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They emerged from a side passage out onto the bigger main street, with larger stores and the occasional street vendor stall. Here, after the charm of the old town streets, Kusadasi looked more modern, ready to compete in the world tourist market. It was important to show Dylan that they had both here.
Suddenly, Dylan stopped walking. ‘Hang on a minute.’ Turning, he walked back a few paces to a stall they’d just passed. Curious, Sadie followed—not close enough to hear his conversation with the stallholder but near enough to see what had caught his attention.
She rolled her eyes. A sign advertising ‘Genuine Fake Watches’. Of course. In some ways Dylan really was just like Adem—they had the same absurd sense of humour and the same reluctance to let a joke lie untold.
Still, she smiled to see that Dylan wasn’t pointing out the error to the stallholder, and instead seemed to be striking up a friendly conversation with him as he took a photo on his phone and examined the watches. Another way he was like her husband, she supposed—that same easy nature that made him friends everywhere he went. She’d never had that, really, and couldn’t help but envy it.
‘Enjoying yourself?’ she asked, as he returned.
Dylan grinned. ‘Immensely. What’s next?’
She’d planned to take him to the caravanserai—she just knew his magpie mind would love all the tiny shops and stalls there, too, and it was a huge tourist attraction with plenty of history. But it was getting late and her stomach rumbled, nudging her towards the perfect way to remember why she was so lucky to live in Kusadasi—her favourite restaurant.
‘I think lunch,’ she said, watching as Dylan slipped his own no doubt authentic and ridiculously expensive watch into his pocket and replaced it with the genuine fake he had just bought.
‘Fantastic. I can show off my new toy.’ He shook his wrist and, despite herself, Sadie laughed, feeling perfectly at home for the first time in years.
* * *
From the way Sadie was greeted at the door of the restaurant with a hug from an enthusiastic waitress, Dylan assumed she was something of a regular. Despite the queue of people ahead of them, they were led directly to a table right in the centre of the glass-roofed portion of the restaurant, with vines growing overhead to dull the power of the sun as it shone down.
He couldn’t catch the entire conversation between Sadie and the waitress, but he did notice it was conducted half in English, half in Turkish, with the waitress particularly shifting from one to the other with no sense of hesitation at all.
‘Adem’s second cousin,’ Sadie explained. ‘Or third. I forget. Most of the Turkish side of his family moved over to England at the same time his mum did, as a child, but one cousin or uncle stayed behind.’ She handed him a menu. ‘So, what do you fancy?’
‘I get to order for myself today, then?’ he teased, and she flashed him a smile, looking more comfortable than she had since they’d left the Azure that morning.
‘I think I can trust you not to choose the burger and chips. But if you’re fishing for a recommendation...’
‘No, no. I think I can manage to choose my own food, thanks.’
She shrugged. ‘Sorry. I think it’s the mother thing. Finn always wants to debate all the options on the children’s menu before he makes his choice.’
The mother thing. It still felt weird, identifying Sadie as a mother. Maybe because he’d spent far more time with her before Finn’s birth than since. Just another reminder that she was a different woman now from the one he’d fallen so hard for in Oxford all those years before.
‘So, what do you fancy?’ she asked, folding her own menu and putting it to one side. Dylan got the feeling she had it memorised.
‘The sea bass, I think.’ He put his own menu down and within seconds their waitress was back to take their orders.
‘Can I have the chicken salad today, please?’ Sadie asked, smiling up at her friend. ‘With extra flatbread on the side.’
‘Of course. And for you, sir?’
As he looked up Dylan spotted the specials board behind the waitress. ‘Actually, I think I’ll have the lamb kofta off the specials, please.’
Sadie frowned at him as the waitress disappeared with their menus. ‘I thought you wanted sea bass?’
He shrugged. ‘Something better came along.’
She didn’t look convinced, but rather than press the point she pulled a notepad from her bag and opened it to a clean page. Apparently they were back to business.
‘So, while we have a quiet moment—what do you think so far?’
‘Of Kusadasi? It’s charming,’ he said.
‘Not just the town.’ Frustration creased a small line between Sadie’s eyebrows. Despite himself, Dylan found it unbearably cute. ‘Of everything. The tourist potential here, my plans for the hotel...the whole lot. Consider it a mid-visit review.’
‘I’ve only been here less than a day,’ Dylan pointed out.
‘Really? It seems longer.’ She flashed him a smile to show it was a joke, but Dylan suspected she meant it. After all, he was feeling it too—that feeling that he’d been there forever. That they’d never been apart in the first place.
A very dangerous feeling, that. Maybe Sadie was right. It was time to focus on business again.
Leaning back in his chair, he considered how to put his comments in a way that she might actually listen to rather than get annoyed by.
‘Your plans...they’re the same ones Adem mapped out when you moved here, right? And that was, what? Three years ago?’
She nodded. ‘About that, yes. And, yes, they’re his plans. He put a lot of time, energy and research into developing them. I was lucky. When he... When it all fell to me, I already had a blueprint to follow right there. I don’t know if I’d have managed otherwise.’
‘I think you would have done.’ In fact, he rather thought she might have to. ‘The thing is...are you sure that sticking to Adem’s plans is the wisest idea?’
Her shoulders stiffened, and Dylan muffled a sigh. He should have known there wasn’t a way to broach this subject without causing offence.
‘You knew Adem as well as I did, almost anyway,’ she said. ‘Do you really think he wouldn’t have triple-checked those plans before putting them into action?’
‘Not at all.’ In fact, he was pretty sure that Adem would have taken outside counsel, considered all the possibilities, and covered every single base before he’d committed to the Azure at all. Despite his enthusiastic nature and tendency to jump at opportunities, Adem had always been thorough. ‘But what I mean is, the best plans need to be flexible. Adem knew that. Things change in business all the time—and quickly. Three years is a long time. The world economy, the tourist trade, even this place, aren’t the same as they were then. That’s why you need to review plans regularly and adjust course where necessary.’
‘I thought you were here to provide investment, not business advice.’ Her words came out stiffer than her frame.
Time to put his cards on the table. ‘Sadie, I’m here to provide whatever it is you need—to survive here, to save your hotel, or just to be happy. But you have to trust me in order to get it.’
CHAPTER FIVE
TRUST HIM. WHAT A strange concept.
In the years since Adem had died Sadie had grown very good at relying on and trusting nobody but herself. After all, who else could she trust to care as much about Finn and the future of the Azure? Neal had helped, of course, but he’d always deferred to Adem’s plan.
She should have known it wouldn’t be as simple with Dylan.
Their food arrived and she picked at her salad and flatbread, loving the crunch against the soft gooeyness of the freshly baked bread. Eventually, though, she had to admit that she couldn’t hide her silence behind food forever—and Dylan was clearly waiting for her to talk first. Either tha
