‘What?’ Leo looked at her in shock and then over at Zach who pressed the coffee button again.
‘Which is by the by. It’s more that I’d sketched a few iterations of the “unimaginable moments” idea onto my notepad, which was in my room. Kat and I had had the conversation on our way to the hotel.’
‘In the cab,’ I added, thinking back.
Leo watched like a hawk as the conversation unfolded.
‘The two of us had had such a different twenty-four hours on Terceira Island,’ Heidi continued. ‘Our experiences were unrecognisable to each other even though we were on the same cruise.’
Zach necked his coffee with a scowl. ‘You can’t copyright an idea, Heidi, we both know that.’
‘You admit it then?’ she said, furious.
‘I ain’t admitting nothing, sweetheart,’ he replied.
‘Is there any truth to this?’ Leo asked, sliding his eyes from Heidi to Zach, who shook his head.
‘Wait a minute, I can prove the idea was mine!’ I said, fishing around in my handbag. ‘Here.’ I slapped down the coaster from the bar in Madeira, with my original scribblings. ‘These were the lines I was playing with before settling on “unimaginable moments”.’
Holidays as unique as you are.
See the world your own way, with Excalibur.
Greek for breakfast, Italian for dinner.
Excalibur Cruises: too good to imagine.
Unimaginable moments.
‘You could have written those down anytime,’ Zach said, swallowing hard.
‘Could she, Zach? Really? To what end?’ Heidi said. ‘Why would we lie?’
‘You tell me. It’s never stopped you before,’ he said, glaring at her across the table.
‘OK, I don’t know what’s going on here, but this is either an unbelievable coincidence, and you both had the sameidea at the same time, or one of you is lying,’ Leo said, picking up the coaster and looking increasingly confused. If he was in on it, he was delivering an Oscar-worthy performance.
Heidi was livid. ‘Why won’t you just admit it, Zach? You won through cheating – which isn’t fair on any of us.’
‘Now you know how it feels.’
‘I knew it. Iknewyou weren’t over it. Is that what this is about? Payback for all those years ago?’
‘You say it like it was nothing. You ruined my career! I couldn’t get a job for months after you forced me to resign.’
‘Wow, I’m sorry, OK? But I thought we were way past all that.’
‘Youmight be, but I’m not. And no, it is not OK. A quick sorry after all these years doesn’t even come close. How does it feel to get a taste of your own medicine, eh? To have your livelihood threatened?’
‘Aha! And there we have it,’ I said, jumping in.
Zach shrugged. ‘I had been thinking along the same lines, myself. It’s not exactly ground-breaking creative territory, is it? It all comes down to the execution.’
‘Except we couldn’t present our executions, because you’d used our line.’
Leo, who had been quietly observing, stood up and looked me in the eyes. ‘I’ve heard enough. Ladies, would you mind leaving us, please? Zach and I need to have a conversation.’
‘Absolutely. Although I will need to communicate the situation to Brooke,’ Heidi said, grabbing her handbag haughtily. ‘I can’t stay quiet on the matter forever. I’ll give you till the end of the day.’
