[Escape 01.0] Escape for the Summer

by Ruth Saberton

  “Are you OK?” Jonty asked as she came to a halt. “Is it weird to see it again?”

  Andi took a deep breath. The place looked different, that was for certain. There had never been parking outside before and neither had there been a deep blue infinity pool perched on the edge of a smooth green lawn. Wow. It made her feel as though she could dive into the cool water, then down and down into the town below.

  “It’s just changed a little,” she remarked tactfully.

  “I think it’s been pretty sympathetically done,” Jonty said, and he was so hopeful as he spoke that her heart went out to him.

  “Don’t take any notice of me,” she told him. “I’m being nostalgic. It’s just that this house always meant something special to me. I think it’s probably the place I’ve been the happiest.”

  “The happiest in your childhood?”

  Andi couldn’t really think of another point in her adult life where she’d been as effortlessly happy as she’d felt here.

  “I think at any time,” she told him thoughtfully. “I spent a lot of time here with my mother just before she died. We never came back afterwards, but I thought about it a lot.”

  Jonty’s eyes didn’t leave hers. “I’m sorry. That must have been tough.”

  Tough hadn’t come close. Still, there was no point dwelling on it now, no matter how easy to chat to and sympathetic he was. Jonty was a total stranger and, besides, some things were better left in the past.

  “It was a long time ago. Definitely before that little cottage was built.”

  He didn’t push but let her change the subject, and Andi liked him for that. There was nothing worse than people who wanted her to spill her guts like something from The Jeremy Kyle Show.

  “That’s the pool house where I’m staying. That’s new, but they’ve made a real effort to build it in the same style. It’s a great place to crash for the summer. It even has a wood burner for those blazing warm August nights!”

  Andi thought the pool house was sweet. It stood where there had once been a large and ugly asbestos garage. Not all changes were bad; she had to make sure she remembered that. The pool house was built of wood and made to look like a New England cottage, so that it resembled a miniature one-storey version of the main house. There was a deck complete with a rocking chair; ivy and dog roses trailed up the walls and a battered old Defender was parked at a wonky angle by the three steps leading to the duck-egg-blue door.

  “It’s really pretty,” she said, and was rewarded with a smile of such sweetness that she had to look away. There was something about Jonty that invited confidences and made her tempted to open her mouth and pour out all her secrets – which was so not a good idea. Tom already knew enough of her secrets, and that did not make for a good night’s sleep.

  The inside of the main house was pretty much as Andi remembered it, but it had undergone the obligatory seaside-chic makeover. She was pleased to see that many beautiful old features of the house still remained, though – from the carved newel posts of the winding staircase to the wooden floors, which shone with beeswax. Ocean View felt the same as it always had, peaceful and still, as though it was slumbering in the late evening sunshine.

  Odd. It felt like home still, even after all this time.

  “Si will be in the kitchen,” Jonty said. “That’s where everyone hangs out when they’re here.”

  Sure enough, when they entered the huge kitchen, complete with duck-egg-blue Aga and giant American-style fridge, a lanky figure was slumped at the kitchen island, several empty lager cans lined up next to him while he tapped away on a laptop. When Jonty slapped him on the back he jumped so hard he nearly fell off his stool.

  “Shit, Jonty, do you have to creep up on me like that?” he gasped, raking a hand through thinning sandy hair. “I thought you were Mel come back early. You know what she thinks of me playing Warcraft when I’m supposed to be working.”

  So this was what captains of industry got up to in their spare time? Pretending to be orcs? Andi supposed it was one way of releasing the pressure.

  Jonty introduced them; then, while he fetched a couple of Buds from the fridge, Andi turned to Simon.

  “The house is lovely,” she said warmly.

  “It is great isn’t it? We’re so lucky to be able to stay here,” Si agreed. “I can’t take any of the credit for it though—”

  “Where’s my big sis?” Jonty interrupted, leaning against the butler’s sink as he necked his beer. Muscles rippled in his tanned throat and his tee shirt rode up, revealing a taut, tanned stomach. Andi looked away.

