Page 56 of A Taste of Paradise

Then there was the waterfall, right above the pool itself; a design feature that seemed utterly authentic with its slate rock formations and planting that it looked to all the world like a secret hideaway in Hawaii or some other half-discovered place.

The crystal-clear water was especially enticing in this afternoon’s heat, and Naomi wished they’d had the foresight to wear swim togs beneath their clothes before heading out earlier. Reaching the boardwalk across the sand, the two continued along the decked pathway to their wing, until Naomi thought of something.

‘Oh, we were going to ask about spa reservations …’ she reminded Sam, turning again toward the main building.

But Sam was in no mood to go traipsing back through the grounds in the afternoon heat. ‘Call them when we get back to the room. I need to shower and cool down.’

‘You go on ahead then, it’ll only take a sec.’ Naomi figured that once she got back to the room and to Greg, she’d forget about it altogether and, besides, she wanted to check the spa menu for the various options. ‘A massage for you, OK?’

‘Perfect.’ Sam was so hot and sweaty Naomi figured her friend couldn’t care less what they did as long as she didn’t have to help organise it, so she was happy to take one for the team.

Reaching the welcome cool of the shaded and airy lobby area but finding the concierge desk vacant, she approached reception to enquire there instead, idly keeping an eye out for that nice guest relations manager from yesterday. She didn’t want Erin to think she was looking for special treatment of any kind.

‘Hello there, would you have a brochure for the spa?’ she asked the receptionist, who, according to her tag, was called Makellah. ‘I was hoping to book in some treatments for me and my friend tomorrow.’

‘Of course.’ The younger girl handed Naomi the relevant literature. ‘Just pick an option and time that works best and I can make the reservation for you. Your room number?’

Naomi rattled off the info while idly reading the brochure and settled on an evocative-sounding rainforest massage for Sam and a simpler mud bath for her.

Heaven.

Makellah duly made the arrangements and, as Naomi thanked her and was about to leave, the younger girl put a finger in the air. ‘Oh! I knew your suite number rang a bell. Your husband left something behind in the Azure restaurant earlier.’

‘Oh, he’s not actually my …’

‘Or it could have belonged to his lunch companion, the waiter wasn’t sure. Hold on, I’ll get it.’

Lunch companion? Naomi’s eyes widened. As far as she was aware, or according to what he’d told her, Greg was spending the day working.

While she didn’t necessarily expect he’d be holed up in the room all day and had ordered lunch in-room most days rather than ‘waste time’ going to the restaurant, it seemed he’d gone to the bother today.

And apparently had a companion too.

What the heck? Naomi didn’t know why she felt immediately so suspicious – the other person could well be her parents or one of her sisters even? Though Makellah had said ‘companion’ singular and given the fact that her parents were mostly joined at the hip, and neither of her sisters even liked Greg, this seemed odd too.

The receptionist returned and saying, ‘Here you go,’ handed Naomi what looked like some kind of document holder, and she breathed an inward sigh of relief. Glancing inside she saw it was indeed something business-related; lots of numbers, lists, and financial jargon that Naomi hadn’t the foggiest about, but was entirely Greg’s bag.

Still, who on earth could her boyfriend have been meeting for a business lunch here in St Lucia – at a resort hotel filled primarily with holidaymakers and honeymooners?

And more importantly, why hadn’t he mentioned it?

Chapter 38

Things were looking up.

Once she was certain that the space was unoccupied and there was no danger of her being disturbed, Erin was finally able to sneak Molly into her mother’s usual room to locate Eugenie’s safety deposit box key.

She decided to leave the woman to it, conscious that being in the space would surely evoke some level of bittersweet emotion for her, given all the happy times her mother would’ve spent there. Erin really hoped Molly would be able to figure out the hiding place and leave with minimum disruption, as she didn’t want to raise any suspicion about how a room with no occupants had become messed up again.

In the meantime, and following her interaction with Naomi Sparks, she’d done a little digging around the records to figure out exactly how much money the hotel was spending on influencer marketing, and more importantly, the corresponding return.

And what she found was eye-opening.

‘When is that big proposal happening?’ she asked Lily over the phone later, before her colleague left for the day.

‘Proposal? Oh, you mean the influencer one we talked about last week? That’s been cancelled actually,’ Lily informed her.

‘Cancelled? How come?’