Sunlounger - the Ultimate Beach Read (Sunlounger Stories Book 1)

by Belinda Jones

  Guilt crept up his ankles, wound round his legs, snaked up his thighs, so he had to step away. Keep moving, that was the trick. Don’t let it throttle you.

  Where was she? Jennifer had been scheduled to be here by now. Countless times he had practised how to break his confession, when he should do it and what he would say. At first he’d resolved to keep it to himself, have Jennifer believe like the rest of the world that Meredith had been attacked and killed by a demented stalker – but how could he sustain a lie of that magnitude to the woman he adored? Besides, once the shock died down he felt certain Jennifer would accept this as the only thing that would set them free. He had done it for her…and for the sake of their love.

  He breathed deeply, envisaging the man arriving at her door, disguised as hotel staff. Meredith always liked a few moments in private after the stylists had done their work, and would be irritated at the interruption. ‘Who are you?’ she would lash, eyes bugging as his determined, practised grip reached for her neck, tightening around it, his thumb pressed into the gems at her throat as she gasped like a fish for air…

  Damien shook the image off, horrified and excited in equal measure.

  Focus on the future. The life he and Jennifer would have.

  After this, the world was their oyster. With her, he could achieve anything.

  There was a tap on his shoulder. He turned round.

  ‘There you are.’

  It was Meredith. She was sipping champagne.

  Only it wasn’t Meredith, it couldn’t be, because Meredith had changed, this was a different, other Meredith, an impossible Meredith: Meredith in someone else’s clothes. He blinked. Fever crashed. Her eyes flicked across his, flinty and mistrustful.

  She wasn’t wearing the red dress.

  ‘What’s the matter with you?’ she asked. ‘You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.’

  ‘I –’ Damien’s mouth went dry. Talking was like wading through sludge. The cameras popped around him, a ghastly circus. ‘What are you wearing?’ he rasped.

  Meredith scowled. She tossed back the rest of the drink.

  ‘Try not to make this any worse for me than it already is, will you, Damien? I’ve got two words for you: that bloody Jennifer Weston.’

  Dread crackled. ‘What?’

  ‘I called a cast briefing in my suite,’ she explained. ‘I am leading The Heavenly Ones show, after all, and I’ll be damned if I’m having some upstart stealing the acceptance speech. The silly bitch only turns up wearing something the exact same colour – I ask you! Clearly Jennifer’s people chose to ignore my instructions: I was to be the only one in red tonight, I made that perfectly clear. Naturally I demanded she change, but the pathetic creature became so overwhelmed with nerves that she spilled Bollinger all down my Valentino creation. You can imagine my reaction!’

  He pictured Jennifer’s trembling fingers, terrified as she had always been of Meredith and mortified at the mistake. He had been so sick of hearing about Meredith’s wardrobe that he hadn’t even asked what his lover would be wearing…

  ‘I swear she did it on purpose.’ Meredith narrowed her eyes. ‘Oh, she’ll pay.’

  Damien found he was unable to breathe. He stared, his blood thrashing.

  ‘Of course I had a backup,’ she sang. ‘I’m nothing if not prepared. So what do you think of this Prada number? Aren’t you going to tell me I look ravishing?’

  He forced the words out. Each was like coughing up a stone.

  ‘Where is Jennifer?’

  ‘How should I know?’ A mean, pitiless laugh. ‘I had rather more pressing concerns than staying behind to babysit her. You should have seen how the rest of them scuttled after me: oh, they know where their allegiances lie. I told Jennifer I wanted nothing more to do with her tonight – or ever.’

  ‘You left her alone in your room?’

  ‘Certainly I did. She’s probably crying in a corner somewhere as we speak.’

  Damien’s universe ended in a single, silent explosion.

  It would be only a matter of time before the panic unleashed. Screams would fall like dominoes, one to another to another to a flood. The city of canals would be submerged.

  Damien knew he would hear them, but that they would never last as long or as loud as the ones inside his own head.

  Meredith held out a glass. ‘Champagne?’

