in hospital waiting for an operation. She was supposed to fly out to St Lucia today to supervise the finishing touches to her brand-new project – the Paradise Cookery School. She needs someone who knows what they’re doing to go in her place, so, after I reluctantly told her I had to turn her offer down, I suggested you. It’s perfect, Millie. You’re more than qualified and a trip to St Lucia is just the opportunity you need to move on and start getting over what happened with Luke.’
‘Jen, you know I’m…’
‘So, as you can imagine, Claudia leapt at the chance to have a Cordon Bleu-trained chef to oversee the renovations. The school is being run at Claudia’s villa in the hills overlooking the bay at Soufrière in the south of St Lucia. Apparently, the builders have almost finished bringing the kitchen up to the professional standard needed to host a luxury cookery school so there won’t be much for you to do except soak up the sunshine and explore the local cuisine. It’ll be fantastic!’
‘But Jen…’
‘It’s all organized. There’s a ticket waiting for you at the British Airways desk – business class no less! Oh, Millie, I just know you’re going to have the most amazing time out there. This is more like the sort of thing you should be doing instead of slaving away at that dingy little café in Hammersmith.’
‘It’s not a café, it’s a French patisserie…’
‘Mum thinks, and I happen to agree with her, that you just took the first job you were offered to get away from Oxford and everything that happened there. But it’s been six months now, darling. I know how painful it was, but it’s time to drag yourself out of the doldrums and start living again. Who knows, you might even have a holiday fling while you’re there!’
‘There is no way I’m going to have a holiday fling!’
‘But it’s a yes to going to St Lucia, though?’
The magazine Millie had been clutching under her arm, whilst juggling her mobile from ear to ear to improve the signal, clattered onto the marble floor and she sloshed a generous splash of coffee down her white Capri pants. Before she could bend to retrieve it, a tall, designer-clad guy with mirrored sunglasses crouched down and scooped it up, gifting her with a flash of his brilliant white teeth.
‘Erm, thanks.’
The George Clooney lookalike bowed his head in acknowledgement before sauntering towards the news stand, glancing back over his shoulder in Millie’s direction as he selected a copy of the Daily Telegraph. Heat rose to her cheeks and she averted her eyes.
‘Millie? Millie, are you still there? Are you listening to me?’
‘Sorry. Just a little coffee mishap. I’m still here. Mum’s going to be disappointed. I think she had lots of things planned for me.’
‘I called Mum before I called you. She’s fine about it. And don’t tell me you were looking forward to attending her G&T soirées with the local Salsa club. Did she tell you her friend Solange has had her navel pierced? She’s seventy! I warned Mum that I’d disown her if she followed suit.’
Jen released an impatient sigh at the antics of their youthful, energetic mother – a response Millie had grown familiar with over the years since their father had passed away and Monique had returned to her home town of Lourmarin to reinvent herself as a social butterfly.
‘So, is it a yes?’
Millie blew her fringe, the colour of summer wheat, away from her eyelashes. She could almost hear the steamroller’s engine revving up behind her, but she allowed herself a wry smile. She was pleased to see that her sister had confidence in her organizational skills – which was more than the evidence on offer warranted – and a couple of weeks in the sunshine certainly appealed to her.
‘Okay, it’s a yes. What exactly does Claudia want me to do?’
‘The villa is part of an old cocoa plantation which Claudia and her husband Tim renovated a few years ago to use as a holiday retreat from the frazzled lifestyle they lead in London. There’s an estate manager who lives on site to look after the grounds and the buildings, but that’s a full-time job in itself and Claudia feels he’s too busy to make absolutely sure the kitchen upgrade will be finished to an ultra-high spec.
The first workshop is scheduled for two weeks’ time. It’s a pre-wedding bonding bash, organized and paid for by the bride’s mother for her daughter’s bridesmaids and girlfriends to have fun and to relax before the main event. They’re staying at a five-star hotel nearby, where the wedding ceremony will take place in a pavilion in the grounds – so romantic!’
‘And Claudia is sure she’ll be well enough to fly out to take the classes?’
‘Absolutely!’
‘Good, because I don’t know the first thing about running a cookery school.’
