Wild Oats Read Online Free Page A

luxury villa near Cap Ferrat, and reinstated the tradition.
    Jamie remembered the holiday being a frightening mixture of heaven and hell. The setting was divine, the food out of this world, the weather perfect. But she found she couldn’t relax with the Templetons. Isabelle was so frighteningly chic, with her Parisian clothes, her twelve swimsuits, her high heels on the beach, her menthol cigarettes. Eric was gregarious and boisterous, and brought out the worst in her father: they were bad boys together again, with their constant calls for champagne. Her mother seemed amused by it all, but kept her cool reserve, as beautiful as Isabelle in her own way, but without the need for constant reapplication of Dior lipstick. But Jamie couldn’t help feeling as if an air of forced jollity kept the momentum of the holiday going; a desperation to have fun before time ran out. How true that turned out to be…
    Whilst the grown-ups dozed and read by the pool, and Emile and Delphine disappeared off each day on mopeds, Jamie and Olivier found themselves thrown together and expected to get on. They’d played happily enough together when they were little, when their parents had got together for weekends. But no one seemed to have taken into account the excruciating torture of adolescence. At first, Jamie was tongue-tied and embarrassed in Olivier’s company. As a self-conscious fifteen-year-old from the sticks, she was alittle in awe of his extrovert London sophistication, and longed to crawl away and read books in her bedroom. But Olivier wasn’t having any of it: he was friendly, with an enormous sense of fun, and it wasn’t long before he managed to bring her out of herself. Soon she was hanging out with the other young people he’d met on the beach, drinking beer in the bars and sneaking off to the boîtes de nuit when they’d managed to ditch the parents after dinner. Occasionally they’d bump into Emile and Delphine, who studiously ignored them. Olivier, meanwhile, treated her with a certain chivalry that made her feel safe, but teased her mercilessly, almost as if she was a younger sister. But not quite. Once or twice she’d caught him looking at her in a way that made her cheeks go pink – though if he caught her looking he’d turn away, make a joke, start playing the fool.
    One afternoon, she’d been asleep on the pontoon on her front. She was half aware that her fair skin was in danger of burning, but the holiday had turned her a golden brown for the first time in her life and she wanted to prolong her tan. It made her look so different; when she tied up her hair in the evenings and applied mascara and lip gloss, she felt incredible. She became aware of admiring glances, and aware of Delphine’s hostility at having competition. Despite herself, Jamie found she rather liked the sense of power it gave her.
    Suddenly from the shore there came an urgent whistle. It was their signal to go back, to start gettingready to go out for dinner, but surely it wasn’t that time yet? Jamie sat up sharply, then realized with horror that her bikini top had stayed on the pontoon. She was topless. Olivier fell about laughing as she tried to cover herself.
    ‘You pig. You undid it…’ As she put her arms up in a desperate attempt to retie the strings behind her neck, her breasts betrayed her again, revealing themselves from behind the triangles of gingham. Tears of humiliation stung her eyes. ‘Help me, for God’s sake…’
    Olivier stopped laughing when he saw how distressed she was. Gently he came over to help her.
    ‘I’m sorry. It was only supposed to be a joke. I didn’t mean to upset you.’
    Jamie brushed away her tears with the back of her hand, too angry to reply or even acknowledge his apology. She stood as tense as a racehorse in the starting gate as he did up the ties on her back. When he’d finished, his hands slid down to her waist.
    ‘I really am sorry,’ he said softly, and Jamie felt the brush of his lips on