An Escape to Remember: The perfect feel-good romance (Love from Italy Book 2) Read online

  An Escape to Remember

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Also by T.A. Williams

  Copyright

  Cover

  Table of Contents

  Start of Content

  To Mariangela and Christina with love

  Chapter 1

  Louise decided to make her return to the UK a surprise for Tommy. She hadn’t seen him for ten whole weeks and she was dying to get back to him. Although she had told him she would be home on Saturday, she used some of her air miles to jump on a flight leaving Antigua on Friday morning which got her into Heathrow airport at half past seven that evening. Less than two hours later she was already back at the flat they shared in south-west London feeling a bit weary but excited at the prospect of seeing him again after months apart. He normally played squash on Friday evenings and generally arrived home around ten so her plan was to take a shower, put the bottle of champagne she had bought at the duty-free shop on ice, dim the lights and surprise him. In the lift on the way up to the third floor she was even toying with the idea of maybe digging out the rather saucy underwear she had bought for Valentine’s Day last year. She turned the key in the lock with a rising sense of excitement.

  Dumping her heavy suitcase in the hall she saw that the light was on in the bedroom. When she had spoken to him on the phone the previous night he had sounded fit and well and she hoped he hadn’t caught a bug. It was certainly unlike him to be in bed so early. Pushing the bedroom door open, she did indeed find him in bed.

  However, it was immediately evident that he wasn’t alone.

  Alongside him, partly covered by the duvet – Louise’s own favourite duvet, she noted in a daze – was an attractive dark-haired girl and neither of them was wearing a stitch of clothing.

  ‘Tommy!’ Louise’s hand flew to her mouth as she croaked his name. It sounded like somebody else’s voice.

  He leapt out of the bed in disarray while the girl burrowed deep under the duvet and covered her head with the pillow. Louise just stood there blankly, idly noticing the clothes strewn across the floor and the ice bucket by the bed with an upturned empty champagne bottle in it. It was an indelible image that would return to haunt her time and time again for weeks to come.

  ‘Louise, I didn’t think you were coming back till tomorrow…’ He was standing by the side of the bed, cupping his hands over his nakedness, his face as red as the discarded bra lying on the floor by his feet.

  Afterwards, all sorts of possible retorts came to her, ranging from an explosion of invective and rage followed by a hail of missiles to more measured comments like, ‘Maybe you think I should have knocked,’ or ‘Don’t let me interrupt you.’ As it was, words completely failed her and she just turned on her heels and headed back out of the bedroom door again, not even bothering to slam it behind her. Grabbing hold of her suitcase, she tugged it out onto the landing, relieved to find the lift still on this floor. She pressed the ground floor button and barely heard the door hiss shut behind her as she was still reeling at what she had just witnessed and struggling to come to terms with it.

  Back outside in the damp night air she stood in the shadows and breathed deeply. Her eyes were stinging but she steadfastly refused to let the tears run. In the space of a few seconds her whole life had been turned upside down. Tommy had been the man with whom she had been planning to spend the rest of her life but now those dreams were in tatters. Her head was spinning as she tried to make sense of what had happened – her thoughts a swirling mix of anger, disappointment, sadness and bewilderment. How could he…?

  A grey-haired lady with a poodle on a lead came walking towards her, caught sight of the expression on her face and slowed down as she approached.

  ‘Are you all right, dear?’

  With a Herculean effort, Louise took another big breath and tried to sound normal. ‘I’m fine, thanks. Just thinking…’

  ‘Well, if you’re sure.’

  ‘It’s okay, thanks.’

  But of course it wasn’t.

  She called a cab and phoned her mum from the back seat. As the taxi headed north across the Thames she gave her mother a brief account of what had just happened, mildly surprised to manage it without bursting into tears. Her mother was understandably outraged.

  ‘How could he do something like that? And your father and I thought that things were serious between the two of you.’

  ‘So did I, mum, but clearly Tommy didn’t.’ Her voice almost cracked but she held firm.

  The half hour ride passed in a blur and as she paid the driver outside her parents’ house he caught her eye. ‘It’s no business of mine, but for my money you’re better off without him.’

  She even managed a glimmer of a smile in return although all she could feel was emptiness deep inside. ‘I think you’re right. Thanks.’

  A minute later she was sitting on the sofa with a mug of hot chocolate, stroking Mog the cat with her free hand while doing her best to describe to her sympathetic parents how she felt. It wasn’t easy.

  Finally, at well past midnight she went to bed, but spent much of the night wide awake, eyes staring sightlessly into the dark, wondering where it had all gone wrong. Was she the problem? Had she not been loving enough or considerate enough or understanding enough? Of course it was likely, maybe even very likely, that her job had been part of the problem. She had been away so much he had got bored and had found himself a new plaything. Not that this could justify his infidelity, she reminded herself. She had missed him too, but she would never have dreamt of hooking up with some random man. No, whatever contributing factors there might have been from her side, the blame here lay squarely on Tommy’s shoulders.