‘Claudia told me that the week-long course is called Chocolate & Confetti and will be focusing on all things chocolate-related. Apparently, the plantation used to grow cocoa beans commercially until fairly recently when the business became unviable and the estate was put up for sale. Claudia is planning to produce cocoa from the estate for use in the cookery schools, at some point in the future. And anyway, Millie darling, even if she isn’t fully recovered, you could handle the classes with your eyes closed. It’s not the baked Faisan en Croûte with foie gras or the Lapin à la Cocotte you were used to producing before… well, before your change in career direction, is it?’
‘Stop the flattery, Jen. I’m your sister, I can see right through you.’
Jen laughed, the relief evident in her voice. ‘Thanks for doing this, Millie. I owe you one. And will you humour me by keeping an open mind on the holiday romance?’
Millie didn’t want Jen to venture into the pain-strewn territory of romance. She swallowed down hard on her rising emotions, swivelled on her stiletto sandals and dragged her wheelie suitcase towards the British Airways desk, thanking her guardian angel that she had at least packed the right clothes for a trip to the Caribbean. Her mum had warned her that Provence was experiencing one of the warmest Septembers on record.
‘Look, Jen…’
‘It’s been six months now, Millie. You’ve got to break free from the mist of misery you’ve taken refuge in. So, it hurts – but it’s just a blip in life’s grenade-dotted path. Happiness could be just around the corner if you take the chance to explore the landscape and get some perspective. Failing that, you could just opt for some lurve in the sun!’
‘I am exploring…’ Millie murmured. But in truth she knew her life was like the reverse side of one of her mother’s embroidery projects; knotted and disorganized, waiting for the creator to switch the fabric round to display the beauty of the front.
‘What? As a pastry chef in a tiny café in a drab side street in London?’
‘It’s a patisserie…’ Millie repeated but she knew Jen wasn’t listening.
‘That’s not exploring, that’s punishment after everything you’ve achieved in the culinary arena. Hey, Lily, stop that! Look, I have to go before the girls start bickering. I’ll email you all the info and the photos – the villa is truly stunning. And Claudia will be so grateful. Have you got your scrap box with you?’
‘I’ve always got my scrap box with me.’
Millie patted her straw shoulder bag and was comforted by the reassuring presence of the lever-arch box file that never left her sight. It was crammed to bursting with recipes, snippets of foodie articles, glossy photographs of unusual dishes, information on a newly discovered spice and its potential uses. There was no elaborate filing system for Amelia Harper – she’d meant to get one started, but who had the time?
‘Good. Now, go grab your ticket and enjoy the flight. Lucky you! It’s free Prosecco, you know. I love you, Millie.’
‘Love you too, Jen.’
I think, she thought.
Chapter Two
‘Why are we stopping?’
‘I’m sorry, madam, but I’ll have to drop you off here. There’s no way my old taxi will make it up the hill to the house in this rain.’
‘But you can’t leave me here! We’re in the middle of a hurricane!’
The elderly taxi driver chuckled at Millie’s exaggeration.
‘This is no hurricane, my dear. It’s merely the St Lucian daily deluge. Look.’ He tapped the face of his incongruously large diver’s watch and treated her to a display of his tobacco-stained teeth. ‘It’s three o’clock. It’ll be over in twenty minutes and I promised to collect Ella from Soufrière and bring her back to the villa to meet you. So go on, hop out into what we Caribbean natives call the liquid sunshine!’
Millie stared out of the windscreen. It was like being in a car wash. She had never experienced anything like it, even during her visits to see Luke’s parents in Snowdonia. Torrential rain hammered down from a canopy of leaden clouds onto the steep strip of tarmac that led up to Claudia Croft’s plantation house. Multiple rivulets of water chased down the slope and the palm trees lining the access road tilted almost horizontally to the storm’s demands. She cursed her misplaced optimism that her two-week break in St Lucia would be filled with long, sun-soaked days stretched out in a hammock by the pool, cocktail in hand, a gentle tropical breeze rippling through the air.
She cast a last glance at the taxi driver, who had introduced himself as Clavie, in the rear-view mirror, gathered her straw shoulder bag and resigned herself to a soaking. As she cracked opened the taxi door, a volley of raindrops attacked her with such vengeance that within seconds she was drenched. She had a premonition that whilst this was the first time she had experienced the phenomenon of ‘liquid sunshine’, it would not be the last.
