Chapter Thirty-Five
There’s a yacht far out to sea, drifting lazily in the glittering ocean as Rose stands on the beach ready for the morning meditation.
Xanthe’s gentle morning breeze lifts tendrils of her hair. She feels the breeze skate over her face, bringing the scent of the sea: salt, seaweed and some Greek magic.
The only fly in the ointment today is the threatening Instagram messager and the fact her friend in LA has finally replied.
Not in this business any more, Rose. But I’ve got a name for you.
Contact these people and they use open source intelligence and linguistic profiling to find out if the account’s fake and to see who they are.
It’ll cost you, though. These people are good but not cheap.
And not always fast. Greece looks amazing in the pictures. Go you!
The group are beginning to arrive on the beach and Rose firmly closes the mental door on the Instagram menace. What is the point in helping people to be happy and calm if you yourself are not happy and calm?
Rose always believes that you can’t teach what you haven’t got.
‘Good morning!’ she smiles at the group, who are beginning to look tired under the pressure of work and long, therapeutic days.
India’s the only one who still looks bouncy and happy, today dressed in a yellow crochet mini-skirt and a white-flowered halter top that’s straight out of Twiggy’s 1960s wardrobe.
She’s a tall, lithe ray of sunshine and Rose is incredibly fond of her.
India has a sunny personality and is genuinely lovely to everyone in the hotel.
Bernard – Rose looks around to see if her smiling alligator is here – is the opposite. He’s settling down in a sunlounger on the edge of the group, beside Grazia.
Despite the whole no-phone-during-sessions diktat, Bernard is poking the screen of his phone while there’s another one beside him on a small table.
In the you-can’t-make-me stakes, Bernard is being spectacularly rude, which is hardly news given how the staff described him early on.
‘Grazia’s embarrassed by his rudeness,’ Adriana had said. ‘You can see her face whenever he does something horrid. She goes white around the mouth. But she never says anything to him. Why not?’
‘Why not indeed,’ Rose had replied. Now she can see how uncomfortable Bernard’s behaviour makes Grazia. Initially, she couldn’t read the other woman at all.
‘I’m sorry we let him in,’ Adriana had said.
The stakes had been so high and Rose had stupidly thought she could handle this incredibly rich man.
Big mistake. She’d forgotten the lessons from the sprinkling of narcissists she’d met when she was on The Talisman Effect. They would stop at nothing to destroy people who questioned them.
Bernard has not become rich from behaving with decency. Rose can just about cope with the Instagram menace if it’s a person from the past, she might be able to confront them.
Bernard is too rich and powerful to confront. He can destroy Rose and the Villa Artemis.
Exactly how stupid has she been?
She manages a smile for the group.
Everyone is there except Dan.
Rose cannot fault him for trying to work on himself. He may still think it’s all woo-woo, but he’s working the woo-woo for all he’s worth.
She doesn’t have time to deal with latecomers.
‘We’ll start without Dan,’ she announces.
Everything is going to be fine. What rousing thought has she got for keeping her spirits up when a toxic troll is trying to destroy her life?
Oh yes: being a peaceful woman does not mean she is unskilled in the art of war.
Bernard might think he knows who Rose really is, but he doesn’t understand her.
The person on Instagram might think they can threaten her. But Rose has had to fight a lot of battles to keep Adriana safe and she’s not going to stop now.
On the gently curving drive up to Villa Artemis, Christos is tending the small pond where he’s been valiantly trying to grow water lilies.
They don’t seem to be thriving. His dream is to have koi in the pond swimming happily under lily pads but he’s definitely doing something wrong.
He thinks fish will be calming, and God knows, they need calm right now.
Christos is worried.
He’s heard nothing from Marco, his old friend who now works for Europol and who he hopes can rein in this Instagram threat, although Marco has said nothing will be fast.
Adriana says that Rose briefly mentioned that Bernard also threatened to smear the villa’s reputation. Christos can’t bear the thought of their beloved business failing.
It’s not just about the money – although that’s nothing to be sniffed at.
They’ll have to claim bankruptcy and will lose everything.
The saddest thought is the sense of their dream failing: that’s what makes him feel sad.
It had been such a lovely dream, too, the reason for the back-breaking hard work.
How can one Instagram troll and one dismal, short rich man destroy their dreams? It’s not right.
Christos pulls up a few weeds gloomily. He needs to let these fears go. He has to be strong for his beloved Adriana and for Rose.
He will never forget what Rose did for his wife. Never.
