‘Faye, do you think there could be a way back?’ Matthew asked. ‘For us?’
Faye was up and out of her chair like she had sat on a hornet and it was stinging her incessantly. ‘Matthew, what is this?’
‘What’s what? Come on, Faye, sit down and eat your… fishy thing.’
‘No, I don’t want to sit down any more. Because if you don’t have real intentions in buying the hotel from Dimitria, for the right reasons, because it’s a fantastic place making good money, then we have nothing else to talk about. And even if you had real intentions of making it a business enterprise, you must know that I could never work with you.’
‘Faye, calm down, people are looking.’
‘There he is,’ Faye said. ‘The Matthew who always worried about what other people thought rather than thinking about the situation he was in the middle of. Do you remember that time Saffron had a panic attack at your mum’s birthday meal when they brought out the surprise cake? You told her to “not to be so silly”.’
‘Faye, come on, sit down.’
‘No,’ Faye said firmly. ‘Because you don’t get to tell me what to do any more and I never should have ever let you.’ She took a breath, uncaring for the hush having descended around the other diners. ‘Whether this proposition is business, or whether it’s personal, you’ve never cared about Kerkyra the way I care about it. This island is my home, Matthew. This is the place I feel most like the person I am and the person I’m still very much growing into and?—’
‘Obviously I knew you’d have reservations, but we can take our time. We can?—’
‘Read my lips. There is no “we”. Not any more. It might not have been my decision to end the marriage but now I am so grateful for that ending because it gave me the opportunity to find a whole new beginning.’
Matthew scraped his chair back and rose. ‘With this fucking basketball guy? With all his fucking… hair. Are you out of your mind, Faye? He’s, what? Mid-twenties? He’s using you. It’s obvious to anyone! Saffron thinks it’s embarrassing and I couldn’t agree more. Total insanity.’
Faye sighed, closing her eyes and taking another deep breath before opening them again and observing Matthew afresh. He was such an angry person. But the person he was always most angry with was himself. As he ranted and raved about the photos in the media and she let it all fly on over her head and be swept out to sea, she realised exactly how far she had come. The Faye who was in the marriage would have buckled under coercion, backed down – particularly with anything in relation to Saffron – and done anything to keep the peace or take the easy route. The Faye who had had to rebuild a life – externally and internally – didn’t just not suffer fools gladly any more, she ate them like a Greek meze.
‘This has nothing to do with Kostas,’ Faye told Matthew matter-of-factly. ‘Or anyone else. This is my life now, Matthew. Mine. And I only ever do things that I want to do. So, I appreciate what you’ve said, but working together at the hotel is not something I want to do. If you really want to buy it from Dimitria and make a success of it that’s great, but I would want no part in that. And, apart from having our wonderful daughter to support together, there’s nothing else I want to collaborate with you on.’ She pulled her purse from her bag, opened it and put some euro notes on the table. ‘So, I think that covers it.’
And without saying anything further she left Cavo Barbaro without a second glance back.
63
HOTEL MARGARITÁRI, AVLAKI
‘Isn’t that your husband?’
It was the next morning and Faye was helping clear tables in the restaurant with Katerina. It was all hands on deck today as three of their staff had called in sick. Faye would usually have been glad of the distraction, but having that take place in front of Matthew, who was what she needed to be distracted from, was an issue. He was sitting at a table with Saffron.
‘Ex-husband, Katerina,’ Faye answered. ‘Don’t forget the important bit at the front.’
‘That is what all men say,’ Katerina stated nonchalantly. ‘But what is he doing here?’
‘I really honestly don’t know,’ Faye said with a sigh. And she wasn’t about to tell Katerina the bits she did actually know. Then she lowered her voice. ‘Listen, Katerina, have you said anything to anyone about what we saw in Kostas’s suite? The plans?’
‘Well… I might have said something to Dimitria,’ Katerina admitted. ‘And my mother.’
‘What?’ Faye feigned surprise. She obviously knew Dimitria knew, but she had also suspected Katerina would not have stopped there.
‘But my mother, she said that it is best we do not tell the newspapers until we have our own plans in place. She is gathering together everyone she knows that helped fight against the last Erimitis project.’ Katerina lowered her voice a notch, something rarely done. ‘The Avlaki Resistance, she is calling it.’ She touched her nose and continued to whisper. ‘There is a meeting tomorrow night.’
‘OK, good.’
‘So you are on our side?’ Katerina asked.
‘Katerina, of course, I am.’
‘I don’t know,’ Katerina said. ‘Your Kostas has things about him that might sway my opinion. If I were you, not me, obviously. And if he was not an evil millionaire who wants to slay monk seals.’
‘No one is slaying anything while there is still breath in my body, OK?’ Faye said sincerely.
And then the breath left her body as Kostas strode into the dining room. He looked tired. But hot. Dressed in distressed jeans and a plain white T-shirt. Hot. But she wasn’t about to lose her focus. He had lied to her. He had never been honest. Exactly the same as the ex-husband who was loading his plate with sausages from the buffet.