  About the Author

  By day Victoria Fox lives in Bristol. By night she relaxes in her fantasy LA mansion, sipping Krug in a Jacuzzi and watching a bare-chested man clean out her pool. Victoria was born in 1983, went to boarding school in her teens and studied English at university. A long-time admirer of Jackie Collins, Victoria often wondered what life would be like as a bonkbuster author. After working in publishing for a few years, she decided to quit and find out – and hasn't looked back since... Her first novel, HOLLYWOOD SINNERS, was described by Closer magazine as 'a heady mix of corruption, glamour, lust and power' while TEMPTATION ISLAND was tagged the Sun's 'best bonkbuster of 2012'. Victoria's latest book WICKED AMBITION is out now.

  Website: www.victoriafoxwrites.com

  Facebook: www.facebook.com/victoriafoxwrites

  Twitter: @VFoxWrites

  Visit the Sunlounger website at www.va-va-vacation.com/victoria-fox

  We have everything you need to make this your Best Summer Ever!

  You can also chat with the authors on the Belinda Jones Travel Club Facebook page.

  Return to the contents list.

  ASSERTIVENESS TRAINING

  ***

  Emma Garcia

  Destination: Mallorca

  I’m lying under our duvet, half an hour after the alarm, post bad sex, pre-shower, listening to Martin.

  ‘That’s the trouble with you Sharona, always over-thinking.’ I roll onto my side and watch him tap his temples with his fingertips. I just admitted that I didn’t have an orgasm, and I have a lot on my mind. He thinks the two are linked. I explained about my assertiveness audio course, my imminent journey of transformation and self-discovery involving Zumba, smiling more and quitting my job. I left out the part about ending it with him; I’m still over-thinking that. ‘We’d have great sex if you lived in the here and now, instead up here in your head.’ He does more temple tapping.

  ‘That’s probably true,’ I say doubtfully; it’s pretty wild in my head. I’m squinting at the ceiling where a tiny spider is lowering itself from the paper lampshade. If it makes it to the duvet I’ll make the tea, if it moves up or hangs, he can.

  ‘Do you think any man would go around “trying to smile more”?’

  ‘Maybe you should. You’re getting a massive frown line.’ I turn my head to look at it slicing between his brows, ending with a chicken pox scar like an exclamation mark.

  ‘How many men go to Zumba?’

  I sigh. The spider hits the bed post.

  ‘Hmm, loads.’ I check my phone.

  ‘Loads? Loads of blokes go to Zumba?’

  ‘Or…not many.’ I have a text from my sister Eloise. My heart begins to cartwheel. She wants me to visit, stay with her in Mallorca, go mental for my twenty-eighth birthday. I press the phone in my hands. Mallorca with Eloise? I feel emotions start up like fireworks. Martin looks like he’s waiting for an answer.

  ‘What?’ I ask. He shrug-huffs and shakes his head. I get up and pull on my dressing gown. ‘Why are you annoyed?’ I ask and wander out to make tea. From the kitchen window I see the day is grey and cold. I think it’s raining already. I imagine Eloise, suntanned and smiling. Eloise the charmed, who goes where she pleases all over the world on a wing and a prayer and everything works out brilliantly. She’s an adventurer, a climb every mountain girl, she saw the whole of the moon. I’m the stay at home sister, both thrilled and horrified when she turns the limelight of her attention onto me. She’s careless with my cowardly heart, scattering challenges then laughing while I weigh up pros and cons. She says things like ‘It’ll be mental’ a lot, and also ‘Its no biggie,’ and then s
he’s off in a jangle of ankle bracelets before I’ve fastened my laces. We’re like opposite seasons. She’s summer, in floaty scraps of sarong and fluorescent lipstick and… I look down at my pasty arms. Mallorca is no place for a milk-white ex-Goth.

  I’d love to see her though. I’d love to go. I sigh onto the window pane and draw a palm tree in the mist. I rest my head against the glass and wonder which coat to wear for work; if I wear the mac, I’ll have to take an umbrella as there’s no hood. If I wear the anorak, I’ll have the hood but look like a rambler. If the kettle clicks off before I get the teabags in the cups, I’ll wear the mac and dump Martin.

  I drive to work with my coat hood up, local radio blaring; an astrologer talking to a person thinking of setting up her own business.

  ‘The stage is set for change for Virgo, so strike while the iron is hot and remember a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.’

