Welcome to Paradise (Paperback)

Pages : 382
ISBN : 9781838164331
Weight : 365g
Dimensions : 203 x 21 x 127 mm

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- Sapphic romance
- Vacation romance
- Starting over
- Grumpy / sunshine

“Hey, pretty lady. Why don’t you put that phone down and come join us in the pool for an aqua aerobics class?”
“No, thank you.” Lisa shook her head, avoiding the young man’s gaze. Manuel’s voice was annoyingly animated as he tried to persuade her to get in the pool for the third time that day. She knew his name because he had the equally annoying habit of talking about himself in third person, and the only reason he kept bugging her was because so far, she’d been the only one to turn down his invitation for an ‘ab-tastic’ class. All the women along the poolside swooned over him, but she would not jump on the Manuel train. Not now, not ever.
“Come on, I know you want to. Ab-tastic Manuel gives the best workouts; you’ll feel amazing after.” He flexed his muscles and Lisa could not resist an eye-roll before she shot him a glare.
“Will you stop bugging me? I’ve asked you nicely three times now. I don’t want to get in the pool, especially not with you, and if you don’t leave me alone, I’ll go and speak to your manager.”
“Of course.” Manuel stepped back and held up a hand, seemingly just now grasping that she really wanted to be left alone. “I’m sorry if I overstepped.” His tone was genuinely apologetic, and Lisa noticed the sideways glances from other hotel guests. She had an idea of what they were thinking; How can anyone be grumpy on holiday in Paradise?
The thing was, she wasn’t on holiday, and although the hotel was called Paradise, it was far from exotic or even pleasant.
Hotel guests jumped in the pool when Manuel blew his red whistle, and Lisa put her phone under her towel to shield it from the splashing water. After the lockdowns in the UK and around Europe, people were desperate for human contact and so craved any opportunity for interaction, even forced fun. She was pretty sure a couple of the holiday makers deliberately jumped in right in front of her, and although she normally wouldn’t care what rowdy and tipsy English tourists thought of her, right then, she felt judged and that wasn’t a nice feeling.
Lisa demonstratively got up from the sunlounger, put on her shorts and grabbed her phone, her suntan lotion and her towel. Then she walked past Manuel, who was yelling inspirational quotes from her end of the pool, without giving him a second glance and headed for the bar. A drink might calm her down, even if it was the cheap, watered-down all-inclusive kind. Again, eyes followed her, and she wished then that she could just disappear into thin air.
They think I’m by myself because I’m too miserable to hang out with. Truthfully, she was miserable; even two months in Spain couldn’t change that. Forget it, she told herself. Most of the guests would leave at the end of the week, new people would arrive and hopefully by then, everyone in the animation team would recognise her as the woman who didn’t want to participate in mass fun.
“Rum and Coke, please,” she said in a forced, chirpy tone to make up for her earlier outburst.
“Rum and Coke coming right up.” The man made a show of pouring the rum over ice, spilled half of the Coke over his wrist and on the floor, then added a pink umbrella and a pink, glittery straw.
“Thank you.” Lisa took a sip, pretending to scan the premises so she wouldn’t have to talk to him. Benidorm was a strange place. The town being so popular with the English, it didn’t feel like she was abroad at all, yet it was nothing like London either. Well, the sunshine was nice, she had to admit that. It certainly wouldn’t have been this sunny in London, especially during June. After only four days there, her tan was already deep, and her long, blonde hair had even paler streaks running through it.
“How long are you staying?” the bartender asked.
Lisa smiled through a clenched jaw. She’d had this conversation with a couple of bartenders already, but she hadn’t met this one yet. Looking away clearly didn’t help and she was starting to realise that it didn’t matter what she tried; the staff were trained to entertain their guests, period. “Two months,” she said. “Maybe three, depending on my situation.”
“Your situation? Well, that certainly doesn’t sound like a bad situation.”
“I suppose so,” was all Lisa could think of to say, and looked over her shoulder when she heard heavy breathing.
“Another beer, mate,” the man who had come up behind her said to the bartender. “Actually, make it two. One for me and one for the missus.” His face was bright red from the sun and sweat was dripping down his hairy chest. When his eyes met Lisa’s, his mouth pulled into a grim smile, exposing chipped, yellow teeth. “Hello there, beautiful.”
“Hi.” Lisa stood up, took her drink and waved her orange wristband at the bartender to show she didn’t have to pay for it. “Thank you. Have a good day.” Talking was the last thing she felt like doing and apparently her small, stuffy room was the only place she could escape the curious questions from the staff and unwanted flirtations from drunken guests.
Crossing the wide, paved square that led to the hotel’s back entrance, she downed her drink in one go and placed it on one of the glass collection stations, regretting she hadn’t ordered another one.
Paradise Hotel looked like a building lifted straight from the old Soviet Bloc. It was a dirty shade of off-white, rectangular and tall, and whoever designed it had crammed as many rooms into the building as possible. To make up for the basic accommodation, they’d planted palm trees around the two big pools outside and placed two tiki bars on the premises, assuming that would be enough to justify the name. It wasn’t the only hotel of its kind. On her walk last night, she’d seen many cheap all-inclusive hotels with similar exotic names lining the beachfront of Benidorm. ‘The Pearl of the South’, ‘The Grand Mermaid’, ‘Emerald Bay’ and ‘Premier Sunset’—a smaller hotel that was entirely blocked from the sun by Paradise Hotel—all had the same worn-out look and eighties architecture.
Going on the cost of her room she’d expected her accommodation to be basic, but nothing could have prepared her for this. The lift rattled loudly as it went up, but with most guests spending the day outside, at least it didn’t stop twenty-four times on the way to her floor. Even with her mask on the smell of mouldy carpet penetrated her nostrils, and with no air-conditioning in the corridors, she held her breath while she rushed to her room. She was grateful for the strict safety measures though, and the hotel guests all seemed to adhere to the rules inside the building, wearing masks in the communal areas and even gloves at the buffet. In her room, she quickly switched on the old air con unit that was stuck to her wall, its sides held together with duct tape. She could only be thankful it worked after hearing guests complain about their broken devices.
Her balcony doors led to a concrete base that was too small to hold the only rickety chair in her room, so she’d made a nest of the throw and her pillows to sit on. Compared to her beautiful South West London flat, which she’d given up last week, this looked more like a room in a halfway house, but she kept reminding herself that coming here had been the right decision as paying almost four-thousand pounds in rent a month just wasn’t an option anymore. Nothing would be the same again, at least not for a while, and she’d have to somehow come to terms with that.
Sinking down in her nest, Lisa leaned against the railing as she opened her inbox for the tenth time that day. Surprised at seeing an email from one of her headhunters, she felt a tiny spark of hope.
‘Hey Lisa,
I’m sorry to tell you that Levius Tech have decided to go with another candidate. Don’t worry though, you’ve got this and I’m positive we’ll find you something soon. Your CV is strong, but Levius felt that candidate 4 was better suited to their company.
Regards,
Cammie Peterson.’
“Fuck,” Lisa muttered, sighing deeply as she flung her phone onto the bed. She’d been willing to take a huge salary cut and lower her standards with Levius Tech, which was a joke compared to the super brands she’d previously worked for. When it rained, it poured. She was still waiting for a reply from another company, and she’d look for more jobs tomorrow. Surely, they wouldn’t all turn her down?