AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘Fine. I’ll go find the drink. I think we’re going to need it.’
A second later and Evan and Holly were alone.
‘So if I’m not reading the situation completely wrong, I am assuming you and Giles have some sort of history?’ Evan started. ‘Don’t feel like you need to tell me. I don’t want to pressurise you or anything, everyone has a past.’
‘He’s not… We do have a history,’ Holly tried. ‘But it’s probably not like you think. He tried to ruin my business.’
‘Okay?’ Evan’s eyebrow quirked. ‘That certainly wasn’t the history I was expecting you to have.’
‘He tried to take it from me, but he didn’t. Then he tried to make things up to me and turn over a new leaf, and he did. He became nice and we…’ Holly couldn’t work out how to finish that sentence.We became friends?It was true, but it didn’t feel like enough to explain the situation.We used to do our food shopping together?No, that absolutely would not work. ‘It got complicated for a while.’
Evan nodded and locked his eyes on hers.
‘What I care about is if you are going to be okay today. I don’t want this to affect your time here. I don’t want things to be awkward for you.’
‘No, they won’t be. It’ll be fine. It won’t be awkward at all.’ But even as she spoke, she knew it was a lie.
‘Come on, I bet the others will have nabbed all the sunbeds.’
‘Sunbeds and a hot tub? This boat is insane.’
The boat was immense, with two decks they could sunbathe on, the upper of which really did have a hot tub twice the size of any she’d been in before. As she took her place on one of the sun loungers, Holly quickly found out that Giles wasn’t the only other person onboard. Two other members of crew beavered busily around them. One seemed to oversee the boat with Giles, dealing with the ropes when they cast off and ensuring all the buoys were correctly tied. The other person was there for the group, offering extra cushions and sun cream, while bringing them drinks and snacks. Holly and Evan’s shopping trip, it appeared, had been superfluous.
After the morning she’d had, and the fact that holiday drinking times seemed entirely flexible, Holly was quick to grab the bottle of sparkling wine that the crew member had placed in a cooler in front of them. Only, when she pulled the bottle from the ice, she froze and gritted her teeth. The label shone out as clear as day. Of course the wine was from the vineyard she’d been to with Evan, meaning that it probably had been Giles she’d seen there. Which meant that every time she and Evan had been alone outside the villa, Giles had been there too. Holly didn’t know if the thought made her want to laugh or cry.
‘Your friend has good taste,’ Evan said, as he plucked the bottle from her hand and poured them both a glass. ‘Are you sure you’re okay? You look a little shellshocked.’
‘Just taking it all in,’ Holly lied only to rebuke herself. She had meant what she said to Caroline. She did like Evan. He was without doubt the most generous man she’d ever met, not to mention attractive. So without giving herself time to stew on what it did or didn’t mean that Giles was there, she took the glass that Evan offer to her, and clinked it against his.
‘To the future,’ she said, ‘and to us.’
His grin was enough to set her whole heart a flutter.
‘To us,’ he said.
* * *
As wonderful as the boat was, it wasn’t possible to relax fully as Giles kept appearing at all the most inopportune moments. Like when Evan was rubbing sunscreen on Holly’s back, and when they were sharing a kiss. And when Fin’s friends took it upon themselves to wind Evan up as much as possible about walking Holly to her bedroom at night. Every time someone made a remark about Holly and Evan being more than friends, Giles would appear right there beside them, checking their wine hadn’t run out, or telling them something or other about the cove or village they were sailing past. And no matter how much Holly tried to pretend she was comfortable with Evan’s hand slipping into hers or the little kisses he placed on her shoulders, they would cause her to flinch a little, as she cast her gaze over her shoulder in case Giles was there.
To make matters even worse, every time he appeared, Naomi would rush to his side to ask some question or another, or just to flick her hair in an overly flirty manner. Not that Holly was jealous or anything. After all, she was there with Evan. But it still didn’t stop the knots that twisted her insides when she saw Giles smiling away at her, resting his hand on her shoulder and laughing in response. It was his job, obviously, to make all the guests feel comfortable, and Giles was an expert at making people feel at ease. Yet every time he smiled, her entire body clenched and it was hard to pretend she didn’t care what he was saying or doing with reactions like that.
As the boat skimmed along the coastline, they sailed towards a small bay lined with golden and white houses.
Evan turned and spoke to her.
‘Right, I don’t want you to think I’m an old man or anything, but I don’t like it when my feet are exposed to sea water and fish. It’s a weird thing I’ve got. So I bought us all water shoes to wear.’
Even with Giles lurking somewhere in the background, Holly couldn’t help but drop her head onto his chest as she laughed.
‘You’ve got a foot thing?’ It was hard to suppress a giggle.
‘Wow. And no, I don’t have a foot thing,’ he corrected, ‘but that laugh was amazing. You know, I think it’s the first time I’ve heard it since we got back to the villa this morning.’
Holly was about to make up an excuse, or deny him altogether, only to change her mind. The more time she spent with Evan, the harder it was to deny how genuine he seemed. And he deserved the truth.
‘I’m sorry. It’s just this, us, it seems to be moving crazily fast.’
‘And that’s not a good thing?’
