‘I do not think that is appropriate, Dimitria,’ Faye said.
‘Appropriate,’ Kostas said through gritted teeth.
‘Well,’ Alexandros said. ‘I think we are done with talking business so?—’
‘Sorry,’ Faye said, suddenly getting up out of her seat and picking up her bag. ‘I must check in on Saffron. Would you excuse me for a second.’
She was leaving? Not without him. She left the restaurant and, bad idea or not, he immediately followed.
28
‘Hey! What’s happening here?’
Faye was shaking, trying to walk along the road a little, get out of sight while extracting her phone from her bag. Why was she acting like this? She knew she would have to keep seeing Kostas at the hotel until he left, even spend time with him as Dimitria had requested. And she had had one-night stands in the past, before she got married, and the very inadequate ice cream guy since; she could do nonchalantly unbothered. But now Kostas was calling to her, following her?
‘Mrs Lawson! I am a guest at your hotel, you need to answer me!’
Her legs moved faster, the zip on her bag was getting stuck. This was too much. She had spent all evening trying to be the support she knew she needed to be for Dimitria, but it was like choreographing her own demise and, right now, it was all suddenly overwhelming, too similar to when the ground was being taken from under her when she found out about Matthew’s affair…
Her bag fell off her arm, landed on the road, and before she could pick it up, Kostas had. It swung from his hand like a ridiculous, slightly mocking pendulum.
‘Please give that to me,’ she said, reaching for it.
‘So you are talking to me now.’
‘How old are you? Ten? Give me my bag.’
He held on to it, keeping it just out of reach. She grabbed again and the bag caught the wing mirror of a parked Fiat Panda as Kostas swung it away.
‘I would… like to make a complaint,’ Kostas continued.
‘Well, Dimitria told you I am not on duty right now.’
‘So this “meeting” with Alexandros was not business?’
She stopped trying to get her bag, stopped moving, stopped. And looked at him. What was that expression he was wearing? Those eyes were flickering, like at any moment they might turn into fiery flares. Yet it was different to how they had dilated and constricted in reaction to her last night in his bed, on the balcony. Was this… jealousy? She said nothing and she saw unease take hold in him. He shifted his trainers, toyed with one of the sleeves of his linen shirt.
‘I do not like him,’ Kostas stated.
‘You don’t know him,’ Faye replied.
‘And I do not want to know him.’
‘OK.’
‘Because…’
‘Because?’
His eyes were having a conversation with everything except her eyes – her left shoulder, the ground, the parked Fiat.
‘Because… he seemed like the kind of person who would ask me for a selfie,’ Kostas blurted.
How astute, but also a completely ridiculous thing to say. However, the few minutes this interjection had taken had allowed her brain to shift focus slightly from the whole impending doom she was feeling over the potential sale of the hotel, to remembering she was an adult. She had the skills to deal with any situation and this one night with Kostas was about as far from seriousness as a clown in The White House. OK, bad analogy.
‘I really have to make a phone call now, Kosta,’ she said. ‘If you could give me my bag.’
He looked at the bag in his hand as if only just realising he had ownership of it. Then, straightaway, he passed it over.