  When she woke up next morning and turned her phone back on – she had deliberately switched it off last night – she found she had a dozen unanswered calls and a stream of messages from Tommy. After taking a long, cleansing shower, she sat in the kitchen with a mug of tea and read her way through them. They all ran along similar lines. He was sorry. It had been an awful thing to do. He hadn’t meant to hurt her and he hoped she would let him explain and forgive him.

  This was something else she had been turning over and over in her head overnight and the answer was now quite clear and irreversible: Tommy and she were history. There was no way she would ever be able to trust him again after what had happened. She talked it through with her mum who backed her to the hilt. What he had done had been beyond the pale. She would be far better off without him.

  She sat there and composed a text message to him. She didn’t waste words.

/>   We’re finished, Tommy, forever. We both know I’ll never be able to trust you again. I’ll come over with dad and Ben this afternoon to pick up my stuff. I don’t want to see you. Please go somewhere, anywhere, but stay away. We’ll be there at two and out by five. Don’t try to contact me. I never want to see you or hear from you again.

  At two o’clock she and her brother, Ben, drove over to the flat, closely followed by her father in his car, and she was relieved to find the place empty. Ben, on the other hand, looked positively disappointed. When he had heard what had happened, he had gone ballistic, and Louise was glad there wasn’t going to be a confrontation. Wisely, Tommy had obeyed her instructions to vacate the flat. Although her stuff almost completely filled both cars, including the roof racks, they were able to remove everything by half past four. It was only when she stood at the door, looking back into the now half-empty rooms, that she felt the tears massing in the corners of her eyes. She had refused to let herself cry so much as a drop so far but now it finally hit her and the tears came coursing down her cheeks. It was all over. There was to be no engagement, no wedding, no happily ever after. Tommy was out of her life. She barely felt her father stretch a comforting arm around her shoulder and steer her out of the apartment. The last thing she did was to drop her keys back through the letterbox.

  She knew she wouldn’t need them again.

  Chapter 2

  She spent the weekend at home with her mum and dad. It was nice to catch up and feel their support, but deep down inside she was conscious of a cold, empty void. She had come home to London full of hope for the future and this was the way Tommy had welcomed her. Gradually she began to remember a number of times over the past six months or so when he had sounded distant, when he had stayed out for unspecified events, or nights out with ‘people from work’. At the time she hadn’t given it a second thought but it was now all too clear that even if he hadn’t been cheating on her back then, the signs had been there and she had failed to read them.

  On Sunday morning she got a phone call from her boss. Getting calls from him at odd times and on odd days was quite normal. He didn’t do it to be awkward; the thing was that he worked even harder than she did and the days all just somehow melded into one as far as he was concerned.

  ‘Hi, Louise, did you have a good flight?’

  ‘Joseph, hi. Yes, all good, thanks.’ He didn’t need to hear about her private life. That was her affair, not his. She did her best to sound upbeat. ‘All well with you?’

  ‘Fine, thanks. And what about over in Antigua? From your reports it looks as though you got it all sorted.’

  ‘I’m confident we’ve made the right changes. The new manager’s on the case and everything’s been running smoothly again. No more complaints for almost a month.’ She had been sent over to the Caribbean immediately after Christmas to put the failing hotel back on its feet. It hadn’t been easy, but she had managed.

  ‘Great job, Louise. Well done. Annabelle came back most enthusiastic about everything.’

  ‘That’s good to hear.’

  Louise was relieved, although not that surprised. Annabelle, the company’s very bright Head of Operations and unofficial Inspector General with a lynx-like eye for the smallest detail, had visited the hotel two weeks earlier and had told Louise before leaving that she had been impressed with the changes and the results. Presumably she had handed in a positive report, since praise from Joseph was a rarity – not because he was ungrateful or unappreciative, but because he normally had other things on his mind. It rapidly emerged that today was no exception as he continued, ‘Great. Now listen, you speak Italian, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, pretty well, although it’s probably a bit rusty. I spent a year over there when I was doing my degree, and that was a while back.’

  ‘Excellent. I need you to go to Italy. I’ve just signed off on a deal to purchase a hotel in the hills of north-west Italy, just below the Alps. Do you know that part of the country?’

  ‘Fairly well. I was at the university in Turin. That’s close to the Alps. Is the hotel anywhere near there?’

  ‘It’s in the Monferrato, if that means anything to you.’

  ‘I think I know where you mean. I’m pretty sure it’s not far from Turin. I can remember people saying it’s a lovely area, but I never got out there. Winemaking country, I believe. Tell me about the hotel. What’s it like?’

  ‘Picturesque, quirky, it’s been operating for well over a hundred years. The place has a lot of potential, or so Massimo reckons.’

