She swam to the steps, hauled herself out, wrapped a towel around her chest and gave him a quick wave. Her muscles were warmed up and she felt relaxed and ready to teach her class.
‘Thank you all for coming. Anyone got any questions?’
‘Yes,’ called Mrs Adams, who’d been coming every day during her stay. ‘Can I take you home with me? You’ve been a great teacher. I’m going to be real sorry to go home.’
‘Aw, thank you, that’s kind of you to say. I’m going to miss you.’
‘Wasn’t difficult. If I come back next year, will you still be here?’
Rebecca stared at her. ‘I… I don’t know.’ Not if Inês had her way, that was for sure. Coming here had been purely expedient–it was only supposed to be temporary. But she’d rapidly fallen in love with the place; the hotel, the family, her work, the temperature, the sea and the laid-back environment. Originally, taking the job had been an escape from the public humiliation back home, where everyone knew that she’d made a complete idiot of herself over Will. Even her brothers, not the most astute of people, had known she’d bombed that night. Of course, they thought it was a huge joke that she’d got herself all dressed up for Will and he’d gone off with someone else half her size, twice as pretty and with a degree in flirting.
‘I hope so. I’ll be mentioning you to the manager. I’ll tell them they have to keep you on.’
‘That would be helpful.’ Hopefully, word would filter back. She loved the teaching, but less so Inês’s resentful management of her. Rebecca still felt that she was here on sufferance, which made her desperate to increase the numbers in her class.
She glanced over at the main house. It would be a dream to work here all the time, with the sun, the sea, the pool and the beach. A pipe dream though because, obviously, there were far fewer people here in the out-of-season months, so it was unlikely they’d have a job for her even if Inês approved the idea. But maybe she should seriously think about finding a new job back home, leaving the brewery and setting up her own Pilates classes.
She changed into the hotel uniform of navy shorts and a pale blue T-shirt bearing the Quinto do Mar logo that the housekeeping staff wore. In the restaurant, they wore tan shorts and a cream T-shirt with the same branding. The hotel, she’d discovered over the last few weeks, was a tightly run ship andalthough it seemed warm and friendly with a rustic, laid-back vibe, beneath the surface, a lot of attention was paid to the details. Vases of fresh herbs and flowers were placed in every room as well as in all the public areas of the hotel. Each table in the restaurant had flowers and home-made condiments from the sister farm, Quinto do Marmelo. Every day, fresh organic hand soaps and lotions were put out in the public toilets and guest bathrooms. The place was always immaculate. Each morning, the swimming pool area was magically restored, the sunbeds lined up neatly and set with fresh towels, well before any of the guests were up and about.
After she’d finished in the spa, she found her printed room-cleaning schedule waiting for her in the housekeeping office. Today, there were fifteen changeovers and she’d been allocated twelve, so she was going to be working at full pelt on her section.
She collected the fresh sheets from the deserted and very hot laundry, grateful that she didn’t have to work in there on a day like today– the temperature outside was nearly thirty degrees. There was a stack of still-warm-to-the-touch cloths that went on the little side tables in the rooms and she glanced over at the industrial steam iron. That must be hot work, she decided as she headed to the first of the rooms from which guests had departed. She quite enjoyed this part of the job, going into a room and putting it all back together. Each room had rustic styling with simple details and traditional wooden furniture, but part of her job was to collect all the extra items to add additional homely touches, like the bars of hand-made soap tied with raffia and the vases of fresh lavender, the printed sheet of the weather forecast for the week, the hand-drawn map of how to get to the beach, the slim bottle of rosé wine and two elegant wine glasses from the bar, as well as the basket of fruit and home-made biscuits she’d collected from the kitchen. In addition, there was a little cafetière, several sachets of coffee and a selection of teas.
She stripped the bed, made up the new one, gathered up the towels and took them back to the laundry. She was surprised to find Felipe in there, shirtless, with a sheen of sweat across his skin, damp curls plastered to his forehead and an industrial iron in his hand. The nearby fan was obviously doing little to lower the temperature in the room.
‘Hi,’ she said a little faintly, trying to keep her eyes on his face. He looked hot, in both senses of the word. She’d seen him bare-chested in the pool plenty of times, but this… this seemed much more intimate and… a whole lot more. His kisses to date had been fun and teasing, but they’d stopped short of going too far. She almost got the impression he was waiting for her to give a signal that she wanted more.
In that second, as her mouth dried at the sight of him and she felt a tug deep in her core, she knew she was ready for more. ‘What are…?’ It was fairly obvious what he was doing, but the question really was, why?
‘Those for me?’ he asked, putting down the iron and wiping his face with a nearby towel.
‘What, these?’ she replied, indicating her armful of laundry for something to say instead of being pervy and ogling his body like she wanted to do.
‘Yes.’
‘Well, they’re to be washed.’
‘Hand them over,’ he said and took them from her, efficiently shaking them all out and carefully arranging the towels into the two big washing machines. The sheets he put into a big trolley on the right.
She stared at him. ‘You look like you know what you’re doing.’
‘It’s not difficult.’ With his back to her, he filled the machines with washing powder and conditioner and then turned the dials without missing a beat. No sooner had he done that than hepulled open one of the huge dryers and drew out some towels, which he expertly folded before handing her a soft pile of two bath towels, two hand towels, a bath mat and a washcloth. ‘There you go.’ Without missing a beat, he began emptying the rest of the dryer.
Still a little discomposed by him being here, she stood and stared for a minute, trying to comprehend what was going on, when he turned back to her. ‘Don’t you have work to do? I know I’m a fine sight but those rooms won’t get done on their own and the first new guests are due at three today. Their plane lands anytime now.’
His unusually brusque tone surprised her, as did the way he seemed to be taking the job seriously.
She nodded, watching as he carried on folding towels, stacked them on one of the shelves and then crossed back to the big industrial steam iron.
‘What are you doing working in here?’
His quick laugh was off, as if it were forced. ‘Never seen a man ironing before?’
‘Come to think of it, no. Where’s Luisa?’
‘She needed some time off.’ He gave her a lopsided grin, which she still didn’t buy, and picked up the iron. ‘I was bored.’
‘Right,’ she said, confused by the underlying impression that he wanted her to go, while on the surface he was making light of being here.
