The Summer Villa Read online

  Praise for Melissa Hill

  ‘I was completely gripped’

  Sarah Morgan

  ‘Addictive!’

  Grazia

  ‘Another great read from the best-selling Irish author’

  Hello!

  ‘This emotive story will touch your heart’

  My Weekly

  ‘A blissfully escapist romp’

  Marie Claire

  ‘Will keep you turning the pages until the very end’

  Woman

  ‘An absorbing tale … Hill doesn’t disappoint’

  Irish Independent

  MELISSA HILL lives in Wicklow with her husband and daughter. A USA Today, Irish Times and international bestseller, her novels are published worldwide and translated into 25 different languages, with multiple adaptations currently in development for movies and TV.

  Visit her website at www.melissahill.ie or contact her on Twitter @melissahillbks, or melissahillbooks on Facebook and Instagram.

  Also by Melissa Hill

  Something You Should Know

  Not What You Think

  Never Say Never

  Wishful Thinking

  All Because of You

  The Last to Know

  Before I Forget

  Please Forgive Me

  The Truth About You

  Something From Tiffany’s

  The Charm Bracelet

  The Guest List

  A Gift to Remember

  The Hotel on Mulberry Bay

  The Love of a Lifetime

  A Diamond From Tiffany’s

  Keep You Safe

  The Summer Villa

  Melissa Hill

  ONE PLACE. MANY STORIES

  Copyright

  An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

  1 London Bridge Street

  London SE1 9GF

  First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2019

  Copyright © Melissa Hill 2019

  Melissa Hill asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  A catalogue record for 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, downloaded, 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 2019 ISBN: 9780008217204

  Note to Readers

  This ebook contains the following accessibility features which, if supported by your device, can be accessed via your ereader/accessibility settings:

  Change of font size and line height

  Change of background and font colours

  Change of font

  Change justification

  Text to speech

  Page numbers taken from the following print edition: ISBN 9780008217198

  To great friends, old and new.

  Contents

  Cover

  Praise

  About the Author

  Booklist

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Note to Readers

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  About the Publisher

  Prologue

  It was just a little white lie. A way to kickstart her freedom.

  And Kim Weston was now officially a runaway.

  She couldn’t help but laugh at the idea as she stared out the window of the aeroplane into the abyss around her. Thirty years old – an adult – and here she was, running away from home.

  She’d boarded a flight from JFK earlier and watched as the sky turned from pale blue to black. They were already six hours into a nine-hour journey and she was tired but couldn’t sleep.

  There wasn’t a star to be seen, no way to discriminate the ocean below from the sky above. Nothing but emptiness.

  Ironic because it was exactly how Kim felt inside. She had no reason to, or so everyone told her.

  She had everything – the luxurious Manhattan apartment, a personal driver to take her wherever she wanted to go, generous expense accounts at all the best Fifth Avenue stores, and a black Amex to service every last one of her spending needs.

  She and her friends were the crème de la crème of New York’s Upper East Side society set and partied with celebrities and VIPs alike. By all accounts she had the quintessential dream life.

  So why was she running away?

  She could still hear her parents’ voices in her head and her own guilt in her heart as she sat quietly nursing a vodka and orange juice.

  Most of the cabin’s passengers were asleep, and the crew was moving around less frequently, but Kim’s mind simply wouldn’t quit.

  For once, she wasn’t playing the role she’d been allotted. If she was expected to assume her part in the Weston family script for the rest of her life, then she needed a chance to play the rebel, even if only briefly.

  Everything was planned to ensure that her parents wouldn’t find her – at least not for a little while.

  Her destination (and certainly choice of accommodation) wasn’t somewhere Peter or Gloria would ever think to look for her, since it was so far removed from the kind of places the Westons usually frequented.

  No five-star luxury hotel suite awaiting Kim when she arrived. Instead she was staying at a tumbledown villa she’d found on the internet, where she’d be sharing living space and possibly even a room with other guests. She shuddered involuntarily.

  Kim was roughing it, in as much as someone like her could. The house had no on-site staff, apparently there was someone who’d come by daily to tidy and meet and greet,
but that was it. No concierge, butler, in-house chef – nothing.

  For once, she was going to have to cater for herself – in more ways than one.

