Chapter 38
They were sitting on a green iron bench in Spianada Square, opposite a beautiful arrangement of orange flowers basking in the moonlight and the glow from the streetlamps.
Kostas closed his eyes and ate a mouthful of the ice cream piled up on his cone.
It was even better than he remembered it from his childhood.
Papagiorgos ice cream was something his father had introduced him to.
It became almost a rite of passage when they visited Corfu Town.
And he had never forgotten the first time he had tried this iconic flavour – vanilla, strawberry, almond and cinnamon.
Sweet, spiced, cream and fruit all combined into one perfect taste. All his senses were on high alert…
‘You are watching me,’ he said without opening his eyes, tongue licking the edge of the cone.
‘Your eyes are shut, how do you know?’ Faye asked.
‘Because you will never have seen a man enjoy ice cream this way and you are finding it very, very sexy.’
She laughed. ‘So this ice cream is something you like about this island.’
He hadn’t forgotten that she had heard the words he had exchanged with his grandmother.
She now knew that he was bitter about something here, at the very least. She was smart, switched-on, not someone he could easily manipulate into his way of thinking.
And, for some reason, thinking about that very fact – how he had wanted to use her, for the purposes of furthering his hotel complex, whatever it took – well, it didn’t feel good.
‘Faye,’ he said. ‘Do not spoil my ice cream eating experience.’
‘Well, I’m just saying, you like this Corfiot ice cream, you like driving the hotel carts; this is turning into a solid list.’
He couldn’t be drawn into this right now. There was conflict he hadn’t envisaged, inner voices asking him questions, as well as Faye. He wasn’t ready. He opened his eyes, watched her nibbling at her cone. ‘What flavour did you get?’
‘The only best flavour there is. Mint chocolate chip.’
‘Oh my God! That is not an ice cream flavour, that is… toothpaste… with bits in.’
‘It’s delicious,’ Faye told him.
‘Not as good as this. Try it.’ He held his cone out to her.
‘What is it?’ she asked.
‘Heaven,’ he answered.
She licked a little and he saw the delight in her eyes as the flavours hit her tastebuds.
‘It’s not as good as the mint,’ she told him.
‘Lies,’ he said, nudging her arm. ‘Come on, Faye, you can’t lie to me.’
‘I will admit your flavour is good too.’
‘My flavour,’ he said teasingly. ‘Or the flavour of the ice cream.’
‘Do you like turning everything I say into an innuendo?’
‘Do you like me doing it to you?’ He raised his eyebrows.
‘Can you be serious?’ she asked, half-smiling.
He took a breath. ‘Actually, yes. Most of my life I am serious. For my career, for business… for the family challenges you have heard some things about.’ He sighed.
‘So, when I tease, when I joke, that is when I am just being me. Because that has not always come easy.’ He put his mouth back to his ice cream.
This was the problem. Why was it that whenever he was in her company, he not only wanted to take all her clothes off and repeat everything they had done in his suite, but also his mind pressed him to gift her layers of himself he always kept tied up inside?
‘I’m listening,’ Faye said.
He shook his head. ‘You first.’
‘What?’
‘You were wound tight on the bike on the journey here,’ he said. ‘Something is happening with you. Or maybe with Saffron?’
‘If I tell you something,’ Faye began, ‘it has to stay between us, OK? Completely confidential. Completely.’
He held his free hand up, palm facing her. ‘I know all about confidential.’
‘I mean it, Kosta. I don’t want to…’ She had been about to finish the sentence with ‘lose my job’ but it didn’t feel like the right sentiment really. ‘…get into trouble.’
‘I will not turn that into an innuendo and I will be serious. I promise.’
She licked the edge of her ice cream to stop it dripping. ‘OK.’ She took a breath. ‘Someone has made an offer to buy the hotel.’
His chest contracted. What?
‘OK…’ he managed to say as his mind raced through all the potential scenarios. Was Stathis behind this? They had thought about a ballpark figure but that was as far as it had gone, wasn’t it? So was this offer from someone else? No, that was less likely than Stathis going ahead on his behalf.
‘Nothing has been formalised yet, but Alexandros is pushing hard to get Dimitria to accept and I just want to make sure that she makes the right decision, you know.’ She sighed again.
‘But also I’m worried about how it might change things for me, and I know that’s selfish but just when I feel I’m in a really good place with my work and my life in general this happens and—’
‘Well, do you know anything else about the offer? Like how much it is?’