  Anyone could be an astrologer; all you do is string loads of clichés together. A watched pot never boils for Aries, a stitch in time saves nine.

  ‘Fortune favours the brave,’ says the astrologer, ‘so its decision time for Cancer.’

  ‘Decision time,’ I say aloud. I pull up at a junction, with four red traffic lights. They could be the perfect symbol for my current life. Stopped, going nowhere. Decisions terrify me. I don’t even know why I’m with Martin. Why am I with him? He just kept turning up with pizza until I came to expect it.

  What if I went to Mallorca? The pure terror of it has me bouncing to the beat on the radio, the fabric of my hood scratches in my ears over the song lyrics, all about regret being a terrible thing. I feel eyes on me, and glance left; a suit in the car alongside watches. I stare and lick my lips suggestively. His eyes dart away. If the lights change before the end of this song I’ll dump Martin today, put a stop to the thing I’m doing with my boss, and go to Mallorca. Could I? Dare I? Don’t over-think it. No such thing as a perfect decision, I’ve learned this from the audio course. One of these days I’ll act on impulse, and very soon. The song reaches a final crescendo, the lights switch. I stall the car. Then I’m fumbling with the ignition. What did that mean?

  I work at The Kitchen Warehouse. We sell from a prefab on an industrial estate outside Leeds. I sell top-end dream kitchens, with boiling water on tap, built-in coffee machines and granite work tops. All our kitchens are fully guaranteed for ten years. Yesterday in the main showroom, I let Richard, my boss, feel me up. We’d been flirting for a while so when he made a comedy lunge to kiss me, I let it happen. Before I knew it we were up against the marble topped central island, my shirt riding up at the back, the stone freezing against my hips. He whispered what he wanted to do and it was inventively filthy. I actually raised my eyebrows picturing some. Then he pressed his face into my cleavage, and I began to wonder about the fabric softener his wife used. I gazed over his shoulder imagining his wife hanging up his shirts.

  ‘Sharona!’ he gasped, all hot and bothered with his hair falling on his grateful face. He looked like somebody’s dad, which he is. It was trés uncool.

  At my desk I open and close the top drawer listening to the pens inside roll. Make a decision. The rain lashes against the prefab window like thrown rice. Stop floating through life dandelion-seed style; no more going with the flow, and seeing what happens. Nothing happens. In my minds eye Eloise dances away from me into the sunshine.

  I hear the door slam.

  ‘Morning, Squidge!’ Richard shouts. He appears, vigorous and brisk. I study the grain of the desk where it looks a bit like a screaming face. ‘Alright?’ he asks. I wait, concentrating away fearful head chatter, ignoring the mental weighing scales.

  ‘I resign,’ I raise my eyes to his, watching a frown drag over his brow.

  ‘You what?’

  ‘I want to leave Kitchen Warehouse. Today.’ My voice sounds flat and far away. He stares. His lower lip pushes out and he blows a long breath into his floppy fringe.

  ‘Why? I mean are you unhappy or…?’

  ‘Not unhappy.’

  ‘Is this about us?’ he asks all softly and moves to pull up a chair next to mine.

  ‘Nope,’ I say into my computer screen.

  ‘Well, I’m sorry Sharona but you can’t just leave today. You’ll have to work your three months notice,’ he shakes his head and my resolve dissolves. ‘It’s the little thing called your contract of employment, you see. Three months notice? Remember signing that?’ His face is arranged in sympathy and I think everything in my life is complicated, difficult, tangled up. I am not my sister. Richard walks around to his desk, switches on his machine and looks back at me. ‘I’ll have a cappuccino if you’re making one.’

  I cross to the service area and begin steaming milk but I’m mouthing the statements from the assertiveness training; I am calm and fearless, confident that things will turn out well. I am in control. I watch the milk froth. If he says another thing before I hand him this coffee, I’m walking.

  ‘You look very nice today by the way,’ he says, reaching for the cup.

  ‘Richard?’ I wait by his desk. He looks up, amused, questioning, his eyes move to my chest as he takes a sip of coffee.

  ‘Be reasonable Sharona, you can’t deprive me of that sight each day. Any chance of a feel as a goodwill gesture?’ he laughs. I make a face as if he’s farted. ‘Want to know what I dreamed about last night?

  ‘No.’

