The next morning, I decided to avoid the beach and lie by the pool instead. It nestled in amongst the villas in the middle of the hotel grounds, and my hope was that by hiding there, I'd be able to avoid Hans and Eid. Why did the watersports club have to be so near to the hotel? I'd be running from Eid for my entire holiday now.

I'd barely sat down when I was interrupted once again. What was that accent? Polish? Russian?

"Callie?"

"Yes?"

A portly man with thinning hair loomed over me. What now?

"I hear you are looking for a man to show you a good time?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"You know, a bit of bedroom fun? How do you say, rumpy pumpy?"

"I understand what you mean, but who on earth told you I wanted that? Was it the waiter at the beach bar?"

"No, the bartender. He said to check on the sunloungers for the pretty lady with big, uh, how you say...?"

He mimed a huge pair of knockers, and I glanced down. Surely he was exaggerating? Mine were only D-cups.

"I'm terribly sorry, but I'm just not that kind of woman."

Hang on... Why was I apologising to him?

"So I am wasting my time?"

"I'm afraid so, yes."

He gave me a disgusted look and stalked off, muttering, "Tease-prick."

I opened my mouth and shouted, "You mean prick-tease, you idiot."

Oh. My. Goodness. Had I really said that out loud? Judging by the stares I was getting, half incredulous, half amused, I very much suspected I must have. I wanted to crawl under my sunlounger and die.

What could I do but gather up my things and flee back to the villa? Maybe I could just spend the rest of my break on the terrace. Yes, that seemed to be the best idea.

Except when I got there, I found the door open and a young Egyptian man in there, cleaning.

"You come back later," he told me, then grinned happily and closed the door in my face.

Gah. Beach it was, then.

On the beach, I picked a sunlounger as far away from the bar as possible and spread out my towel. The light breeze was enough to leave me feeling refreshed without being unpleasant. The windsurfers on the lagoon certainly seemed to be enjoying themselves too. I watched them for a few minutes before I picked up my book. Would this be my lucky day?

No. No, it wouldn't. I'd only managed to get halfway through the tense thriller when the sun disappeared, and I glanced up to find a man standing in front of me, holding a piece of paper.

"Callie Shawcross?" he asked. His accent was British, but from somewhere up north. Manchester, perhaps?

Oh no. Not again. "Who sent you? The waiter? The bartender?"

He looked a little sheepish. "Actually it was the security guard at the gate." He waved the piece of paper. "He issued me with a copy of your passport photo."

I thunked my head back onto the towel.

He gave a nervous laugh. "It took me a while to find you, I must admit. This photo doesn't look very much like you."

No, it didn't. It had been taken after a particularly nasty bout of food poisoning, which had left me as basically a corpse with mascara. And now half of the male guests in the hotel had probably seen it.

What were the other hotels in the town like? I wasn't bothered about the facilities—anywhere without a population of horny males would be fine. As long as it didn't have cockroaches. Cockroaches were also a no.

"Callie? You seem worried." The guy held up his hands. "Promise I won't bite. I was just going to ask if you fancied joining me for lunch. I'm here on my own too."

I didn't answer.

"You know what? I can see you weren't expecting this. I'll just...leave."

He took a step back. And behind him, I saw Eid approaching.

"Actually, you know what? I'd love to join you for lunch. How about we try the Italian place in the main building?"

I threw my stuff into my beach bag. Sunscreen, book, sunglasses, ashtray... No, wait, that wasn't mine.

"Really? Okay, great. That'd be great."

We walked along the winding path, leaving the beach and—more importantly, Eid—behind. Decorative turquoise pools bordered the way on either side, glimmering in the sun. Mum really had found a lovely hotel, even if some of its inhabitants left a bit to be desired. We turned a corner, and as a building loomed alongside us, I got a good look at the man walking beside me without having to squint into the sun.

I saw now that he was the same height as me—five feet eight—and that was good. Bryce had been a little shorter, and he'd always complained when I wore heels. Brown hair, a day's worth of stubble... My new friend's eyes were brown too, and they had a kindness about them. Maybe this wouldn't be as bad as I feared?

He held the door open when we got to the restaurant. One point in his favour. Not that I was keeping score or anything, but politeness never hurt. Then he pulled out a chair for me to sit down and earned another point.

The waiter came by and draped a napkin over my lap, then handed me a menu. "Can I get you a drink, ma'am?"

"Oh, yes, please. White wine would be lovely."

The waiter gave me a blank look.

"It's a dry country," my dining companion reminded me. "Well, mostly. Only the bar serves alcohol, or you can buy it at a couple of places in town."

