An Italian Dream

Kate Frost

Description

All NEW from Kate Frost.
Follow your heart and then your dreams…

'A perfect escape to Italy, with sunshine, devastating secrets, tears, smiles and a hero you will fall in love with.' - Jennifer Bohnet
'A beautiful novel about life choices and moving on, set on the sundrenched island of Capri. Should be read by a pool with a glass of Prosecco in one hand' - T.A. Williams
'A lovely escapist tale full of heart, friendship and promise' - Annie Robertson

Best friends since childhood, Fern Chambers and Stella Shaw have been through everything together and are at a crossroads in their lives.
Carefree Stella has a monumental secret and down trodden Fern’s happy life is not all it seems.
With their 40th birthdays approaching, a luxury holiday to the island of Capri is a chance for them to reconnect, let their hair down and celebrate in style. But untold truths and frustration bubble beneath the surface, turning what should be a holiday of a lifetime into an opportunity to make life-changing decisions.
Far from home, where anything feels possible, secrets are revealed, heartache is shared, love discovered and new friendships forged.
Will their Italian dream turn into a nightmare or lead to newfound happiness?

Sujets

• Vie de famille
• Relations familiales
• Sea Stories
• Wholesome
• Conflict Resolution
• Feminist
• Holidays
• Women
• Adventure (Guyana)
• Isquia
• Friendship
• Dating
• SpongeBob SquarePants
• Sea story
• Woman
• Italy
• Feminism
• My Last Duchess
• The Women
• Holiday
• Clean
• Adventure
• Family Life
• Romance
• Ischia
• Fiction
• Capri
• Europe

Informations

• Publié par: Boldwood Books
• Date de parution: 07 juillet 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781802804546
• Langue: English

Extrait

AN ITALIAN DREAM


KATE FROST
For my friends.
For your strength and courage through heartache.
You know who you are.
CONTENTS



