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He lay back and she sat still, just watching him thinking.
‘You can’t just rock up, though,’ Costa said. ‘Everyone aboard is vetted. You have to be seriously rich or, if you’re just a worker, you have to sign NDAs.’
‘Were you a worker?’ Mary asked, her throat feeling tight.
He shook his head, ‘No. I worked in the restaurant kitchens in Santorini and then I would sleep on the beach and be up for when the night boats came in. I would hose down the rich men’s yachts too. There was no chance of getting on them, but I was always listening. Then I came out of the army and I was hot.’
‘But not modest?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘There was no time to be. Galen and I got office space in Athens and I worked it on the islands. I didn’t have much money, but I looked good and some owners paid me to eat in their restaurants, go to their clubs...’ He looked up. ‘The right ones.’
‘I’ve never been to a club.’
‘Stay out of the ones I went to, because in your case they’d be the wrong ones.’
‘Leo said you wore his designs?’
‘Yes. I wore smart clothes, showed them off to the necessary people, got to know them. I always knew the island’s potential, but I also knew that in the wrong hands it could be destroyed by too many footsteps. I had a couple of bits of land by then, bought for loose change, really, and most of the locals trusted me. I had a share in Jimmy’s bar, I had this land—not in my name yet, but it was in my family...’ He looked at Mary. ‘And I had anger fuelling me.’
She sighed. ‘That’s a terrible source of fuel.’
‘Not always,’ he disagreed. ‘I knew where I was headed and I worked on getting there. I dated a woman who had access to some information.’
‘Were you using her?’
‘She was forty. I was just out of the military, not even twenty, and wearing Leo’s designs.’ He shrugged. ‘We were using each other, I guess. She finally got me into a party I wanted to go to. I knew Ridgemont would be there. He called the island a slag heap—as you well know.’
Mary nodded, forgetting her chocolate cake.
‘“Yes,” I agreed, “it’s a slag heap.” Then he told me about the “peasants”, who wanted too much for their land. I agreed with him again, pretended I’d blown far too much on it already.’ He gave her the tiniest wink. ‘But...’
‘But?’
‘That’s it. Time to party.’
She pressed into his side, prodding him for more, but he just laughed and pulled her down to him. ‘Seriously... Two weeks later he put in a high offer to the Hatzises for their land, but I already owned their shed...’
‘So they couldn’t sell?’
‘No—and anyway, they trusted me. Mary, I opened Ridgemont’s letter of offer to them. We were all laughing.’
He pulled her onto his stomach and she looked down at him.
‘Same with Jimmy. We got so wasted that night...’ He looked up at her and slid her down. ‘That bar, it was on the exact spot where you lost your virginity, Mary.’
‘Wow.’ She was stroking the little hairs on his stomach and then she asked, ‘And the Kyrios family?’
‘They always held out for more. They still do,’ Costa said. ‘It didn’t matter in the end. I wanted this side of the island the most.’
Suddenly he was tired of talking and perhaps she sensed it, for he felt her hands move down.
He watched as she took him out and then he looked up at her, at her mouth and the tentative lick of her lips. ‘Go on.’
‘I don’t know how.’
‘There’s no rush. Just begin, and it will all go from there.’
Costa wanted this the most now.