  That gave her some sense of unease; she wasn’t exactly Martha Stewart, which was why she also planned to maybe enlist herself in an Italian cookery class, as suggested by the booking site she’d used. Failing that, she’d just survive on pizza and pasta. It was Italy, after all.

  And she could afford that much, for a little while at least.

  It was early afternoon when the flight landed at Naples airport and the transfer service she’d arranged (her final luxury – she wasn’t going to rough it entirely after a transatlantic economy flight) picked her up outside the terminal.

  ‘Signorina Weston?’ the driver holding the sign with her name on it queried as she approached.

  ‘That’s me.’

  ‘Buongiorno. Right this way,’ the young Italian man instructed as he directed Kim to a waiting black Mercedes.

  She stepped outside of the terminal, her long slender legs clad in white jeans, which complemented her hot pink poncho. Sunglasses protected her eyes from the bright sun but she still held a hand to her forehead to shield them as she stared up at an almost cloudless Italian blue sky.

  ‘I am Alfeo,’ the driver introduced himself as they walked, taking her luggage along with him. ‘How was your flight?’

  ‘Long,’ she answered. She was bone-tired, a little cranky and not particularly in the mood for small talk.

  Alfeo nodded and opened the car door for her. ‘The journey will take just over an hour and a half depending on traffic. But we can stop along the way if you need anything.’

  ‘That’s fine,’ Kim replied as she slid into the back seat and tipped her head against the leather headrest. She closed her eyes, suddenly spent and exhausted from worrying now that she was here.

  She was really doing this …

  It seemed as if only a few minutes had passed when she was woken by Alfeo’s voice announcing arrival at their destination.

  Kim blinked several times as she tried to gather her bearings, then lowered the window to look out at her surroundings. They were parked down some kind of laneway, and up ahead she could make out a grubby wall of peach-coloured plaster, and a paint-chipped wooden door – the only interruption on an otherwise blank façade.

  Unimpressed, she regarded the weather-worn door and its tarnished brass ring, and hid a frown as she dragged manicured nails through her tousled blonde mane, pulling her hair partially over her shoulder.

  Her heart fell. This place looked like a complete dump. She sincerely hoped the inside was a helluva lot better.

  ‘This is Villa Dolce Vita, right?’ she asked, casting a fatigued gaze at Alfeo as she stepped out onto the dusty gravel pathway.

  ‘Si. Villa Dolce Vita.’

  ‘I’ll need your number,’ she stated as she walked towards him with her phone in hand. ‘Just in case.’

  Alfeo complied, assuring her that he’d be available whenever she needed, the suggestive grin on his face indicating he meant for more than just transportation. Were Italian men really such unabashed flirts?

  ‘Can you maybe just help get my cases inside before you go?’

  ‘Of course.’ He duly took her suitcases out of the boot, while Kim wandered further along the perimeter wall to where a break in the trees gave way to a view of the sea.

  Realising that they were on an elevated site, high above the glittering Gulf of Naples, she glanced to her left to see a group of impossibly beautiful pastel-coloured buildings and terracotta roofs, clinging and huddled together.

  The set-up immediately put her in mind of a huge piñata cake: the centre of the green and grey mountain cut open to release a tumbling selection of irresistible pastel-coloured candy.

  Now this is more like it …

  Further along down the coast, rock promontories jutted out above diverging bays, beaches and terraces, all presiding over cerulean waters. Hills dotted with lush vineyards, olive trees and citrus groves looked down over the colourful shops, cafés, hotels and historic buildings scattered below.

  Sailboats dotted the clear blue waters and, looking down from where she stood, Kim could see snaking wooden steps leading all the way to the rocky shore below.

  The whole thing was dizzying in every sense of the word.

  By the time she returned to the villa entrance, Alfeo was gone, but the old wooden door had been left ajar.

  Kim slipped through into the courtyard area to discover a hidden garden of sorts.

  The dark pea gravel of outside gave way to a lighter-coloured, more decorative kind, and she noticed heavy stone planters dotted throughout the small courtyard area, housing rows of mature lemon and olive trees.

  Coupled with vibrant magenta bougainvillea tumbling down the edge of an old stone building – evidently the villa itself – the garden was a riot of colour, and against the azure sky and glittering water on the bay, made for a picture-perfect entrance.

  Citrus scent from the lemon trees followed as Kim walked to the front of the property, her senses now well and truly awakened.

