One Greek Summer Wedding

Chapter 41

‘Please, for the love of God, will you stop guzzling the wine?’ Margot remarked loudly.

There hadn’t been a table for four. Margot had been correct about that. But there had been two tables for two set a little apart from each other. It had seemed rude for Cara and Margot to take one together when Cara had invited Akis and Horatio to join them, so she was sitting with Akis and much to Margot’s apparent annoyance, which had involved much tutting and grumbling until Horatio had pulled out her chair for her, she and Horatio were together in the other pair.

‘Sometimes things can be enjoyed quickly, Margot,’ Horatio replied, gulping another mouthful of the white wine.

The view here was another to-die-for vista, the dramatic expanse of sea, the sheer cliff face opposite white houses dotted along the top like a sprinkling of icing sugar. It felt like you were suspended out in the air, only the other white-painted hotels, apartments and bars below there ready to catch you. Cara focussed back on Akis, opposite her. He had been quiet since their drinks had arrived, was studying his phone.

‘Is everything OK?’ she asked.

He clicked the screen of his phone off then and put it down on the table. ‘Yes.’ He sighed. ‘I mean, apart from an email from the church acknowledging my interest in being a priest. And an email – yes, an email – from my mother telling me I will not be sitting on the family table wherever the new venue is for the wedding as she wants the space for the Archbishop. And a text from my sister saying if Cosmos does not stop being a pain she will hold him upside down by his balls not his ankles.’

‘Ouch,’ Cara answered. ‘That sounds painful.’

‘Which bit?’ Akis asked.

‘All of it, honestly,’ Cara said. ‘And, with all that going on, you came here.’

‘Yeah. Because… I do not think that the dog was the only thing you are scared about.’

Cara picked up her glass of wine and took a slow sip. How much could she really tell him about the reason behind them being here? It was Margot’s thing, not hers, and she still didn’t entirely understand it. But he had travelled from Corfu to Athens and on to this island for her. She owed him some kind of explanation.

‘Well, we’re here because Margot has this thing,’ she began, sitting forward in her chair.

‘A thing?’

‘It’s business. At least I think it is. A contact that she needs to meet.’

‘O-K,’ Akis said, not sounding as if he understood at all.

‘And she’s hoping to get that meeting tomorrow night. And… she has… said that I will sing,’ she added, nervousness already invading, her chest getting tight. ‘At an event. On a boat.’

‘OK,’ Akis said, a little more chill.

‘But it’s not OK, is it? Because I thought singing at Cosmos and Wren’s wedding was bad enough. Now we’re here in Santorini and it’s so busy with so many more people and it’s a high-profile event with high-profile people and… and… I’m not ready.’

Akis leaned forward too. ‘And now I know why I got on that plane.’

‘You do? Because that was pretty crazy.’

‘You’re going to sing at the event,’ Akis said and took a sip of his wine.

‘Oh… no… I mean, I haven’t come up with an excuse yet, but getting me on the performance list was what Margot and MI5 needed to do to get us access to the party so…’ She let the sentence fade out like it was the end of a song.

‘So? You do not want to rehearse with the piano? Make everyone hear you but not see you?’

She forced a smile. ‘I know what you’re doing and I appreciate it. But, I’m not sure I’m ever going to be ready.’

‘What if I told you that I brought my organ with me?’

Why Cara’s eyes immediately dipped to just below his midriff she didn’t know. She recovered quickly. ‘I do not believe security would have allowed it.’

‘No,’ Akis answered. ‘You are right. But, that does not mean we can’t make the rehearsal happen somehow. If you wanted it to.’

Her gaze went to the view again. Here she was in beautiful Santorini, another place she didn’t expect to find herself in, with this man who had little by little been building her confidence despite going through a whole trial of his own. He had already helped her achieve more than she could ever have hoped for in such a short space of time. But would she ever know what she was capable of unless she took a dive into uncertain waters? And with Akis by her side, it almost always felt like anything was possible.

‘You aren’t scared of anything, are you?’ Cara remarked, as their appetisers arrived.

‘Being scared is not a simple emotion.’

‘No?’

‘There are different reasons we are scared. My brother, irrationally scared. Everything terrifies him but there is no reason for the majority of the things he worries about. What if the sun falls from the sky? What if one day there are no more fish in the sea? What if the local taverna stops serving pastitsio?’

‘Well, the fish one kind of has a ring of truth about it,’ Cara said.

‘I think your fear stems from trauma, am I right?’

She swallowed, managed a nod.

‘So that is not an irrational fear. It is something that has happened to you. Something that is real.’

It had been real. Watched by millions. And after that horrible, humiliating night, her parents had left, her fiancé had ghosted her and Margot’s only way of dealing with it had been to book her into therapy.

‘What scares me,’ Akis said, those stunning eyes studying her, ‘is that one day I will look back on my life and realise that I wasted some of it thinking too hard before I acted.’

This surprised Cara a little. The Akis she had been getting to know was a man of action, yet now she was finding he was also a deep thinker. She met his gaze, waiting for him to elaborate.

‘But, being afraid can make you stronger, you know,’ he continued.

‘I don’t know about that,’ she said, picking up her fork.

‘Whatever you feel is validation for something that has touched you.’ He mused for a second. ‘A conversation. Something you have seen or read. Music. It is the same with fear.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Fear can touch you, but it is up to you how much, and whether you let it stay or whether you acknowledge it and then just let it go.’

She swallowed. What he was saying was so poignant.

‘Everything that happens in life has to be a lesson. That is the way I like to look at it. Because, if you do not look at it from a positive way, a learning way, then the alternative is not attractive.’

Cara’s brain rattled through all her tough times like they were a mini-series, seeing how she had chosen to wallow in her difficulties, let them overwhelm her, overcome her almost. Therapy had tried to move her forward, but it hadn’t ever really addressed the choices she’d made at the time and why ‘hide’ and ‘run’ had been her go-to instead of ‘fight’ and ‘stay’.

‘Hey,’ Akis said, putting his hand on top of hers. ‘I didn’t mean to make you sad.’

‘No,’ Cara breathed. ‘I’m not sad. I just… think I’ve wasted a lot of time.’

He squeezed her hand. ‘Well, let us not waste any more time. Or food.’ He picked up his fork.

‘You’re going to use cutlery here?’ she said, smiling.

‘I do not want us to get thrown out,’ he replied. ‘Horatio on the other hand…’

Cara looked across at the table where Margot and Horatio were sitting, Horatio with a goat’s cheese tart in between his fingers, Margot admonishing and shaking her head in despair.

She returned her gaze to Akis. ‘After dinner,’ she began. ‘Can we find a piano?’