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Rosie hesitated, listening for movement upstairs, before typing in Matt’s code and bringing up Carmen’s text in full.
Matt, you are always such a naughty boy.
What the hell? English was Carmen’s second language and she didn’t always get it right, but even so… Rosie scrolled through Carmen’s text exchange with Matt that morning. The first text had arrived shortly after seven o’clock from Carmen:
Buenos días, Matt. How do you do today?
Matt had replied within two minutes: Muchos bored in Devon and missing España.
Missing only España? was Carmen’s immediate reply.
España, the sunshine, el vino and you of course.
I am horribly missing you too. When do you come back to Málaga?
As soon as possible. This place is doing my head in.
Poor Matt. I will make you feel much better again when you return.
Is that a promise?
Matt, you are always such a naughty boy.
Rosie carefully placed the phone back on the worktop and sipped her tea with shaking hands. Matt was flirting or worse with confident, beautiful Carmen, who could wrap men around her little finger. Basically, he was cheating on her with the continental version of Katrina.
She should feel angry. She should march upstairs and confront him with the texts, and maybe throw him out of the house. She should at the very least cry. But she continued sipping her tea, too numb to do anything else. Matt had betrayed her, but it was just one more loss in a steady stream of them. Her mother, her childhood home, her beliefs about her parents, and now the boyfriend she thought she knew were all gone, or soon would be. And in three days’ time, she’d be back in Spain and Heaven’s Cove would be gone, too.
Heavy footsteps sounded on the floorboards in the room above. Matt was taking his hangover back to bed. Rosie grabbed her jacket and went out into the gloomy morning, banging the kitchen door behind her.
She walked to the edge of the cliff and stood with her hands on her hips, hair blowing in the breeze. Far below, a curve of sand had almost disappeared under the tide, and waves were churning against the rocks. The sea and sky were slate-grey, mirroring her mood.
It was such a familiar view and one that usually soothed her. But today all she could see were Matt and Carmen kissing in dark corners of the office, in empty apartments for sale, maybe even in Matt’s bed while she was away, the secrecy of it all heightening their excitement. Secrets were everywhere, building like a high tide, and she was drowning in them.
A sudden shaft of sunlight painted a bright stripe across the water, like a path out of Heaven’s Cove. Getting away from here was a good idea. She could carry on selling apartments in the sunshine, find herself a new boyfriend, and put this village and its complications behind her. No family. No Driftwood House. Nothing to hold her back. Nothing to anchor her down.
Shecoulddo that, but those secrets would be lead weights around her neck. Rosie looked back at the house, still in shadow, and felt it was watching her in turn, wondering what she was going to do next.
‘I don’t know,’ she shouted, before looking round to make sure no one had heard her. Not content with talking to her dead mother, she was now yelling at condemned bricks and mortar. But the clifftop was empty and the window of her bedroom, where drunken Matt was sleeping off his hangover, was closed.
Drunken, cheating Matt who seemed very interested in even the sniff of an inheritance. Rosie turned her face to the sun and stroked her fingers across the car key nestled in her jacket pocket. She was upset about him and Carmen. Of course she was, and angry that they’d gone behind her back. But it was hard to take the moral high ground when she had a guilty secret of her own.
She closed her eyes, remembering the rush of emotion she’d felt when Liam had pulled her into his arms last night. It had taken her by surprise, as had the vulnerability in his pale blue eyes. The dance had been magical – she hadn’t wanted it to end – and when Matt had drunkenly kissed her, back at Driftwood House, she’d wished it was Liam’s lips on hers instead.
There, that was her confession. One that Matt didn’t deserve to hear and Liam wouldn’t want to hear, especially if he ever found out that Charles Epping might be her father. Like mother, like daughter – Rosie was turning into a keeper of secrets herself.
She took the car key from her pocket and turned it over in her hands, keen to be away from Driftwood House when Matt emerged from his drunken slumber. She’d drive out into the Devon countryside and enjoy its verdant beauty before leaving the county for who knew how long in just a few days’ time.
Deciding she was going to drive into the countryside was one thing, but getting there any time soon was quite another. The tourist season was ramping up and roads through Heaven’s Cove were clogged with overheated families scowling at one another inside saloon cars.
Rosie was in a jam that stretched from the quay to the castle ruins and was going nowhere fast. She was drumming her fingers on the steering wheel in frustration when a frantic banging on the passenger window made her jump.
‘You OK?’ asked Nessa, pushing her face through the half-open window. ‘Where are you off to?’
Rosie tried to smile. ‘Nowhere. Just out for a drive.’
‘You don’t fancy giving me a lift to my gran’s, do you? Save me going by bus.’
‘Yeah, that’s fine. Get in.’
