‘The bastard!’ I screech.
‘What?’ Archie sounds incredibly alarmed.
‘He swapped it.’
‘Swapped what?’
‘The wine, the wine I bought. He said it’s shit.’
‘Is it more expensive?’ Archie replies after a short pause, his voice soft and measured.
‘It doesn’t matter if it’s more expensive. I wanted the wine I bought.’
‘Well, maybe try it before throwing it out?’ he tries to placate me.
‘Yeah, well I don’t have much of a choice.’ I pour out the wine into a glass and start chopping some vegetables for dinner. Despite the large lunch I needed something more than just the martinis.
‘Are you cooking?’ Archie sounds perplexed.
I feel my body stiffen; I appreciate that Archie has only really seen the worst parts of me but I really do question how he thinks I functioned for thirty years without being able to feed myself. ‘Icancook.’
‘What are you making?’
‘An omelette.’
‘Alright Heston.’
‘I’ll hang up!’ I throw the vegetables into the pan and start to whisk up the eggs. ‘Do you think you could stop questioning my cooking skills and help me decide what to do about stalker brother-in-law, please?’
‘I’d meet him,’ he says quickly and entirely unexpectedly. I assumed he would err on the side of caution, tell me that I should lock my doors and be on the first flight home.
‘You’d go?’ I repeat, making sure I had heard him correctly.
‘Yes.’ He sounds level-headed, his voice clear. ‘I’d hear him out.’
‘Well, you’re a man. You can meet other strange men in random bars and not end up buried in a ditch.’
‘He’s hardly a stranger, Ava.’
‘He’s strange to me.’ I mumble and pour the eggs into the pan, watching with satisfaction as the mixture almost immediately begins to curl at the edges. It smells good.
‘Look, whatever happened, things are different now. The drama was between the brothers, not you. This could be an opportunity for a fresh start.’
‘I don’t want a fresh start, I just want to go on pretending he doesn’t exist.’ I am aware I sound like a petulant teenager but if he is getting fed up with my whining he doesn’t let it show. In fact I think he is enjoying listening to me rant and moan. There’s an intimacy to this moody part of me he doesn’t often see. He’s right.
‘But he does exist, Ava, and by all accounts, he’s existing a few metres from your house in a place where you will have to go again during your month-long stay. You meet up, have a drink, get things out in the open and then you can go about your life, write your book – hell, this could at least be an interesting chapter.’
‘You’re missing the point.’ I flip the omelette. ‘I. Don’t. Want. To.’ Archie chuckles, it’s low and deep and I can feel another, different heat in my cheeks that isn’t from anger, embarrassment or cooking.
‘Don’t you want to know how he got your address?’ Archie tries another angle. One that always had a better chance of succeeding.
‘Yes.’
‘Well then, you’d better meet him there tomorrow at seven.’
Chapter 9
Florian is an island;he is perched on a bar stool on the veranda of Fromages et Vins looking intently at his phone. He has changed out of his workwear, keeping the jeans but swapping the café’s top for a thick flannel over-shirt in a burnt-orange plaid.
