Elias was going back to Corfu. Was he completely mad? No. He did have good reason. Excellent reason. He needed to meet with Kristina, away from her solicitor, and put forward Chad’s proposal quickly. He would blindside her, choreograph ‘bumping’ into her at one of the local tavernas, make it a happy coincidence… before he followed it up with a visit to the villa and made a thorough inspection of the house. That was the way he worked. Personal. Close. No detail left unaccounted for.
It was just a shame he hadn’t managed to secure a direct flight. Everything out of London was booked except this one flight to Athens. It was inconvenient to make a change in Greece’s capital, but he only had a forty-minute connection time before the onward hop to Corfu that took less than an hour.
Sipping at his macchiato, Elias surveyed his fellow travellers in the restaurant of the departure lounge. You could certainly tell the categories most of them fell into. There were the businessmen and women like him – all sleek suits and laptop bags looking harried, checking watches or reviewing paperwork. There were the families – mum, dad and children ranging in ages from buggy-board to just-plain-bored – equally as harried as the businessmen and women. And there were the stag parties. Matching T-shirts bearing the name of the groom – Steve’s Rutting Crew was the chosen gang-brand in this case – all on a pint of Stella Artois, all loud with a complete lack of spatial awareness. Elias felt for Steve. This would be his last hurrah. As soon as he tied the knot he would be setting himself up for the three D’s. Disappointment. Disillusionment. And ultimately, the biggest ‘D’ of all. Divorce. Perhaps he should slip the groom his business card.
He put down his coffee, about to check his phone, when something caught in his peripheral vision. He stood up.
*
Hazel’s bloody cabin bag! Her colleague might have thought it said ‘woman on the brink of adventure’, but Becky had said from the outset it was too big and the straps were too long. As the bag crashed to the airport floor – for the third time since check-in – Becky was caught between making a grab for it or keeping control of her new four-wheel trolley case. And taking a second to make that decision meant the case rolled off like someone else was controlling it and the bag began to spill the contents of her summer. Newly acquired fast-tracked passport. Purse. Phone. Laptop and traditional paper notebook to both catalogue her holiday and prepare a sample menu for the nursing home…
‘Lads! Look what we’ve got here! One of those dirty books!’
Face flaming as she gathered her belongings, Becky looked up to see a man with very gelled hair holding aloft a paperback she’d bought in WHSmith. It wasn’t dirty… she didn’t think. Granted, it was a romance. The blurb had said Greece and lemon groves and she’d been sold. After all, that was about to become her reality.
Ever since she had received the email acceptance from Ms O’Neill, the owner of Villa Selino in Kerasia, Corfu, with full details of the home that needed sitting, Becky’s insides had been jumping like a kangaroo. Excitement and trepidation. She was doing this. Caution was being thrown to the sea breeze. All she’d had to do was maintain this braver, new-experience-seeking her when she told Megan. And she had. Until Megan had tried to deny her the break…
‘It’s too late notice. We don’t know when Shelley is going to be back. It’s a no.’
And then Megan turned her back on her, pretending to look through an A4 file that Becky knew was only full of food magazines. Her sister had always been good at trying to shut off conversations she found uncomfortable. Well, if Becky was going to be strong enough to get on a plane on her own and stay in a villa in Greece on her own, then she had to be able to make her sister listen and bag this time off. What was the alternative? She gave in her notice? Got fired? Lost her job? Megan wouldn’t be that stupid, would she? Plus, Becky hadn’t ever had any time off apart from the odd week here and there and her trips to Blackpool…
‘Shelley’s going to be back tomorrow,’ Becky reminded her. ‘I’m not going until next week. It’s only for two weeks. I’ll be back in plenty of time before you go away and the army contract begins.’ Because even though it was late notice, her spur-of-the-moment decision still wouldn’t impact too much on It’s A Wrap. Megan didn’t reply. She closed the magazine file and got down another one. This one Becky knew contained purchase invoices from 2018 – because it said so on the label.
‘Megan,’ Becky began again. ‘I’m going. No matter what you say.’ She put the holiday form on her sister’s desk.
‘You can’t!’ Megan said, whipping around and facing her finally. ‘You can’t go unless I sign that form. Because if I don’t sign that form, and you go on holiday, then you’re… in breach of your employment contract.’
‘Megan!’ Becky gasped. ‘I’ve never asked for anything like this before.’
‘Well,’ Megan said, unable to meet Becky’s eyes, her jaw rigid, ‘if I start making allowances for you then I will have to make allowances for everyone else and that isn’t the way to run a modern-day business.’
‘Megan,’ Becky said, trying to maintain calm, ‘you do make allowances for everyone else. You let Hazel go at late notice to her country music week last year. And Shelley’s always forgetting when the triplets school events are and dropping those in at the last minute.’
‘Oh, so, now you’re saying I’ve not been running this business right for a while?’
Becky shook her head. ‘No, I was just saying—’
‘I thought we’d had this conversation the other day, Becky,’ Megan said. ‘About how I run the business and you just make the sandwiches.’
Just make the sandwiches. There it was again. Proof that everything Becky put into the business was unappreciated. It was the reason Becky knew, this time she had to put her foot down.
‘I’m going away,’ Becky said firmly. ‘Next Wednesday. For two weeks. And I am going whether you sign that form or not.’ There had been nothing left to say.
Thinking about that disappointment with Megan, Becky made a grab for her book but missed.
‘Ooo,’ another man cooed, snatching the paperback from his friend. ‘Let’s read a bit.’ He began thumbing the pages. It was then Becky realised this group were all wearing matching clothes… like overgrown Scouts.
