Chapter Seventy-Eight
Anastasia Steinherr Diamandis stalked a poolside lit by candles and decorated with rose petals, her thin maxi dress billowing in the balmy breeze. Palms swayed and calming gamelan music chimed from hidden speakers among the verdant bushes as she paced the pool’s edge, phone to her ear. It was only five days until Christmas, and she couldn’t have been anywhere less seasonal and more tropical. It was so liberating, Anastasia had forgotten herself and accidentally answered her brother’s phone call.
He’d been talking at pace for five minutes now, checking in on her, talking about Christmas and all his plans for it, avoiding any mention of the Kivvi Christingle and how she humiliated their family in front of everyone.
‘We’re spending it with Meg’s mom and dad, upstate…’ Lysander said. Anastasia hadn’t asked and she wasn’t really interested. ‘Do you think you’ll head back to KD?’
KD,Anastasia scoffed internally. Her brother was so bloody American.
‘No, I think I’m going to need a little more time,’ Anastasia said, following the figure of a woman as she cut her path towards a small cliff edge. Beneath it the ocean lapping the rocks was lit artfully, making azure dots shimmer out of the black night water.
Anastasia had stayed precisely one night in the austere Black Forest facility before remembering an article she had read inVogueabout a supermodel-turned-wellness-guru who had opened a string of state-of-the-art resorts in the Indian Ocean. It was more her thing. If she was going to be gone for a while, to really try to save her reputation, she may as well do it in style.
She had spent the past blissful fortnight doing gong therapy, juice cleansing, reading by the pool, and working on herself, her way.
‘I’d better go Zand. I have chakra cleansing in ten.’
‘At seven pm on a Saturday night?’ Lysander said, his voice landing halfway between impressed and sceptical.
Actually it was midnight where she was, and the heady scents of frangipani trees in the gardens and the monoï oil in her slicked-back hair were intoxicating, filling her with an invigorating thrill. She looked to the woman, staring out to the ocean. Her serene beauty in profile made her look like an African queen.
‘I’ll check in with you soon,’ Anastasia said. ‘Promise.’
‘OK sis. Maybe give Dad a call too, huh?’
Now he was ruining her chi.
‘I have to go.’
She hung up, threw her phone on the lounger, and looked towards the diners in the twinkling restaurant beyond the long empty rectangle of the pool that separated Anastasia from the families. The detoxers. The couples. All of whom had chosen the idyllic tropical island for their wellness getaway too.
The woman on the edge of the sea, dressed in a cream silk slip dress that caressed her lithe body, glanced back.She and Anastasia had been playing cat and mouse for days, and as Anastasia held her eye, she kicked off her flat gold sandals, pulled her maxi dress over her head and stood, naked and glistening in the moonlight, as she dived into the water and swam a tantalising length of the pool.
Chapter Seventy-Nine
‘What are you doing here?’
Tristan stood broad in a checked shirt and sherpa-lined trucker jacket, his tanned face looked ashen.
‘Emme please…’ he reached out a hand.
‘Get away from me!’ she hissed, narrowing the door.
Tristan looked devastated.
He put his arm in the door so she couldn’t slam it on him.
‘Please.’
Emme didn’t know he’d spent the week in South Africa thinking about her; telling his mother about her; and shunning every old flame because he had only one person on his mind.
‘What’s happened? Why are you staying here?’
Emme stayed silent. She was so furious and so hurt, she couldn’t speak.
‘We talked every day, look, I don’t understand. But when you didn’t call me back yesterday, you didn’t answer my calls, I knew something was wrong. What’s happened? What’s changed?’
He had returned to Kristalldorf within twenty-four hours.
