AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘You are not to go running off with strangers ever again,’ he said.
‘I won’t.’ Mary even smiled at the very notion. ‘Costa really was the exception. The first time I saw him it felt as if I’d just recognised a friend.’
But her father was dealing with the practicalities. ‘So, this man who by all accounts trusts no one...?’
‘What accounts?’
‘I do read the papers here, and I can get online too, and when I saw you with him... You’re telling me that he forgave you on the spot?’
‘But for something I didn’t do. He never evenaskedme.’
She remembered Costa glancing at the bed, at the watch and the jewels, at the evidence glaring him in the face. And he had forgiven her practically instantly.
She thought about him asking his mother and the security guards to leave, remembered the brief flicker of disappointment, and then something else in his eyes: concern. Compassion.
He had forgiven her. And now, as she sat there, she couldn’t even call it unwarranted—because that would be to discard an incredibly precious gift.
‘Why would he forgive you?’ asked her dad.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Don’t you think you should maybe find out?’
‘It’s too late for that.’
Her father smiled then. For the first time in fourteen years Mary saw her father’s real smile.
‘It’s never too late,’ he told her. ‘I found that out today.’
For once the visit was over too soon, and Mary left with her mind whirring.
Why had Costa so readily forgiven her?
She was frantic to call the retreat and plead with Yolanda for a chance to speak with him. But she’d probably hang up, or get Roula...
She hadn’t even reached the prison gates before she’d done a frantic search for airfares on her new phone. Perhaps it was just as well she was broke, or this time tomorrow she could be flying to Athens and sitting outside Costa’s office like some crazy stalker...
‘Mary?’
She heard her name said in rich, deep tones, as only he could, and thought she must be hearing things. Yet she looked up and there he was.
Dishevelled again, and unshaven.
His eyes were so black he might well have been in another fight—except they looked exhausted rather than damaged.
Mary walked out of the prison and into his arms. Whatever was happening, for a moment she simply relished being held by him, and the delicious safe space that his chest provided.
She could hear thethud, thud, thudof his heart. It was faster than she had known it before, even faster than after they’d made love, and yet he stood completely still as she gathered herself together in order to hide the glistening of love in her eyes.
Finally she was able to pull back a touch and ask, ‘How did you find me?’
‘I ask the questions,’ Costa said, looking down at her sternly. ‘I spoke with your delightful ex-boss on a couple of occasions last week.’
‘With Coral?’
‘Yes. You didn’t just leave your job to come to the island, did you? You left your home too.’
‘It was never really a home.’
