Sylvia, the assistant manager, beckoned her over to the reception desk. ‘Didi, the American guy in the Midsummer Suite’s kicking up a fuss, something about too much noise. He’s demanding to see whoever’s in charge.’
Didi shook her head; last night Myron Miller had complained loudly in the restaurant that he’d asked for chips to be served with his steak but had been given French fries instead, necessitating a gentle explanation that over here in the UK, chips were crisps. Needless to say, he’d found this un-American and frankly unacceptable.
And this morning he was at it again; something about the finest suite in the hotel was clearly irking him. Such were the joys of keeping the customer satisfied. Didi said, ‘I’ll go and see him now.’
She took the narrow stairs two at a time and reached the Midsummer Suite on the third floor. As their pernickety guest flung open the door in response to her knock, she began, ‘Mr Miller—’
‘You gotta major problem with the electricity supply in this place.’ Myron Miller shook his bear-like head. ‘Like, you guys need to call a professional in to sort it, before someone gets electrocuted.’
The thought ran through Didi’s head: If only it could be you. But because she was a professional, she put on her concerned face and said, ‘Mr Miller, I’m so sorry about this. Why don’t you show me what’s wrong?’
‘Because if someone dies, you guys are gonna get your asses sued, I’ll tell ya that for nothing. Come on, get yourself in here and you’ll see what I’m talking about.’ He ushered her inside, then gestured with an air of triumph. ‘Hear that? And even if it isn’t dangerous, it’s still totally unacceptable. You can’t expect people to sleep with that kind of racket going on.’
The last time a guest had complained about a terrible racket, it had been the sound of blackbirds singing in the trees outside their window. This wasn’t birdsong, though; it was a muffled low-level buzzing sound of an electrical nature. As Didi made her way around the suite, it soon became apparent where the noise was coming from.
Oh please, not that.
‘I don’t think it’s a problem with our electricity supply,’ she told Myron.
‘It’s been going on for three hours now.’ He glared at her. ‘So whatever it is, you need to sort it out pretty damn quick.’
Well, when you put it that way. Crossing the room, Didi bent down and listened, then rested her fingertips on the lid of Myron Miller’s gleaming Samsonite suitcase. She turned and said pleasantly, ‘It’s coming from inside your case. Do you want to deal with it or shall I?’
It could have been a lot worse; luckily it wasn’t. With a sudden bark of laughter, Myron unearthed the sonic toothbrush that had presumably managed to turn itself on when he’d jammed it back into his washbag. He switched it off and the buzzing stopped. ‘Well wouldja believe that? It didn’t sound like my toothbrush from all the way in there.’
An apology was clearly too much to hope for, but Didi was used to this by now. She said cheerfully, ‘Glad that’s sorted out. And is there anything else at all I can help you with?’
But Myron Miller had already lost interest. Engrossed in his phone, he said absently, ‘No, I’m good. You can go.’
As she let herself out of the room, the voice of another American male inside the Midnight Suite directly opposite said, ‘Miss? What was that infernal noise?’
The door to the Midnight Suite remained closed. Didi called out, ‘It’s fine, nothing at all to worry about. It was just an electric toothbrush.’
‘Are you quite sure about that? Because it was kinda hurting my ears, lady. Almost sounded like someone was . . . I don’t know, trying to sing or somethin’. . .’
Didi had already stopped dead in her tracks. No, it couldn’t be.
Surely not.
Could it?
She stared at the Midnight Suite’s closed door and felt the thud-thud-thud of her heart like a fat pigeon trying to take off inside her chest.
‘No, sir. It definitely wasn’t singing.’ She paused. ‘Or any other kind of caterwauling.’
Another second passed. Then the door was pulled open and there he was, standing before her. Almost thirteen years after he’d left.
‘Hey,’ said Shay.
‘Hey.’ Didi swallowed; she never normally said hey. But this was one of those peculiar situations and she couldn’t work out how to react. Normally greeting an old friend again after so long apart, there’d be a hug and some sort of kiss. But Shay wasn’t an old friend as such; he was an ex-boyfriend.
More than that, he’d been her first love.
And the way in which they’d parted company had been tricky to say the least.
‘Well . . . fancy seeing you here.’ There was a glimmer of a smile as he said it, which was something.
Didi’s brain was working overtime, racing ahead. She said, ‘Do you know Mr Miller? Did you set up the whole toothbrush thing?’
He shook his head. ‘No to both questions. I was half expecting to bump into you at some stage, but there were no plans to engineer it. I overheard the guy earlier on his phone, calling down to reception to complain about the noise in his suite. Then I heard someone come up to deal with him and realised it was you.’ Another glint of amusement in his silver-blue eyes. ‘You remember Venice, then?’
Of course she remembered Venice, every last second of it. How could she ever forget?
‘Your American accent is terrible,’ she said.
‘Almost as bad as your singing.’ He smiled and raised a hand. ‘That was a joke. You know I don’t mean it.’
‘What are you doing here?’
‘Flew in last night, rented a car at Heathrow, arrived at midnight, managed to get the last room.’ He gestured at the suite behind him, which cost as much as any suite in a boutique four-star hotel, then said, ‘Don’t worry, I can afford it. Just about.’
The dig was there; of course it was. Ignoring it, Didi said, ‘What would you have done if we’d been fully booked?’
‘Who knows? Slept in the car, I expect.’ He paused. ‘I can still rough it if I need to.’
There was so much unspoken, so many things she’d wanted to say to him over the years. When he’d left, Shay had done a thorough job of it; short of hiring a private detective, there’d been no way of tracking him down, finding out what he was doing with his life and how things were going for him. And even if she had been able to pay for a private detective, it would have been a pointless exercise, seeing as she was the reason he’d left in the first place.
But now he was back.
She found her gaze flickering around the outline of him, as if direct contact was too intense, like looking into the sun. At thirty-one, he was ageing as well as she’d always guessed he would and was as athletically built as he’d been at eighteen. He was wearing faded jeans the exact silver-blue shade of his eyes, and a plain white polo shirt with no visible logo, which meant it was either super cheap or designer and very exclusive indeed. Tanned skin. The fine scar she’d loved to trace with her finger, on the left side of his forehead. And streaky blonde hair still wet from the shower. He wasn’t wearing any jewellery, she noted, neither a watch nor a ring on his left hand.