Of course. No wine. And probably the man sitting opposite me thought I was a lush with the haste that I'd ordered it. Brilliant.

"Could I just get sparkling water?"

"Yes, Miss Callie."

"I'll have the same," the man said.

The waiter hurried off.

"You know my name. And also my date and place of birth too, but I know nothing about you," I prompted.

"How terribly rude of me. I do apologise. My name's Peter, and I'm twenty-seven and a Capricorn. My stars said I'd meet a beautiful lady this month."

He held out his hand. I moved to shake it, but when he took mine, he kissed it instead. What a gentleman!

Our drinks arrived quickly, as did several more waiters. Were they expecting an influx of guests? Peter ordered a salad, and so did I. After the wine comment, I figured pretending to be healthy wouldn't be a bad idea.

"It's nice to meet you, Peter." I surprised myself by meaning it.

"So, what brings you to Egypt?"

I recalled the lecture on dating that Kat had attempted to give me on the plane. Rule number one: avoid discussing past relationships.

"Oh, I just came to visit a friend. She's living over here at the moment. How about you?"

"I like to meditate. Sometimes I go for long walks in the desert. It cleanses my mind."

Mind cleansing sounded nice. Could that work for me? Goodness knows, my mind was filthy. No, not in that way! I meant my head was stuffed full of baggage from Bryce.

"Do you find it makes a big difference?"

"Yes, definitely. I go home refreshed and ready to dive into work again."

Our salads arrived. Gosh, that was quick. Maybe they had as many chefs as they did waiters? It took four of them to bring our food—one with each plate, one to carry the cutlery and another with condiments. When they'd put everything down, they retreated to the edges of the room and hovered.

Now I knew how a zoo animal must feel.

"So, Peter, what do you do for a living?" I asked brightly as the chef joined the line-up.

"I'm a taxidermist."

A what? I coughed in surprise. Or perhaps shock.

"Sorry, something went down the wrong way." I took a hasty glug of water and desperately tried to arrange my face into an expression of mild interest. "A taxidermist?"

"I prepare stuffed animals."

I was well aware of what a taxidermist did. My question was actually more why?

"Uh, sounds fascinating."

"Oh, it is. It's more of a calling than a job, really. There's something about preserving an animal's beauty for immortality that speaks to my soul."

When he put it that way, it sounded almost normal. "So you...preserve people's pets? Like dogs and cats?"

"Sometimes, but taxidermy has gone out of fashion in recent years. It breaks my heart. So I have to find other avenues to express myself through my art. If I go out for a drive at dusk, I can usually find some great specimens. Fresh."

Roadkill? He spent his life stuffing roadkill? I started to eat my salad faster.

"What do you do, Callie?"

"I'm a schoolteacher. For the reception class. Four- to five-year-olds." I shovelled another forkful in.

"Really? Sounds great."

He had a gleam in his eye. Probably he was imagining what my kids would look like stuffed, sorry, "preserved" and arranged in a cabinet.

"Yes, it's really satisfying, seeing their progress through the year."

"And how about in your spare time? What do you do for leisure?"

Good question. What did I do? I racked my brains. Mostly I'd trailed around after Bryce, doing whatever he wanted to do. But I wasn't supposed to mention him.

"I like to read, and I go to a weekly yoga class."

"That's it?"

"I took a watercolour painting class last year."

He seemed disappointed. "The painting sounds all right. I mean, at least it's creative."

"Yeah, it's fun. I've got my own paints and everything."

I took my last bite of salad. Peter had already finished his, and immediately seven waiters dived on us and cleared the plates away.

"Are you having dessert?" I asked.

I wasn't looking forward to hearing more about his job-slash-calling, but it would be rude to bolt off if he wanted another course.

He glanced at his watch. "Actually I've got a telephone appointment with my astrologer in half an hour. I'll have to dash."

Wait a minute, I was being abandoned by a guy who had a fetish for dead things? Was my company really that bad?

"How about tomorrow? We could meet up then?" I asked, desperation creeping into my voice. I didn't really want to see him again, but it was more a point of principle.

He got kind of twitchy. "Look, Callie—I'll be honest with you. I'm sure you're a lovely girl, but I'm hoping to find someone, well, a little more adventurous."

So that was a "yes." My company officially sucked. Peter signed the receipt, and I was left alone at the table. Well, as alone as I could be with nine waiters watching.

My shame knew no bounds.

What a difference a few hours could make. Come evening, I sat on a cushion while Kat and two of her girlfriends howled with laughter as I recounted my tales of the Russian freak and Peter the taxidermist. We were all in my villa, taking advantage of the hotel's room service.

