sexy. She much preferred funny. Thankfully, Aaron seemed to feel the same. She was going to miss this guy more than she wanted to think about right now.
‘Yep, definitely the ginger sponge.’ He leaned over, his hand curving around the side of her neck, his thumb stroking her cheek, as he pulled her towards him and kissed her slowly, sexily… ‘I think we’re going to have to hold off going out for a little while longer,’ he murmured.
‘I think you’re right.’ There was no tourist spot in Vegas that would feel better than this.
His other hand was in her hair now, his tongue probing hers and she was just about to slip over on to his knee when there was another knock on the door.
‘Ignore it,’ she whispered, still kissing him.
‘I’m going to,’ he replied, his fingertips working their way down her neck, across her collarbone, to her…
Another bang on the bloody door. Louder this time. Insistent.
It was enough to make Agnetha break the lip lock and grin. ‘That’s one stroppy housekeeper. We’d better answer before they storm in.’
‘It’s not housekeeping. I put the “Do Not Disturb” on.’
‘Then what else have you organised? A brass band? Personal shoppers? The Chippendales?’
Aaron shook his head, his laughter revealing his slightly crooked but pearly white smile. ‘Nope. Not setting myself up for that kind of competition.’ He rose, then paused. Lifted her chin. ‘I meant it, you know. I really don’t want you to leave.’
Agnetha’s stomach swirled as the realisation dawned. She didn’t want to leave either. Right from that first night, when they’d ended up sitting in a layby off Mulholland at dawn, watching the sunrise, she’d known this was different from the holiday flings she’d had before. There had been romances in Paris. In New York. In Thailand. On a skiing trip to Austria. But much as she fell hard and fast and enjoyed every moment of them, she always knew she wanted to leave them in the magical place they belonged and not drag them back into the real world. But this time…
Aaron barely had the door open a few inches when Celeste barged through, her gleaming mane of Cindy Crawford dark waves falling down to cover the top of her silver bikini, the rest of her tanned torso tucked into a tiny pair of Daisy Duke denim shorts.
‘Have you seen Zac this morning?’ she blurted, brittle fury clipping every word.
Agnetha and Aaron glanced at each other, then back at the room’s source of irritated energy.
Aaron answered for both of them. ‘No. Isn’t he with you?’
Celeste’s hands were on her hips now. ‘Eh, that would be a definite no. The bastard got a phone call in the middle of the night, snuck out and hasn’t come back yet. Honestly, I could kill him. How rude is that?’ Without waiting for an answer, she plonked down on the chair vacated by Aaron and picked up a rasher of bacon. ‘Well, his loss. Anyway, Happy Birthday Aggs. What have we got planned for today, then?’
Years later, Agnetha would always remember that moment as being the start of the unravelling of the day that changed her life.
4
Hope McTeer
‘Hope, are you absolutely, positively, completely sure you don’t want me to come with you?’ Maisie asked, eyes wide and pleading. ‘I mean, he could be a complete fraud after your money. Or a serial killer. Or one of those catfish guys.’
Hope stopped applying her mascara at the mirror on the kitchen wall and responded with pursed lips of cynicism that eventually broke into a smile.
‘First, I’m twenty-two, not twelve. That makes me a grown-up who is allowed out on her own. Secondly, he’s not a fraud because it was me who tracked him down, not the other way around. And even if he was, all he’d get from me is my shoe collection and a payment plan for my student loan. Same goes for the catfish stuff. And he may be a serial killer, but if that’s the case, it’s better that I know before I start shelling out for Christmas cards.’
Over at the white IKEA dining table, a shadow crossed Maisie’s face. ‘Fine. But if you don’t come back, I’ll hunt him down. And I want a call or a text every hour.’
‘Deal. I’ll also keep my phone on so you can track me. And if you get a text that says SOS, you can commando crawl in and get me out.’
Maisie nodded. ‘I’m on it.’
Hope went back to applying her make-up. Not that there was much of it. A coat of mascara, a bit of blusher so that she didn’t look like the walking dead, and a clear lip gloss to finish it off. Growing up with her mousy brown hair and pale skin, she’d always been beyond jealous of Maisie’s dark complexion and thick ebony hair. They’d got used to the raised eyebrows of surprise when they told people they were sisters. Mum and Dad had equipped them with all sorts of answers when they were younger, but they’d soon realised that it was far more effective to throw back a defiant stare and watch the curiosity turn to an embarrassed squirm.
They were sisters. Adopted a couple of years apart, but sisters in every sense of the word that mattered. The fact that they didn’t share the same DNA was irrelevant and always would be, regardless of what happened today.
Maisie reached over to the biscuit tin in the centre of the table and liberated a chocolate digestive, just as her mobile phone rang. ‘It’s Mum.’
Hope felt another explosion of butterflies in her stomach. Her mum had been supportive from the start of this journey, but that didn’t mean that it had been easy to navigate the emotions of such a difficult and complicated situation.
‘Hey, Mamma,’ Maisie said, with a sigh, unable to mask her mood as always. ‘Yep, she’s just getting ready to leave.’
Hope chimed in from the other side of the room. ‘Tell Mum I’ll buzz her on the way there.’
‘Did you get that, Mum? Hope will call you on the way. She won’t let me go with her. I mean, what if she gets kidnapped?’
Hope could only hear one side of the conversation, but she could guess what her mum was saying. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. She’ll be fine. She needs to do this.’
Always the voice of reason. Their dad had been the same. Both teachers, her mum, Dora, in English and dad, Tim, in Chemistry, neither of them were prone to drama or over-anxiety. That was Maisie’s role in the family. Handy, given that she’d been a jobbing actress since she came back to Scotland after studying at RADA for four years. It had made perfect sense for her to move into the spare room in Hope’s flat. She contributed to the rent when she was working, and when she wasn’t, Hope’s wages from her job at the hospital and her student loan made up the slack until Maisie paid her back when she landed another job. Hope didn’t mind. Studying at university for the fourth year of her medical degree while moonlighting as a part-time care assistant on a paediatric ward at Glasgow Central didn’t leave her enough time to spend her money on a social life any way.
Mum had offered to come with her today too, but Hope had declined. This was something she had to do on her own. There was no plan. No script. She wasn’t even sure how much she’d tell him or whether this was going to be a twenty-minute meeting with a full stop and no further contact at the end. All she knew was that she had to try.
‘Mum, I have to go,’ Maisie said into the handset. ‘Stay near a phone in case we need you to identify her body.’
That actually made Hope giggle. ‘You are shameless, do you know that?’
Maisie disconnected the call and tossed her phone on the table. ‘I do.’
‘Fine. I see you trying to get Mum onside and I raise you this.’ Hope opened the kitchen drawer, the one below the cutlery that was full of miscellaneous stuff like batteries, bulbs, Sellotape and pens, and pulled out a small