Page 74 of A Taste of Paradise

Lily was thankful for it; the way the other woman was looking at her made her want to crawl into a hole and disappear. She wasn’t doing anything wrong, but the way Sarah’s gaze burned through her almost made her feel as if she’d been caught in bed with him or something.

‘Like I said in my message …’ Sarah stepped closer and her expression softened as she looked up at him, ‘I made a mistake,’ she said, and her voice cracked.

Lily’s gaze quickly shifted to Shay’s face to gauge his reaction but he didn’t flinch. Though now she knew what had upset him on the beach the other night. The text had obviously been from Sarah.

‘When you didn’t reply, I took the next flight out,’ she admitted. ‘I was afraid that maybe … actually, no, this is between us,’ she said, shaking her head and looking daggers again at Lily. ‘First, answer my question, what’s going on here? Why is the hotel wedding planner in our room?’

‘Nothing,’ Shay replied coolly. ‘And it’s not our room, it’s my room. How did you even get in here?’

‘Both our names are on the reservation. And stop trying to distract from this. Mere days after our planned wedding day, you walk in here laughing with some other woman, and you want to tell me nothing is going on? Why is she here? And weren’t the two of you just holding hands?’ Her eyes became slits as she then rounded on Lily.

‘I … honestly,’ Lily began but her throat closed over, too nervous to speak, let alone defend herself.

‘Maybe you’d better go.’ Shay turned to her with a pained look and, again, she couldn’t respond; it was all too much at once and she was completely overwhelmed.

‘I—’

‘You heard him, get the hell out of here.’

‘Sarah, don’t speak to her like that.’

‘Oh, so you’re defending her too?’ Sarah continued to rage. ‘Our so-called wedding planner outright trying to steal my fiancé with no remorse and you’re bloody well defending her? Seriously, what the hell is going on here?’

Shay ignored the question, instead focusing on Lily as he led her back to the door, and ushered her outside into the corridor. ‘Sorry. Probably best you let me calm her down.’

‘Shay …’ Lily began but couldn’t finish as Sarah’s furious head once again appeared around the open doorway and he quickly backed in.

‘We’ll talk tomorrow, OK?’ he urged, quickly closing the door behind them and Lily could hear their raised voices from the other side.

She stood there in the corridor, alone.

The fantasy was well and truly over now. And what a finale. Sarah was here, not only in St Lucia, but obviously to get Shay back. He had wanted to marry her; there was no way he would turn her down if she wanted to fix things between them now. No way.

Shay was a man of his word, and he’d made a commitment to Sarah and had gone above and beyond in his plans to make the wedding perfect for her.

Whatever Lily had secretly hoped for was pure fantasy. The last week or so meant nothing really; it was just a bit of fun, a holiday fling. And it wasn’t as if Shay had ever even said he felt anything for her in return. Or done anything other than held her hand.

No, she’d been an idiot. Again. Lily’s heart twisted as she understood that all that she had hoped for, had foolishly dreamed about with Shay, wasn’t just over.

It had never even existed.

Chapter 51

There was only one more full day left on the trip before their flight home to the UK, and though the fact loomed in the background of her mind, Naomi’s focus was on today and all that it had in store.

Her birthday, the milestone she’d been waiting for.

‘Welcome to forty,’ she muttered darkly, as she brushed her teeth that morning.

Greg had since acquiesced to her demand that he vacate the room at least, and when Naomi returned the following morning after their argument, she saw that he’d taken all his belongings with him. Where he’d gone to, be it another room or maybe even another hotel, she didn’t know, nor did she care to find out.

He was gone, and their relationship was at an end.

So now Naomi needed to start over. In more ways than more.

She knew that the birthday wishes would today flow from family, friends and staff of the resort, who’d already made a huge fuss of her that morning over breakfast. A prelude to what she was determined should still be a wonderful day of celebration, culminating in the big resort party tonight.

Now, as she stood in front of the mirror trying on her specially chosen birthday dress, Naomi tried to feel proud of herself. Her hair was pulled up, and the maxi dress swirled around her like a drink in a glass; splashes of pink, yellow, orange and hints of green supplied enough colour to distract from her wan complexion, plus add a bit of flamboyant panache well suited to the tropical surroundings.