Meet Me in Tahiti Read online

  Praise for Georgia Toffolo

  ‘A classic romance with the added bonus of a festive feel. I loved the passion, the romantic tension, and the way the characters leapt of the page.’

  Laura Jane Williams, bestselling author of Our Stop, on Meet me in London

  ‘Uplifting, romantic and festive – the perfect book to curl up with. I couldn’t put it down’

  Rosie Nixon, Editor-in-Chief HELLO! Magazine, on Meet me in London

  ‘Fresh, fun and full of romance! I loved it!’

  Heidi Swain, Sunday Times bestselling author of The Secret Seaside Escape, on Meet me in London

  ‘A perfect escapist, heart-warming read! I was hooked from the first line!’

  Katie Ginger, author of Summer Strawberries at Swallowtail Bay, on Meet me in London

  ‘Unwrap and enjoy this Christmassy treat of a read’

  Mandy Baggot, bestselling author of My Greek Island Summer, on Meet me in London

  ‘The perfect escapism. Romantic, sexy and full of sunshine’

  Lia Louis, bestselling author of Dear Emmie Blue, on Meet me in Hawaii

  ‘A beautiful and heartfelt story of joy and glorious escapism. The tonic we all need right now.’

  Alex Brown, bestselling author of A Postcard from Paris, on Meet me in Hawaii

  ‘A delightful burst of sunshine just when I needed it. In Meet me in Hawaii, the surf’s up to deliver the perfect combination to brighten up anyone’s day.’

  Jules Wake, bestselling author of The Saturday Morning Park Run, on Meet me in Hawaii

  ‘Fun, friendship, heartbreak and the hope of love – all wrapped up in the most breathtaking scenery! The perfect heart-stirring escape-from-it-all read, whatever the time of year.’

  Zara Stonely, bestselling author of The Wedding Date, on Meet me in Hawaii

  ‘So much fun it made me feel like I was actually on holiday with Toff… I was blown away because it was so full of heart and love. And I cried happy tears at the end.’

  Jane Linfoot, bestselling author of Love at the Little Wedding Shop by the Sea, on Meet me in Hawaii

  GEORGIA TOFFOLO is a broadcaster and British media personality. Meet me in Tahiti is the third book of her quartet. Her first book Meet me in London was a Sunday Times top 20 bestseller. Meet me in Tahiti is her third novel. She lives in South West London with her dog Monty.

  Copyright

  An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

  1 London Bridge Street

  London SE1 9GF

  First published in Great Britain by Mills & Boon in 2021

  Copyright © Georgia Toffolo 2021

  With thanks to Avril Tremayne

  Georgia Toffolo asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

  Ebook Edition © August 2021 ISBN: 9780008375928

  Version 2021-07-31

  Note to Readers

  This ebook contains the following accessibility features which, if supported by your device, can be accessed via your ereader/accessibility settings:

  Change of font size and line height

  Change of background and font colours

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  Text to speech

  Page numbers taken from the following print edition: ISBN 9780008375911

  To the risk takers and boundary breakers at Whizz-Kidz

  who constantly remind me anything is possible.

  Also by Georgia Toffolo

  Meet me in London

  Meet me in Hawaii

  Contents

  Cover

  Praise

  About the Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Note to Readers

  Dedication

  Booklist

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Acknowledgements

  Extract

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  About the Publisher

  Chapter One

  ZOE TAYLER’S MOBILE PHONE pinged, alerting her to an incoming email.

  Her fingers froze on her computer keyboard.

  She knew that email would be from [email protected].

  Yes, Selena and Noel Tayler not only owned a domain name, they also had a dedicated address for corresponding with their only child. That was how serious they were about keeping a not-so-proverbial eye on her.

  Whenever Zoe was on an international job her parents’ email obsession ratcheted up to frenzy level – particularly on day one, which brought an avalanche. Only gradually did the frequency taper off in the ensuing days, easing fraction by fraction with each of Zoe’s instantly returned I’m fine no need to worry replies.

  Today – sigh – was day one. This would be their fourth email of the day, and the just-roll-with-it process of allaying their myriad concerns lay depressingly ahead of her.

  It was noon in French Polynesia, which made it 11 p.m. in England. There should only be time for only one more communique before her parents went to bed, so within the hour she should be free.

  Unless…

  Well, unless she decided not to answer this one. In which case she could be free immediately.

  Her fingers twitched on the keyboard as the idea of going off-the-grid took hold.

  And then she laughed.

  Futile to hope her parents would shrug their shoulders, assume she was fine and go to bed. The more likely scenario was that they’d call Zoe’s mobile, and keep calling, and when Zoe didn’t answer (because answering would render her little rebellion redundant) they’d fret over what ills might have befallen her – everything from a fever-inducing cold caught during her plane trip to her lying unconscious on the floor with a cracked skull. Within twenty-four hours they’d be knocking on her bungalow door with an ambulance on standby.

