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‘Of course.’ She gestured towards the main offices. ‘This way, please.’
They came into an empty reception area and she took him behind the desk, then gestured to her own office. Galen pretended not to notice her glassy brown eyes and the pink tip of her nose.
‘Please,’ Roula said. ‘Help yourself.’
‘Thank you.’
Galen took a seat and looked not at the computer but at the endless items that crowded her desk. The chocolate he understood, but there were photos, quotes, flowers, rosary beads... There was even a little dragonfly stuck to her computer screen. Galen was untidy himself, though his desk was cluttered with coffee cups and food, not endless pictures of grinning twins staring back at him. How the hell did she work in this riot?
‘Galen?’ Roula knocked, but stood outside the door. Unlike the postmaster, she made no attempt to peer in. ‘I apologise—you will need my password.’
‘It’s fine. I’m already in.’
‘But I didn’t give it to you...’
‘Easy guess,’ Galen said. ‘You really need something more secure.’
He grimaced when he saw the dip in charts his absence had caused, but then flicked off the page, and called the care home to find out how the new treatment regime that had been arranged before he’d flown off was faring. Yaya was on her second unit of blood, he was told, but had twice removed the IV.
‘She has one-on-one care, though?’ Galen checked, because it had been agreed she would while she was receiving treatment.
‘Of course—but she is quick.’
‘Very quick for ninety,’ Galen said. ‘One-on-one care,’ he reminded them, and then dropped the phone.
Despite the rather rich lunch, he ate some of Roula’s chocolate. He was annoyed with the carers and glad for a brief respite in a long, long day, with the private after-party still to come.
Roula also wished the day was over.
She looked at the sky as the blazing sun dipped down and could already feel the throb of music from the beach. Thankfully she had composed herself by the time Galen reappeared, and she looked up and smiled.
‘Did you see the announcement?’ Roula asked as she stood up.
‘Sorry?’
‘The one you needed the Internet for?’
‘Oh, that.’ He gave those hazel eyes a little roll. ‘I was supposed to be making the announcement. Well, my foundation. But...’
Roula gulped. ‘Did it cause problems? The delay...?’
‘The price has crashed, but that happens a lot in crypto... It will recover.’ He considered for a moment. ‘Well, maybe.’
Oh, no! She should have woken Yolanda earlier, got this man to a connection... ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘Roula, don’t worry about it.’
He gave her a smile then, and possibly it was the scent from the candles—only they weren’t lit yet—but she breathed in something beautiful, something soothing, just a moment of calm...
And Roula felt something she had not felt for so long now.
Normal.
