Summer's Lease (The Shakespeare Sisters 1)

Cesca laughed nervously. She could almost feel him withdrawing from her, as he pulled on his trousers. ‘What happened to being calm?’

He turned to look at her, frowning. ‘This isn’t funny.’

It felt like a slap. She wanted to recoil from the shock of it. ‘I’m sorry . . . ’ The humour drained out of her face as she looked around for her clothes, locating them strewn across his bedroom floor.

‘Miss Shakespeare? Are you around here?’ A male voice. Distinctly American. Just the sound of it turned Sam’s face pale. And it was close, nearer the door than before, definitely not in the hall where his mom’s voice was coming from.

‘What do I do?’ Cesca asked Sam, the panic rising inside her. ‘Should I tell him I’m here?’

He shook his head furiously. ‘Get in the bathroom.’ He practically shoved her towards the en suite. ‘I’ll distract them, take them outside. When it’s clear you can come down. Tell them you were listening to music while cleaning or something.’

With only a few words he dismissed her as anything except a servant. She walked into the bathroom, pulling the door closed behind her, trying to catch her breath. An indignant anger suffused her body at his dismissal, and at the way the intimacy between them had disappeared without even a kind word. But then she really was the hired help, and in Sam’s parents’ eyes she’d like to keep it that way. At least until they could work out what the hell was going on.

Shit shit shit.

Sam tugged at his hair as he looked at himself in the bedroom mirror. He could hear his stepfather pacing up the corridor, his size twelve feet stomping on the wood. A sense of unease passed over him, his stomach twisting as the echo got closer.

‘You can do this,’ he told himself. He was an actor, after all. He could plaster on a smile and pretend everything was OK. He ran a hand through his hair, vainly attempting to tame it, not wanting to give Foster yet more ammunition to use against him. Hair like his father’s, or so Foster had said. Sam was a walking, talking symbol of everything his stepfather hated.

Taking a deep breath that did nothing to calm him, he pulled the bedroom door open and walked out.

‘Hey.’ He practically barrelled into Foster, who was standing on the landing. ‘I didn’t know you were coming.’

Foster frowned. ‘So you are here. When I spoke to Gabi this morning, she told me you’d turned up. You could have asked, Sam, or given us some notice.’

‘It’s good to see you, too.’ Sam tried to walk past his stepfather, aware that Cesca was still in his bedroom. It made him sick to the stomach to think of Foster discovering her in there. But his stepfather didn’t move, and his tank-like body blocked the way.

‘You’ve got a lot to answer for,’ Foster hissed. ‘Your mother’s been in a complete state. And your sisters have been in tears. You just disappeared without a word.’

Sam’s hackles rose. He’d barely been talking to his stepfather for a minute, and he already wanted to hit him. ‘I needed a break.’

‘So you came here, to your mother’s home? What if the paparazzi find you? You know how much your mom values our privacy here. It’s the same as always, you fuck things up and then you come and expect us to clear them up for you. You’re twenty-seven years old, Sam. When are you going to grow up?’

His stepfather was poison. Sam could feel the little kid he used to be wanting to cower away. But he wasn’t a little kid any more. He was a man, and he needed to act like one.

‘It’s private and remote. The paps aren’t going to find me here, and even if they did, what could they do?’ he asked. ‘I’ve kept a low profile, I’m not exactly flaunting myself here.’

‘There’s a first time for everything.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

Foster looked shocked at Sam’s response. And maybe he should. It was the only time in years that he’d stood up to him, and had looked him in the eye man to man.

‘It means you have no fucking sense at all. What were you doing running around with a married woman anyway? I told your mother, you have the morals of a fucking alley cat. The apple never falls far from the tree, Mr fucking Jackhammer.’

‘I’m my mother’s son, too,’ Sam said. ‘And I think she brought me up pretty well.’ No mention of Foster’s influence. He didn’t deserve it.

‘Of course you are, darling.’ His mother’s voice made them both jump. They’d been so intent on each other, squaring up like fighting dogs, that they hadn’t heard her approach. ‘And I’m very angry with you, why didn’t you return my calls?’ She took Sam’s cheeks in her hands, kissing him on both sides. ‘I’ve been worried sick about you.’

Sam shrugged. As always his mother’s intervention calmed the waters. ‘You’re the one who insisted on cutting this place off,’ he reminded her. ‘No Wi-Fi, no phones, remember?’

Lucia pouted. Her face held few signs of her age. ‘You could have sent word. Or gone into town to call me.’

He grimaced. ‘I’m trying to keep a low profile.’

‘Oh, Samuel, you’ll never make a spy.’ She laughed, hugging him again. ‘We spoke to Gabi and she told us exactly where you were. She was so worried that she couldn’t be here to look after you, and that she’d left . . . oh, what’s her name . . . to do all the work.’

‘Cesca,’ Sam said quietly. ‘Her name is Cesca.’