Shopping With the Enemy by Carmen Reid

Author:Carmen Reid [Reid, Carmen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Boldwood Books

‘Are you sure? Are you sure this is right?’

For the past twenty minutes they’d been travelling along a tiny road; a road so small it had potholes, loose gravel and even the odd goat. They were high up in the mountains with bare rocky terrain all around and a panoramic view of… more mountains, making Annie wonder just how many they would have to cross.

‘We’ve seen no one else – not one other car since we got on to this stretch,’ Annie said anxiously.

‘This is the right road,’ Svetlana insisted. ‘I read the map. This will take us into Austria.’

If we don’t ground the Bentley on one of those craters first, Annie couldn’t help thinking.

There was another pressing problem.

The coffee stop at the service station had been hours ago. Annie double-checked the clock face on the dashboard. Could that be right? Could it really be nearly 1 p.m.? Weren’t they supposed to be near Vienna by now?

In short, Annie needed to pee. Badly. Badly, badly, badly. So badly that just thinking about how much she needed to pee was causing cramp.

‘What are our chances of finding a toilet out here?’ she said out loud.

Svetlana turned her head: ‘If you need to go, you must go. Is bad for the kidneys to hold on too long.’

‘Well, what about you? You’ve been holding on as long as me.’

Svetlana considered.

Annie whacked into another pothole and the Bentley groaned.

‘You are right we must go,’ Svetlana replied.

‘But where?’

‘Au naturel.’

For a multimillionairess with a Mayfair mansion, bespoke Hermès luggage and several hundred thousand pounds of diamonds scattered across her fingers, Svetlana could be practical and surprisingly earthy. Maybe it was her army nurse training.

Annie didn’t really want to bare her bottom on the top of an Italian mountain, but the growing pain in the pit of her stomach told her that she must. She slowed the car down to a stop. The road was so small and so deserted she didn’t see any point in steering the Bentley to the side.

Then she was squatting between two opened Bentley doors, while a shaggy grey goat watched from a safe distance.

‘Come to Milano,’ she whispered to herself, imitating Svetlana’s accent. ‘A luxury break, totally pampering, all expenses paid. This is what you need to recharge the batteries.’

Ha! And now where was she? She was squatting with a goat audience, on the remote and deserted peak of an Italian mountain, trying not to let a puddle of wee creep into her sandals while she wondered how to manhandle a vintage Bentley beast safely down to the other side.

‘Annah! Annah! Get back into the car. Quickly!’

Annie did not like the note of urgency in Svetlana’s voice.

‘What’s the matter?’ she called over to the other side of the car where Svetlana was relieving herself.

‘Quick!’

Annie finished, snapped her knickers back into place and jumped into the driving seat. Svetlana was already in the passenger’s seat with the door closed and locked, her face upset.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Drive! Just drive – hurry!’

Annie fired up the engine and set the car going over the lethal potholes once again.

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