just as hard—if not harder—than her brothers for her successes and she was proud of what she’d achieved.
Unfortunately, Gavin hadn’t understood that drive to succeed on her own, and had cited her desire to pour too much time and energy into making her café a success and ‘excluding him from parts of her life where he wasn’t necessary’ as the catalyst for their breakup. According to him, she treated him like one of her projects and acted as if she had more love for the strangers who frequented the café than for him. That had been particularly gutting to hear because she liked to think of herself as a perceptive and caring partner.
Pushing away the threatening gloom, she sat up and punched her pillows back into shape before flopping back down and wriggling further into the sumptuous bed.
Well, from this point on she was looking after herself.
Whilst she was here she was going to get some fresh air and exercise, meet people outside of her small sphere of work and recharge her batteries before returning home feeling refreshed and more positive about her future.
As she lay there, willing away the lingering tight feeling in her chest, something about her earlier head-to-head with Julien suddenly occurred to her. He’d conducted his whole conversation, even the bit with the receptionist, in English. Had he done that so as not to exclude her? Or was he just better at English than Italian? From her experience with him so far, she got the impression he’d be good at everything he did—he certainly exuded that kind of confidence.
Except for that moment when he’d talked about how intense his day had been. There had been a vulnerability to his voice that hadn’t been there for the rest of the time.
Whatever could have affected him so deeply? Could it have something to do with his failed marriage?
Perhaps he, too, was here to get a new perspective on life after a bad breakup.
She knew first-hand how demoralising it could be going through a divorce. Gavin, her ex, had been an utter mess when he’d first moved into her spare room—which she’d offered to him as a favour to a friend of a friend after his wife demanded they separate. At that point it had been six months since her father had passed away and she was finding it very lonely living in their empty family home without him, so it had been nice to have the company.
She’d found comfort in taking care of Gavin: making him healthy meals when she discovered he wasn’t eating properly and sitting with him, listening to him talk through his pain and humiliation for hours and hours.
At the time, she hadn’t anticipated it turning into a relationship, but there it was. In retrospect, it seemed inevitable now that something more would have developed between them, especially when they’d grown so emotionally close.
A prickle of disquiet ran up her spine.
She really should have asked Julien if he was okay when he’d mentioned his divorce. In her experience, whenever people brought up things like that it was usually because they wanted to talk to someone about it, but she’d blithely ignored his prompt, more concerned about rebutting his teasing. It was possible she could use her experience to help him out in some way, though. As one concerned human being to another. Considering he was here on his own, she wouldn’t be surprised to find he didn’t have anyone at home he could talk to about what he was going through.
Turning over and letting out a huge yawn, she told herself that if she saw Julien again on the walk she’d make an effort to check that he was okay, just to set her mind at rest. But that would be it. The whole experience with Gavin had made her very wary of getting romantically involved with a divorcee again—she never wanted to be someone’s rebound relationship ever again.
So for now, she was going to put the sexy Frenchman—unnervingly close on the other side of the door—out of her mind.
The Ravello Circuit. A tricky walk with lots of steps. We recommend breaking the walk at the magnificent Villa Cimbrone gardens before visiting Ravello, then stopping for a scenic lunch break in Pontone...
JULIEN MOREAUX AWOKE to find the sun streaming in through the large windows of the honeymoon suite. He rubbed a hand across his bleary eyes, forcing his thoughts into some kind of coherent arrangement.
He was here, in Amalfi. Finally.
It hadn’t mattered to him exactly where he’d end up when he’d asked his PA to book this break for him—all he’d stipulated was that he wanted somewhere where he could move from one place to another so he didn’t feel trapped into having to see the same people in the same place every day—and he was pleased with her choice.
This walking holiday had been marked in his mind for some time as the beginning of the return to the way things used to be, and he’d been looking forward to losing himself in the monotony of hard exercise and self-imposed solitude.
Not that the solitude part had worked out well so far.
He grimaced as the events of the previous evening came back to haunt him. Sharing his suite with a bohemian idealist with an overblown zeal for life had not been an ideal start, but after sensing Indigo’s desperation to fix the situation amicably and seeing the earnest pleading in her eyes, he’d known there was no way he could refuse her suggestion.
And he was tired of being the bad guy.
A huge yawn hit him and he rocked his head back against the soft cushions of the sofa, giving his body a long, hard stretch to wake up his cramped muscles.
Considering the way he was feeling this morning, he suspected, if he allowed himself, he could easily spend the whole week sleeping. Not that he was going to do that. He’d come here for a change of scene and a reprieve from the pressures of life and there was no way he was wasting his time in Italy staring at four walls. Even if they were as magnificent as the ones in this hotel.
This observation led his thoughts back to Indigo’s wry comment about him being familiar with staying in the honeymoon suite.
A cold prickle ran across his skin.
The last time he’d been in a room like this he’d thought his life had been on the up and up, but look at him now, barely two years later, holidaying alone only hours after signing his divorce papers, with the ink of his signature still drying in his mind.
Swinging himself into a sitting position on the sofa, he stifled another yawn behind his hand and rubbed his face hard to get the blood circulating.
He really needed to get up and out before Indigo emerged; he didn’t think he had the mental energy this morning to deal with another awkward scene with her.
Glancing towards the bedroom door, he was surprised to see it standing wide open.
Huh, weird. He checked his watch. Seven o’clock. So she hadn’t been joking when she said she’d be up and out early too.
Hauling himself off the sofa, he went to investigate further.
‘Indigo?’ he called gently, so as not to startle her in case she was still in there.
There was no reply.
Poking his head around the doorway, he saw that the bed was empty, with the sheets pulled haphazardly back and the door to the en suite bathroom flung open.
She was gone.
That was a relief.
Feeling the tension leave his shoulders, he went back into the living area and pulled out the clothes he was going to wear for his walk today, before heading off for an invigorating shower.
There had been something about her that intrigued him, though, he mused as he felt the soothing water cascade over his aching back—her determination and bolshie confidence perhaps. She certainly wasn’t his usual type, with her leggy, voluptuous figure and short, feathery bobbed hair in a shocking shade of red, which had reminded him of the colour of the