  ‘You were dressed as a battle goddess…’

  ‘Listen, Richard—’

  ‘I’ve never had a girl like you before, don’t know why,’ he observes cheerfully, leaning back in his chair.

  ‘Is it because you’re a tw—’

  ‘We’re attracted to each other, so what? We’re both adults, better let nature take its course.’

  ‘Tear up the contract.’

  ‘You what?’

  ‘Where is it anyway? I’ve never seen one.’ He raises his eyebrows and cradles the back of his head in his hands. ‘If you don’t, I’ll tell people about,’ I wave a finger between us. I start to put some pens into my bag. ‘I’m not working any three-month notice. You can pay me three months wages though, as a “goodwill gesture”.’

  His face settles into unhappy lines.

  ‘Tell people? What people?’

  ‘People who might be interested to know.’ I hold his gaze.

  He narrows his eyes. There’s a pause during which he squirms, inhales as if to speak, thinks better of it, scratches his head and shakes his head.

  ‘B.A.C.S. okay?’ he asks.

  I am powerful beyond belief, in control of my own life journey, and walking out of Top Shop with two bags of summer dresses. I’ve booked a flight to Palma leaving tomorrow lunchtime. I hurry through the light drizzle feeling magical. There’s still Zara, H&M and River Island to go.

  Martin is already home; I stand silently in the hall listening to the ping and crash of a video game. The thing is, I don’t think I’ve ever been in love with Martin, not in the way described in songs any way. Life with Martin is like comfortably drowning in apple sauce. I feel bad about telling him. He’s a nice man but he’s a cryer. I put my head around the door and watch his plump hands, knuckles turning white as he grips the console, and then I get drawn in to the game.

  ‘One there, behind!’ I say standing at his shoulder. On screen, his soldier spins and fires, ‘Nice… Go. The burning car!’ He’s slow, he’s distracted by me and the soldier explodes. ‘Bummer,’ I murmur, patting his shoulder as he resets the game. I look around the flat. There are shopping bags in the kitchen. It’s his turn to make dinner. ‘What’s for dinner?’ If he says the words ‘ready’ and ‘meal’ in the next sentence, I’ll just tell him outright.

  He watches me pack like a sad dog.

  ‘You idolise Eloise.’

  ‘I don’t idolise her.’

  ‘I didn’t see this coming.’ He raises wet eyes to my face.

  ‘You did really.’

  ‘Didn’t.’

&nb
sp; ‘Remember last weekend or a couple of weekends ago, that row? I said I thought we’re too safe? You even agreed.’

  He looks at the carpet and scratches the back of his neck. ‘You like safe.’

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘I love you, Shaz.’

  I give up folding a towel to look at him. He tries to smile and I smile back but I feel my heart already out there, on a rampage and nothing must stand in its way. ‘Don’t forget sun cream,’ he says, ‘you don’t want to burn.’

  I’m suddenly in Palma, waiting for my suitcase and I start to feel nervous, jumpy like an escaped prisoner. Most of the passengers have collected their luggage and gone. My case is lost, isn’t it? Lost with all those new clothes; that’ll be the universe telling me, ‘Should’ve stayed at home pet.’ I watch a lonely red holdall circle around the carousel. It disappears and then it plops back into view. There’s nobody waiting any more. I watch it trundle around again and it begins to seem important. I feel like it’s something to do with me. I worry when it disappears in case it doesn’t reappear. But then here it comes again like a surprise, like a message full of excitement and mystery. When I spot my own suitcase finally sliding onto the carousel I’m almost disappointed. The red holdall sails sadly by. I watch and wait. I think if it comes by one more time, I’ll take it.

  Eloise throws the case and the red holdall into the back of her lime green jeep. On the door it reads ‘Sandias disco bar Cala Vinyes’. She hugs me again in a waft of coconuts and peppermint gum. If you picture the kind of girl you do not want to lie next to on the beach, that’s Eloise; slim and curvy, beach blonde, dirty tan, hippy style, held-together-with-knots mini-dress in faded aqua to match her eyes. And she suits this place; her attitude matches the stunning weather. She’s that one playing beach ball in a g-string, dolphin tattoo, belly button pierced. I’m constantly proud of/embarrassed by her.