Her hair was plastered to her cheeks and her strappy scarlet T-shirt clung to the contours of her body. She twisted her lips at the amusement scrawled across Clavie’s wrinkled face and slammed the door with as much force as she could muster after nine hours of long-haul travel. She noticed that he made no attempt to exit his warm, comfortable, dry seat to extricate her luggage from the boot. So much for chivalry, thought Millie as she hooked her stiffened fingers around the handle of her over-stuffed suitcase and heaved it over the lip of the boot before dropping it with a thud onto her toe.
‘Ouch!’
But Clavie simply gave her a brief wave and sped away, the mellifluous tones of a calypso rhythm spilling from his ancient vehicle, which was more rust than bucket.
She was now soaked to her underwear and had to fight the urge to sit down amongst the tropical vegetation at the edge of the road and indulge in a fit of sobbing. Not only had she endured a flight delay, she had also been forced to wait over an hour for her luggage to arrive on the tiny carousel at Hewanorra airport. She could have collected it from the hold quicker herself. Then, the incredibly turbulent ride from the airport to Soufrière in the taxi had just about finished her off. Yes, the scenery had been spectacular, but she felt as though her bones had been shaken to dust.
Why had she agreed to come? Was she even capable of supervising the installation of a professional-standard kitchen and making sure everything was ready for the first of the Paradise Cookery School tutorials? She squashed her demons of self-doubt back into their box for later dissection. There was no way she was going to open the cupboard door on all her yesterdays when the only thing she wanted to do was strip off her wet clothes and sleep.
Millie had received the promised email from Jen and had studied the attachments during the flight. It turned out her sister hadn’t told her the full story – nothing new there. Not only did she have to oversee the renovations but she was also expected to triple-test and finalize the course recipes and menu cards. It was going to be a challenge – it would be years before she could aspire to match the brilliance of Claudia Croft, if ever. She was relieved that Claudia had arranged for her friend and local Caribbean cook, Ella Johnson, to be an integral part of the testing committee. Despite the course attendees’ desire to indulge in a fun-filled, pre-wedding celebration, Millie knew that the price the bride’s mother had paid for the classes meant they would be a discerning and demanding audience – foodies with an interest in furthering their skills and repertoire to include a cocoa-flavoured twist.
So, a siesta was obviously out of the question. Ella wou
ld be arriving shortly to meet her and Millie wanted to reassure her that she was up to the job. She straightened her shoulders, grabbed the handle of her wheelie suitcase and drew in a lungful of breath. The sweet fragrance of jasmine, mingled with wet soil, tickled her nostrils as she dragged her luggage and her exhausted body up the incline towards the house. She slung her bag higher up her shoulder so she could protect her trusty scrap box of recipes with her arm, and tossed her bedraggled mermaid hair over her shoulder, wishing she had thought to tie it back. Her jerky movement dislodged an apple from the top of her bag and it rolled away down the hill, picking up speed until it rounded the corner and disappeared from view.
The daily deluge continued its onslaught. The celestial director of meteorology had clearly decided to ratchet up the special effects for her arrival on stage. Unexpectedly, Millie felt tears gather along her lashes. Not only was she soaked to the skin, with a throbbing toe and burning lungs from the unfamiliar exertion of tackling the hill, now a juggernaut of tiredness had rammed into her bones.
However, her excursion into self-pity didn’t last long. As she emerged from a dense grove of banana trees, the welcome sight of the old plantation house erased her lethargy in an instant. Built in the French colonial style, with a white-painted veranda and pale blue jalousie shutters, the villa nestled comfortably against the tropical foliage of the rainforest. The building was impressive but she was too exhausted to fully appreciate its architectural splendour.
She ditched her luggage next to a stack of scarred wooden crates, stuffed to bursting with weird-looking purple-brown pods, loitering on the doorstep like sentries, and trotted around the wooden veranda to the front of the house. What she saw whipped the breath from her lungs.
A set of smooth white marble steps descended towards the most stunning expanse of aquamarine she had ever seen. The infinity pool’s decking had been embellished with six navy-and-white striped sunloungers and was bordered by a necklace of lush banana trees, their leaves sporting a glossy sheen from the recent downpour. But she barely noticed this arboreal glory compared to the majesty of the panorama in front of her widened eyes. She felt her jaw drop.