Charter flight? Docks? Yacht?
And then it hit me. My invaluable sailing experience.
‘I know my CV mentioned I’ve done some sailing, but it was a long time ago and probably more of a passive experience than your hands-on, knot-tying, ahoy-ye-matey stuff,’ I said, the words tumbling out of my mouth before I could stop them. ‘In fact, if I were to be entirely honest, I wouldn’t call myself a sailing expert. Or proficient. Or in any way, shape or form capable of sailing a boat at all. Not even a dinghy. I once sank a lilo in Tenerife.’
‘Then I’ll tell the captain not to put you in charge of the engine room,’ Sarah replied flatly. ‘Is that all?’
‘Yes?’
‘Thank God. Here.’ She handed me an iPhone, identical to the one tucked away in my handbag, as a driver in a smart black suit exited the driver’s side of the car and silently took my suitcase from my hands. ‘Your travel details and trip itinerary are in your email, and all my numbers are already programmed in. The passcode is your date of birth.’
‘Naturally,’ I whispered before giving herwhat I hoped was a look of confident, professional competence. ‘Thank you for this opportunity, I’m excited to get stuck in.’
‘One of your eyelashes fell off halfway through the interview,’ Sarah said. ‘Just so you know.’
‘Fantastic,’ I replied, ducking my head and gently yanking off the remaining strip lash, cheeks burning.
The driver stalked around to my side of the car, opening the door before my sweaty mitts could make contact with his spotless paintwork.
‘Thank you,’ I said as I crammed myself inside but he didn’t reply. The car’s interior smelled like expensive aftershave and money. Even as I fastened my seat belt, I could feel myself tensing every muscle in my body at once. Cream leather seats seemed like a terrible risk. What kind of person would choose to live so close to the edge?
Sarah tapped on the window, her eyes burning into mine as I kept my finger on the button to lower it until she could poke her head inside.
‘I know you won’t let me down,’ she said, taking a step backwards onto the pavement before I could respond.
The car accelerated away from the kerb, pushing me back against the buttery back seat as an icy breeze blew in through the still-open window, but the chill in my bones had nothing to do with the weather. I was a good assistant, and I knew I could do this, so why did Sarah’s words sound so much like a threat?
My window whirred into life, the driver sealing me inside the car as we locked eyes in his rear-view mirror, my new iPhone hot in my cold, sweaty palms.
‘Should have you at the airport in twenty minutes,’ he said, before turning his gaze back to the road ahead.
‘Great,’ I replied. ‘Sounds perfect.’
And as we picked up speed and the streets of London and my flush of anxiety faded away into a blur, it all started to sink in.
I’d got the job.
I was on my way to Italy.
The adventure had begun.
CHAPTER FIVE
After biting each and every one of my nails down to stubs I gave myself permission to text Jess before my flight took off, just in case I hadn’t been hired to be Juliette’s personal assistant but had accidentally somehow become involved in a human trafficking ring. Without giving away any details that would lead to my great-grandchildren still paying off my legal battles, I told her I’d got the job and turned on my location services, gently but firmly suggesting she add me to her Find My Friends app. Just in case.
The flight passed quickly enough, nervous excitement speeding up the clock while I stared at the window and wondered what the next few days might hold. What would Juliette be like? Would I like her? Would she like me? I’d worked for so many different kinds of people, but never a celebrity. I assumed there would be considerably less photocopying and marginally more sycophancy, but the truth was every single person I’d ever worked for enjoyed having their ego fluffed up at least a little bit. It was hard to find someone who didn’t.
When we arrived in Naples, another man in another smart black suit was waiting for me in the airport, my name on an iPad, glinting in the bright Italian sunshine. The air was cold, but the sky was sharp with brilliant sunshine and, as I followed him out to his car, I took a surreptitious photo of his number plate and sent another, slightly stronger worded text to Jess along with a second Find My Friends request, given that her response to the first was ‘ha-ha, very funny’.
‘We are almost there,’ the Italian driver announced in English, turning off the main road and driving into the port proper. There were dozens of ships lined up on the water, stacked up side-by-side like huge floating hotels. As we drove on the boats began to get smaller, sleeker, and sexier. I felt my spine stiffen as I pressed my nose against the car window. These were the kind of boats you saw in the newspapers, setting the scene for paparazzi shots of supermodels and billionaires, and usually accompanied by articles full of words like ‘cavorting’ and ‘carousing’. That or they belonged to the bad guy in a movie. The good guy never had a yacht, it was always the villain. A red flag flashed briefly in front of my eyes. That’s because nothing good happens at sea, a little voice whispered in my ear. Jaws, bad. Titanic, bad. The remake of Overboard, terrible. Even all the stressful stuff in The Little Mermaid happened at sea. If Ariel had stayed away from ships, she wouldn’t have ended up a child bride who never got to see her father or sisters again, and Prince Eric wouldn’t have had to sneak out while his sixteen-year-old wife was asleep and eat fish and chips under cover of darkness. I assumed.
Despite my reservations, when we pulled to a stop and the passenger door of the car opened from the outside, I clambered out of the car instead of hiding behind the front seat, and looked up into the face of the most beautiful man I had ever seen in my entire life.
‘Miss Cooper?’
He held out a hand and I froze, forgetting my manners, my name, and how to breathe. It was absurd how handsome he was. Offensive, even. He was a Ken doll come to life, all hazel eyes, tanned skin and an extremely obvious bulge in the front of his very tight white trousers. Just before I began to turn blue, I remembered to breathe in and raised my hand to meet his, swooning at his firm grip and the warmth of his skin, hard-earned callouses rubbing against the tender tips of my fingers. He was a good few inches taller than my five foot four, and the highlights in his sandy brown hair simply screamed piña coladas and getting caught in the rain.
‘I’m Lenny.’ He spoke with a faint Australian accent, still shaking my hand slowly. His jaw was so square, I could have used it as a bottle opener. ‘I’ll be your chief steward.’
‘Hello,’ I stuttered as I released his hand, perfectly happy for him to be whatever he wanted to be. ‘Please call me Fran.’
‘Fran.’
Lenny’s front teeth teased his bottom lip with my name as he enunciated slowly and clearly, and I felt myself ovulate from both ovaries at the same time. He took my suitcase from the driver before he looked over his shoulder, nodding down the docks.
‘There she is,’ he said. ‘What do you think?’
Whatever I had been expecting, this was not it. Three hundred and fifty sleek feet of glass and steel and whatever else yachts were made of because I had literally no idea; all I knew was that it was beautiful. It towered over the boats moored on either side, looking like Stew’s MacBook had shagged a whale, and against all the odds, they had made an extremely beautiful baby. It was awesome in the truest sense of the word, and the closer I got, the louder it screamed ‘not for the likes of you’.