Summer of Secrets by Rosie Rushton Page B

insisted.
    ‘Well, she is,’ Summer agreed. ‘And I suppose you could say Ludo’s besotted with her.’
    ‘Great,’ Caitlin muttered. ‘He even had the nerve to suggest we all went out together.’
    Summer laughed again.
    ‘So? I think that’s rather sweet.’
    ‘I’m so glad you find it funny.’
    Summer shook her head. ‘Oh, Caitlin, don’t look so miserable – Gina ’s a boat!’
    ‘A boat?’ Caitlin stared at her in disbelief.
    ‘A speedboat,’ Summer confirmed. ‘Dead classy, if you’re into that sort of thing. Ludo’s godfather died last year and left his boat to Ludo. Freddie was dead
cheesed off, I can tell you.’
    She picked up her book again.
    ‘You’re into boats, aren’t you?’ she remarked. ‘You said how you go sailing with your family.’
    ‘Mmm,’ murmured Caitlin. ‘Love them.’
    She thought perhaps at this point it was best to gloss over the fact that she had embellished, just a little, the story of the family’s preoccupation with sailing. She wasn’t sure
that the annual half-day round the Isle of Wight on The Wight Princess was in quite the same league.
    ‘That’s good.’ Summer winked at her. ‘Because with Ludo, it’s a case of love me, love my boat!’
    ‘Oh no! Why did she have to come?’
    Summer stopped dead, shielding her eyes from the bright Italian sun glinting on the windows of the arrival hall at Genoa Airport.
    She gestured to a tall, slender woman in white Capri pants and a gold silk baby-doll top, waving to them enthusiastically from behind the crush barrier.
    ‘I guess she had to, didn’t she?’ Ludo reasoned. ‘We can’t all fit in one car with Luigi.’
    ‘Well, no way am I driving all the way home with her and that’s final,’ Summer declared.
    ‘I guess that’s the new woman,’ Caitlin whispered to Izzy, eyeing the chestnut hair and designer suntan. ‘She’s dead glamorous.’
    ‘She may look good,’ muttered Summer, overhearing them, ‘but don’t let that fool you. Underneath, she’s a right conniving, manipulative cow.’
    ‘Summer, don’t start!’ Ludo hissed at her as they got within earshot of Gabriella. ‘This is a holiday, for heaven’s sake – loosen up, can’t you? Please?
For the sake of the rest of us?’
    Summer sighed.
    ‘OK,’ she agreed. ‘I’m sorry – I’ll do my best.’
    ‘Darlings! You’re here – isn’t this lovely?’ Gabriella threw her arms open expansively and beamed at them all. ‘Now come along, introductions can wait. The
cars are outside and I’ve got drinks on ice in the cool bags!’
    Outside, Luigi, a small, gnome-like man with greying hair and skin like a wrinkled satsuma was waiting beside a bright yellow Lamborghini, a car that in an instant had Jamie away from
Izzy’s side and positively drooling over the hubcaps. Ludo began piling the luggage into the boot.
    ‘Caitlin, what have you got in here?’ he demanded as he attempted to lift her suitcase.
    ‘It’s my paints and extra camera lenses and stuff,’ she explained apologetically.
    ‘Paints?’ Ludo repeated.
    ‘You paint?’ Gabriella exclaimed at the same moment. ‘Summer didn’t say.’
    ‘Why should I?’ Summer demanded. ‘I don’t have to provide a CV of all my friends.’
    ‘No need to be prickly, darling,’ Gabriella replied calmly. ‘I just – well, you know what your father’s like about the smell of oil paint and . . .’
    ‘I do watercolours,’ Caitlin said hastily, wondering why Summer’s dad should have a problem with oil paint. ‘And pastels sometimes. I’ll be going out and about to
paint – I won’t be any trouble, I promise.’
    ‘I’m sure you won’t, sweetie,’ Gabriella replied. ‘Just best if you paint away from the villa, OK? Now then, let’s get going. Mags is barbecuing this evening
and I’m on salad duty!’
    Ludo shoved Summer into the back of the Lamborghini with Izzy and Jamie and gestured to Caitlin to join him in Gabriella’s sleek little open-top Alfa