Chapter 3

Women want love to be a novel. Men a short story.

Daphne du Maurier

On the morning of what should have been my wedding day, I wake up at six o'clock. I don't want to be awake this early. I don't want to be awake at all. The only time I don't feel that my heart has been ripped out and shredded is when I'm sleeping. But I'm awake now and I know I'm not going to fall asleep again, so I slide out of bed and pull on the light robe that's lying over the back of a chair.

Celeste is out for the count, her head deep in the pillow, muffling the tiniest gurgle of a snore that emits each time she exhales. I slip on my flip-flops and gently ease the door of the room open.

There's hardly any difference between the daytime and night-time temperatures on the island. The air is warm and balmy, and heavy with the scent of the flame-coloured Barbados lilies and pure white butterfly jasmine that fill the gardens. I can also sense the tang of the sea, and hear the gentle thud of the waves upon the eponymous white sand.

As I arrive at the wedding gazebo, which is on a promontory and surrounded on three sides by the azure blue of the Caribbean, the sun rises and saturates the sky with golden light. A lone pelican dives, arrow straight, into the shimmering water, emerging a moment later and flying off towards the other side of the bay, his breakfast secure in his enormous beak.

The scent of the flowers and the beat of the waves is calming. Getting married here would have been romantic beyond words. Steve and I made the perfect choice of location. It's a pity we didn't make the perfect choice with each other.

I take my phone out of the pocket of the robe. I'd intended to leave it in the room, not wanting the temptation of it with me, but I reasoned that it might ring and wake Celeste, who'd worry about me because I never leave my phone behind. I convinced myself that was why I hadn't simply switched it to mute and left it under my pillow.

I unlock it and take a few photos, as if to further convince myself that the other reason I brought it was to photograph the sunrise. Then I check Steve's social media.

He hasn't posted anything since a photo at Florence airport last night (#HomewardBound #HeartInFlorence #BestTimeOfMyLife). Nothing about today. No pix of a deserted church or my returned engagement ring. No #WeddingDay #BigMistake #ShouldBeInParadise. Not that I expected anything from him to show that he knows what day today is. And not that he'd post anything even if he remembered.

I take a few more photos of the sunrise and post them to my own social media accounts. Steve still follows me, although I don't know if he looks at my posts. I'm not sure if he simply hasn't thought to block me from his, or if he wants me to know that he's having a great time without me.

I know I'm being silly. I know it's over and I shouldn't keep thinking about him. But I can't help it. You don't simply switch loving somebody off. Even if they've broken your heart. You can be furious and devastated at the same time. And you can want never to see them again and follow their socials at the same time too. But the fact that he's constantly in my mind makes me ask myself if I'm still in love with him despite everything. And if I'd take him back if he asked me.

I can understand why he got cold feet. It had all spiralled out of control a bit in the last few weeks before our split. Our conversations were entirely about weddings and houses – I was worried about where we'd live in the future, he insisted we'd find somewhere; I was juggling the constant emails from the White Sands, he was telling me he couldn't care less what kind of flowers were on the table; I wondered if we could livestream the wedding . . . actually he was quite into that and took it on himself to liaise with the IT guy at the hotel. Anyhow, there's no denying that planning the wedding meant romance had flown out the window and we were already bickering like an old married couple.

Maybe we could have fixed it.

Maybe it was never worth fixing.

I wish I knew.

I wonder will he look at my photos (#ParadiseIsland #FeelingBlessed – I know, I know, it's complete bollocks, I'm feeling stressed more than anything!) and think he made a terrible mistake. I hope so.

I thought I'd be alone at this hour of the morning, but I'm not. I know everyone gets up early here, because Celeste and I have been out of bed by 7.30 every single day, and we've never been first down for breakfast. I didn't realise so many people were already out and about at dawn.

As I walk further through the gardens, with the sea framed by palm trees and hibiscus bushes, I notice a group setting up yoga mats beneath a large fabric sunshade strung between wooden pillars. A tall, very slim woman with cornrows in her hair asks if I'm joining them, and I shake my head.

‘You can drop by any morning,' she tells me. ‘No need to book at reception.'

‘Sure.'

‘We'll be happy to have you.' She flashes a wide smile at me before beginning to stream mellow music through speakers on the pillars.

‘Let's start with sun salutations,' she tells the group, and they all raise their arms to the sky.

‘Let's start with kickboxing,' I mutter under my breath, knowing that I don't have the power within me to be still and peaceful because my thoughts are far too turbulent to be cured by a bit of mindful stretching.

