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‘No, nothing like that. No. Mel... I think...’
‘What?’
Her mind running this way and that, Anna got to her feet and started throwing her stuff into her beach bag. ‘I need to go back.’
Melissa hastily slid off her sun-lounger. ‘I’ll come with you.’
In less than a minute they’d gathered all their stuff together and thrown their shorts and T-shirts back on and Anna was steaming along the beach, unwittingly spraying sand in sunbathers’ faces, while Melissa struggled to keep up.
‘Slow down,’ she pleaded. ‘The house isn’t going anywhere.’
This time Anna did find a proper smile. ‘I’m not going back to the house, I’m going to the airport.’
‘What?’
‘I’m going home.’
‘You can’t.’
‘Watch me.’
‘No, you idiot, I mean you can’t go to the airport—your passport’s at Mum’s.’
‘Oh. Yes. Right.’ But it only slowed her for a moment and then she walked even faster, mentally calculating how quickly she could get to the airport. Her return flight was booked for a week from now. She was sure the airline had fixed flights so that would mean a plane would be leaving for London that evening. She needed to be on it.
‘What do you want to go home for?’
‘I need to see Stefano.’
‘Anna, no...’
‘Yes.’
‘You were going to wait. Let things settle a bit more before telling him.’
‘It’s nothing to do with that.’
Melissa grabbed her arm and forced her to stop. ‘Anna, will you listen to me? Please? Whatever you’re thinking, don’t do it.’
‘Mel... I love him.’ Totally. Utterly. Irreversibly.
‘That man destroyed you.’
‘No,’ she contradicted. ‘I think we’ve destroyed each other. And maybe we can fix each other.’
It was a fifteen-minute fast walk back to the house. Melissa was puffing behind her as Anna rushed through the front door, her adrenaline levels too high to need to catch a breath.
She hurried up the hallway to the stairs, about to go to her room and get her flight details so she could get straight on the phone to the airline...
‘Anna, is that you?’ came her mother’s voice.
‘Yes, sorry, give me a minute.’
Her mother appeared at the kitchen doorway, her face flushed. ‘You’ve got a visitor.’
‘Me?’ Who would be visiting her? She didn’t know anyone here apart from her mum’s friends and family.
She stepped into the kitchen, turned her head to the large table and froze.