The hotel’s fluffy white cat, Hecate, pads down the drive and Christos reflects that if he had koi, Hecate would scoop them out with a fat paw and eat them before they had a chance to swell and become big, flashy, happy fish.
Maybe Adriana’s right: he should stick to a fish tank.
He looks up from inspecting the pond to see India and Keera.
‘How are you, ladies?’ he asks cheerfully.
‘Great. Relaxed. I can’t believe it’s the end of the week already,’ says India. ‘Time has flown.’
‘You’ve enjoyed it?’
‘Loved it,’ says Keera. ‘See you later, Christos.’
Keera’s phone has been silently buzzing all morning. She should have left it in her room as Rose expects.
As she and India walk back up from the beach after the morning session, having lingered to look for shells, she feels the vibration of the phone once again in her cotton trouser pocket.
She is not going to look at it. It’s probably her mother leaving more outraged voice notes about life, the universe and everything.
She is not dealing with her mother right now. There is no need.
As they wait to cross over to the villa’s gardens, a taxi whizzes past her and India.
‘I thought …?’ Keera squints through her sunglasses. ‘I must be imagining things,’ she says. ‘I thought – I thought I saw my mother in the back of that cab.’
‘Hardly,’ says India cheerfully. ‘What are the chances, right?’
‘Yeah.’
Keera and India walk on.
The beautiful path to Villa Artemis is steep at first, then flattens out.
Keera decides to ask India about Dan; last night’s phone call is on her mind.
She doesn’t want to rain on India’s parade but she feels she ought to tell her friend what she overheard. Dan beseeching Julia to forgive him would be deeply upsetting if India really is crazy about him.
‘Do you think you’re falling for Dan?’ she asks.
‘No and yes,’ says India quickly. She has thought about this. ‘He’s utterly lovely and kind …’
Keera’s nodding.
‘And …’ India pauses. ‘I’m not a fan of leaping into bed with people straight off because I love the idea of being romanced by someone …’ She sighs. Limerence, that’s what it sounds like.
She tries to explain that she and Dan aren’t like that: the connection between them has been truthful and intense.
‘But I said to him it was no-strings. And he was fabulous,’ finishes India.
‘Sweet,’ says Keera, who hasn’t slept with anyone since before rehab and frankly can’t imagine having the desire to do so for a long time.
She smiles at India, who grins back.
‘Was that too much information?’ asks India. ‘Yes, probably. But I’m not falling in love with him,’ she adds. ‘He’s totally confused about what he wants and he’s a very straight-up sort of man; I know he’ll worry he was unfaithful to Julia by sleeping with me.’
Keera nods. Perhaps Dan has confessed to India already?
‘I thought they weren’t a thing any more?’ she asks delicately. ‘That was the whole point of his being here?’
‘Yes, except his having sex with another person on the retreat isn’t what she was hoping for either, I guess.’
‘True,’ says Keera. ‘But you’re not responsible for Dan’s actions.’
‘I did kiss him first,’ India admits.
Keera laughs loudly. ‘Go, India!’ she says.
A second taxi speeds past them as they round the curve to reach the front of the hotel.
‘Normally it’s so quiet here,’ Christos says behind them, coming up the drive with a handful of weeds.
The first taxi has clearly disgorged its passenger and is doing a laborious turn in front of the hotel.
The inhabitant of the second taxi emerges and slams the car door shut loudly.
The passenger is tall, pale-skinned and has long blonde hair.
She’s wearing a pale-blue fringed top with spaghetti straps, tiny white shorts and silver cowboy boots, none of which are the sort of things many people around here would wear.
With a mother as free-spirited as Sonja, India is the last person to censure any woman for wearing what she wants: there’s no age limit on clothes. Any other idea is pure misogyny.
But if India’s wearing a mini, she combines it with something contrastingly flowy. The blonde at the villa door has gone for a tight top which shows off her enviable breasts, but the skinny shorts don’t quite work, India thinks—
She stops, and gives herself an inwards shake.
It can’t be – surely not?
‘Is that … does that person look like Julia?’ she says to Keera.
Keera squints again.
They’ve seen Julia on Dan’s phone lock screen. Glossy, sexy, alluring and yet doing that blinky thing that India’s mother does when she talks about being a unicorn
person.
That version of Julia doesn’t match this version. The phone Julia looks young and unlined, while this one is a woman of Dan’s age.
‘I mean, it’s unlikely, isn’t it …?’
‘Very,’ says India.
‘I mean, no way, right?’
‘He describes this fairy person, all tiny elegance,’ says India. ‘This woman is, well, normal.’
‘Can’t be her, then,’ says Keera. ‘Julia sounds like a supermodel.’