LITMIR.BIZ

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bedside cabinet. Eight o’clock.

      ‘Eight o’clock!’ she cried, leaping out of bed. She didn’t want to miss a single moment of her holiday and ran across the room to draw the curtains. Sunlight blasted into the bedroom and dazzled Alice’s eyes, the vibrant colours of Kethos dancing before her. The sky was a perfect blue and the sea was a gloriously glassy aquamarine.

      Showering quickly and pulling on a pair of beige cotton trousers and a blouse that was still new enough to look white rather than grey, she ventured downstairs, walking into the kitchen and fixing herself a light breakfast of toast and honey. She’d had to make a return journey into Kethos Town the night before to buy provisions for the villa. She’d meant to get them after eating at the taverna but the leaflet for the Villa Argenti had excited her so much that she’d forgotten to go shopping.

      Alice had been up a full hour by the time Stella shuffled downstairs. She was wearing a pink satin bathrobe and her blonde hair was newly washed and blow-dried. Alice had noticed the enormous hairdryer and straightening tongs in her sister’s suitcase.

      In the spirit of sisterhood, Alice decided to try again and took a deep breath. ‘It’s such a glorious day. Have you changed your mind about a bit of exploring?’

      ‘I’m going to work on my tan,’ Stella announced.

      ‘But you’ll be out in the sun if you come with me to this villa. There’s a wonderful garden. We can do a bit of sunbathing there.’

      ‘It’s not the same. I want to lie about the pool and really relax. You’ve no idea how stressed I’ve been recently,’ she said with a dramatic sigh.

      Alice watched as Stella untied her bath robe and let it fall to the floor. She was wearing the skimpiest of bikinis in a metallic gold material that managed to look expensive and cheap at the same time.

      ‘Put some cream on my back,’ she said, handing Alice a large bottle of coconut-scented sun lotion. ‘Blimey! That’s cold!’ she complained a moment later. ‘Can’t you warm your hands up or something first?’

      ‘No, I can’t,’ Alice said abruptly, ‘or I’ll be late for the bus. Are you sure you don’t want to come with me?’

      ‘To that boring old villa?’ She made a funny huffing sound and waltzed out through the patio doors onto the terrace and took position on the sun lounger nearest the pool. Alice sighed. She couldn’t believe that they had flown all the way to the Mediterranean and Stella wanted to do nothing more than get a tan. Didn’t she want to see any of the island? Wasn’t she the least bit interested in exploring some of its history and culture? Well, Alice wasn’t going to just sit around, that was for sure.

      ‘My friends are all going to be so jealous of my tan,’ Stella said, stretching herself out like a cat. ‘You’ll have to get lots of photos of me,’ she said, putting on her very large, very dark sunglasses.

      It was such a relief to leave the villa and walk into town. Why did she always let her sister get to her like that? She was twenty-eight years old and she’d had to put up with Stella for all but four of those years – surely she knew what she was like by now. So why did it still hurt her so much?

      Alice caught a little bus from the centre of Kethos Town which headed up a road into the mountains. She’d shown her leaflet of the Villa Argenti to the driver and he nodded in understanding and Alice sat on the back seat and prepared to enjoy the journey. As long as it took her as far away from Stella as was possible on a tiny island, that would suit her.

      Alice took a deep breath. She was going to push all thoughts of Stella out of her head and enjoy her surroundings and, looking out of the bus window, she gasped as she noticed just how high they had climbed. The road had twisted its way high up into the mountains and the drop back down gave Alice goosebumps but the view was spectacular. She could see so much of the island all at once from this vantage point and she could just make out the large curve of the coastline that made up one part of the heart shape that the island was famous for.

      It was about twenty minutes later when the bus stopped and the driver nodded and pointed along a little road. Alice looked down it but couldn’t see anything.

      ‘Villa Argenti?’ she asked.

      He waved his hand and nodded again and Alice hopped off the bus. She was the only one to do so and she watched as it rounded a bend in the road and disappeared.

      Suddenly, she was alone and it was totally silent. She looked down the road the bus driver had pointed along but she couldn’t see anything other than trees and hills. Was there really a magnificent villa tucked away there? She took the leaflet out of her handbag but it didn’t help very much so she set off at a smart pace in what she hoped was the right direction.

      The sun had climbed high in the sky and Alice soon felt she’d been walking for hours but consoled herself with the fact that you couldn’t go far wrong on an island. Then, as she rounded a bend, she saw a large white sign with the words ‘Villa Argenti’ on it. She sighed with relief and followed a tree-lined driveway until she came to a pair of large gates which stood open in welcome.

      What now? she wondered. There was nobody around to take her money and she suddenly felt shy about entering the garden but she had come all this way to see it and she didn’t want to miss out now.

      ‘Hello?’ she called but there was no reply. She looked around. She really was the only soul about and, if that was the case, surely a quick look wouldn’t do any harm.

      She followed a neat brick path and descended some steps and, suddenly, it was there. The Villa Argenti. It was a large wedding cake of a building with pillars and balconies and enormous doors and sweeping steps. Alice had never seen anything like it in her life. Its honey-coloured stone glowed warmly in the sunshine and Alice had the peculiar feeling that the house was actually smiling at her and she smiled right back at it. It had every right to smile too because it had the good fortune to be in one of the most beautiful settings Alice had ever seen. Completely surrounded by gardens which Alice couldn’t wait to explore, the villa was also positioned high enough to have one of the best views along the coastline of Kethos.

      What a pity the house was not open to the public, she thought, although there was plenty to see in the garden.

      Leaving the house behind her, Alice walked down yet more steps into a world of green. There was an immaculate emerald lawn that looked as if no human being had ever dared to walk on it and Alice was loath to now but there were no signs to tell her not to so she walked as quickly and delicately as she could, crossing to a little path lined with low walls which had been planted with flowering shrubs. It was one of those times when you needed at least three pairs of eyes to take everything in so Alice slowed her pace because she wanted to see everything: each tree, shrub and flower, and every pond, fountain and temple.

      Alice had always wanted a garden. Their family home had a long strip of uninspiring grass which had never been very well tended and her little cottage only had a tiny enclosed courtyard. She’d bought a plastic chair and a terracotta pot in which she grew a rose bush but it wasn’t the stuff of dreams.

      But this garden was the stuff of dreams. It was laid out in wide terraces which ended in a large stone wall on top of a cliff which plummeted down to the sea. It was a dizzying vista and Alice stood on the terrace, daring to lean on the iron railings that were the only thing preventing her from tumbling onto the craggy rocks far below.

      Gazing out across the coastline, she suddenly felt sad and couldn’t help wishing that her dad was there with her. He would have loved to have seen the villa and the gardens. She would have to send him a postcard or two so that he could at least appreciate it all from afar.

      Turning her back on the sea for a moment, she spotted an ornate white bench underneath a fig tree. Sitting down on it a moment later, she closed her eyes, her face drinking in the warm rays of the sun. She wasn’t sure how long she was sitting there for or even if she nodded off for a few blissful moments but, when she opened her eyes, a young man was approaching her. He was tall and had dark hair and olive skin and he was wearing khaki trousers and a dark grey

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