  “She’s taken the kids to Wadebridge to see a movie,” Simon replied. “I’m supposed to be having a bit of a catch-up on Pasties Drekly while they’re out. I have to finish tonight because we’re having a day out tomorrow.” He smiled at Andi. “I think this is where you might become my new best friend! Jonty tells me you’re an amazing bookkeeper?”

  Andi blushed. “Jonty is very kind.”

  Simon grinned. “No, Jonty is very honest. If he thinks somebody is worth paying attention to, then he’s generally right. Although, come to think of it, there is one exception to that rule – and talking of the lovely Jax, she’s left two messages on the answerphone today, mate. She’s certainly persistent.”

  Jonty groaned. “Don’t start, Si. I’ll speak to her.”

  Simon winked at Andi. “I’ve heard that before.” To Jonty he added, “She’s not giving up easily. Maybe it’s because of—”

  “Mate, lay off.” Jonty’s tone of voice said that he wasn’t going to be argued with. “I mean it. I don’t want to talk about any of that stuff.”

  Simon held up his hands up in mock surrender.

  “None of my business, fam,” he said quickly. “My lips are sealed.”

  Andi looked from one to the other. There were more undercurrents flowing here than the riptide beyond the river. Jonty had a hunted expression on his face and Simon just looked embarrassed.

  “Jax is my ex,” Jonty explained to Andi when an awkward silence fell. “It’s a long story and not one I’ll bore you with right now.”

  Nobody knew better than Andi about long stories and exes. The Tom saga made War and Peace look like a comic. So that was why Jonty was hanging out in Rock for the summer and living with his family: he had broken up with his partner. Suddenly everything made a bit more sense.

  “Aren’t they always?” was all she said.

  Simon finished his beer and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. With his baggy jeans and faded tee shirt, Andi thought he looked more like an overgrown teenager than one of the most powerful men in media, and this made her relax.

  “Let’s have a chat about this job,” he suggested.

  “I’ll leave you guys to it,” said Jonty, finishing his Bud and lobbing the bottle into the bin. He smiled at Andi and mouthed good luck. “I’ll be in the pool house, guys. Give us a shout when you’re done.”

  Once Jonty had left, Simon and Andi chatted about work. Any nerves she may have had were quickly dispelled because Si was so easy to talk to and soon put her at ease. Before long they were chatting away about her previous experience. Although she didn’t mention Hart Frozer or Safe T Net, Simon was still impressed by the companies she had worked for and her first-class degree. The more she chatted, the more confident Andi felt. She knew she could take some pressure off him and hopefully learn a lot too in the process.

  “How about we give this a trial run for a couple of weeks and see how it works out?” Simon said finally. “You seem really well up on it all. No wonder you wrestled Jonty for my FT.”

  She smiled. “Force of habit.”

  “Well, it was worth sacrificing my paper to find somebody as well qualified as you,” said Simon with feeling. “I’ll call your referees first thing tomorrow and if that’s all in order how about you start here on Monday? Three days a week, eight hours a day, at twenty-five pounds an hour? What do you say?”

  Andi did the mental arithmetic an
d nearly fell off her stool. That was six hundred pounds a week, before tax. More money than she had dreamed of being able to make in Rock! She’d be able to start making inroads into her debts in no time.

  “I say yes!” she told him.

  “I think you must be my guardian angel or something,” Andi remarked to Jonty, later on that evening when they drove back through the town. The night was falling in earnest now, the last crimson fingernail of the sunset slipping into the inky sea and twilight seeping over the rooftops while shadows pooled in the streets. Out on the estuary, lights twinkled from the cabins of boats that had called in and anchored up for an evening at the restaurants and bars. Stars speckled the sky like glitter on a Christmas card, and across the way the lights of Padstow trembled in the water like jewels. It was so pretty, and Andi felt that at long last maybe her luck had started to turn. “I owe you one.”

  Jonty shrugged. “Not at all. I was just helping out. This way Mel and Simon actually get a holiday; they’ll spend some time with the kids and I’ll not have to be a free babysitter. You see: I’m not all heart. It was motivated by a selfish desire not to have to play Guitar Hero non-stop!”

