Chapter 69
As the conference room descended into chaos, Faye couldn’t think straight. And with people beginning to stand and have conversations over conversations, pulling at their neighbour’s shirt sleeves or toying with worry beads as they tried to fathom it all, she tried to find Kostas through the crowd.
‘What is going on?’ Katerina exclaimed, hair flying out behind her as she arrived next to Faye. ‘He owns the land now? How can that happen? Before our first meeting of protest!’
‘I don’t know,’ Faye said, eyes searching the room. He had said a lease, hadn’t he? That wasn’t the same as ownership.
‘And what does he mean he will protect it? No one spends millions of pounds on something for no reason,’ Katerina continued. ‘And that must be the kind of money we are talking about!’
‘I really don’t know anything, Katerina.’ She needed to see him. Talk to him.
‘Well, we need to find out! And quickly! Before he signs something else. Seeing as apparently you can do that all hours of the day or night! It is like a períptero!’
‘Katerina, did you see where Kostas went?’ She shimmied past a woman with a super-large handbag and then the local pappa.
‘He should be running fast, perhaps to that new land of his to hide in the trees that are still there for the time being.’
There was going to be no sense to be found in this room until the dramatics had subsided, and the only person who could tell her more was Kostas. She finally broke free of human obstacles and headed for the door.
* * *
Kostas’s chest was burning and, as the humidity infiltrated his skin, the rest of him began to perspire too as he rushed through the hotel grounds.
He had done it. But it felt as bad as it felt good.
Adrenaline was making him tremble, but sheer exhaustion was trying its best to counteract it and the combination was a lethal mix.
He needed a release and that’s why he was heading straight for his motorbike.
He just needed to get some space between him and the situation, clear his head, let his thoughts fly as he took the bends around this island.
He reached the bike and picked up his helmet.
‘Kosta!’
Faye. Her voice sent pinpricks down his spine.
Part of his mind danced with the idea of pretending he hadn’t heard, putting on the helmet and speeding off into the night.
But another part, the better part he was working on, knew that was no idea at all.
He turned around, watched her slow her pace, walk up to him under the trees almost exactly where they had first met.
Then, as she reached him, stood close, neither of them said anything with words. But as the breath caught in his chest, he could feel their eyes were having a thousand conversations all on their own. Until…
‘You’re really not going to build on the land,’ Faye said.
‘No.’
‘Why?’
His lips broke into a smile. ‘Wow, Faye, always the straight talker.’
‘So?’
He took a breath. ‘Because I have come to realise that only a fool would build on that land. Because how could putting anything on there make it richer than it is already?’ He sighed, putting the helmet down on the pillion.
‘But, you know, if it took me a while to figure this out then others, they will try and they may not figure this out so I took ownership of the issue.’
‘You’re really going to protect the land for ninety-nine years?’
‘Well,’ Kostas began, ‘I am not going to stand in the middle of the nature with a sword and come at invaders like this is Byzantine times… but, yes. I will have the rights to the land for this length of time. And, as I will not be here after ninety-nine years, I will try to ensure that whoever inherits my right when I am gone takes that legacy too and renews for the next ninety-nine years and so on and so on.’
He watched Faye exhale, her shoulders drop, a little tension in her jawline recede.
‘There’s just one thing I don’t understand,’ she said.
‘Just one?’
‘We will start with one,’ Faye said. ‘Why didn’t you make an offer on the hotel? You needed it gone and out of your way.’
He nodded. ‘Yeah.’
‘So?’
‘Why do you think?’
He watched her expression, could almost feel her brain trying to work for an answer that made a perfect explanation.
And then she spoke. ‘Because if you had permissions to build, and you got that underway, then the works and the upheaval would mean no one would want to come to the hotel and it would lose money and you could then buy it for a much smaller price?’
‘Spoken like someone who should be a developer,’ Kostas answered. ‘But not spoken like someone who knows people. Someone who should trust their instincts when looking for answers.’
His heart was thrumming and, knowingly or not, he had closed the distance between them until he could almost feel the heat from her skin on his.
‘I… don’t know what you mean,’ Faye whispered.
‘You know exactly what I mean.’ He inched closer still.
‘I didn’t make an offer on the hotel because every time I thought about it, every time Stathis said we must move on it, I kept finding a reason why it wasn’t quite the right time.
Because of you, Faye, because I knew how much the hotel meant to you. ’
‘Spoken like someone who shouldn’t be a businessman.’
‘Spoken like someone who has been telling himself he shouldn’t fall in love.’
He watched her pupils dilate at his words and it drove fire through his veins. He couldn’t stop himself now, only would if she didn’t want this. He reached out, cradled her jaw with his hand and stroked his thumb over her cheek. ‘But… einai polí argá… it’s too late.’
A second felt like a lifetime, but then her lips met his and unrivalled sensations pulsed through his body as his mouth showed hers exactly how much she meant to him.
He’d never wanted a kiss longer or deeper, never wanted to hold someone closer or tighter, never knew this could exist for him.
But then she broke away, held his face in her palms, fingertips in his beard.
‘There’s somewhere I want to take you,’ she whispered to him.
‘There are so many places I want to take you,’ he answered, tone flooded with libido.
She smiled. ‘On the bike.’
He laughed, put a hand to his hair, brushing it back and trying to cool his ardour just a touch. ‘OK.’
‘OK?’ she asked, still holding his face.
‘Sure,’ he replied. ‘I’ll take you anywhere you want to go.’