Those Summer Nights (Corfu, Greek Island Romance) by Mandy Baggot Read Free Book Online

don’t know why Google Maps isn’t talking to me.’
    Google Maps probably felt the same way Imogen did. She focussed back on the road as the terrain began to flatten out a little. She sucked in a breath. She needed to give Harry a chance and stop panicking before she really knew what she was dealing with. It might not be as bad as everyone thought.
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    ‘ T ake a left here ,’ Harry said.
    ‘Are you sure?’ Imogen asked, flicking on the indicator. It had been another half hour since Harry’s ‘we’re really not far’ comment. She was sticky in places she didn’t even know she had places and she was sure her left forearm was being burnt through the glass. The ‘road’ Harry was wanting her to turn down looked nothing more than an ungraded track. It was concrete – just – but there were potholes like giant black Oreos in the middle of it.
    ‘Are you sure, Harry?’ she repeated.
    ‘Yes… I think so.’
    They rounded another bend and that’s when it came into view. Imogen couldn’t stop the gasp escaping her lips. Straight ahead of them, only a few metres away, was the sea. An almost indescribable turquoise blue, gently stretching away from a sand and white-pebbled beach.
    ‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’ Harry said, his words wrapped up with emotion as the car rolled to a stop.
    Imogen couldn’t disagree. It was like an oasis after the tortuous drive, a sliver of peace and tranquillity laid down before them. A mosquito landing on her arm brought her out of her thoughts and she shook her wrist before it could settle and bite.
    ‘How far is the restaurant, Harry?’ She eased the car forward.
    ‘Turn right here,’ he replied as Imogen turned the steering wheel in accordance with his instructions. ‘And it’s just… here.’
    Imogen pulled the car up and turned off the engine, her eyes going to the property on their right. She swallowed. The weeds hit her first. Spiky, evil-looking green fronds protruded from the perimeter of the building and she had to squint and focus hard to even see the rest of the property. Remnants of chairs and tables stood outside, broken and upturned, under what must have been a pergola in years gone by. Dark, withered vines hung from the metal construction that was nothing more than rust and neglect.
    Harry had got out of the car and he stepped up into the outside eating area that resembled the scene of an IED blast. The building looked ripe for demolition and, although Harry was fond of DIY SOS , she wasn’t sure either of them had the skills to even know where to begin.
    ‘Come on, Immy! Come and look!’
    But then again. Harry was projecting more enthusiasm than Mary Berry over millefeuilles. Imogen opened the door and stepped out of the car, her feet crunching on the stones at the edge of the beach. Maybe this was what had really seduced her brother. She breathed in hard, letting the salt water and driftwood scent invade her body as she looked out to sea. She might have been bewitched looking at photos of this. The sound of the water rushing over the fine shingle on the sand, the light breeze whipping past her ears, the hot sun warming her skin and that view – the endless azure blue running up to the mountains the guidebook had told her was Albania.
    ‘Immy! Come on!’ Harry called again.
    She moved onto the square of concrete covered in twines of greenery that shouldn’t have been there. It was like Sleeping Beauty’s castle, except the castle was a two-storey stucco skeleton of a building, and there was no dashing prince. And there was the pièce de résistance : those two broken windows that made up the entire frontage, meaning unrestricted access to any would-be robber, if adequately equipped with super-strength weed-killer. Just how long had this place been abandoned? She wondered how much of the inside her brother had seen before he signed on the virtual dotted line.
    Harry held up a terracotta pot. ‘I’ve got the key!’
    Great! Broken panes of glass and