Free The Last Resort by Charlotte Oliver Page B

quietly. “If you’re sure.” I could hear the unspoken question: Don’t you think it would be better to make a clean break?
    “I’m sure.”
    After some more snivelling and apologising, I rang off. I was ashamed—would I have called at all if I hadn’t had an ulterior motive? Probably not. But, either way, it was better that I had. The awful knot of anxiety in my stomach had loosened a bit more.
    At least now that was two people in the world that I knew still loved me: Sharon and my mother. Small victories.
    Mia remained on the ‘definitely still hates me’ list.
    ~
    “Can I have the four-egg omelette with bacon, sausage, Cheddar, onions, mushrooms and tomatoes please?”
    Sharon found us a chic beachside restaurant with a panoramic view. The waitress, a black-clad Jane Birkin lookalike with a waist circumference of no more than a handspan, appeared to be stifling a gag.
    “White toast please. And tea. Leave the bag in.”
    She nodded again, looking greenish. “For you, ma’am?” she asked.
    “Um. To drink I’ll have a mineral water.” I’d really cleaned up my eating habits recently. The last thing I needed was to continue my losing streak after last night’s sandwich. “Can I have the fruit salad, please? But without the banana. And can you ask them to leave off the fruit juice, if they usually put some on?”
    “No problem,” she said, brightening visibly.
    “Fruit salad?” said Sharon, once she’d gone.
    “What?” I said, taking my mobile out of my bag.
    She shook her head. “Never mind.”
    Camps Bay was sickeningly beautiful, of course, but I couldn’t find it within myself to care. If you want to know, it consists of a long, wide, white beach, edging a steep-sided green and gold cove. A rash of luxury mansions made its way from the ocean to halfway up the mountains—protected, for the time being, from the blazing sun that waited behind them. It was profoundly peaceful and empty. “That’s Lion’s Head, and that’s the other side of Table Mountain,” said Sharon, pointing up to a series of blunt-topped hills. “We’re climbing that tomorrow.”
    “Are we?” I said absently, looking at the mobile again.
    “So you’d better be having a heap of pasta for dinner Carbo-loading and all that.”
    I stared across the panorama of the bay. Ten or twelve families dotted the beach, and a few couples strode along the sand, arm-in-arm. I felt a barb of sadness squirm in my chest. What was I doing here? Why had I left? This wasn’t supposed to happen, I thought bitterly. I’m meant to be with my Prince Charming, living happily ever after.
    For the first halcyon weeks of being his wife, it was really as if we were made to be together. It felt like we were formed in the very same instant on opposite sides of the universe, fated to come together despite the earthly obstacles. During that time I never doubted the existence of God—the incredible speed with which things between us came together, despite the odds, constituted undeniable proof.
    I’d spent nearly my whole life dreaming of meeting someone like him. But as soon as I’d got what I wanted, I’d gone and sabotaged it all.
    “Right,” said Sharon as she drained the last bit of tea from the mug. The waitress had brought her a little china teacup and a pot, but she’d sent it back. “Put your bloody phone away and tell me about how you got yourself into this mess.”
    When she put the question that way, I knew where I had to start. It was with Jack calling me to the kitchen.

Chapter 9
    I walked down the corridor towards his voice. When I turned the corner, he was standing by the main counter with his back to me, still barefoot. (Maybe it was because my mother drummed it into me from toddlerhood, but I thought of bare feet, even on a lovely clean kitchen floor, as somehow uncivilised. For whatever reason, him being barefoot was just sexy.) He’d hung his damp hair towel over one of the kitchen stools.
    “I hope you like quail,”