Never Too Late (60 page)

loved gouging the middle out of.

‘God, it’s hot!’ said Cara, as they walked in happy silence

up the hill to the villa.

A white sports car flew past them, raising dust into the

air, and the driver honked his horn at the trio. They

laughed delightedly and Rosie made faces. In bikinis and

sarongs, Rosie wearing only the briefest of denim cutoffs

over her bikini, they must have looked like typical tourists,

Evie thought, wondering where the uptight woman of five

days ago had disappeared to.

‘All we do is laugh.’ Rosie said, happily tired from the

effort.

‘Yeah,’ Cara agreed, looping one arm around her sister’s

and the other around Rosie’s. ‘Isn’t it great?’

It was, Evie thought to herself! She felt very relaxed and

confident enough to be walking up a hill in broad daylight,

wearing nothing but a white shirt knotted around her

waist and one of Olivia’s dusky pink sarongs covering her

aquamarine bikini.

Her hair was in a tousled ponytail, her feet were dusty

from the road and her make-up consisted of a smear of

pinky white lip salve to protect her from the sun. Yet she

felt positively gorgeous and if Max roared up beside her

and asked her to hop in and go anywhere, she’d go. She

wouldn’t need to fuss about her hair, her mascara or

whether she looked like a mess in a hastily tied scrap of

flowing chiffon. Was this the effect a holiday was supposed

to have? Or was this the effect Max had on her?

Evie smiled to herself as they ambled along, happy in her

dream world.

‘Evie, let’s go out to dinner tonight. You’re tired after a day at work. I want to take you somewhere romantic,’ Max smiled

at her.

How did he know, she wondered lovingly, that she was

exhausted and couldn’t cope with the idea of cooking? I le just did. That was Max. He seemed to know her every thought,

her every feeling.

Who else would run a bubble-filled bath on that evening

when she had agonising period pains? Who else would pull

her on to the couch beside him and stroke her knotted up belly, telling her he’d ordered in pizza, which he then fed to her as if she was an invalid.

Who else would whisk the dry cleaning off when he left for

work in the morning, knowing she wanted to spend her lunch

hour at her desk instead of hurtling to the cleaner’s in the

traffic? Who else would surprise her with breakfast in bed and

a perfect pink rose in a new vase on the anniversary of the day they first met?

‘I’d love to go out to dinner,’ Evie replied, hugging her

husband, wondering at her good fortune in having found this

incredible man. ‘After the day I’ve had, I didn’t think I could bear to cook anything other than beans on toast.’

Max buried his face in her hair, breathing in the scent of her

and making that little growling noise of pleasure she loved to

hear. “I know, love, and if I could cook, I would, but you know how dreadful I am in the kitchen so it’s easier to go out. Can’t have my pet slaving over a hot cooker all night. Unless you

want spaghetti again …’

It was strange, Evie thought as Cara let them in the

huge gates at Villa Lucia, her dreams were different

now: less fantasy, more real. Real but with Max in them.

Max, Max and more Max. The swarthy pirates and

Germanic princes who whisked her away to their yachts

had been replaced by a laughing face with probing,

knowing blue eyes, and a smile that could light your

heart up. All her heroes had turned into Max Stewart

and the yachts and luxury hotels had been replaced by

her cosy little home where she, Max and Rosie lived in

utter bliss. She didn’t need to dream of fairy-talc waltzes

in glamorous evening gowns when she could be dreaming

of watching TV on her old couch, snuggled up

beside Max, his arms around her.

Vida was busy unloading the dishwasher and singing Ella

Fitzgerald in a husky voice when they wandered into the

kitchen with their purchases. Rosie began pouring them all

glasses of mineral water, adding ice and lemon the way

they never bothered to at home.

‘Girls,’ Vida cried, her face suffused with love, ‘I had

totally forgotten. Evie, you’ll murder me.’

