The Little Greek Guesthouse

Chapter One

They were going to offer her the promotion.

Nina took her compact out of her Aspinal handbag and checked her makeup: perfect.

Not a smudge of mascara, not a lipstick-stained tooth.

She was immaculate. And she deserved this; she was the best junior buyer, her taste in interior décor flawless, the rugs and ornaments she’d chosen had flown off the shelves this last season.

She stroked the bracelet on her wrist, the gold bangle that her been her mum’s, remembering again her scent of hairspray and perfume.

Knowing that she would be here cheering Nina on if she could.

Others had applied, of course, but she was confident that the role of head buyer was hers.

The interview had gone well. She was good at her job, she worked hard.

She smiled brightly as she was invited into the office where she would hear the news, already picturing the bottle of champagne she and Sam would share to celebrate.

He had known the decision was being made today and, anticipating a celebration, he’d booked a table at an expensive restaurant that night.

Nina suspected that it might become a double celebration; they’d been together for three years, they were both doing well at work, they were in their thirties.

Everything pointed to taking their relationship to the next level.

She knew he felt it, too, and she had a strong and joyous suspicion that the romantic restaurant that night was the setting for his proposal. She’d had a manicure, just in case.

Her manager’s face was more solemn than she’d expected, and the woman from HR tipped her head in a way that suggested sympathy. Nina felt her smile falter.

Redundancy.

The word hit her like a Nkuku Miza vase smashing over her head.

At least there was Sam. She pictured his handsome face as she marched through the rain to the tram, not caring that her hair was becoming plastered to her head and the red soles of her shoes spattered with grime.

She would tell him what had happened and he’d look at her with those gorgeous brown eyes, take her in his strong arms and tell her everything would be okay.

He was a lawyer and easily made enough money to cover the bills for a while until she found another job.

It wasn’t ideal. But they’d be together.

That was the main thing. She sighed as she squeezed onto the tram, trying to avoid getting bashed in the face by the backpack the guy in front of her was wearing.

Their plan had been to meet at the restaurant, she was planning to work late and Sam was going to the gym, but she’d decided to leave early and catch him at home.

He’d skip his workout to comfort her. Perhaps he’d still take her out, perhaps he’d still propose. Everything would be okay.

Nina dropped her bag in the hall and kicked off her shoes, shaking out her wet hair; she looked like a drowned rat. There was clinking coming from the kitchen. He must be making a drink. Nina rushed in, desperate to share her awful news and fall into his arms.

She skidded to a halt in the kitchen doorway, trying to process what her eyes were telling her. It wasn’t Sam making a drink, but her friend Mags, pouring coffee into two mugs. Wearing only a t-shirt of Sam’s, her hair messed up, her mouth and eyes stretching wide open as she turned to see Nina.

‘No milk in –’ Sam stopped mid-sentence when he walked in on the scene of a shocked Mags and a bedraggled Nina staring at each other.

Nina turned to him, taking in the sight of him in only his boxers, a part of her registering the definition of the muscles he worked on so religiously even as her stunned mind put two and two together and came to the undeniable conclusion that he was a first-class cheating ratbag.

She watched the smile slip from his face, the tremble in his fingers as he ran his hands through his hair, the colour rapidly fading from his cheeks.

He looked like a fish caught in the headlights, as her dad would say.

She had a strong feeling that everything might not be okay after all. And it turned out that her feeling was very much right.

Afterwards, she didn’t understand how she’d stayed so calm. Perhaps it was the shock. Perhaps it was because the incriminating evidence was so strong that, no matter how much she longed to, there simply was no denying that her boyfriend was cheating on her with one of her best friends.

Mags, suitably shamefaced, scrambled into her clothes and ran away as fast as she could. Good riddance to her.

Sam was less easy to rid herself of; like a nasty virus, he refused to be shaken off. He followed her around the apartment as she padded about in her soaked, stockinged feet, packing clothes into her Louis Vuitton luggage.

‘It’s not what it looks like,’ he pleaded, arms spread in an attempt to show his innocence.

Nina turned as she tipped shoes and boots out of neatly stacked boxes into her case. ‘Really?’ she asked, pushing her dripping hair off her face. ‘What is it, then?’

