Look at her. Go on, look. Take a good, long look. Beautiful isn’t she; standing there by the swimming pool; five feet six inches of slim, tanned, hard-bodied, healthy young woman. I mean, what’s not to like about Laura?
Look at the way the water slides reluctantly from her hips as she climbs out of the water in that tiny black bikini. She turns and grabs the long, dark hair that trails down her back then squeezes the water out, before combing it back with her fingers, making it hang straight. Then she looks up and smiles at me. She’s got a good smile, warm and naughty and it’s making me wonder what my chances are of peeling that little black bikini off her just one last time before we have to fly home again.
She’s bright too, a lawyer and it’s always useful to know one of those, particularly in my profession. She knows what I do for a living, well mostly, and it doesn’t bother her. I mean, it’s not as if I’m a gangster exactly, not really. I don’t go telling her the details of my day but she knows I work for Bobby Mahoney, so it’s obvious I’m no chartered accountant.
We’ve been together more than two years now, and I am beginning to think she might be the one. We’d been bickering a bit lately, a lot actually if I’m honest, but I reckon we were just over the honeymoon period, that’s all. We’ve both been working hard and we needed a rest. This holiday could have been make-or-break but it’s been great; lots of late nights, long lie-ins, lounging by the swimming pool, then back to the hotel for some of that lovely, unhurried, afternoon sex you only ever seem to get when you’re on holiday. If only life was like this all the time.
And Laura is loyal, which helps. Loyalty is a rare and underestimated commodity these days. At least it is in my game. You want my opinion? You can’t put a price on loyalty. So I have landed on my feet with Laura, no one can dispute that. Even Bobby thinks she’s alright, for a posh bird.
It’s funny now, looking back on it, how I had no inkling, no instinct whatsoever, while I was lying there by the pool, soaking up the sun that hovers over this part of Thailand like it just loves the place and never wants to leave, that everything was going so badly wrong back home while I was away. I can honestly say that, right then, I really did have no idea just how much shit I was in.