  The Defender was cruising slowly along Rock Road. It was a balmy evening and the town thronged with people dressed up for dinner and teenagers on their way to a beach party. Jonty pulled up at the jetty and together they watched the boats bobbing gently on the swell of the tide. It was a world away from London; Andi felt her pulse start to slow for the first time in days.

  Jonty pointed out to sea at a powerboat tearing in at breakneck speed. “Look at that,” he said. “It’s the tender for that huge Sunseeker out there. Rumour has it that’s owned by Vassilly Alexshov.”

  Andi was none the wiser. “Vassilly Alexshov?”

  “The oligarch? He’s just bought Dukes Rangers FC.”

  “Isn’t that Callum South’s old team?”

  Jonty looked at her, surprised. “I didn’t have you down as a footy fan.”

  “Believe me, I’m not.” Tom’s passion for the Premier League – which tended to involve sitting around swilling beer and hogging the telly – had driven Andi round the twist. “It’s just that my friend Gemma is a big fan of Cal’s. She’s rather hoping to get herself onto his show.”

  He raised his eyebrows. Andi found herself thinking that she liked the way Jonty’s emotions flickered over his face like sunshine and shadows over the landscape. There was an honesty there that was very refreshing.

  “Good luck to her!” Jonty said. “He’s renting Valhalla, that carbuncle of an overgrown greenhouse that’s next door to my – or rather, I should say Simon’s – place. I see him most mornings out pounding the pavement and looking fed up to the back teeth with it. He was out on the water yesterday trying to ski. It wasn’t a pretty sight. His camera crew were wetting themselves.”

  Andi felt sorry for Callum. It couldn’t be much fun to be ridiculed, no matter how much money it earned him.

  They stood in companionable silence for a bit watching the small boat slicing through the water towards the shore. Once it was moored up by several uniformed crew members, a stunning blonde in a grey lace Versace dress alighted. Her long hair rippled over shoulders as smooth and brown as toffee and her dress clung to her curves like a second skin. She teetered precariously across the jetty in the most enormous glittery sandals and eventually had to be carried to the shore, her laughter tinkling in the evening stillness. Several people at the water’s edge were watching this spectacle, including a tall man with high Slavic cheekbones, a hawklike profile and a long mane of treacle-coloured hair. He watched the girl intently as he leaned against his Aston Martin and drew on a cigarette, the red sparks fantailing towards the estuary as he flicked the butt away. He seemed absolutely mesmerised.

  Moments later a black Bentley pulled up and the girl stepped inside, to be chauffeured off into the summer night. As it purred past the girl gazed out, a broad smile on her pretty face.

  Andi gasped. No way! It couldn’t be! It was impossible.

  “Andi,” said Jonty gently. “I don’t want to make you feel awkward but why are you gripping my arm?”

  Andi’s mouth was dry. She was still taken aback by what she’d just witnessed. “That girl,” she said slowly. “The one who just came in from the sea?”

  “From the Sunseeker? Yes, I saw. Pretty hard to ignore really! Why? Do you know her?”

  Andi nodded. “You could say so. That was my sister, Angel!”

  Chapter 16

  Angel was on top of the world. Not only had she just had a fantastic evening drinking champagne and eating delicate crab thermidor on board the most sumptuous powerboat imaginable, but Vanya had insisted she keep the designer dress and shoes she’d been loaned for the evening. The moment her feet alighted on the gleaming deck, Angel had been transported into another realm, and it was one in which she very much wished to remain! From soaking neck-deep in a bath of Floris-scented bubbles to sipping Cristal beneath twinkling fairy lights, Angel knew this was where she was meant to be. The girl who had stared back at her from the illuminated mirror as a maid tweaked her hair into an elaborate chignon – the girl who was wearing designer clothes and shoes – was glossy and groomed and already had that wealthy glow about her.

  That girl did so not belong in a caravan!

  Unfortunately for Angel, though, for now a caravan was exactly where that girl did belong. Once the Bentley purred away into the night she slipped off her Louboutins – there was no way she was risking scratching those iconic red soles – and hobbled up the stony path to the decrepit static. God, what a skip! Even in the dark Angel could tell that the caravan was ancient and smothered in a thick layer of green slime. Was this really the best that Gemma could come up with? Thank goodness she’d already drilled her friend not to give their address away to anyone! Angel made a mental note to do the same with Andi, although she had a feeling her sister wouldn’t be nearly as obliging. Andi would be totally confused as to why appearances mattered so greatly. Things like this didn’t register at all on her radar; she simply didn’t get it.

