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Excerpt - Just This One Summer
AVAILABLE OCTOBER 2019 - PREORDER NOW!
Prologue
Six months ago, London.
SHE DIDN’T PACK MUCH. One bag, just enough to throw over the shoulder and carry with ease. Enough to keep her going until she found her feet. Enough to help her get away – to get away quickly. She didn’t know where she was going, but she knew she had to leave. Immediately. Madeleine left without looking back, because looking back hurt too much.
If she looked back long enough, she’d see Michael as he’d been when they first met. Charming, handsome, kind, everything she’d ever thought she’d wanted.
But new memories had overwritten those quickly enough. The smell of alcohol on his breath. The way his voice went quiet and soft when he was angry; somehow, that was so much more frightening than when he yelled. The certainty his temper was always worse when he’d bet big and lost bigger. And finally, the feeling of his hand around her throat, the way breath had burned in her lungs, the way her eyes had ached, darkness encroaching until she’d remembered she had legs and had lifted one, kneeing him in the groin. It wasn’t hard but it was enough.
She’d never fought back before. Then again, he’d never made it so imperative that she did.
Looking over her shoulder was an impulse. She did it now, twisting her head so her blonde ponytail flicked in the breeze, making sure no one saw her get on the bus. Her heart was slamming against her ribs, her breathing was still rushed. As the bus whistled out of Putney, it occurred to Madeleine that she had no idea where she was going.
She knew though that she would no longer be Madeleine Gray. She’d be Maddie. Someone different to this. Someone stronger. Someone who’d never be fooled again. Someone who was independent. Solitary. Safe.
She watched from the window as the bus rounded the corner. Shops she knew so well – the Tesco express, the bank, the post office, a Wagamamas, all so familiar to her, but all relegated to the back of her mind, to the past.
Another bus and an overground and she’d arrived at Heathrow, and by then, Maddie had a plan.
It didn’t come to her perfectly formed. But when she closed her eyes and imagined peace and tranquillity, she saw a place with a musical name, a place she’d found herself wondering about for no reason in particular, a place she was eager now to go to. It didn’t make sense, it was as though her soul was being called on in some way, and for lack of other ideas, she was content to listen.
Ondechiara.
Even the name was somehow magical. She’d read it on the bottom of the picture enough times to know it by heart. “What does it mean?” She’d asked Michael, on one of the first occasions she’d gone to his flat and seen the picture.
“Clear waves. It’s perfect.” His smile had been like sunshine. Back then, he’d smiled at her often. She’d come to fear his smile though, because she knew it was a brief burst of warmth, almost always followed by a deafening thunderstorm. “The city itself is quite ancient. Cobbled streets that wind through tiny stone buildings, all brightly coloured and washed by the sea. The roofs are terracotta and the smell of citrus is everywhere. The ocean is the most striking shade of green, but as it comes into shore, the waves become clear, like glass, so you can see every grain of sand on the ocean floor.”
“Do you go there often?”
“I’ve only been once.” He lifted his broad shoulders, his body strong, his frame bulky. “With one of my closest friends.”
“Well, I think it sounds perfect. I’d love to see it.”
“I’ll take you there one day.”
Michael was good at making promises, but he was much better at breaking them.
She lifted a hand to her throat unconsciously, wincing as she felt the sore flesh there, concealed beneath her turtleneck. After the last time, he’d promised he’d never touch her again. He’d promised he was sorry, that he hadn’t meant it, that he’d get help. He’d promised he’d stop gambling, drinking. That he would do anything rather than lose her.
But two weeks later, he’d pinned her to the fridge and gripped her around the neck until she’d truly thought she might die.
Michael had broken every promise that mattered to her.
She paid cash for her ticket to Rome, despite the fact he didn’t have access to her bank statements. She couldn’t afford to let her guard down. She needed to get away first, to think, to work out what she’d do next.
Ondechiara wouldn’t shelter her forever, but perhaps with a little time she’d be able to see the grains of sand that made up her fractured, confusing life a little more clearly. Perhaps she’d be able to float once more…
Chapter 1
IF SHE HADN’T BEEN wearing that yellow hat, he’d never have seen her. But from where he stood in the middle of the floor to ceiling windows that made a wall of glass in his home on the edge of the cliff, rain buffeting the glass so that it was grey and almost impossible to see through, he was aware of a slight figure being pushed by the breeze, the rain that was coming in sideways dragging the summery dress around her slender frame.
He didn’t think twice. Nico Montebello paced to the front door and wrenched it open, so a gale force wind blew through the architecturally designed home, rattling a painting that hung in the hallway. He strode onto the deck and took the steps two at a time, crossing the grassed cliff top until he was within reach of her.
Her hair was silky blonde, long and fell halfway down her back. It was wet though, clinging to her like seaweed does the water in the ocean. Her tan was golden, proof of a summer spent somewhere like this, and yet he’d never seen her before. Ondechiara wasn’t a large town, he knew most people in the close-knit community. A frisson of caution danced across his spine. This was private land and there’d been a lot of press interest surrounding his family since Fiero and Elodie’s wedding. The first Montebello Bachelor bites the dust! The papers had cried, speculating on who would be next to settle down. Little did they know the curse of the Montebellos was a hard one to shake. Fiero had been lucky but Nico found it hard to believe his brothers or cousins would enjoy a similar fate, despite what the tabloids might wish.