She sank on to a kitchen chair and fanned herself with a

table mat picturing a crimson-clad flamenco dancer. They

were so pretty; she’d planned to buy some before she went

home. Vida had spotted ones like them in a little shop in

the port. ‘What will I never forgive you for?’ she asked.

‘Your hen night, of course,’ Vida replied, ‘I’m so sorry

but it just slipped my mind. Tonight’s the night, girls.’ She

beamed at all three of them.

‘Yahoo, a girls’ night on the tiles!’ Rosie said joyfully.

‘Cool,’ Cara agreed. ‘I could go for that. We’ll have to

leave Max and Dad here. They can go to that Milady’s

Palace and eye up the cocktail waitresses.’

Tonight then?’ Vida continued.

‘Gosh, yes,’ Evie answered in a small voice. ‘My last

night of freedom. I think I should buy something new

for it.’

‘Shopping!’ said Rosie with glee. ‘Even better. I’ll get

dressed.’

Rifling through the rails of lavish clothes in a tiny boutique

in the port, Evie realised that she and Vida had totally

different methods of shopping. While Evie looked at the

price of everything before picking it out to admire in

greater detail, Vida scrutinised it, tried it on, saw if she

liked it or not and then glanced at the price.

Evie had already recoiled at the exorbitant cost of a

glittery little T-shirt and was now merely fingering the

clothes for something to do, on the grounds that she

wouldn’t be able to afford to buy so much as a keyring in

this particular establishment. Cara and Rosie were

mooching around the bikini shop next door. The only

people in the boutique were Evie and Vida, who had the

obvious bloom of wealth about her. The sales assistant was

hovering hopefully, having spotted a potential gold card

customer straight away.

‘Evie, just look,’ breathed Vida, extracting a coppery

cocktail dress from the rack. With a low-cut back and a

crossover front with built-in bra, it was that rare combination of daringly sex and classy all at the same time. ‘You’ve

got to try it on.’

Evie caught sight of the price tag swinging from a silken

cord and gasped.

‘Are you mad?’ she said. ‘That’s about a month’s mortgage,

Vida. I haven’t got the Sultan of Brunei’s cheque

book with me, you know.’

‘Oh, tish,’ Vida said, thrusting the dress into Evie’s

hands. ‘Try it on. I want to buy you a hen night present.

This could be it. Go on.’ She shooed Evie into the

changing room and went back to rifling through the rails.

Evie was still standing in the room staring aghast at the

beautiful copper dress When the tiny door opened and

Vida thrust another couple of hangers in. ‘Try these too.’

They were just as prohibitively expensive as the first

dress. Evie shrugged. Vida was off her rocker, for sure.

There was no way she could afford the dresses herself and

equally no way she would let anyone else buy them for

her. But she pulled off her cream canvas trousers and her

vest top anyway. It wouldn’t hurt to try them on, they

were so beautiful.

Once she’d slipped on the copper dress and saw how

beautifully it became her, she was lost. Gazing at her

transformed reflection in the mirror, Evie imagined how

Max would see her, how his eyes would widen at the sight

of her body so voluptuous outlined in the luxurious fabric,

how her breasts were enticingly exposed in the underwired

bodice. Visions of him gasping at her, holding her close,

kissing her neck and unzipping the dress filled her mind.

He couldn’t but fall in love with her in this. The desire to

possess the dress fought hard with the knowledge that she

couldn’t possibly afford it in a month of Sundays.

‘Have you got it on?’ Vida’s voice inquired.

Evie stepped out of the changing room and slowly

walked in front of her.

oh;

Vida’s intake of breath told her all she needed to know.

She did look beautiful in the dress. Max would love it.

‘That colour is stunning, I just adore it,’ Vida said, lost in

admiration. ‘Why don’t you ever wear things like that, Evie

honey? You look just great.’

‘I don’t know,’ she said dazedly, admiring herself from

different angles in a big mirror. ‘I never think of wearing

colours like this and I can’t afford clothes that cost this

much.’

‘Nonsense,’ Vida said briskly. ‘I’ll buy it. You’ve got to

have it.’