  Louise gave a non-committal murmur. She didn’t much like his use of the word ‘quirky’, and as for ‘potential’, in her experience this all too often meant needing head-to-toe renovation. Massimo Milanese was one of Joseph’s contacts in the European real estate business and, although he had come up with a handful of real gems over the years, he had also produced one or two which had cost a fortune to revamp.

  ‘And you want me to go over there and take a look?’

  ‘More than that, Louise; I want you to go and make it hum. It’s barely ticking over at present. I was only there for lunch and a quick look around, but I could see it needs a good bit of work. Do what you’ve been doing in Antigua. I want you to get the place back on its feet. Go through it from head to toe. Make any changes you think fit to the property itself, the facilities, the management and staff at all levels. Get rid of any dead wood and turn it into one of the best luxury hotels in Italy. If possible I’d like it to be firing on all cylinders by the beginning of July.’

  That was little more than three months away so, depending on the state of the place, that sounded like a big ask. Still, she had always loved a challenge and the chance to spend some time back in Italy wasn’t to be sneezed at and, of course, there was no longer the problem of abandoning Tommy to consider if she disappeared off again so soon after getting back home.

  ‘You know I’ll do my best. How big is it?’

  ‘It has sixty guest bedrooms and grounds of twenty-five hectares. That should give you something to work with.’

  ‘Sounds good. And what’s the name of the hotel?’

  ‘The Grand Hotel del Monferrato.’

  ‘And is it really grand?’

  ‘A hundred years ago it certainly was. Nowadays I think it’s fair to say that it’s a bit tired, a bit neglected. Your job is to get it back up there again.’

  Louise felt a little surge of excitement. She loved being able to put her own stamp on a project. ‘I’ll try my hardest.’

  ‘I know you will, Louise. Good luck.’

  At lunchtime she and Ben went to the King’s Arms for a drink and she met up with her best friend, Viv, and her husband, Rick. After telling them what had happened in the Caribbean and the fact that she would be heading off to Italy in a little over a week, she decided to tell them about the events of Friday night. She and Viv had known each other since school and Louise was able to talk freely and openly to her about the abrupt ending to her relationship with Tommy. Predictably, Viv was supportive.

  ‘The cheating rat! I have to say I’m amazed, though. I never would have thought that of Tommy.’

  This was exactly what Louise herself had been thinking. How could she have misjudged him so seriously? ‘I know, right? Of course I’ve been away a lot…’

  ‘So what? That’s no excuse. If he was feeling left out he should have spoken up. He should not, repeat not, have leapt into bed with another woman.’ There was no doubt where Viv felt the blame lay.

  ‘You’re right. There’s no excuse. My job maybe didn’t help but I can’t blame it for him deciding to cheat.’

  She loved her job as company troubleshooter for the luxury hotel chain, but it certainly had kept her almost permanently on the go – and away from Tommy. On the flight home from the Caribbean she had been thinking that the time to sit down with him and plan out the rest of their lives together had come. She had even decided to talk to Joseph to see if there might be a position in the company that wo
uld allow her to spend more time with Tommy but now, of course, there was no need for that. Tommy and his dark-haired bedfellow had seen to that.

  He had been her boyfriend for over five years and they had moved in together almost exactly two years ago, although she had probably been away for at least half of that. She had loved him, of course she had, but she also loved her job. The fact that it had kept her away from him so much must have been tough on him and, while not an excuse for his behaviour, it was an explanation. But she didn’t have time for further reflection as Viv did her best to look on the bright side.

  ‘Well, you’re definitely better off without him.’

  ‘That’s what the taxi driver said.’

  Viv grinned. ‘London cabbies know everything. And, of course, this means you’re now free to find yourself a new man. Surely there must be some hunky Italian guy over where you’re going. Some of those tall, dark, handsome Italian men – you know, with their shirts open to the waist exposing a suntanned chest – are just plain gorgeous…’ Her voice tailed off into a dreamy sigh which even caught her husband’s attention. Up till then he and Ben had been scrupulously keeping out of the conversation.

  ‘Wishing you’d chosen a hunky Italian instead of me, are you, Viv?’ Rick adopted a mock-pleading tone and an attempt at a pretend Italian accent. ‘Please donna dump me. I takea Italian lessons, icea cream-making lessons, pizza…’

  Viv reached out a reassuring hand and caught hold of his. ‘You’re fine as you are, Ricky… Mind you, a regular supply of homemade ice cream and pizza would be a bonus.’

  While the two of them carried on with their banter, Louise sipped her cider and allowed herself to think of moving on, but she knew the spectre of Tommy would haunt her for a long time to come. How could she have got it so wrong? At least her upcoming trip to rural Italy sounded as though it would provide a place to escape from the memory of Tommy and his woman.

  ‘So, are there going to be any hunky men over at the Grand Hotel? I bet there will be.’ By now Viv had finished fantasising about Latin lovers and an unlimited supply of homemade Italian food and she was back on Louise’s side.