  It was just as well one of them did, Angel decided, otherwise this entire exercise would be a waste of time. She was pretty pleased with her own achievements, and all in less than twenty-four hours too! So far she’d made friends with the Alexshovs, enjoyed dinner on a superyacht and, when Vanya discovered that Angel was a beauty therapist, been offered oodles of work. OK, so going back to waxing and plucking wasn’t quite part of the master plan, but it would pay some bills and hopefully put her in the right places. Angel was under no illusions about the importance of giving the right impression, and her arrival into Rock in a crewed tender and sporting designer clothes had been a real coup. She may have given the impression of nonchalance but inside she’d been shrieking with excitement, Look at me! And they had looked too!

  She paused on the piled-up paving slabs that doubled as a step for the caravan, reluctant to break the spell of her amazing evening. Once inside, the Bentley would be a pumpkin, the suited waiters mice and her stunning dress jeans and a vest. And as for the handsome prince...

  Angel wrapped her slender arms around her body and shivered with delicious anticipation. Of course there was a handsome prince, that went without saying, but she didn’t think she would have identified him quite so soon or that he would have been quite so gorgeous. She’d noticed him earlier on that afternoon when she was in The Wharf Café with Gemma but had deliberately played it cool because it never did to show your hand too soon, did it? She’d felt his gaze burning into the back of her neck, so hot that on a trip to the Ladies she’d caught herself checking for scorch marks. On her way back to their table she’d checked him out from behind the safety of her Oakleys, running through her mental checklist. Expensive watch, check. Designer shades, check. Glass of champagne, check. Decked out head to toe in Hugo Boss, check. LV man bag, check. So far it had all been so good. The fob for his car keys was Montblanc but she couldn’t decipher the brand
of car without craning her neck and being totally obvious. What she had noticed though was the small crested signet ring he wore on the little finger of his right hand.

  Titled? Rich? Possibly. In any case it was looking very promising. But something else made her heart pick up pace. She hugged her arms closer and allowed herself to dwell on his features for a little longer: the sharp cheekbones, the thick sweep of toffee-coloured hair, the soft skin of his neck...

  One thing was for certain: he was gorgeous, whoever he was.

  Still, there was more to Project Rich Guy than looks, so she had studiously ignored him, even to the point of leaving the café and going to Padstow. But, as luck would have it, when the tender had dropped her back to shore he happened to be parked up by the slipway in the sexiest Aston Martin convertible imaginable. It had taken every ounce of self-control Angel possessed not to look in his direction when every cell in her body was frantic to drink in a glimpse of his haughty hawklike profile. When the Bentley pulled up she had swept past him as though oblivious, a feat of willpower that she hadn’t even known she possessed.

  Thank God he hadn’t seen the reality of her life in Rock, Angel thought with relief as she leaned her shoulder against the sagging door and shoved her way inside the caravan. A sex-on-a-stick loaded guy like him wouldn’t be seen dead with a girl from a trailer park, that was for sure. And Angel knew that, whoever this guy was, he would want to see her again. Men always did. It was practically a law of physics.

  If Angel had felt like Cinderella beforehand, entering the caravan really did make her feel as though the clock had struck midnight. Gone were the ankle-deep carpets, gleaming mahogany woodwork and trembling notes from the baby grand piano: they’d been replaced with curling lino, peeling plastic and the blast of Pirate FM. The living space – which was a contradiction in terms, since there was barely enough “space” to swing a gerbil – was piled high with their suitcases and bin bags; the kitchen sink was overflowing with dirty washing-up and the work surfaces were liberally dusted with flour. In the midst of all this chaos stood Gemma, oblivious to her friend’s arrival, putting the finishing touches to an enormous sponge cake. It was oozing with thick yellow clotted cream and luscious strawberry jam; Angel’s arteries were hardening just looking at it.