CHAPTER 38
NERO ZANTHOS
Ever since Nina came to the export company, I’ve never looked at the cotton fields the same way again. Now, every time I see the land stretching endlessly under white cotton plumes, I find myself wondering what exactly my fiancée’s creative little mind imagined while she was here.
I shake my head, forcing the images my mind so helpfully projected behind my eyes away before I end up with an erection right in the middle of the workday.
I wipe the corner of my mouth with my thumb, erasing a smile, and walk toward the machine house, where everything is finally running the way it should.
After weeks of relentless work, we’ve managed to leave damage control behind and return to normal operations.
The sun is hot enough to make it feel like peak summer rather than the middle of winter.
I push the rolled sleeves of my shirt further up my arms and slide a hand across my forehead, wiping away the thin layer of sweat that’s gathered there.
I greet the workers I pass with brief nods and push through the swinging door at the end of the corridor. The shed is filled only with the sound of machines at work.
Or at least, that’s what I think—until I hear murmurs.
“I heard she was at a party last night. Alone.”
“At least before the horns were friendly, right?”
“Is it still cheating if he knew? I mean, if he didn’t mind sharing…”
“What does that woman even have to drive the boss that crazy? Make him accept that kind of thing?”
“Ah, my friend. We’ll never know. A woman like that wouldn’t even look twice at two nobodies like us.”
I stop walking and listen.
Even if the word boss hadn’t been used, I wouldn’t need to make any effort to know who the two employees behind the machines are talking about.
Since Christmas, Nina has become Khione’s favourite target for gossip.
I’ve never cared about it, even though I’ve heard it countless times.
I believed that, with time, people would let it go—but apparently, the island’s population has discovered some kind of perverse pleasure in inventing things that never happened, just to keep the rumours about my fiancée alive.
Nina didn’t go to any party last night. She spent the night in my arms, in our bed, exactly as she always does—except for the few nights a week she stays with her mother.
The instinct to confront them, to pick a fight and tell a few hard truths to the people so casually spreading lies, surges through my veins.
But I know better than that.
Any reaction, no matter how justified, would only create new gossip—and we already have more than enough of it.
I ignore whoever is talking bullshit, not even bothering to identify their faces, and head for the glass-walled office at the far end of the long shed, determined to do my job.