‘I – well it’s . . . okay it is kind of what it looks like.’ He had the small decency to flush. ‘But what I mean is, it doesn’t mean anything, it’s nothing. Just a stupid . . . you’re the one I want to be with.’

‘Hmm.’ She unhooked an armful of dresses and flung them, still on the hangers, on top of the shoes. ‘And yet, while I was finding out I’ve been made redundant and dreaming of coming home to the comfort of my loving boyfriend, my loving boyfriend was shagging my friend.’

Ex-friend, she thought. And soon to be ex-boyfriend.

He winced, then frowned. ‘Wait, you got made redundant? I thought you were getting a promotion?’

She yanked open a drawer and began throwing handfuls of underwear into the bag.

Sam shook his head, as though trying to clear his mind. ‘Anyway – that doesn’t matter, we can work that out. This – this thing with Mags, it’s just a mistake. I was – I was stupid, okay, I just . . . just got carried away, but it doesn’t matter. Come on. I’m sorry.’

Gently, he stopped her as she was placing her precious vinyl collection into a bag, the only thing that even in such a terrible moment she would handle carefully, and took her in his arms. The familiar feeling of being in his strong embrace, of staring into his brown eyes, filled her with an overwhelming yearning to go back to how everything had been just hours before, that certainty of knowing what her future looked like.

And it all played out before her, that dream of a life, of Sam smiling at the end of the aisle, of the exciting city life they’d build together.

Of the beautiful, brown-eyed children they would have.

Nina blinked away tears. Perhaps they really could work things out.

He’d messed up badly and had really hurt her, but perhaps this really was just a one-off, a mistake that she could learn to forgive him for, in time.

And then at least part of her plan could still go to plan.

She felt the knots in her stomach begin to unravel.

‘Has it happened before?’ she asked.

He hesitated for just a moment, his shoulders tensing slightly. He swallowed. ‘No.’

Nina stepped out of his arms, snapped the lid on the case shut and wheeled it to the hall, the bag carrying her vinyl over her shoulder.

‘Goodbye, Sam,’ she said, locking the door behind her.

It didn’t take long to lose everything: her job, Sam, the flat.

In that order, and in quick succession. She hadn’t expected to be living back with her dad, sleeping in her childhood bedroom which still had pink bunting over the bed, twinkle lights around the mirror and her A-level artwork hanging on the wall, at the age of thirty-three.

Nina was strong and independent by nature, she’d worked hard, she’d been successful; it took a lot to break her.

But she felt broken now.

Everything she thought she could rely on was gone: the exciting and successful career she’d put so much work into; the boyfriend she thought loved her; the friend she thought she could trust. Her whole world had turned upside down in a day, and she was spinning out of control.

For the first time, she was unable to see what was ahead.

Nina tried to be strong. But as she looked around her childhood bedroom, taking in the butterfly stickers that adorned the mirror, she couldn’t help but feel it was a far cry from the plush, tasteful city centre apartment she’d shared with Sam.

Her life had fallen apart. And she had no idea how to fix it.

Her heart began to race as she tried to think of any plan for the future, her hands shaking and her throat feeling as though a diamond ring was wedged in it.

There was no way out that she could see.

In despair, she flung herself face down on the single bed, sobbing into the pink pillowcase until she was called down for dinner.

Her dad, Theo, was thrilled to have her home.

‘No need to be so sad,’ he said as he cooked her favourite meal, gyros pork, and she sat leaning on the kitchen counter, chin in hand, her face still blotched and her eyes still swollen.

‘That boy was useless, I can say so now you’re not together, he never deserved you, Antheia, too much at the work and the gym, not enough time with you. ’

She smiled at his use of the nickname he’d given her as a little girl, meaning blossom in his native Greek.

She was born in May, and the cherry tree in the front garden was in full bloom when they brought her home.

Nina pulled the big jumper she wore over her pyjamas around herself and rolled her eyes.

‘What do you mean, now we’re not together?’ she muttered. ‘You always said he wasn’t good enough for me.’

‘Well,’ he turned from the frying pan, waving the spatula at her as the air filled with the delicious smell of searing meat, rosemary, thyme and garlic. ‘I was right, wasn’t I? You should listen to your old baba.’

Nina snorted, heaving herself up to spoon the homemade tzatziki out of the food processor and onto the pittas he was taking from the oven.