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

Epilogue


Acknowledgments

More from Kate Frost

About the Author

About Boldwood Books
1
STELLA

Stella Shaw had a secret. More than one, actually, but this secret was monumental and exciting, despite her nervousness that it was also new and daunting. Things like this didn’t happen to someone like her.
She’d been building up to this moment for weeks, going through a whole gamut of emotions, wanting to tell her best friend her news. And now, if it wasn’t for the warm bubbling water in the hot tub, her palms would be sweating like crazy.
Fern was looking content, resting back against the side of the tub, gazing up at the night sky. Stella couldn’t help but smile at Fern in her bobble hat and bikini, the water glowing azure blue around them as the steam rising into the chilly air was snatched away by the darkness.
A spa weekend at Aqua Sana in Wiltshire had been a ruse for them to spend time together – Stella’s treat. She’d said she’d won the weekend, but that wasn’t the full truth. Fern had happily gone along with it; it wasn’t as if she treated herself often.
Stella steadied her breathing and gazed up at the lights in the surrounding pine trees twinkling like hundreds of dancing fireflies. A short distance away, along a lit wooden walkway, the Forest Spa glowed invitingly. Apart from the nerves, she was feeling properly relaxed. She turned her focus to Fern.
‘I need to tell you something.’
Fern looked across the hot tub and frowned. ‘OMG, you’re not pregnant, are you?’
‘What? No. As if!’
‘Just checking.’
‘I am so done with having kids.’ Stella gave Fern a knowing look. ‘And I’m not engaged either. I promise.’
‘Okay then…’ Fern said slowly, her beautiful blue eyes fixing on Stella’s face. ‘I’m out of guesses.’
Stella took a deep breath and released a foggy plume into the January evening. ‘I bought a Lottery ticket on a whim. I’d had a knockout appraisal at work and got a bottle of prosecco and a ticket on the way home to celebrate. Turns out I got pretty lucky.’ At the fluttering in her chest, she breathed deeply again. ‘And won.’
‘Are you serious?’ Fern bobbed upright in the water. ‘How much?’
‘A million.’
‘ You’ve won a million ?’
Stella laughed at Fern’s high-pitched exclamation and nodded. ‘I really have. I’ve won a million on the National Lottery. Well, a bit more than that actually.’
Fern squealed with delight and threw her arms around Stella, the movement splashing water over the side of the hot tub.
‘This is amazing!’ Fern released Stella and readjusted her bobble hat.
‘It sounds crazy, I know, but I just didn’t know how to tell you.’ They’d been best friends since the start of secondary school and had gone through so much together. Apart from Stella’s eighteen-year-old daughter, Chloe, Fern was the only person she trusted with the news. Not her sister and certainly not her parents, not that she saw much of them anyway.
‘This is what the spa weekend has been all about?’
Stella nodded. ‘I wanted us to do something special.’
‘I’m over the moon for you.’ Fern squealed again and looked at Stella with a mix of wonder and shock. ‘It’s a lot to take in though.’
‘Tell me about it!’
Fern shook her head. ‘What are you going to do with a million pounds?’
Stella rested her arms along the edge of the hot tub and looked at Fern thoughtfully. ‘I’ve been thinking about that a lot. Well, how to spend some of the money. It’s a huge responsibility and I want to make good choices.’
‘Hold on.’ Fern frowned. ‘When did you actually win?’
‘October. Well, that’s when I claimed it. I didn’t realise I had a winning ticket for nearly four weeks.’
‘How on earth have you kept this to yourself?’
‘I wanted to tell you, I really did, but it’s been a lot to process, to suddenly have this life-changing amount of money. I had to open a new bank account, have a chat with the Lottery people, then meetings with legal and financial advisors. A life coach too. There’s been loads to think about. And if it makes you feel any better, I only told Chloe at the beginning of the week and I’ve not told Jacob yet because he’ll immediately tell his dad, particularly if I ask him not to. I can’t be dealing with that right now. I don’t want my whole life turned upside down. That’s why I opted for anonymity. I didn’t want my name and face to be splashed everywhere or to deal with the fallout from that. Going public felt complicated. Although keeping it secret has thrown up its own issues. I’m so relieved to have finally told you.’
‘I’m so glad you have.’ Fern reached across the bubbling hot tub, put her hand on Stella’s and grinned. ‘I think this calls for champagne!’
It was rare for them to spend the whole weekend together. With Chloe away at Kingston University studying drama and Stella’s thirteen-year-old son Jacob at his dad’s every other weekend, Stella had plenty of time to focus on herself, to go out and enjoy life, but it was a different story for Fern. Young motherhood, raising twins, plus twenty years of marriage to Paul, had taken its toll on her once vivacious, fun-loving friend. On the cusp of turning forty, it was good to see her letting her hair down and enjoying herself for once.
They’d left early that morning, driving just over an hour from Nailsea to Aqua Sana in Longleat Forest. The laughter they’d shared on the drive had taken Stella back to their teens when they’d both had no responsibility and little to think about beyond where they were going out. They’d often drive into Bristol together, leave the car at a friend’s, go to a nightclub in town and crash back at the friend’s – unless one of them pulled and ended up somewhere else for the night.
With shrieks and giggles, they climbed out of the hot tub and braved the cold, throwing on their white robes and dashing in flip-flops along the wooden walkway inside, past the pool area to the alpine steam room. Stella imagined the heat cleansing her pores, drawing out all the badness. She imagined it tugging at her regrets too, trying to cleanse her past. Would she change anything if she could go back? Probably. Actually, scratch that. Definitely.
When it came to relationships, Stella’s love life had been chequered to say the least. While Fern had got pregnant at the end of the summer after their A-levels, Stella had headed off to Cardiff University to study business management and enjoy student life to the full. Yet, a couple of years later, she’d followed in Fern’s footsteps when an ill-fated fling at university resulted in Chloe being born not long after she graduated, but she did graduate. She and Gary made the best of it, getting hitched, moving to Bristol and muddling along together for a couple of years before divorcing when Chloe was two.
With no choice but to move back in with her parents, who she’d had a difficult relationship with even before she disappointed them with an unplanned pregnancy, it was the push Stella needed to work her arse off for herself and Chloe, find an entry-level job in marketing that utilised the skills she’d acquired at uni and move out. Somehow she’d managed to juggle work and school runs, relying on childminders and friends such as Fern to enable her to make a success of single motherhood.
Then she’d met Rhod and had fallen for his charm and good looks. Life had been sweet for a while. They’d got married and Jacob had come along. Five-year-old Chloe had doted on her baby brother. They were a family for a few years, just like Fern, Paul, and their girls, Ruby and Amber, were, until the cracks in Stella and Rhod’s relationship became insurmountable. History repeated itself and she found herself divorced and a single mum for the second time, although both Chloe and Jacob’s dads remained supportive fathers.
Stella shifted uncomfortably on the curved tiled bench and not just from the overpowering heat of the steam room. Life was good, so much better than when she was married, but she couldn’t help but feel a failure when she thought back on past relationships, however strong she was for going it alone again. She knew she had a confidence and an outgoing personality that overshadowed Fern, but before Fern had got pregnant, she was the one who used to light up a room, who everyone noticed – men in particular. As sweat poured down her face and between her bikini-clad breasts, Stella contemplated their differences. Fern was a natural beauty with large doe eyes, full lips, lush porcelain skin and delicate features. They were both blonde, although Stella had a little help from a bottle with her choppy ice-blonde shoulder-length hair, while Fern’s was a natural honey-blonde, long and wavy. They were both slim and had kept in shape, although Stella was curvier, something she’d embraced as she’d got older. Her outlook on turning forty was: bring it on! Her motto was ‘work hard, play hard’, but she knew Fern wasn’t relishing the idea of the big four-zero. Stella looked at her now, resting back with her eyes closed, her long hair scrunched up in a band, golden tendrils framing her flushed face. She wasn't one for rocking the boat, opting instead for a quiet life and making do with her lot. In Stella’s eyes, her best friend deserved more.
With an excited Fern asking Stella a barrage of questions about the Lottery win, they moved from the heat of