Page 1 of 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.’