  The villa was of the same blotchy peach plaster as the outside wall, a pretty two-storey house with a terracotta roof and rustic windows trimmed with dull cast iron railings that had long since seen better days.

  Turning to check out the view from the front of the house, Kim noticed a terraced area beneath the gardens, accessible by four or five stone steps leading down to small pool bordering the edge of the entire site overlooking the panoramic bay.

  Without the ornate bougainvillea-laden perimeter railings holding everything together, it was as if the entire site could easily slip right off the edge and plummet down to the rocky shore below.

  OK, so this place was old, but surprisingly charming, and while Kim didn’t have high hopes for the quality of accommodation, given the crumbling exteriors, she already felt a weird sense of calm at just being here.

  It was as if Villa Dolce Vita had already cast a spell on her.

  A chipped wooden front door with a ringed black-painted knocker at its centre stood wide open, and Kim hesitated momentarily as she listened for noise from inside.

  She wasn’t sure if there were other guests staying there already or if anyone was even expecting her, but there was no going back now.

  She took a deep breath. She was really here. Doing her own thing, finding her own path.

  Time to take the plunge.

  Here goes nothing …

  Chapter 1

  Now

  The word ‘transformation’ was an understatement.

  The once-crumbling Villa Dolce Vita was now one of the loveliest restorations on the Amalfi Coast area, in Kim’s opinion at least. It was the perfect location for a wellness centre and retreat, and was going to be the ultimate real-life showcase for her business, The Sweet Life.

  In the two years since they’d bought it, Kim and her business partners had wholly achieved their intention to create a very subtle, yet contemporary architectural update that reinterpreted the character of the building, while staying faithful to its origins.

  Outside, the cast iron perimeter and window railings had all been lovingly restored, external plasterwork and sash windows replaced with wholly sympathetic but weatherproof alternatives, and every last one of the terrace’s limestone tiles and steps had been completely relaid to ensure a sleeker, less rickety poolside surface.

  The gardens had been well-maintained throughout the years, and while they’d had no choice but to cut back some of the more aggressive bougainvillea so as to retouch the exterior plasterwork, and earmarked a patch previously overrun with dying trees for a lawned area, little other work had been required.

  The remaining good olive and lemon trees still bore heavy fruit, and the familiar citrus scent now filled the warm summer air as Kim wound her way through the courtyard.

  At last, the Villa Dolce Vita Wellness and Cultural Retreat was due to open next m
onth and Kim couldn’t wait.

  ‘Just here,’ she said, as she supervised the delivery guys. The patio furniture some of the locals were carrying had been hand-picked by Kim, each piece reflecting her own classic style as well as the influence of their Amalfi Coast surroundings.

  ‘Giving orders already, I see,’ an amused male voice called out from behind her.

  Kim smiled. ‘Someone once told me that if you want something done right you have to do it yourself.’

  ‘Yes, I think I have heard that one.’ Antonio Berger had been one of Kim’s business partners for the past five years. More than two decades her senior, the Italian was more of a father figure and mentor, and encouraged her in every venture she pursued.

  When she’d first met him and his wife, Emilia, on her first visit to Italy almost six years before, they’d been a welcome presence in her life and much-needed guides as she tried to navigate away from her upbringing and figure out what to do with her life.

  Antonio, as ever, was dressed in a light-coloured linen suit and square-front brown leather shoes. His salt-and-pepper hair was brushed back regally, accentuating his long face and square jaw, and his lively brown eyes lit up as he smiled at her.

  ‘As always, you already seem to have everything covered,’ he commented, stepping back and casually slipping a hand into his trouser pocket as he regarded the villa’s freshly renovated grandeur. ‘You certainly don’t need me.’

  ‘I always need you,’ she answered with a grin. ‘So do you want the grand tour?’

  The pair walked back towards the main house together. ‘You haven’t been here since we bought it, have you?’ she realised as she led him through the narrow hallway to the kitchen at the rear.

  She smiled fondly as the memories of her arrival here all those years ago came rushing back.

  How the kitchen had once been a cornucopia of blue, green and yellow with its grubby tiling, mismatched cheap units, and equally mismatched plates and cups on the open shelves. All the kitchen units were now bespoke in dark wood, complementing the ochres and light blue accents, and contrasting the wider openings and light tinted walls.