I continue along the path, which I discover leads to a small gathering of half a dozen more private villas. Steve and I considered booking a villa because they have spectacular sea views, a private beach and their own infinity pool, but they were very much out of our price range. Being completely frank, the entire hotel was out of our price range. But, you know, #NothingButTheBest #HappiestDayOfOurLives #NoExpenseSpared.

I lean against the picket fence that divides the villas from the rest of the hotel and remind myself that I'm actually very lucky compared to lots of other people in the world. I remember someone once telling me that whenever you have to remind yourself of your good fortune, you should also remind yourself that it's OK to feel your own unhappiness. But it seems horribly self-indulgent to be unhappy on Paradise Island.

As I contemplate degrees of happiness, a man wearing a pair of brightly coloured floral swimming shorts steps onto the decking outside one of the villas, stands at the edge of the pool for a moment, then dives in and swims the entire length underwater before surfacing again and shaking the droplets from his head. His body is toned and tanned, and it takes a moment before I recognise him as the same man Celeste and I saw on our first night, the one who was sitting alone at the best table in the restaurant and who's always at that table whenever he's there. He still looks vaguely familiar, and I rack my brains to try to remember where I've seen him before. As I stare at him, he looks directly at me, and even at a distance I blush with embarrassment. I give him a half-hearted nod and almost immediately turn away to walk quickly back to the room, where Celeste is up and dressed in shorts and a halter-neck top. She's pinned her dark hair up in a messy bun and looks casually stylish.

‘Where were you?' she asks.

‘Woke up early, went for a walk.'

‘Everything all right?'

‘Sure. Why wouldn't it be?'

I get dressed myself, then Celeste and I go to the restaurant, which, as always, is busy. I tell her about the enthusiastic guests swimming and doing yoga at 6.30 in the morning. Presumably, I add, they're the ones who get here first and bag all the good tables, and the sunloungers too. I don't mention our mystery man.

‘You should've bagged a lounger with a towel yourself,' she says.

The hotel has a no-reservation policy for the abundance of loungers, but it's a policy that's ignored by most of the guests. So far each morning, much like the prized tables in the restaurant, the prized sunloungers have always been claimed by someone.

We're on our second cup of coffee when the man I saw swimming earlier walks in and is immediately brought to the secluded table again. We wondered if it was allocated to the guests at Coco Villa, the most exclusive accommodation in the resort, but now I know that's not the case and I say so to Celeste.

‘Then how does he keep that table on permanent hold? He must have tipped them a fortune.'

‘Maybe he likes his privacy. And I guess if you can afford to shell out to reserve it, why not?'

From a distance, I can observe him more keenly than before. He's wearing a cream polo shirt and maroon shorts, and there's no sign of the paunch that men often develop after the age of forty. He takes off his horn-rimmed sunglasses and props his iPad on the table in front of him.

‘He must be an actor,' I say. ‘I know I've seen him before, and not just here on the island.'

‘Are you certain he's not a drug smuggler?'

‘Never say never, but . . . never. He's very attractive, isn't he?'

‘Too old for us.' Celeste pushes back her chair. ‘Let's go. If we're much later to the beach, none of the sunloungers will be free.'

We find a relatively secluded spot at one of the White Sands' smaller coves, smother ourselves in Factor 30 and settle down with the books we bought at the airport.

Celeste, who likes to be challenged by her holiday reading, chose a Penguin Classic and is now engrossed in The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James. She tells me I'd like it because it's feministy. However, I'm happy with the latest Janice Jermyn page-turning crime caper, where every single chapter has both a suspect and a prospective victim. But much as I'm enjoying The Mystery of the Missing Mallet, my mind has wandered back to Steve's post, and I'm wondering what he meant when he said he'd left his heart in Florence. Did he meet someone there? Is he in love with another woman?

I reach into my tote and take out my phone. Out of the corner of my eye I see Celeste glance at me, but I keep my own gaze firmly on the phone's screen. It's none of her business what I'm looking at, and besides, most of the people on the beach are scrolling on their devices.

I open Find My Friends. Steve and I both allowed each other to share locations when he moved in with me, although I usually only used the app to see where he was when we were meeting up and he was late. He's a terrible timekeeper. I keep expecting him to change his privacy settings, but he hasn't. And OK, I know I shouldn't, but today was supposed to be our wedding day and I'd like to know what he's doing instead of marrying me. As the app zooms in on his location, I see that right now, four hours ahead of us in Ireland, he's at home at his parents' house in Templeogue.

It's kind of nice that he's stuck at home while I'm sunning myself in the Caribbean.

#StrongWoman #TheBetterBargain, I tell myself, and put the phone away again.