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It had been years since he’d been here—years since the annual holidays he’d spent there in his early childhood He glanced at the little pool where children splashed noisily, and at the few people lying on loungers around the edges That had been his parents once, with Claudio and his ‘girlfriends’ Drinking ether—the glalamorous friends, the toast of the Riviera in their day, intact in their little bubble of happiness, years before the whole thing fell apart

A waiter walked across the scene with a silver tray He stopped to serve wine to an older couple on the terrace, sedately dressed, enjoying their lunch Below theht his eye—tomen, sleek in their Saint Tropez tans They’d been discreetly staring over at hi it indiscreetly They sat up provocatively, flirting, topless

He turned his face deliberately away and looked at Ruby, atching with undisguised disdain

‘Friends of yours?’ she said, her dark eyebrows shooting up

She scowled, turned her back and began to ease the red chiffon wrap fro a htly swollen with their growing baby and her slilowed beautifully pale, obviously unfaed with pride as he watched her

‘they certainly look as if they’d like to be’

He s as she squirted a dollop of sun creaan to smooth it down her arms As she attempted to rub her back the twin blades of her shoulders flexed accusingly

‘Allowthe cream from her hands ‘And there’s no need to sound jealous I don’t know those women and I don’t want to either’

‘I’ to do withthe obvious They find you attractive and they’re letting you know it’

‘You knohat’s attractive?’ he said, as he pooled the crea jealous and not ad it’

She lifted her ponytail and said nothing, co him to rub crea the rim of her bikini The fine bones and the ripple ofcombination he found completely seductive

‘Your skin is flawless,’ he whispered in her ear