It was best to head this off. ‘Alexandro, I’m sorry I didn’t get back to you about?—’
‘It is OK,’ he interjected fast. ‘Like the rest of the island I woke up to the Corfu news pages this morning.’
Faye nodded. ‘Wow, I need to find out how their posts have so much visibility and see if I can get our hotel account doing as well.’
‘Listen, we do not need to make a big deal about it but it might have been better if you had not let me make a fool of myself.’
‘Alexandro, you did not make a fool of yourself. I should have told you…’ She stopped herself, unsure what to say next because what was it she would have told him? She didn’t really know what was going on herself.
‘But,’ Alexandros continued, ‘I am a good person so I am going to give you the benefit of my experience in dating.’
‘OK…’
‘Young people these days, they look for something fast, something disposable, something meaningless, worth something one minute and worth nothing the next?—’
‘Please, Alexandro, do not say anything else.’ She took a breath. ‘You actually don’t know me, so you have no idea what it is I want from dating or from life.’
‘I am assuming you do not want to be treated like you are meaningless.’
‘No, of course not,’ Faye stated firmly, getting to her feet. ‘But I am also someone who has been treated that way for a vast period of my life by my ex-husband, so I am well equipped for figuring it out and dealing with any potential mistreatment. I appreciate your gesture, but it is unnecessary, really.’
It was obvious Alexandros was feeling burned by the fact she had turned him down, but it wasn’t his place to make comment on her life choices, as it also wasn’t her place to make him feel better about it.
She held her ground and then he seemed to deflate a little, ego perhaps punctured.
‘OK,’ he answered with a nod. ‘We understand each other better. So… now there is something I have for you. Business.’
He put the leather portfolio he was carrying on the reception desk and removed some paperwork. He put the papers on the counter, turning them around so they faced her. It was property details.
‘This is not yet on the market. I went to see it yesterday. I know it is not your exact preferred area – it is a few kilometres away in Almyros – but it is two bedrooms, it needs a little updating, but it is right on the beach.’
Faye looked at the photographs. White-washed stone and wood, pink and purple flowers, a small patio looking right out onto the sand and the blue waves. ‘I know where this is,’ she said. ‘I’ve gone past it so many times when I’ve walked that way.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes,’ Faye said, feeling a pinch of the first real excitement she’d had about a property here. ‘But… it’s a bit out of my price range.’
‘I know,’ Alexandros told her. ‘But I think the owner would take a slightly lower offer.’
Faye smiled at him, knowing how much he hated to give any kind of percentage away in his dealings.
‘Do not tell anyone,’ Alexandros said, cheeks reddening. ‘I have a reputation to consider.’
‘Thank you, Alexandro,’ Faye said.
‘So, you are interested?’ he asked. ‘In the property.’
She nodded. ‘Can I go and see it?’
‘Yes. Let us arrange a time,’ Alexandros agreed.
47
DIMITRIS’S GRILL ROOM, RODA
‘I know you’re about to drop some bombshell by the way,’ Saffron said, mouth around a porksouvlakistick later that evening. ‘You always bring me here when you do that and you always let me order whatever I want.’
Dimitris’s was not just about the takeaway options; it had been one of Faye’s favourite places for a relaxed meal since the very first time she’d discovered it many years ago.Gyros pita,kontosouvli, Greek salad and desserts, with its white wooden tables and chairs inside and out, facing Roda high street, it was delicious, traditional comfort dining at its best.
