Ashley burst out laughing. “When, notif. I like it. And of course it’s not an issue. You’ve not had kids, you don’t have any saggy bits. Plus you can always turn the lights off, though then you’d miss ogling all those muscles he’s cruelly hiding from us by wearing clothes.”
Olivia slumped onto the immaculately made king-size bed. “You make it sound so easy. I’ve not had sex in years. I don’t even know if my bits work anymore.”
Ashley studied her a moment before coming to sit down next to her. “I’ve had sex twice since the divorce. On neither occasion did I fancy the guy.” She gave Olivia a sad smile. “I just needed to feel... wanted. Like I was still attractive to someone.”
“Oh, Ash.” Olivia threw her arm around her big sister’s shoulders. “You’re a gorgeous woman in her prime. Any day now you’re going meet someone you fancy and who fancies you back. Promise me you won’t sell yourself short anymore.”
“Oh, I won’t. I learned my lesson, both experiences made me feel worse, not better.” She took hold of Olivia’s hands and squeezed. “But you’ve been given this amazing chance to, at the very least, be chatted up by a guy you actually fancy. Well, I assume you fancy him, because if you don’t, I’m making an appointment for you tomorrow morning with an optician.”
Olivia laughed. “Okay, fine, I admit Connor is an attractive young man.” Gah, could she sound any primmer? “He’d be great for Chloe, for any of Sophie’s friends, but not for me. Aside from everything else, he’s not my type.”
Ashley snorted. “Your type is dull, nice guys you tell yourself are right for you because they’re easy to slot into your life. They don’t challenge you, don’t demand anything from you. But where’s the fun in that? Where’s the passion, the spark? It’s time you went out with someone you don’t want to like. A man you’re drawn to despite what your brain is telling you. A guy you think is all sorts of wrong for you, because guess what?Wrongmight actually turn out to be the perfect holiday fling.”
“How can it be perfect if we have nothing in common? Frankly, I feel like an old carp out of water as it is; I don’t need some young trendy thing making me feel worse than I already do.”
“Blah, I’m older than you and I don’t feel my best days are behind me. Age isn’t a number, it’s an attitude.” She winked. “You’re as young as the man you feel, sis.”
Olivia put her hands up. “Enough. Let’s agree to disagree.” She turned to her wardrobe. “Now, what can I wear tonight that won’t make me look like the bride-to-be’s maiden aunt?”
“You are Sophie’s maiden aunt,” Ashley pointed out. Then ducked, laughing, when Olivia grabbed a cushion from the bed and made to throw it at her. “Okay, okay, let me find something that will give you a more fun-young-aunt vibe.” Ashley dashed into her room and came back holding a vivid pink top. “Try this. Sophie said it was too big on her, so she gave it to me.”
With a huff, Olivia squeezed herself into the low-cut, stretchy halter-neck top. Then took one look in the mirror and whipped it off. “Thanks, but no.” She shrugged on her favorite black satin top, the one that showed off her reasonably toned arms but covered her modest assets. “Like it or not, this is me. And I’m not changing for anyone.”
Ashley smiled and touched her cheek. “You daft sod, we don’t want to change you. Only to make sure you enjoy yourself.”
The two of them knocked on Jessica’s door to collect her, then the three sisters walked downstairs to one of the hotel lounges they’d taken over for predinner drinks. A bar was set up at one end, and tea lights flickered in lanterns on low coffee tables that were surrounded by informal seating. What elevated it from an elegant room to a stunning one was the open doors that led out to decking where fairy lights twinkled around wooden rails and, beyond the deck, to a magnificent view of the harbor and the setting sun.
Sophie and her friends were already there, champagne glasses in hand.
“You’ll never guess who we saw coming out of the kitchen, Aunt Olivia,” Sophie gushed. Wearing her pink bride-to-be sash, she darted toward them with glasses and an opened bottle.
Olivia felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise. “Gordon Ramsay?”
Sophie screwed up her face. “You’re right with the chef part, but way sexier than that, trust me. Especially in those chef’s whites.” She waggled her eyebrows as she poured champagne into her mum’s glass. “Looks like you won’t be able to escape the super-hot guy who has a crush on you, Aunt Olivia.” She beamed. “Because he works here.”
Her stomach dropped, but a beat later she felt a weird... flutter. “I’m sure he transferred his temporary crush to someone else after we left last night.” She waved away the champagne and the thought that some part of herwantedto bump into him again. “I’ll stick to water for a bit like Jessica. I’m not used to all this alcohol.”
Chloe, who’d come to join them, took the bottle from Sophie, poured some into a glass, and thrust it into Olivia’s hand. “You’re going to enjoy this experience way more with some fizz inside you.”
Oh God. She’d temporarily forgotten what they were about to witness. “Can I use my get-out-of-jail-freecard and go back to my room?”
Chloe frowned. “Why on earth do you want to miss seeing some fit guys take their clothes off?”
Because I’m a fuddy-duddy. Crap, there was no way out of this without her feeling even older and more prudish than she already did.
Ashley must have read her thoughts because she slid an arm around her waist. “Of course Olivia doesn’t want to miss the hot guys and their raunchy dancing. In fact, she’ll probably be the first to put her hand up for the chance to dance with them.”
Olivia raised the glass to her lips and took a deep gulp.
The moment he heard the bridal party had taken over the harbor-view lounge, Connor had started working on a way to justify dropping in.
“Those canapés.” He nodded to the remaining tray of goat cheese and pesto swirls, salmon frittatas, gochujang deviled eggs, and kimchi prawn cocktail boats he’d spent a lot of the afternoon preparing. “Are they going spare?”
Chef Felix, the head chef, nodded. “The party who requested them have apparently survived and are onto their first course now. You can take them.”
Luca immediately made to grab one, but Connor waved him away. “Nope. They’re going to fulfill a higher purpose than being scarfed down by you.” He glanced over at his temporary boss. He wanted to think Felix had been joking with thesurviveremark, but there was nothing in the man’s expression to suggest that. “Is it okay if I take my break now?”
The guy waved him away. In his mid-fifties, Chef Felix had trained with Aaron, owner of the restaurant Connor worked in back home. While Aaron had stayed in England and focused on getting his own place, Felix had gone on to work in hotel restaurants across the globe before finally settling in his native Nantucket. He was a great teacher, but Connor found him very hard to read and often wondered if Felix had agreed to Connor coming back for a second year only as a giant favor to Aaron, not because he thought much of him.