The assistant, scenting a sale, materialised beside them

with high shoes and a costume jewellery pendant that hung tantalisingly in Evie’s creamy cleavage like an arrow pointing the way for interested parties.

‘No jewellery,’ Vida said, arms folded as she eyed the

combination critically. ‘It’s better to keep it simple. Now,’

she added, ‘try the others.’

The cream linen dress, so icily chic on the hanger, looked

like an old flour sack on Evie and she didn’t even bother

stepping out of the changing room to show Vida. But the

off-the-shoulder violet knit two-piece that clung to her in

silken folds and turned her hazel eyes a hypnotic green was

stunning.

‘It’s lovely,’ she said, almost weeping at the thought of

how much she’d love to buy it. ‘But I can’t let you buy

them both, Vida, it wouldn’t be right.’

In the end, Vida insisted so much and went on and on

about how Evie was the daughter she’d never had, that she

allowed her stepmother to pay for the two outfits. Cara

and Rosie were waiting outside, eating ice creams and

watching the world go by when Vida emerged, flushed

with pleasure at having finally managed to spoil Evie. She,

on the other hand, was flushed with guilt at the thought of

how much Vida had spent.

‘My second husband,’ Vida had whispered as the assistant

reverently wrapped the copper and violet garments in

tissue paper, ‘did not turn out to be a very nice man. Not

like Max’s dear father, Carlos,’ she said sadly. ‘But Dan

Andersen was rich. Very rich,’ she emphasised. ‘It’s nice to

have a daughter to spend it on … well, a stepdaughter,’

she added quickly.

‘What did you buy?’ Rosie asked, poking around the

glossy carrier bag like a dog snuffling for food in the

grocery shopping.

‘Lovely things,’ Vida replied, tucking her arm through

Rosie’s. ‘Now what can we get for you, my girl?’

Dinner and drinks in a lively club in the port: that was

Vida’s plan for Evie’s hen night.

‘I’ve told the boys they’ll have to do without us for the

evening,’ she said, arriving in Evie’s room at half-seven that

evening to find Evie dressed in her copper dress.

‘Is Max back?’ she asked anxiously, slipping her feet into

high black sandals. She wanted to see him, tell him that

the hen night hadn’t been her idea, that she didn’t even

want to think for one moment about her wedding.

‘He got back twenty minutes ago but he and your

father have gone out on their boys’ night. Lord knows

where they’ll end up. Some bordello!’ Vida smiled

affectionately, knowing full well that her beloved and

besotted husband was as likely to end up in a bordello as

she was.

I missed him, thought Evie, deflated. She’d never had

the chance to explain and now he hadn’t even seen her in

her lovely new dress. She threw her mascara back into the

top drawer. What was the point of bothering now?

Dinner was a lively, wine-sodden affair that she’d have

loved if the circumstances were different. Cara, Rosie and

Vida were all in fantastic form, determined that Evie

should enjoy herself. Making a huge effort, she laughed at

everyone’s jokes and pretended she was having the time of

her life. Inside, her heart was breaking.

Watching the others’ faces recede in a blur around her,

she thought that this was the end of her idyll. Tonight was

the final proof that in just five weeks she was getting

married. To Simon. Dear sweet Simon who’d once felt like

the answer to all her prayers and now felt like a millstone

around her neck, dragging her down to the bottom of the

pond with him when she wanted to be swimming lazily on

the surface with Max.

She twisted the engagement ring on her hand idly. It was

looser now because she’d lost weight, despite the meals

out every evening. Her appetite was non-existent. On her

plate, some roasted peppers congealed in their spicy olive

oil dressing, barely touched. Normally, she’d have wolfed

them down. She loved roasted peppers.

Tell me about the honeymoon,’ Vida said cosily,

delighted to be so close to Evie after all this time.

She smiled bravely. The last thing she wanted to talk

about was her honeymoon, two solid weeks of being with

Max in Greece … She breathed in sharply. Max. She’d

automatically thought of him instead of Simon. Talk about