‘Thank you for picking it up for me. Can I have that back now?’ Becky asked the man now holding the novel.
‘Smutty, is it?’ he asked, running his tongue over his bottom lip and fixing eyes with dilated pupils on her.
Becky smiled, matching his gaze. She might be an inexperienced traveller, a woman on her own, but she wasn’t about to let a half-drunk guy get the upper hand before she’d reached the boarding gate. She had signed up for being bold, independent and unafraid. Plus she’d re-watched one of her favourite chick-flicks at the weekend, Bridesmaids, and she was ready to channel Annie Walker.
‘It’s deeply, slightly darkly, erotic,’ she answered, her expression set to serious. ‘It’s about a twenty-five-year-old woman caught at a crossroads in her life.’
‘Oh, really,’ the man answered, leaning in a little.
‘Yes,’ Becky continued. ‘She’s been waiting so long for a really big, big change. Because nothing so far in her life has come close to pushing any of her buttons.’ She sighed. ‘And that’s what she wants more than anything. All her buttons pushed, in all the right ways.’
‘Is that so?’
‘Yes,’ Becky carried on as the man leaned closer still. ‘So, it’s about one more-than-ready woman… a whole gang of gorgeous leading men…’
‘Are you hearing this, lads?’ the now-obvious-member of a stag party called. Becky hoped he wasn’t going to dribble over her book… or her. She could almost grab it again now.
She waited a beat, then looked up at him. ‘One long, long, unadulterated weekend…’ She shook out her hair and sighed, a hand at her chest. ‘With her TV… and Sky boxsets.’
She snatched the paperback out of his hands. ‘Thank you!’ Then turning her back on the group, she began hastily moving away, pushing her case in front of her. Her insides were wriggling like worms on the end of a fishing line. Where had that confidence come from? Was this because she had finally stood up to her sister? She should be congratulating herself. This was important. This little interaction with annoying passengers was a turning point en route to travelling outside of the country, not to mention outside of her comfort zone. She closed her eyes and exhaled… seconds before she caught her foot on one of the wheels of her case and crashed to the ground.
‘Are you OK?’
Becky didn’t want to look up. If this was one of the stag party, they were definitely going to get their fill of laughing at her expense. She got to her feet, pride dented but thankfully none of her bones. Whoever it was, she would act nonchalant. She could do nonchalant. It’s what she did with the prawn man when he had a so-called amazing special offer she’d have to tell Megan about.
‘I’m fine,’ she breathed, picking up her bag and swinging it over her shoulder. Now she took in the concerned individual.
Wow. Forget the actors from the TV boxsets she’d just been talking about, this man was definitely worth pressing the pause button for. Tall, blue suit that looked made-to-measure, a pale blue shirt underneath, olive skin, clean-shaven, thick, dark hair – shorter at the sides than on top, where it waved casually backwards in a way only those with Mediterranean heritage seemed to be able to achieve. He had the brightest blue-green eyes – unusual for a man with such dark colouring, Becky thought – distinct under heavy black-framed glasses that were sitting on his not-unattractive Roman nose. God, she was doing way too much looking and not enough getting on with finding somewhere to sit down before her gate was called. Oh no, it was her case she’d got her foot caught up with, wasn’t it? Or had she instead driven it into him? Her gaze went to his tan brogues looking for signs of scuffing. Thankfully, none.
‘Do you need to sit down?’ the stranger asked her. ‘It was quite a fall.’
From three inches of pleather espadrille. Cursed Blackpool bargains. She should have worn her trainers.
‘I’m fine,’ Becky said again. Then: ‘I didn’t roll into you, did I?’ Clarify, Becky! ‘I mean, did my case hit you?’
The man shook his head. ‘No.’
‘Oh, good,’ Becky answered. What else was there to say?
‘I saw you drop your bag and you did not notice but… this fell out too.’
He held something out to her. Oh God! It was Hazel’s book. The one she had gone on about! Hazel had mentioned it, Becky had ignored her, but then she’d found it when she was packing, tucked into the too-big travel bag. Why hadn’t she taken it out and left it behind? She reached out and took it, stuffing it down into the bag quickly.
‘How to Find the Love of Your Life or Die Trying,’ the man said.
Becky inwardly cringed and sent a silent message to the weather gods to send Hazel stormy seas once she set sail on her cruise. How embarrassing was this? The gorgeous man speaking the book title out loud – with a bit of a European accent thrown in – made Becky’s face flame faster than a child dropping their face into birthday candles.
‘It’s not mine,’ she said fast. Not fast enough. He was already smiling. A self-satisfied kind of smile that said, looking like he did, he had either already found the love of his life or could, quite possibly, walk into any life scenario and snap her (or him) up quicker than you could allegedly catch the Coronavirus.
‘Really,’ Becky said again. ‘It’s not mine. It belongs to…’
‘A friend,’ the man said, nodding.
‘Yes,’ Becky answered.
‘Have a safe flight,’ the man told her, turning away.
‘It really isn’t mine,’ Becky affirmed. Why was she affirming anything to a stranger? Why did she care? She might read the love guide once she had finished reading about lemon groves and romance on the beach. And why shouldn’t she? She was single. It might contain something of interest… It couldn’t only be about snagging a widower between backgammon and black forest gateaux. It might have vital chapters about finding a mate through an astrology app like Tara had…
She watched Mr Hotness navigate his way back to a table for two in the airport restaurant. Coffee. She definitely needed coffee, to stabilise her nerve and keep her awake after the early start. But she couldn’t now order one here. Not with Mr Judgemental analysing her holiday reading material. She’d find another place. One that also didn’t include stag parties.