The Perfect Holiday by Cathy Kelly

Author:Cathy Kelly [Kelly, Cathy]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Relationships, Women's Fiction, Chick-Lit, Romance, Fiction, Short Stories
ISBN: 9780007331444
Publisher: HarperCollins UK
Published: 2010-03-04T00:00:00+00:00

‘Do I have to put things like shampoo in two plastic bags?’ demanded Chloe from inside the room.

Susie gave her zebra bikini one last shake.

‘Unless you want shampoo to spill all over your clothes, I would,’ she said in a resigned voice. It was time to go home to the rest of her life with this big lie hanging over her. The lie about Lucas.

Chapter Five

‘You’re thinking about Lucas again, aren’t you?’ asked Chloe.

They’d just got on to the plane and were sitting in a middle and a window seat.

‘No,’ Susie said, ‘I’m not thinking about Lucas.’ She was thinking about darling Finn and how she’d betrayed him.

‘You are. I can tell,’ Chloe insisted. ‘Listen, Susie, there’s no point telling Finn what happened. What would that achieve?’

Chloe’s point, delivered every day since Susie had slept with Lucas, was that Finn should never know. ‘What a person doesn’t know, can’t hurt them,’ Susie said wisely.

It did sound wise. But it also sounded wrong somehow to Susie. She and Finn were going to be married and surely the whole point of that was honesty? Why get married if you had loads of secrets?

But the time for telling had passed. Finn phoned often. He phoned on his way to work the morning after Susie had slept with Lucas.

‘Hello, fiancée,’ he’d said. ‘How are you? I miss you.’

Susie didn’t think it was possible to feel more guilty than she already did. But hearing Finn say that he missed her moved the guilt up a level. She hated herself at that moment. How had she betrayed lovely Finn for a few moments with Lucas? What sort of a terrible person was she?

It had been a crazy holiday game, she realised. Lucas was the most gorgeous guy around and he’d liked her. Her self-esteem had soared. Instead of leaving it at that, she’d gone further. She’d wanted to prove that he really fancied her, that she wasn’t a nobody from Galway as Finn’s mother seemed to think.

Chloe settled her duty-free purchases under her seat and picked up the flight magazine to see what else she could buy. Chloe’s credit card was nearly always stretched to its limit. That was another difference between them, Susie realised. Chloe was a great believer in worrying about things tomorrow: credit-card bills, holiday flings. It would all work out somehow, was her motto.

Sitting in the window seat, her heart heavy, Susie realised she was very different. But she could see no way out of this dilemma except to follow Chloe’s rules. She couldn’t tell Finn about Lucas. He’d be devastated, and then he mightn’t marry her. And Susie couldn’t bear to think of a life without Finn. Lucas had been a moment of madness, but Finn was the one she loved.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.