‘You and me both,’ Pippa said.

It was great that she’d been able to help yesterday, she decided as she left Amy. It had made the terrors of the night before recede. It had made Roger’s betrayal fade almost to insignificance.

Birth beat death any day, she decided-and it also beat marriage. Now to have her honeymoon…

Half an hour later the porter ushered her into her hotel suite and finally Pippa was alone.

Her honeymoon hotel was truly, madly scrumptious. It had been years since Pippa had spent any time in her parents’ world and she’d almost forgotten what it was like. Or maybe hotels hadn’t been this luxurious back then.

The bed was the size of a small swimming pool. How many pillows could a girl use? There must be a dozen, and walking forward she saw a ‘pillow menu’. An invitation to add more.

Thick white carpet enveloped her toes. Two settees, gold brocade with feather cushions, looked squishy and fabulous. The television set looked more like a movie screen.

Two sets of French windows opened to a balcony that overlooked the sea. Below the balcony was a horizon pool, stretching to the beach beyond.

It was magnificent-but Pippa wasn’t exactly into horizon pools. Or pillow menus.

She gazed around her, and the familiar feeling of distaste surfaced. More than distaste. Loneliness?

That’s what these sorts of surroundings said to her.

She was an only child of wealthy parents. She’d been packed off to boarding school when she was six, but during vacations her parents had done ‘the right thing’. Sort of.

They’d taken her to exotic locations and stayed in hotels like this. Her parents had booked her a separate room, not close enough to bother them. They had employed hotel babysitters from the time they arrived to the time they left.

As she got older she pleaded to be left at home. There she least she knew the staff-and, of course, there was Roger.