  Yeah, hard no to that!

  She leaned back in her chair, rubbing her hands up and down her thighs to remind herself why her parents needed to know she was all right.

  Of course she was going to reply.


  ‘Fight your big battles to the death but don’t sweat the scrappy skirmishes if you want to win the long war,’ she murmured, and her hands abruptly stopped moving as she realized what she’d said.

  Not that those words didn’t suit the situation, but it shocked her that she could recite them – verbatim – after… what… twelve years?

  Yes, it had been twelve years since Finn Doherty had said those words to her that idyllic summer they’d worked together at the Crab Shack in Hawke’s Cove.

  Her parents hadn’t wanted her to take the job at the Shack; hadn’t seen the need for it given the generous allowance they gave her. But all of her friends had summer jobs lined up and she’d pleaded, and her BFFs had pleaded, and even Ewan, the owner of the Crab Shack, had pleaded (such a softie), and at last she’d been given the OK to be just like every other sixteen-year-old in the village.

  Unfortunately, a week into the job she’d had a wisdom tooth out – typical that she’d get her wisdom teeth earlier than any other kid and that one of them would be impacted. (Seriously, it was like the universe had it in for her!) Her parents, true to form, had acted like she was about to be measured for her coffin and it had taken two days in bed and an extra day of frantic begging before Zoe was allowed to return to work.

  But her parents’ capitulation had come at a price: constant phone calls.

  After their eighth call on her first day back, Zoe had decided that giving up the job was preferable to having every Shack employee lining up to throttle her. She’d hurried out to the storeroom, phone gripped in one hand, blinking tears away because she didn’t cry, ever, when Finn had… well, materialized.

  He’d looked at the phone, at her face, and understood the situation instantly. That was when he’d said those words to her. And then he’d told her that the big battle had been getting her parents to agree to the job, but the phone calls? Pfft, they were nothing.

  And just like that, the phone calls had ceased to matter. So she’d called her parents, right there in front of Finn, and explained that if she didn’t answer a call immediately it didn’t mean she was being rushed to hospital, only that she was busy, and in such cases she’d call them back within half an hour, cross-her-heart-hope-not-to-die. Then she’d set the phone to ‘vibrate only’, and whenever it had buzzed in the back pocket of her jeans, she’d smiled at Finn and he’d smiled back, sharing the secret. And over the next few days the calls had tapered off. The way the emails she was currently dealing with always did eventually.

  So deal with it, Zoe. The sooner you deal, the sooner you’re free.

  She switched windows on her computer. For long responses – and she was determined to compose a long one, knocking off every possible issue she could think of as a forestalling tactic – she preferred keyboard typing to tapping on her phone.

  She couldn’t imagine what there was left for them to warn her about but when she opened the message she saw they’d found something: Cristina, Zoe’s regular travel companion.

  The email was oh-so-carefully worded; this wasn’t a hill her parents were prepared to die on lest Zoe decide no more travel companion at all, but nevertheless the dictates were clear: Zoe should remember Cristina was there to help. It was fine for Cristina to enjoy herself, and nobody expected her to hover over Zoe twenty-four hours a day, but Zoe shouldn’t see it as an imposition to request Cristina’s assistance whenever she needed it. Cristina was stronger than Zoe as well as being a trained nurse, so Zoe shouldn’t insist on doing all those transfers to and from her chair herself all the time.

  The easy way to head this particular concern off at the pass was to let her parents know that Cristina had become as tediously dedicated to Zoe’s wellbeing as they were, to the point where Zoe had to send her on made-up errands to win herself some breathing space. Today, for example, Zoe had asked her to carry out a completely unnecessary accessibility check of the entire Poerava resort. Problem was, though, if she told her parents Cristina had been afflicted with the protect-Zoe-Tayler-at-all-costs disease they’d probably kick off a campaign to get Zoe to hire Cristina as a permanent live-in assistant.

  Not! Happening!

  Zoe wished she knew what she did that made people want to stand guard over her so she could stop doing it. It happened to everyone who came into her life sooner or later, and as for those who’d known her from her cradle?

  Well, gah! Just… gah!

  Yes, three miscarriages before Zoe was born had conferred ‘precious’ status on Zoe. Yes, Zoe had suffered all the health issues associated with being premature. Yes, Zoe had been a sickly child, in and out of hospital with bronchiolitis. But – ginormous, important BUT – by the age of eleven she’d been as hardy as any kid in the village. Small, yes, but perfectly formed and perfectly fit. And yet a slight breeze sent half the village running for her coat. A yawn and the other half would urge her to rest. A scratch on her arm and she’d be fending off offers to drive her to Accident and Emergency. As though she were a piece of delicate porcelain teetering on the edge of a cliff and it was everyone’s collective responsibility to stop her going over.

