Her gaze softened, but the frown didn’t budge.
‘Ally,’ Ruby called out, ‘if we move the podcast recording to tomorrow and I postpone the photoshoot in the Cotswolds for a week, I can easily sort everything else.’
Unflappable, our Ruby – one of the many reasons I adore working with her.
‘Thank you. Maya, any glaring clashes you can see?’ I asked.
Maya Wylde, the fourth member of our team, is a marketing whizz/wunderkind who I poached from my former employer when I established Divorced Diva as an LLP. She runs our social media campaigns across multiple platforms, manages our online community, coordinates a team of offsite contractors (i.e. influencers), and writes all our messaging. Well, except for the thoughts of the day – those are strictly mine.
‘I can move a few things around,’ she said. ‘And there may be some cross-promotions and brand synergies to explore – with the resort, I mean. I’ll just need a contact.’
All Maya had to go on was what she’d gleaned from eavesdropping, and she was already strategising.
‘Thanks, Maya,’ I replied. I looked at Claude, arching my brows. ‘Well?’
She exhaled through her nose, then nodded. ‘All right. But on one condition.’ She leaned in, her voice low. ‘Don’t let him charm you into bed.’
‘As if I would,’ I whispered, stung by the suggestion, even though I knew it came from love.
Claude gave me a look – the one that said I’d made worse decisions with less temptation. She wagged a finger at me. ‘Don’t.’
I swatted her hand away, and she returned to her desk, trailing that inescapable air of big-sister authority.
I rarely regretted bringing Claude on at Divorced Diva. It had been the perfect antidote forherpost-divorce blues, making her too busy to wallow and paying enough to keep the wolf from the door. And she was an absolute pro – the most organised, meticulous person I knew.
But at times, the line between her role at Divorced Diva and being my sister blurred. This was one of them.
There was no way in hell I’d ever sleep with Julian again – not when I was perfectly happy on my own (taking the occasional lover when it suited me). But more importantly, hooking up with an ex went against everything Divorced Diva stood for – never go back, never repeat past mistakes.
I wasn’t about to risk everything I’d built just for Julian – no matter how good he was in bed.
And Claude knew that. Or she should have.
* * *
Friday rolled around quickly – time sped up when you had to clear a jam-packed schedule – and I spent most of the day in transit. Not my favourite aspect of travel, but is it anybody’s?
With apologies that his private jet wasn’t available, Julian flew me from Heathrow to Athens in business class, then sent a helicopter to collect me from there.
And while helicopters may seem like a fancy-schmancy way to get about, they make me queasy. That day, the ride to Aetheria was particularly bumpy – crosswinds, apparently – so I was struggling to hold on to my lunch. And BA does a particularly nice lunch at the pointy end of the aeroplane. However, the journey to Aetheria also served up a visual feast that lifted my spiritsandkept my mind off my innards erupting.
Below us, the Aegean sparkled with thousands of pinpoints of sunshine, the water an array of colours, shifting and surging as if in a dance – sapphire, midnight, teal… Every shade of blue all at once.
The pilot named the islands of the Cyclades as we passed by, his commentary in my headset another distraction from the nausea. There was Kea to the left, Kythnos right below us, Syros just ahead…
He flew us lower over Syros, giving me a proper look at its enormous port and brightly coloured buildings, the eggshell blue of a church dome capturing my eye. It was a stunning island.Note to self: book a holiday to Syros.
The helicopter climbed again and a few minutes later, the pilot’s voice came over the headset. ‘You’ll see Mykonos to our left and Naxos to our right.’
I looked in both directions over the expanse of water towards their ragged coasts. Naxos was vastly larger and greener than Mykonos, but both were rather unremarkable from that high up, evidence of those iconic white boxy structures invisible to the naked eye. I wondered if Julian’s island would have them.
‘About five minutes out, Ms Novak,’ said the pilot.
‘Thank you.’
I craned my neck to see out the front window of the helicopter, hoping to get a glimpse of Aetheria. The pilot looked over his shoulder and broke into a smile beneath his aviators. ‘Just over there,’ he said, his arm extending to the southeast.
I leaned further forward and there it was – tiny compared to other islands we’d passed. Butbeautiful, the features of its varied topography sharpening as we drew nearer, then followed the coastline south. A jagged, curved cliff, a sliver of snow-white sand at its base, the water in the cove turquoise. Gently sloping land, strewn with stands of Cyprus trees. Jagged, reddish rock formations. And on one of the gentler slopes, an erratic grove of gnarly, thick-trunked olive trees, likely growing there for centuries.
