Kat French - The Bed and Breakfast on the Beach - A gorgeous feel-good read from the bestselling author of One Day in December

Prickles of panic broke out on her forehead at the thought of leaving behind everything she’d worked so hard for. So she’d lost her job; it wasn’t the end of the world or an excuse to have a total breakdown and do something as outrageous as flee the country. Another job would turn up soon enough. She was too good to be ignored, too well-known and respected in her field to be left on the career shelf, so why had she just hurled herself off it like Buzz Lightyear flinging himself from the edge of the table? He hadn’t been able to fly, not really. It was just a smoke-and-mirrors illusion.

Stella threw her clothes back on, thrust the knot of bikinis at the shop assistant and marched out of the shop. She didn’t need new bikinis. She had three perfectly good ones already, and it was highly likely that she wouldn’t be staying on Skelidos long enough to need more.

Winnie checked her cross-body bag for the millionth time to make sure she had the keys to Villa Valentina zipped safely inside the side pocket.

‘We’ll have to get some more keys cut as soon as we can,’ she said, settling her bag into her lap on the hour-long ferry ride from Skiathos across to Skelidos. Now that they were almost back at the villa, her nerves had kicked in hard. Ajax had emailed to let them know that he and Nikolas had left for Athens a couple of days back and the place was locked up and waiting for them. They’d bought it fully furnished with several upcoming reservations already in the book, so for all intents and purposes they could just turn the key, open the windows and be up and running. It sounded quite easy, put like that, until a worrying thought hit her.

‘Oh, God! I hope someone has been feeding The Fonz since Ajax left!’ She looked from Frankie to Stella sitting on the opposite bench. ‘What if he’s starving, or dehydrated?’

Stella shook her head. ‘Donkeys are like camels, I should think. They retain water.’

Both Frankie and Winnie looked at her, taken aback. ‘Surely he’d need a hump for that?’ Frankie said, doubtful.

Stella shrugged and dropped her Aviators over her eyes; the donkey was the least of her worries. She’d had a job offer a couple of days ago from old business rivals of Jones & Bow; on the one hand it was reassuring to be head-hunted, but on the other they were offering a pitiful package and hadn’t even included a company car. She hated the loss of freedom being without wheels represented, and couldn’t help but feel that the derisory job offer had been designed more to put her in her place rather than to genuinely recruit her. It stung, and it rammed home the fact that she wasn’t as indispensable as she’d always allowed herself the indulgence of believing. She hadn’t replied yet. Her instinct had been to tell them where to shove their pitiful offer, but she was slowly coming around to the horrible realisation that she might not have the luxury of being so hasty. All in all she was thoroughly miserable, and much as the sunshine was welcome, she hated the feeling that she was running away. Stella Daniels didn’t run from anything or anyone. She’d take a week or so to recharge, and then decide what to do about the offer.

Frankie’s phone bleeped in her hand luggage, and she scrabbled for it in case there was anything wrong at home. The boys had both been unflatteringly thrilled at the idea of her moving to a Mediterranean island. She’d expected a wobbly lip or two, a ‘Please don’t go, Mum,’ but what she’d got from Josh was a ‘Go for it, Mum,’ and Elliott was already merrily planning his free holiday to Greece later in the summer. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad being apart from them after all; if they came to stay she’d get some proper time with them for a change. Family holidays had always had been British bucket-and-spade affairs when the twins were little, and in later years they hadn’t been at all enamoured of the idea of being stuck in a hotel with their olds. Maybe it would have been different if she and Gavin had been more in love; there might have been more laughter and good times. As it was they only really talked about things to do with the kids, and once they’d moved out they’d been left crunching toast in noisy silence at the breakfast table.

‘I’ve got a long-lost uncle in Nigeria who wants my bank details so he can wire me ten million pounds,’ she sighed, reading the phishing message on her phone.

‘Bugger. If only he’d texted you yesterday, you could have stayed at home and bought a mansion instead,’ Stella said.

Winnie fidgeted with excitement in her seat. ‘I’d still have come back here today, even if I’d won the lottery. Aren’t you dying to get in the villa and have a good nose around without Ajax and Nik?’

Frankie’s face relaxed into a smile as she tucked her phone away. ‘I’m heading straight for the bath in the Cleopatra Room before I do anything else. I splashed out on Jo Malone bubble bath especially for it.’

Winnie leaned her forehead against the warm window and looked out over the vast, still sea stretching out around them, and then up at the even bluer, cloudless sky overhead. It was the kind of sky that couldn’t help but fill you with optimism and hope; imagine a whole summer, or a whole lifetime, like this. With every extra mile she put between herself and Rory, Winnie sat a little taller and breathed a little easier. She dug in her bag again, pulled out her English/Greek dictionary and flicked through it.

‘What are you looking for?’ Stella asked.

After a pause, Winnie glanced up. ‘Evdaimonia,’ she said, faltering over her pronunciation as she closed the book and clutched it against her chest. ‘It means bliss.’

‘Remind me how to say bliss again?’ Stella huffed half an hour later, pushing her sunnies onto the top of her flat, frazzled hair as they all collapsed like a scuttle of red lobsters onto the shaded terrace of Villa Valentina.

Their taxi driver from the port had been in a tearing hurry and they’d assured him that they’d be fine moving their luggage from the roadside to the villa at the far end of the beach. It wasn’t all that far, but they hadn’t accounted for the fact that it was impossible to drag heavy-wheeled suitcases across deep, fine sand without feeling as if you’re hauling a dead horse up a hill. As a consequence, their return to the villa wasn’t at all the champagne-cork-popping experience Winnie had envisaged; it was more of a someone-get-me-some-water-before-I-die situation.

‘Evdasomething?’ she puffed, tipping her bag out on the top of her suitcase and plucking the keys out from amongst the clutter of sun cream, books, lip balm and hair bobbles.

‘Evian?’ Frankie croaked hopefully, taking off her sunhat and fanning herself with it. Her outfit had survived the journey surprisingly well; her long linen sundress had a certain safari chic to it and her trusty sunhat had done a decent job of keeping the worst of the heat away from her skin. She was one of those gamine girls who could carry off a pixie cut, all long limbs and pale freckled skin. Her mother always liked to claim they had French heritage, and every now and then when he’d had a few drinks Gavin had called her his Audrey Hepburn. It was one of the nicest things he’d ever said.

Winnie hauled herself up and then stretched out her hands to pull the others up.

‘Come on. Let’s all go in together for the first time.’

Stella brushed sand from the bum of her shorts. ‘I’m not carrying either of you over the threshold.’

‘Too right,’ Winnie snorted. ‘I tried that once with Rory and I think it jinxed us from the beginning.’

‘Gavin tried it too. I was seven months pregnant at the time and he put his back out for the first month of our marriage.’