She goes over to a low bench by one of the windows and collects a posh-looking cardboard gift bag with the name ‘Rosie Summers’ on the front, along with a thick, fluffy robe and a matching pair of slippers.
‘You should find everything you need in there,’ she says cheerfully, handing me the bag, which I take, feeling like I’m stealing it. ‘Now you go and enjoy the sauna. You look like you could be doing with a bit of relaxation.’
I return her smile, guilt gnawing at my stomach at the thought of deceiving her – and everyone else, for that matter.
I really should have thought this through before I decided to go ahead with it. I’m just not sure I’m cut out for the impostor life. If nothing else, it’s surely going to give me a stomach ulcer.
Guilt aside, though, the sauna does look rather inviting with its clean, woody smell and pristine surfaces. So, once Agnes is gone, I head into the changing room and reach into the gift bag, which contains an entire set of luxury toiletries, plus a small, red garment which turns out to be a bikini.
At least, Ithinkit’s a bikini. It’s so tiny it looks like it was made for a doll rather than a human, and it’s all the confirmation I need that Rosie Summers and I definitely aren’t the same size, because my breasts are barely contained by the top, and I have a horrible feeling they’re about to break free at any second, which .?.?. surely it’s notsupposedto look like that?
Is it?
Getting the thing on is a workout in itself, and once it’s done, I’m tempted to take it right back off again and just accept that I amnotRosie Summers, and never will be. Quite apart from that, though, it’s also kind of weird having the entire pool building totally to myself. Nice . . . but still weird. The blank windows that surround the pool reflect my own, unflattering image back at me, and I turn away, spooked by the knowledge that anyone who happens to be out there will be able to see me standing here, lit up as if I’m on a stage. The thought makes me feel suddenly self-conscious, so I step quickly into the sauna and close the door firmly (but nottoofirmly; I haven’t forgotten what happened on the train .?.?.) behind me before I shrug off the robe, tugging the too-small bikini bottoms out of my butt cheeks as I go.
I place the towelling robe on the seat before lowering myself onto it, my eyes fixed on the door that leads to the pool, ready to leap into action if it so much as budges.
But the door remains closed. And, after a few minutes, my eyes start to close too, lulled by the heat and soothed by the steam until the next thing I know, I’m back out in the courtyard, playing a game of chess against Hunter Stuart, while Sabrina Bates and Dante, the handsome hotel manager, look on, holding up score cards. I’m just about to pick up my queen to deliver a devastating checkmate when I’m interrupted by a loud bang, and my eyes snap open just in time for me to see the sauna door fly open and Hunter Stuart’s reddish-blond head appear around it.
For a split second, I think I’m still dreaming, then the strap holding my bikini top up abruptly gives way, releasing the girls into the world, and I realise this is no dream; this is aliteralnightmare– one in which I’m caught half-naked in a hotel sauna by a tall, handsome near-stranger, and it doesn’t work out anythinglikeall of those romcoms I’ve read would have you believe.
I let out a small, involuntary squawk of horror as I attempt to stuff my runaway breasts back into the bikini top, but it’s no use: the thing’s well and truly broken – not that it was covering much of me to start with – so I leap up and throw the robe around me instead.
‘Why did you barge in like that?’ I demand, turning to Hunter with my cheeks flaming and sweat dripping off the end of my nose. ‘You could have at least knocked!’
‘Ididknock,’ protests Hunter, whose voice is also a little shaky, as if he’s had a very big shock. ‘I was knocking for at least five minutes. And shouting. But you didn’t reply, so I had to come in to check on you. You’ve been in there for almost an hour. We were worried. You could’ve been dead for all we knew.’
‘I wish Iwasnow,’ I wail, close to tears. ‘Wait.We?What do you mean “we”?’
By way of answer, Hunter clears his throat awkwardly, then steps aside, giving me a clear view of the pool area behind him.
There, lined up almost exactly as they were in the dream that was so rudely interrupted, are Sabrina Bates, Dante and lovely Agnes, the housekeeper. Even Stevie the dog has turned up to witness me emerging topless from the steam.
I tighten the belt of my robe self-consciously, my head swimming from the heat of the sauna.
Have I really been in there for as long as Hunter says I have?
‘Er, Agnes came to get you when she realised how long you’d been in there, but she couldn’t get the door open,’ says Hunter, looking at his feet. ‘So Dante sent for me, to help get you out.’
‘But .?.?. that can’t be right,’ I protest, refusing to believe this whole ‘stuck door’ thing could’ve happened to metwicein one day. ‘I checked the door when I got in and it was fine. So how could it possibly have been stuck?’
‘That’s beside the point,’ says Sabrina Bates, her voice cutting across the room like a knife. ‘What I’d like to know is what you think you’re doing here?’
‘I .?.?. um .?.?. having a sauna?’ I reply, like a contestant on a quiz show who’s blatantly just guessing the answer.
Sabrina shakes her head and folds her arms across her chest, one high-heeled shoe tapping impatiently at the tiled floor.
‘No, I mean, what are you doinghere, at the hotel?’ she demands frostily. ‘Because one thing’s for sure: you certainly weren’t invited, were you?’
Chapter 4
Sabrina marches me back across the courtyard and through the hotel, still dressed in my towelling robe – although she does allow me to slide my feet back into the slippers first, which I suppose is something to be grateful for.
That’s theonlything to be grateful for, though, because the jig is well and truly up. I just don’t know how they found out – yet.
And now I’m about to be kicked right back out of the castle, having travelled all the way to the Highlands – and been locked in a toilet in the process – just to spend an hour in a sauna, before heading right back home again.
As journeys of transformation go, I’m not sure I’ll be recommending this one to my followers, all things considered.
