Ibiza Nights: A Short Story. Lucy Lord

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       Copyright

      Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

      77–85 Fulham Palace Road

      Hammersmith, London W6 8JB

       www.harpercollins.co.uk

      First published in Great Britain by Harper 2014

      Copyright © Lucy Lord 2014

      Cover photographs © Shutterstock.com

      Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2014

      Lucy Lord asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

      A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

      This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

      All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

      Ebook Edition © August 2014 ISBN: 9780007597543

      Version 2014-07-24

      Contents

       Title Page

      Copyright

      Ibiza Nights

      Keep Reading

      About the Author

      Also by Lucy Lord

      About the Publisher

       IBIZA NIGHTS

      ‘Mmm, that was great,’ said Summer Larsson with a contented sigh, leaning over to kiss David’s broad, sweaty shoulder.

      ‘It’s always great with you, baby.’

      ‘You too,’ she said, smiling her beautiful wide smile and sitting up in her boss’s vast bed, long blonde hair tumbling over her slender shoulders. She always felt euphoric after sex, especially sex as good as they’d just had; it was only later that the doubts started to set in.

      ‘Coffee?’ she asked, jumping up and doing a little skip towards the ultra-modern kitchen where David kept his Nespresso machine.

      As the water started to bubble, she sighed, her elation already beginning to subside. Summer was food and drinks columnist on Island Life, a glossily produced English-language website that covered all the cool things happening in Ibiza, from fashion to new restaurant and club openings, weddings, local markets, festivals …

      And David was her editor.

      Their affair had started soon after he took the job, having moved from New York where he’d been a financial journalist (the thought of living in Ibiza had appealed as much to his inner hedonist as the idea of being an editor had appealed to his quite substantial ego). To start with, the whole clandestine nature of their relationship, the thrill of nobody in the office knowing what they were up to, had been unbelievably exciting. But Summer was not by nature a secretive person and recently everything had begun seem a little too much like hard work.

      She carried the coffee back into the bedroom, but no sooner had she set it on the glass-topped bedside table than David pulled her down on top of him again.

      ‘Want some more, honey?’

      Summer responded by kissing him deeply and opening her thighs just a fraction.

      ‘Oh yes.’

      Walking back up ancient winding streets from David’s glamorous modern flat to her own tiny one, which was located right at the top of the Old Town and had stunning views down to the harbour, Summer felt the familiar combination of happily satiated lust and a niggling self-loathing. Sometimes she really wondered what was wrong with her.

      It had been flattering when her boss had taken such an obvious interest in her. More than flattering; David was highly intelligent and the way he looked at her through intense dark eyes was enough to turn anybody on. Not to mention his quite astonishing expertise in the sack. She shivered with delight as she recalled the things he had just done to her.

      But at forty-six he was twenty years older than her; at five foot six, three inches shorter; and when they weren’t making love he was clingy bordering on creepy. What was more, shagging your boss had to be a bad idea, in anybody’s book. Summer’s problem was that she had always really enjoyed sex, which gave the men with whom she had it the mistaken impression that she had fallen in love with them rather than with the exquisite moments they shared. Which for most men, of course, was an enormous ego-boost.

      At least he wasn’t married, she told herself – not that she’d have succumbed to his advances if he had been. For all her liberal Swedish upbringing, it would never have occurred to her to touch another woman’s man – she was both too sweet-natured and too practical for that. Although there had been that time in Barcelona … Summer shook her streaky blonde head, trying to rid it of the memory. That hadn’t been her fault – Alfonso had failed to tell her that he had a girlfriend.

      She let herself into her flat, poured a glass of rosé wine, and walked out on to the pretty stone balcony, enjoying the feeling of early spring sun on her shoulders. She and David had both headed to his apartment straight from work (departing ten minutes apart to avoid suspicion), frenziedly tearing at each other’s clothes the moment Summer had walked through the door.

      She looked down at the view of anchored boats in the old port, wondering what she should do. A certain melancholy kept descending on her of late, a feeling that her life was lacking something – but what? She knew that by most people’s standards she was exceptionally lucky … She’d been brought up by happy hippy parents on a near-deserted beach on the east coast, and studied Modern Languages at the University of Barcelona, so her English was as fluent as her Swedish, Spanish, French and Italian. Having travelled the world teaching English, she’d realized that there was no choice but to return to Ibiza, her favourite place on Earth – and possibly the most blissful.

      Her phone rang in the pocket of her indigo maxidress, interrupting her thoughts. She smiled as she saw who it was.

      ‘Hey, Mamma.’

      ‘Hey, darling. Good day at work?’

      Summer stiffened slightly. She and her mother were extremely close, and she usually confided in her about everything, but somehow she couldn’t bring herself to tell her about the David situation. It was hard, lying to Britta, who seemed almost psychic when it came to her daughter.

      ‘Sure, fine. We still on track for tomorrow?’ Summer babbled, for want of something better to say.

      ‘Of course. Aren’t we always? Is everything OK, sweetie?’

      Summer,