LITMIR.BIZ

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well Joe always knew I never settled for second best,’ Stella said, making her way to the sweeping staircase in order to choose the best bedroom for herself. ‘Bring my bags up,’ she said as an afterthought.

      Alice stared at her, dumbfounded for a moment.

      ‘Oh, you know how much stronger you are than I am,’ Stella added with a tiny smile.

      Alice rolled her eyes at the insincere flattery and then struggled up the stairs behind Stella, watching as she viewed all five of the bedrooms before picking the largest room for herself. It had an enormous four-poster bed draped with a white canopy, a gigantic en suite and a long balcony that overlooked the coast to the east of the property.

      ‘Just put my things there,’ Stella said, motioning to Alice whilst she flopped down on the immaculate white bed. ‘It’s probably best if you hang my dresses up before they’re creased out of all recognition.’

      Alice glanced at her sister. Was she serious? Alice had half a mind to tell her where she could stick her dresses when Stella stopped her.

      ‘You know you do a much better job of it than I do,’ she said.

      Once again, Alice caved in. It wouldn’t take her long and, if she didn’t keep Stella sweet, there’d be all sorts of hell to pay, she was quite sure of that.

      ‘I’m off to find a room for me now,’ Alice said a moment later, having hung up her sister’s clothes.

      Stella groaned from the bed and swatted a hand in Alice’s direction as if dismissing her. Relieved that she could have some time to herself at last, Alice walked out onto the landing and looked around. There were two large double bedrooms either side of Stella’s and one small single at the end of the corridor. She headed to the single. Privacy, she thought, was more important than size.

      Like Stella’s room, the colours were soft and muted: the bed was a vision of white, and pale blue curtains fluttered in the breeze when Alice opened the windows. She didn’t have a balcony but the room did have an unrivalled view down to the harbour at Kethos Town and Alice stood looking at it for a few moments, watching the boats bobbing about on the glassy, blue-green water.

      ‘Am I really here?’ she asked herself as she gazed at some distant mountains that rose and fell like the back of a sleeping beast. ‘Am I really on holiday?’ She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a proper holiday that involved going abroad. She hadn’t been able to afford more than a couple of weekends away over the last few years and they’d been a very modest hotel break in the Lake District where she’d been rained on for an entire weekend, and a couple of nights in a youth hostel in Derbyshire where she’d had to share a room with a party of fifteen hyper schoolgirls. Not exactly the stuff of envy-inducing postcards. But here she was and it was a wonderfully sunny April day and the cold, grey days of the English winter that had seemed to drag on forever were now far behind her.

      She glanced around her room again and then decided to do a bit of exploring, gasping at the enormous bathroom with walk-through shower and roll-top bath and the window looking straight out to sea.

      Descending the staircase, Alice found an enormous modern kitchen with gleaming black worktops, a dining room with a table that sat twelve people and a living room filled with enormous white sofas. There were also doors out onto a terrace and Alice’s eyes widened in wonder when she saw the swimming pool beyond them. It was a traditional rectangular shape with a mosaic of pale tiles around it. There were sun loungers, an umbrella, a scarlet hammock and a barbeque – everything the holidaymaker could possibly want. There was even a large table and chairs under the shade of a pretty pergola over which clambered a magenta bougainvillea, its flowers dazzlingly bright against the blue sky above.

      Beyond the terrace was an olive grove before the land dipped down and headed steeply towards the sea, punctuated every now and then with the tall, dark spires of cypress trees. It was the stuff of fantasies and, for a moment, Alice felt guilty for being there. After all, Joe had booked this holiday and he must have paid an absolute fortune for it but Alice couldn’t help thinking that maybe he’d thought it was worth missing out on it to be shot of Stella.

      A huge bubble of excitement rose within her and, not wanting to waste a single moment, she decided that they should go straight down to Kethos Town and get something to eat, do a bit of shopping and stock up on supplies so they could cook at the villa.

      Walking back upstairs, she popped her head round Stella’s bedroom door. She was still on the bed and her eyes were closed.

      ‘Do you want to get something to eat?’ Alice whispered.

      ‘What?’ Stella croaked without opening her eyes.

      ‘I’m going to walk into town and get some food.’

      ‘Some Greek food?’

      ‘I imagine so.’

      ‘No thanks,’ Stella said. ‘I’ve brought some cereal bars with me.’

      Alice wrinkled her nose. Her sister had flown all this way to fall asleep and eat cereal bars.

      ‘Well, I’m going out, okay?’

      ‘Knock yourself out,’ Stella said before rolling over on the bed and burying her head further into her pillow.

      Alice returned to her bedroom and changed from the jeans she had been wearing on the plane and opened her suitcase to reveal the summery clothes she’d optimistically packed. There were T-shirts in cream and navy and – Alice’s hand hovered over a third – grey. She didn’t dare wear grey in Greece. Stella would kill her if she did and, for once in her life, Alice didn’t want to wear grey either. The brilliant colours of the island seemed to be whispering to her, persuading her to be a little more adventurous with her palette.

      Ditch the grey, it seemed to say. Only she seemed to have an awful lot of it. Even one of her dresses had grey in it. It was only a background, mind, hiding behind the pretty pink roses but it was there all the same.

      ‘Best to avoid,’ she said to herself, her hands reaching under the layers of grey, white and navy and pulling out her one magnificent piece of colour. She caught her breath as she saw it because it was so un-Alice like. She remembered the day she’d bought it. She’d seen it on the sale rail of a shop she normally walked right by without even glancing at because it just wasn’t the sort of shop someone like Alice went into but it had beckoned her in, urging her to take it home with her and now, holding the light folds of turquoise between her hands, she was so glad of her impulse buy. It was the one truly beautiful thing she owned and she was going to wear it right now.

      First, she took off the rest of the drab clothes she’d been wearing on the flight and ran into the shower, washing away the weariness that comes from travelling. Then she combed her hair. Being fine, it would dry quickly in the sun.

      Returning to her suitcase, she pulled out the turquoise dress. The little buttons down the front winked in the sunny bedroom and the fabric felt so luxurious against her skin, tickling her knees with its softness. If only she had some pretty piece of jewellery. If only she could borrow one of Stella’s necklaces. She had heaps and heaps but, the problem was, Stella wasn’t exactly a sharing sort of sister. Growing up, they’d never swapped make-up, and the idea of sharing or lending was abhorrent to Stella.

      ‘But she never needs to know,’ Alice thought, thinking that her sister must have packed a veritable treasure trove of jewellery judging by the weight of her luggage and Alice couldn’t help feeling entitled to borrow a piece seeing as she’d carried it all.

      With silent bare feet, Alice peeped round Stella’s door. She was fast asleep on the bed and was snoring like an angry volcano. Alice spied the suitcase. She’d already hung up all the clothes on her sister’s command but knew there must be a jewellery box or roll still hiding there so she crossed the room to where she’d left it.

      The jewellery roll was easy to find and Alice sighed with pleasure as she saw the row of necklaces. There was silver and gold as well as all sorts of pretty costume pieces

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