Page 51 of The Making of Jonty Bloom
“If you could do whatever you liked to the hotel, what would you do?”
“Update the rooms. Refit the bathrooms. Replace the windows. Paint the outside and get rid of the stains creeping down from the balconies. Find ways to persuade more people to come out of season. Maybe hold wedding fayres or special events. Murder mystery weekends would be fun. Or retreats for writers or even sports weekends. You can climb, ride, swim, surf, kayak, and a whole load more. Or even arrange stays for film lovers. Lots of filming has been done around here. Harry Potter, Transformers, Lady Macbeth.”
“How often does the major come to stay?”
“He lives in the hotel all year round, along with a few other guests. There’s also a couple who split their time between the hotel and cruising.” Jonty glanced at him. “What have you come up here for?”
Had he been too obvious, asking about the hotel? He didn’t want to tell Jonty that truth. Not yet. Maybe he’d never need to if McAllister didn’t want to sell. But another truth to avoid a lie… A more painful one for him at least. Why not?
There were a lot of reasonswhy not.
“You’ve gone so quiet, I’m worried,” Jonty whispered.
“I came up here to escape.”
Jonty gulped. “Oh God. What’s happening in the south? Have you run out of coffee? Toilet rolls? It can’t be the sea level rising or we’d be underwater. Zombie apocalypse?” He groaned. “Now I feel terrible I’ve trivialised what might be something serious. Like cancer. Sorry.” Jonty grabbed his hand and squeezed hard. “If you have duct tape in your pocket, now might be a good time to use it. Not on me, obviously, on you, so you can’t tell me I’m an idiot.”
Devan chuckled.
Jonty gave a dramatic sigh. “Except you can’t just say you came up here to escape and not tell me why. Are the police after you? Your boss? The Russian mafia? Colombian drug lords? A Mexican cartel? Aliens? I’ll shut up now.”
For some unsettling reason that he didn’t fully understand, Devan wanted to tell him about Ravi and Griff, wanted someone on his side.
“You don’t have to tell me.” Jonty widened his eyes. “Debt collection agency? Your ex? A gang of exes? A casino debt? Sorry. I will give up asking eventually.”
Devan snorted. “Really?”
Jonty looked hurt. “I won’t push. I know you arrived feeling sad. You don’t have to tell me why.”
“Are you going to let me get a word in edgeways?”
Jonty mimed zipping his lips. Devan waited, but Jonty said nothing else.
“Last Sunday, while I was having lunch with my parents, they told me my brother’s planning to get married in December.”
“Right.” Jonty frowned. “Were you supposed to marry first or something, because you’re the eldest son?”
Devan laughed. He couldn’t help it because Jonty had inadvertently almost got it right. “In a way. The person he’s marrying is my ex.”
“Oh. Ah. Eww. Eek. Oops. I’ve run out of short exclamations starting with vowels, but that’s…not good. Is your ex awful? You want to save your brother, but you can’t because he won’t listen? Shit, that sounds like me. The not listening bit.”
“Not quite. Five months ago, Ravi should have been marrying me. The…” Devan swallowed hard. It was harder to say than he’d thought, but then this was something he’d never thought he’d tell a stranger.
Jonty held tighter to Devan’s hand. “What is it?”
“The day before the wedding, I found Ravi in bed with my brother.”
“Had they got a good excuse? Hiding from an escaped tarantula or something?”
“No.”
“Oh shit.”
“Obviously the wedding was called off.”
“By who?”
“That’s an interesting question. By both of us.”