‘Why?’
‘As you said, Dimitria, she needs to get the most money for her property.’ At least as much as he was willing to give her to not ask too many questions…
‘Is that how you think too?’ She shook her head.
‘I know Dimitria wants to travel and she will need to finance another place to live, but I want to think that she will also care about the morals of the potential purchaser. You can’t give your whole life to something and not care about its future even if it ends up out of your hands, can you? ’
She cared about this hotel. It wasn’t just a building or where she worked; to her it had a soul. He swallowed, the knowledge of what he was doing pinching at him a bit.
‘Faye,’ he began. ‘When we sell something we have owned or lived in or whatever, we have to understand that it won’t stay the same. People, they always want to make things personalised.’
‘But what if their personalisation is just greed and destruction?’
‘When a deal has been made then you have to accept it.’
‘And that is why I want to know more about this person and their ideas for the future of the hotel before Dimitria makes any kind of agreement. Because someone tried to wreck the land around Avlaki once and they very nearly succeeded. If it hadn’t been for the protests and the community coming together then there could have been the most disgustingly large marina on the side of the bay polluting just about everything. ’
The narrow-minded small thinking of a close-knit village mentality, exactly like his father had always said. He had to stick to what he knew to be right, the future as he had always seen it, making amends…
‘Just because something is new and different doesn’t mean it is destructive or polluting,’ Kostas said.
‘Tell that to the wildlife.’
‘Well, there are rules for that kind of thing these days, I hear. I mean, I am not an expert.’ But someone would be and he would make sure the right boxes were ticked.
‘You think I’m overreacting,’ Faye said.
‘No,’ Kostas said. ‘I think you just care.’
‘Shouldn’t everyone?’
‘Yes. I mean, probably. But sometimes, people, they forget how to do it.’
‘I don’t want to forget how to do it,’ Faye told him. ‘And I don’t care if that’s old-fashioned or not on trend or 6–7 or whatever.’
He smiled. ‘You are a good person, Faye. And, who knows, the person wanting to buy the hotel might be a good person too.’
‘God, I really hope so.’
‘But if the worst happens and they are the kind of person who wants to build a big marina… maybe you should consider your options.’ She was great at her job, he had seen that first-hand, and there could be a place for her in his resort. Surely that would soften the loss of a few trees…
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, maybe the person with the big marina plans might be looking for a hotel manager. And, maybe, someone with your experience and unprecedented ability to provide gyros at any hour of the day might earn a great deal more money getting on board with someone like that.’
She shook her head, ice cream dripping onto her hands now. ‘They could offer me any amount of money, it wouldn’t make a difference. If they change the landscape I’ve built my new Greek life on, I’m not for sale.’ She got to her feet, shaking her ice-cream-covered fingers in the air.
OK, maybe not on his team then. ‘Here,’ Kostas said, standing up and passing her some napkins. ‘I picked them up from the shop.’
‘Sorry,’ she said as she wiped her hands. ‘I got a bit impassioned there, didn’t I?’
‘It was almost like you had a protest banner and you were waving it in my face.’ He hoped it didn’t come to that.
‘Sorry,’ she said again.
‘No, don’t be sorry.’ He sighed. ‘You know, these things, they have a way of working out for the best. Sometimes the way we see things isn’t the way that things really are.’
‘Saffron thinks it will all be fine and the new owner will take me on and everything will carry on as normal.’
He nodded. Saffron was saying all the right things.
‘However, Saffron also thinks that I had a hand in killing her guinea pig.’
‘OK…’
‘God! Stop me! Stop me talking like this! Distract me! So that—’
Faye didn’t get to finish her sentence because suddenly Kostas’s lips were on hers delivering the hottest, sweetest, coolest ice-cream-tinged kiss under the lamplight.
It was cinnamon and strawberry and definitely not vanilla, the way his tongue tantalised hers.
She reached for him, hands either side of his face, smoothing his dark beard, drawing his mouth closer.
‘Stamata,’ he breathed, pulling away.
‘Signómi. We shouldn’t have—’
‘No, Faye. I mean, we have to stop here, in this public place.’ He dropped his eyes to his waistband.
‘Oh… oh, I see.’
‘Let me stress myself,’ Kostas said, closing his eyes. ‘Think of things I do not like.’
A few moments later he opened his eyes.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘I want to show you something.’
‘I thought you said we had to stop.’
‘Now who is turning everything into an innuendo?’ He took her hand. ‘Come on.’