Victoria Connelly - Wish You Were Here

‘That can’t be true.’

‘But it is! ’ Sabine said. ‘Dad sits around reading his boring books and Mum just sunbathes.’

‘I thought you were going to the museum?’

‘Oh, God! That was even more boring than sitting around the pool.’

Milo frowned. The little museum on Kethos might not be able to rival anything on the mainland but Milo was very proud of it and he objected to people who made fun of it. So it might only have two rooms but it housed a very interesting collection of coins and pottery.

‘Well, what do you want to do all day?’ he asked and then realised that he shouldn’t have.

‘I want to be with you,’ she said, her green eyes large and wide.

‘But I’m at work.’

‘There’s nobody around,’ she said, still running to keep up with him.

‘Sabine!’ he said sharply, stopping in the middle of the path so abruptly that she crashed into him. ‘Sorry.’

‘It’s all right,’ she said coyly, fluttering her obscenely long eyelashes at him and smiling prettily. She really was very attractive. She was tall for her age too and her figure was full and—

Milo stopped. She was sixteen years old and, although that might all be legal and above board, she was still a child. She might have the body of a woman but she behaved like a petulant teenager and he didn’t want to have anything to do with her. It was courting disaster.

‘Sabine,’ he tried again.

‘Yes?’ she said, tilting her head to one side and giving him her full attention.

‘You have to go.’

‘Oh, not yet!’

‘Yes, you do. I really have to get on with my work and you can’t come with me.’

She pouted at him. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘But say something in Greek first.’

‘What?’

‘Say something in Greek – anything! Go on!’

‘Sabine!’

‘Go on!’ she pleaded.

‘And then you’ll go?’

‘Yes,’ she promised with a nod.

Milo took a deep breath and told her – in Greek – that she was a spoilt young girl who should really know better and that he didn’t want her getting him into trouble.

‘Oh!’ she said once he’d finished. ‘That’s so romantic!’

He shook his head at her and then pointed towards the exit.

‘All right, I’m going,’ she said with a sigh. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’

‘Sabine – no! ’ But she’d trotted off and pretended not to hear him. It was Milo’s turn to sigh. Why, oh why, couldn’t he meet a nice normal girl?

One taxi, one plane, one boat and another taxi later, and Alice and Stella were finally holding the keys to their villa. The taxi had dropped them outside a large pair of iron gates and Alice looked at them in surprise.

‘Are you sure we’re at the right place?’ she asked Stella.

‘Joe obviously knew my taste,’ Stella said, acknowledging the splendour with a brief glance. ‘Come on, help me with my bags.’

Stella sauntered through the gates and Alice followed with the bags, smiling at the tree-lined driveway that led to the villa.

‘This is beautiful!’ she said, between short breaths as the luggage weighed her down. The villa was a dazzling white and its brilliant turquoise shutters couldn’t fail to make you smile. Well, they failed to make Stella smile – she was frowning down at her dress on which a large beetle had landed.

‘Ewww!’ she cried, flicking the offending creature off her. ‘What kind of a place is this?’

‘A foreign one,’ Alice dared to say, producing another key as they reached the enormous wooden front door. It opened with a long, low groan and the hallway that greeted them was large and echoey with a flagstoned floor which made everything feel wonderfully cool. Alice looked up at the lofty ceiling and then back down at the floor which could easily accommodate a grand ball. ‘This place is huge!’ she said with a whistle.

‘Yes, well Joe always knew I never settled for second best,’ Stella said, making her way to the sweeping staircase in order to choose the best bedroom for herself. ‘Bring my bags up,’ she said as an afterthought.

Alice stared at her, dumbfounded for a moment.

‘Oh, you know how much stronger you are than I am,’ Stella added with a tiny smile.

Alice rolled her eyes at the insincere flattery and then struggled up the stairs behind Stella, watching as she viewed all five of the bedrooms before picking the largest room for herself. It had an enormous four-poster bed draped with a white canopy, a gigantic en suite and a long balcony that overlooked the coast to the east of the property.

‘Just put my things there,’ Stella said, motioning to Alice whilst she flopped down on the immaculate white bed. ‘It’s probably best if you hang my dresses up before they’re creased out of all recognition.’

Alice glanced at her sister. Was she serious? Alice had half a mind to tell her where she could stick her dresses when Stella stopped her.

‘You know you do a much better job of it than I do,’ she said.

Once again, Alice caved in. It wouldn’t take her long and, if she didn’t keep Stella sweet, there’d be all sorts of hell to pay, she was quite sure of that.

‘I’m off to find a room for me now,’ Alice said a moment later, having hung up her sister’s clothes.

Stella groaned from the bed and swatted a hand in Alice’s direction as if dismissing her. Relieved that she could have some time to herself at last, Alice walked out onto the landing and looked around. There were two large double bedrooms either side of Stella’s and one small single at the end of the corridor. She headed to the single. Privacy, she thought, was more important than size.

Like Stella’s room, the colours were soft and muted: the bed was a vision of white, and pale blue curtains fluttered in the breeze when Alice opened the windows. She didn’t have a balcony but the room did have an unrivalled view down to the harbour at Kethos Town and Alice stood looking at it for a few moments, watching the boats bobbing about on the glassy, blue-green water.

‘Am I really here?’ she asked herself as she gazed at some distant mountains that rose and fell like the back of a sleeping beast. ‘Am I really on holiday?’ She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a proper holiday that involved going abroad. She hadn’t been able to afford more than a couple of weekends away over the last few years and they’d been a very modest hotel break in the Lake District where she’d been rained on for an entire weekend, and a couple of nights in a youth hostel in Derbyshire where she’d had to share a room with a party of fifteen hyper schoolgirls. Not exactly the stuff of envy-inducing postcards. But here she was and it was a wonderfully sunny April day and the cold, grey days of the English winter that had seemed to drag on forever were now far behind her.

She glanced around her room again and then decided to do a bit of exploring, gasping at the enormous bathroom with walk-through shower and roll-top bath and the window looking straight out to sea.

Descending the staircase, Alice found an enormous modern kitchen with gleaming black worktops, a dining room with a table that sat twelve people and a living room filled with enormous white sofas. There were also doors out onto a terrace and Alice’s eyes widened in wonder when she saw the swimming pool beyond them. It was a traditional rectangular shape with a mosaic of pale tiles around it. There were sun loungers, an umbrella, a scarlet hammock and a barbeque – everything the holidaymaker could possibly want. There was even a large table and chairs under the shade of a pretty pergola over which clambered a magenta bougainvillea, its flowers dazzlingly bright against the blue sky above.