Page 215 of Kiss Heaven Goodbye

‘I know a lovely little rock over there. Very exclusive. Very you.’ She smiled.

‘Sounds good. Let’s walk.’

They ambled along the shoreline in the sun, Alex picking up pebbles and throwing them into the surf.

‘So are they going to be able to charge Michael and Carlton with anything?’

‘Miles will get the hottest lawyers on the planet to make sure they can pin something on them.’

‘Either that or make it all go away.’

Grace smiled. ‘Exactly what I was thinking.’

‘Imagine if Sasha hadn’t come and recognised that picture of Michael. Or should I say Bradley.’

‘I don’t want to imagine it,’ said Grace, shivering.

‘I hope Sasha is going to be OK.’

‘I’ve already called the hospital in Nassau and spoken to her. Sore, but fine. She’s a tough old bird.’

They rounded a headland on to another stretch of beach. The shore was littered with a trail of tiny white shells that crunched as they walked across them.

‘So you are coming back to mine when we get back to London?’ asked Alex. ‘That’s an invitation, by the way, not an ultimatum.’

‘I’m sorry for being such a pain, but I can’t go back to Toddington or the Spitalfields house and a hotel room feels too soul-destroying.’

‘You’re not a pain, Grace. You’re very welcome. And we’ll get it sorted.’

She puffed out her cheeks. ‘I’ve been trying to think of what I’m going to say to Olivia the next time I see her.’

‘So you’re going to see her?’

‘After everything that’s happened in the last twenty-four hours, it just seems like another thing I’ve got to do. Nothing feels too difficult.’

Alex looked at her sideways. ‘You know this island saw a lot of firsts for me. It was the first time I’d ever been somewhere so beautiful. The first time I’d had a perfect martini and tried oysters, even snorkelling . . .’ He paused. ‘And it was the first time I realised that people will disappoint you. That some people aren’t very nice. Some people will never be what you want them to be. Like Miles.’

‘Like Olivia?’

He nodded. ‘But maybe she’s young enough to change.’

‘And even if she doesn’t, she’s still my daughter. I’ll love her whatever happens.’

‘What about Julian?’

She snorted. ‘What about him?’

It was only then that Grace realised she had barely thought about him. It was Olivia’s treachery that had torn a hole in her heart, not the loss of Julian.

‘I’m not sure I ever really liked him. Let alone loved him.’

‘Then why were you with him so long?’

She wanted to remind him of something he had once told her about his own relationship with Melissa: how they were two people brought together by circumstance rather than compatibility. It had been exactly the same with herself and Julian. They had met the night she had found out that Alex was getting married, the day before her father had been killed in a car accident. She had needed him then; love hadn’t come into it. But she didn’t want to ruin the moment, to remind him of his own mistakes, so instead she just shrugged and said: ‘You know how it is.’

Alex smiled. ‘I do indeed.’

She looked at him and for the first time she noticed the lines on his forehead. They suited him. Experience and hard knocks had rubbed away his pin-up prettiness, but even so, he was still the most handsome man she had ever seen in her life. She felt a flutter in her stomach and suddenly she was twenty years old again, thinking of that letter he had sent her, signed off ‘Just Like Heaven’.