Summer Nights at the Moonlight Hotel Read Online Free PDF Page A

tuts. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Emily. Anyway, have you been practising your dance moves, Lauren?’
    ‘Oh – do I really have to go to salsa again?’ I ask, having conveniently forgotten about the whole thing.
    The others look at me as if I’ve grown that extra nose again. ‘Didn’t you enjoy it?’ Emily says, looking genuinely shocked.
    ‘It was
all right
, but my shins are black and blue after five minutes with Mike, and now that you two are paired off . . .’
    ‘I’d say that was a little premature, Lauren,’ Emily chides me. ‘We both fancy a couple of blokes, but that doesn’t mean we’re
paired off
. Besides,
we’re not there for the men. We’re there for the fun. Aren’t we, Cate?’ She nudges our friend.
    ‘What – eh? Yes, sorry,’ she says. ‘I was distracted.’
    ‘By what?’ Emily asks.
    Cate narrows her eyes towards the car park. ‘I could’ve sworn I saw . . .’
    We spin round and follow her gaze when Robby, Cate’s ex-boyfriend, appears and starts sauntering towards the pub door. ‘Oh God, it
is
him,’ she says, ducking her head
down, as if this will save her from anything.
    Emily chews her lip. ‘Maybe he won’t spot us.’ At which point he starts waving.
    Cate looks up, starts twiddling with the piercings at the top of her right ear and musters up a ‘what a lovely coincidence’ smile that is so unconvincing you’d think
she’d just found fossilised squirrel faeces in the bottom of her glass. ‘Shit. What do I do?’ she hisses through clenched teeth.
    ‘You just have a polite conversation and hold your breath until he’s gone,’ I tell her.
    Robby is suddenly hovering above us. It’s hard not to feel sorry for Cate’s ex-boyfriend, and not just because she left him heartbroken when she dumped him. He’s always had
that feel-sorry-for-me way about him, which I think was part of the reason she eventually came to find him so strangely unattractive.
    And it is strange, because Robby is unfeasibly good-looking, with the lithe, hard body of an underwear model, and a high blond Tin Tin quiff that is so daft it can only be cool.
    Half-Parisian, Robby moved to London when he was eight, and then relocated up here to the Lakes last year for work. He’s a bar-tender at the Damson Garden, an insanely luxurious boutique
hotel where he’s served cocktails to A-list film stars, Olympic sportsmen and the odd a chart-topping musician.
    At twenty-seven, he’s five years younger than Cate, and although he has everything going for him, he retains a strangely melancholic disposition, as if he’s permanently mourning
something that hasn’t yet happened. Only, in this case, it has happened. Cate dumped him. And apparently ruined his life.
    ‘How are things, ladies?’ he asks, with a face that says,
I’m trying my best to keep a stiff upper lip, DESPITE WHAT THIS FUCKING COW DID TO
ME .
    ‘Good, thanks,’ Emily and I reply. Then there’s a split-second silence in which everyone is thinking about asking him the same question, yet you can practically hear the cogs
in our brains trying to stop us from doing so.
    ‘And how are
you
, Robby?’ Cate asks, clearly not able to stop herself.
    He glares at her. ‘I’ll have to be honest, things are not so goo—’
    ‘Would you like a nut?’ I ask, thrusting the glazed almonds under his nose. He looks perplexed by this question. ‘They’re delicious,’ I continue, before he can say
anything. ‘Lots of calories, mind you. Not that I’m suggesting you’d need to watch your weight. So have you served anyone famous recently? Tom Cruise been in? Or Katie Holmes? Oh,
no – that could be awkward . . . ’
    A wrinkle appears above Robby’s nose. ‘Not really. I’ve had things on my mind other than work though. Personal things.’ He flashes another look at Cate, who is pretending
to admire the view. He sits down next to her. When she turns round, she nearly leaps out of her chair. ‘Things aren’t going my way at the