‘You’ve been saying my boyfriends aren’t good enough for me since I kissed Jamie Dunkley in the playground when I was seven.

Maybe I got together with a cheating, self-absorbed workaholic like Sam just to take pity on you and prove you right at long last.’

He chuckled, his shoulders shaking, and Nina couldn’t help but smile, despite her broken heart and the undeniable shambles that her life was now.

At least she had her dad. They filled the pittas with the pork, slices of red onion and tomato, and sat at the table.

‘You will find better,’ he said, through his first mouthful. ‘All will come good, you’ll see.’

Nina couldn’t see how. Everything was looking pretty bleak right now. But as she took a bite of the delicious food, the meat wrapped in the warm pita melting in her mouth, tzatziki oozing out and dripping down her chin, she thought that life was bearable, for tonight at least.

‘Anyway,’ Theo said. ‘I was right about the Jamie too, you know he turned into a delinquent.’

Nina wiped her chin with her sleeve. ‘I – what do you mean, he’s an estate agent living in Milton Keynes!’

Theo swallowed his mouthful, wagging a finger at her, his eyes glinting. ‘Now, but you know what happened when he was a teenager, remember. Thief.’

Nina snorted a laugh, half-chewed tomato flying out of her mouth and on to her plate. ‘Baba! He pinched a pack of Monster Munch from the post office when he was thirteen, he wasn’t exactly a hardened criminal.’

‘Bad boy, see I was right about the Jamie and right about the Sam. No good for my Antheia. But no wonder that Dunkley boy turned out bad, you know what his parents were like.’ He stopped, giving her a meaningful look over his glasses and a grin that wouldn’t be amiss on a cheeky schoolboy.

Nina gave him a mock-chiding look. ‘Don’t be such an old gossip.’

He shrugged. ‘Okay fine. I won’t tell you about what happened with his mum and the cake stall at the school Christmas fair, but let’s just say, I can tell the difference between shop-bought and homemade pastry, no matter what she claimed.’

‘Wow.’ Nina shook her head. ‘Crime of the century. You need to get out more, get some excitement in your life.’

‘Well yes, that’s why I’m going back to Kefalonia for the summer.’

‘You are?’ Nina had heard nothing of this plan. Theo rarely visited the island where he’d grown up.

He nodded, swallowing the last of his pita and wiping his mouth. ‘Yes, well this is not why, of course, the house needs some work.’

‘The one you inherited from your Uncle Costas? The paperwork’s gone through?’ Nina imagined the house for a moment, a small white-painted place with blue shutters that kept out the heat, with views of the sea. Perhaps they could holiday there.

‘Yes, and I have a hotel interested to buy it, so I can look after you, just like I promised your mama. But it needs work first, I’m thinking.’

The dream of the holiday home disappeared. Nina felt a little wistful.

‘You should come,’ Theo said. ‘Come for the summer.’

‘But I – what about job hunting?’

He snorted. ‘That job was no good for you anyway, what happened to my crazy brave little girl and her adventures? No good for you buying vases all day.’

‘Hey, I love my job –’ She paused. Maybe a week or two soaking up some sun wasn’t such a bad idea?

And she’d love to see the places he and her mum had spent time in their youth.

Plus it wasn’t like she had any other plans – and the thought of being here without even her dad for company made her heart sink.

‘But a holiday would be nice – and it would make me feel closer to Mum . . . and what she was like back then.’

Theo frowned, his gaze skidding from her face to the table, where he found something to stare at intently. ‘There won’t be time for beach-lazing and sightseeing. Too busy with the work.’

He always did this when she wanted to talk about her mum – he turned away, or changed the subject.

Occasionally, he talked of the promise he’d made to her mother, that he would care for Nina and make sure she was safe and secure.

A promise that he took very seriously, and often reminded Nina of when she wanted to do something reckless, like a sponsored parachute jump.

But he avoided talking about details of their life together if he could; Nina suspected he thought he was protecting her by avoiding the subject.

‘But yes, you should come with me,’ he said, around a huge mouthful. ‘I’ll be needing help, lots to do, I have a plan you know.’ He wagged a finger at her. ‘This is not some bear-brain idea, I have it all in order.’

Nina snorted, almost choking on her pita.

‘Hare-brained, Baba.’

He shrugged. ‘This is what I said.’