The Bed and Breakfast on the Beach: A gorgeous feel-good read from the bestselling author of One Day in December. Kat French
‘And you will all stay here? You won’t just come for a few weeks and then run back home?’
Winnie nodded, Frankie smiled diplomatically and Stella sighed into her glass without comment.
Panos didn’t miss any of their reactions. ‘You will stay. Skelidos does that to people.’
‘Like Jesse?’ Winnie said suddenly, faltering when Panos’s eyebrows lifted. ‘We met him already. He … he looked after our donkey for a while.’
‘Jesse came for a summer too.’ Panos poured himself a beer. ‘But for him it was different. He was …’ Breaking off, Panos’s face relaxed into a wide smile as a woman came into the bar with a clatter of high heels and a cloud of dark curls bouncing on her shoulders.
‘So this is the new blood everyone is telling me about!’
‘Corinna,’ Panos said warmly. ‘Word travels fast as usual, I see.’
Winnie thought she detected the hint of an American accent behind the woman’s tone. Older than they were, forties at a guess, Corinna was one of the most naturally glamorous women Winnie had ever met. She could pass as Sophia Loren’s daughter, all dark eyes, lush lips and legs that went all the way up to her backside. It would have been easy to be intimidated were it not for her warm smile and the way she made a beeline to gather each of them in turn into an excitable, expensively perfumed hug.
‘Tell me, what are three gorgeous young women like you girls doing on a sleepy island like this? Are you criminals hiding from the mob?’ Her eyes glittered with humour. ‘Please say you are!’
As she spoke Panos poured her a drink and slid it over the bar to her.
‘Nothing quite that glamorous, I’m afraid,’ Frankie said. ‘It was just a good time for a change for all of us, for different reasons.’
Good-natured curiosity filled Corinna’s eyes. ‘Would it be too rude to ask what they were?’ she asked, and Panos immediately jumped in.
‘Absolutely, yes, it would indeed be very rude,’ he chided, shaking his head at them to let them off the hook.
‘I left my husband because we didn’t love each other any more,’ Frankie said suddenly, then took a huge gulp of her drink. ‘I’ve come here for an adventure.’
Some people might have felt uncomfortable at such a candid revelation from a stranger, but not Corinna. She clapped her hands, her gold bracelets jangling on her wrists. ‘Bravo for you, my darling! A marriage without love is a dead dodo!’
Stella nodded, a little morose. ‘And I got fired from my job. I came here because I don’t know what else to do.’
‘Ah, now that is interesting,’ Corinna said, looking intently at Stella. ‘Because you look to me like a woman who always knows what she should do. I think you’re here because you know that this is exactly where you need to be.’
In front of Winnie’s eyes, Stella’s shoulders straightened a little, as if Corinna had applied soothing balm to her injured pride. Winnie decided that she really quite liked Corinna. Emboldened, she threw her hat into the ring.
‘My husband was having an affair with the girl in the work canteen, even though we were trying for a baby and he claimed to be perfectly happy.’
The words left her in a rush, because they stung less if she said them quickly. Left to linger in her mouth they grew thorns and cut into her, leaving her raw and sore for days. Hence the fact that she hadn’t told anyone new her sorry story – not until now, anyhow. Surprisingly though, this time she found herself unscathed, and on closer reflection she might even feel slightly liberated from the long shadow Rory’s infidelity had cast over her.
Behind her, Panos clicked his tongue in disgust and poured an extra shot of gin into her glass.
‘Now, that is an unfortunate situation.’ Corinna shook her head. ‘But my darling, how much worse would it have been if you’d had a child before you realised that he was a feckless fool?’
Winnie nodded, downhearted. She’d thought the same herself, although she sometimes wondered if she’d pressured him too much about getting pregnant and that had been the reason for his affair. But what would that say about him if so? If the effort of supporting her was too much hard work to bother?
‘Pah. I expect he was a man with a little …’ Corinna crooked her little finger and winked, making them all laugh despite the gravity of Winnie’s marital woes. ‘And so now you’re all three footloose, fancy-free and ready for adventure. How delicious!’ Corinna rubbed her hands together and then turned to Panos, sparkly-eyed with mischief. ‘Panos here is one of our most eligible bachelors,’ she said. ‘He has the best bar on the island, and who wouldn’t fall in love with that face?’
Right now, that face had turned puce with embarrassment.
‘Corinna,’ he muttered, slamming clean glasses away onto the shelf above his head.
‘And there I was thinking I was the most eligible bachelor on the island,’ someone else said, and they all turned to see Jesse had strolled into the bar. Dressed in faded, frayed denim shorts and a lived-in T-shirt, he looked every inch the relaxed holidaymaker rather than the fiery, ill-tempered farmer who’d banged on their door earlier.
If possible, Corinna lit up even more, shimmying her way through the tables to pull Jesse into a hug. If there was one thing this woman did freely, it was hug, Winnie thought. Jesse seemed to take it well, and Frankie and Stella couldn’t have looked more surprised if Santa Claus had walked in and ordered a beer. They’d only met Jesse the grouch, and this was a completely different man.
‘Ladies,’ Corinna said, linking arms with Jesse to lead him across to them. ‘This is Jesse Anderson, Skelidos’s secret celebrity!’
Jesse rolled his eyes. ‘Hardly.’
‘Celebrity?’ Stella asked.
Corinna nodded, drawing Panos into the conversation. ‘Sculptor to the stars, am I not right, Panos?’ Placing her perfectly manicured hands on Stella and Frankie’s knees, she elaborated on several of Jesse’s better-known clients and what he’d been asked to make for them.
‘How long had you been there?’ Winnie asked quietly as Jesse came to stand beside her stool.
‘Long enough to hear that you left your husband because he had a needledick.’ Jesse took off his sunglasses and hooked them into the neck of his T-shirt.
Any attempt Winnie might have made to correct Jesse’s interpretation of her marital discord was cut short by Corinna.
‘Jesse, wasn’t it Jennifer Aniston you sculpted in the nude?’
‘You know perfectly well that it wasn’t,’ Jesse said, nodding when Panos offered him a beer. ‘And you also know perfectly well that most of my work is private, and usually of very little interest to anyone but the person who has commissioned it.’
Corinna pouted prettily, as if he’d spoiled her game.
‘He’s always been secretive,’ she sighed. ‘Although I’m sure I spotted a bust of Barack Obama in his workshop once.’
Jesse just shook his head, and Winnie found herself wondering how close he was with Corinna to have allowed her access to his studio.
‘Winnie’s an artist,’ Stella said out of the blue, making Winnie’s cheeks burn as everyone turned to look her way.
‘I’m not, not really …’ She pulled her drink towards her and took a good glug, then struggled not to splutter because the extra gin Panos had added had made it strong enough to strip paint.
‘She makes the most beautiful jewellery,’ Frankie said, holding her wrist out to show off the bracelet Winnie had given her for her birthday a couple of years ago. Strands of twisted silver and gold wound around