  Thank God for her best friends, Victoria, Malie and Lily, who treated her like they treated each other: no fuss, no concessions, just love. Without them, Zoe would have spent the span of her life from primary school to coming-of-age peering through the windows of her parents’ clifftop mansion – or as the girls called it ‘Palace de Prison’ – at everyone else frolicking on the beach below.

  Zoe smiled around a sigh, as she always did when thinking of her friends. She depended on the girls in a way she never let herself depend on anyone else. It didn’t feel like a weakness to need them, to lean on them when the going got tough. They had each other’s back, always. Knew each other’s frailties and strengths. Knew each other’s scars. Were always there for each other – whether it was a quick phone call between two of them or an all-in session via video conference.

  Zoe’s visit home last Christmas had come about after one of those video calls. It hadn’t been easy, going back to Hawke’s Cove. But Victoria had been struggling over a decision that might have torn her from the man she loved (her now-fiancé Oliver Russell) and so Zoe had sucked it up and joined Lily and Malie on a surprise visit. They had a codename for those big deals – the scared-to-death and flying-high ones, the heartbreaks and exaltations, the ones that meant you dropped everything to be there: the Lost Hours.

  Zoe was proud of the fact that she’d been the one to inspire that codename. They’d taken a trip to Ibiza to celebrate Victoria’s birthday and because V was the last of them to turn eighteen it was all-out-for-freedom that week. So all-out Zoe had managed to get lost at a foam party. One moment they’d been dancing as a group, the next the foam had gone right over Zoe’s head – she was the shortest, at just over five feet – and pandemonium had apparently ensued as Victoria, Malie and Lily had searched for her for the next three hours. They’d been scared out of their wits and checked her over as thoroughly as a doctor when she’d resurfaced, despite Zoe reassuring them that she hadn’t been kidnapped or drugged or conked on the head. Eventually they’d let the matter rest – perhaps reading the gleam of mischief in Zoe’s eyes that told them she was thrilled at having had a secret adventure.

  It had been two months before the summer ball that would mark the end of school, and with the daring still racing through her blood Zoe had made the decision then and there that the ball would be a turning point, kick-starting a new life.

  Careful what you wish for.

  That night had certainly kick-started a new life. A new life for all of them. Just not in a way anyone could have anticipated.

  Which she was not going to think about now.

  She was going to think only positive thoughts.

  As though by magic, her phone lit up.

  Video call.

  Lily.

  Zoe smiled as she hit the button to accept. ‘Hey!’ she said. ‘It’s close to midnight over there! Do you miss me that much?’
>
  Lily opened her mouth… then closed it.

  ‘Lily?’ Zoe said, alarmed at the distraught look on her friend’s face.

  Lily opened her mouth again… and burst into tears.

  ‘Lily!’ Zoe clutched the phone so tightly in her hand she was in danger of cracking the case. ‘Tell me, tell me what it is!

  ‘Sorry, sorry!’ Lily wiped furiously at her eyes. ‘It’s just… Blake.’ A sob escaped her, but Zoe could see her pulling it all together, the way she always did. ‘H-he’s d-dead.’

  ‘Oh Lily! Lils! I’m so, so sorry. Do you need me to come? I will, you know I will.’

  Lily shook her head furiously. ‘You hate Hawke’s Cove.’

  ‘This isn’t about Hawke’s Cove, it’s about you.’

  ‘You’re on a job.’

  ‘I’m a fill-in, nothing more. It’s a junket. Like… blerrgh. You know I don’t do those.’

  A ghost of a smile from Lily. ‘And yet there you are.’

  ‘Meh!’ Zoe tossed in nonchalantly. ‘I like the guy who asked me to do it, that’s the only reason.’

  ‘As in like?’

  ‘As in no! Geez! Rolf lives in Germany. It’s an online friendship, nothing more. Let’s leave the romance to V and Devil, shall we? On the subject of which, this is Lost Hours business. They’re joining us, right?’

  And just like that, Lily was crying again. ‘I was going to dial them in but I… I mean, they’re both… you know, all loved up with Oliver and Todd. But Mum’s not here and I just… I feel kind of lost, and I knew you were in a time-friendly zone and… oh, I don’t know what to do!’

  OK, sound the alarm! Lily lost? Not knowing what to do? It. Did. Not. Com. Pute.

  ‘Just hold on, I’ll conference in V and Devil and we can all cry together.’

  ‘You never cry. And you wouldn’t have to even if you did. You barely knew him.’

  ‘I’ll cry for you like a professional mourner. And Malie will cry for real. You know she adored him almost as much as you.’ She started tapping at her phone.

  ‘Not V!’ Lily said suddenly. ‘I mean, the Hawkesbury Estate!’