"Maybe he should stuff himself a girlfriend?" suggested Simone, who worked as a waitress at one of the beachfront restaurants in town. "That way, he could be as adventurous as he liked."

"Eew, now you've put that vision in my mind, I can't un-see it," squealed Elaine, who worked at the local riding stables in the day and as a masseuse in the evenings.

"It doesn't matter. I'm off men for good. Wine is officially my new best friend." I held up one of the bottles that Kat had sourced from somewhere. "Anyone want a top-up?"

"I'll have one," Elaine said, holding out her empty glass. "And I'm with you on the man thing."

"Did you have another bad experience with one of your clients?" Kat asked.

She nodded and grimaced. "Yup. Tonight's was an Egyptian guy. He kept insisting he wanted a happy ending, and when I told him it wasn't that kind of massage, he grabbed my hand and tried to make me touch it."

"You didn't, did you?" Simone asked.

"What, touch his dick? It was so small I could barely see it."

"Did you tell the hotel?"

"Yes, and they called security, but he insisted it was all just a misunderstanding. Of course they believed him."

Poor Elaine. Seemed as if Bryce wasn't the only man to treat women like dirt.

"That's gross," I said. "Can't you specify female clients only?"

"I wish I could, but there aren't enough tourists around at the moment. I have to take what I can get." She swallowed a mouthful of her wine. "But we're not here to talk about me tonight. We're supposed to be getting you drunk. So you forget Bryce-the-bastard."

"Kat's filled you in, then?"

"She might have given us an outline of the basics."

Was there anyone in Fidda Hilal who didn't know the sorry state of my love life? Probably not, if the guilty look on Kat's face was anything to go by.

Simone tried to help out by changing the subject. "So, girls' night. Let's do something fun. Do you have a movie channel here?

"I think so, but it's in Arabic. The only two English channels are CNN and BBC World. So unless you want to watch over-dramatised news or a documentary about child labour in the Far East, we're out of luck." I had a thought and turned to Kat. "How do you feed your movie obsession?"

Ever since we were kids, Kat had harboured a fascination for all things Hollywood. She knew who was hot, who was not, and could name the upcoming premieres for each month in chronological order.

"Netflix and celebgossip.com, mainly. If I didn't have those, I wouldn't be here. Mo would have to find himself a new girlfriend, and I'd go and live someplace where I could get my daily fix of Scott Lowes and Zac Kennedy."

"Is there a good internet connection here, then?" I was a little surprised considering the town was ages from anywhere, surrounded by miles and miles of the golden mountains that formed the backdrop to the resort.

"Wi-fi's actually pretty good. It has to be, seeing as the internet's the main connection to the outside world. Without that, we'd be incredibly isolated."

"That's a relief."

At least I could check my emails when I felt brave enough. I'd been putting it off in case there was one from Bryce. Or in case there wasn't. I wasn't sure which would be worse.

"Have you got your laptop handy?" Kat asked. "We could pick out a film."

I dragged the bag from the bottom of the wardrobe and fired up my laptop, studiously ignoring the email icon that was taunting me. Kat logged into her Netflix account.

"Any requests?"

I shook my head. It had been ages since I'd seen a movie. Even then, I just used to watch what Bryce chose, which was usually either something obscure with subtitles or a movie with a plot so convoluted that only the person who wrote it understood what was going on.

"How about we watch something with Scott in it? Forever Black? Out of the Blue?"

Kat's crush on the Hollywood actor she referred to as "Scott," as if she knew him personally had been rolling on for years, ever since he rose to fame playing Jed Harker in Forever Black. I'd never seen either of those movies, but I felt as if I had due to the extraordinary amount of detail she always recounted them in.

Simone stretched out on the bed and groaned. "No way. You've made us watch them all ten times each. How about the latest Mission: Impossible film?"

"Seen it," chorused Kat and Linda.

"Or that romcom that just came out? The one with Velvet Jones."

"No way. She's such a bitch," Kat said.

"Are you basing that assessment on anything other than the fact that she's rumoured to be dating Scott?" Simone asked, rolling her eyes.

"It's more than a rumour. She confirmed it in an interview last week."

I put my hands in the air. "Guys, guys, stop arguing. Can we please avoid anything with romance? And any actors that might remind me of Bryce? Also anything gory, since we've just eaten."

"That doesn't leave a lot," Kat said, flicking through the menu.

"There must be something."

In the end, we settled on Despicable Me. The minions were adorable, and we all loved a happy ending of the right kind.

Me especially, even if I was never destined to have one myself.