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“That’s not good enough.” She pulled her ponytail over her shoulder, the gesture drawing his attention. His eyes lingered there a moment, and sparks ignited in her bloodstream. “Last night, you told me you’d send me home today. I trust you’ll keep your word?”
He ground his teeth together, a muscle jerking in his cheek. “Phoebe—,”
“Stop.” She said angrily. “I have not been treated well, Anastasios. By a lot of people, I’ve been treated very badly, in fact, but no one has ever burrowed into my soul the way you have, and ripped me apart from the inside out. There is not a person alive who’s ever made me feel like you did last night, and believe me, that’s saying something.”
* * *
“Fiona?I need to speak to you.”
The older woman smiled at Phoebe, but it was a smile Phoebe no longer trusted.
“The last time we worked together, a friend came and had lunch. He gave me a gift, and when I threw out the wrapping, I must have thrown out the note he’d included with it. You were the only other person working that afternoon.”
Fiona had the good sense to look a little green about the gills.
“Recently, I’ve been shown a photograph of that note, as well as a picture of me and this friend, by a newspaper, wanting to run a story about me that has no basis in fact. The story, if run, would be very, very damaging to the family involved.”
Despite what Phoebe had been through, she tended to see the best in people, which was why she’d never noticed the calculating tightness in the depths of Fiona’s eyes. She saw it now though, clear as day.
“The people involved should have been a little more careful then.”
Phoebe compressed her lips. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” She was devastated that anybody—let alone several people—could take her innocent friendship with Kon and turn it into something so wrong. “However, I think you should know, the Xenakis family has very deep pockets.”
“Are you saying they’ll pay me more than the paper?”
The admission barely mattered—Phoebe had easily worked out who the culprit must be, the moment she gave it a little clear-headed thought.
“No,” she tacked a smile onto the denial. “What they’ll do is sue you—for everything the paper paid you, and then, for damages. Given the provably false narrative, that would be quite a lot.”
Fiona gasped. “I don’t believe you.”
Phoebe shook her head slowly. “Yes, you do. People like that don’t play to lose. If you get in the game with them, you’re going to get knocked out. That’s a fact.” She lifted her hands in the air. “I know the truth, so article or not, it’s no skin off my nose, but you should think about this: no act is without consequence and these would be particularly high.”
She left the restaurant then, a watery smile on her face, that quickly turned to tears. It had taken every last shred of bravado to have that confrontation, but now, she was spent. The last few days had taken a toll on her. Her soul was broken. With her head bent and heart weary, she walked towards the underground, wanting only the peace of her bedsit and a quiet cup of tea.
* * *
“What are you doing here?”
Anastasios paused, just inside the door of their family home, grimacing. At just after midnight, what were the chances of being met by one of his brothers? He turned to see Thanasi, one shoulder propped against the doorframe. God, he wanted to be alone.So why come here? Good question. In the midst of the mess of his life, something had drawn him here, to this place he’d lived for so many years.
“I was in the area,” he said honestly. For two weeks, the yacht had drifted around the Med, leaving Anastasios alone with his thoughts, but then, he’d set a course for the Saronic gulf, bringing his yacht into dock at his family’s jetty. Based on the peninsula of Porto Mezi, their family enclave was completely private, with a main house and several separate dwellings, which the brothers had moved into during their teenage years. It was a compound, secluded from the rest of the peninsula by natural geography.
“It’s not exactly somewhere you stroll past,” Thanasi said probingly.
“What’s with the fifth degree?” Anastasios asked, too sharply. Then again, he hadn’t seen nor spoken to anyone since Phoebe had left the yacht. He was out of practice.
“Nothing,” Thanasi eyed him consideringly. “You good?”
“Of course. Why?”
“Just wondering. You seem quiet.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Same thing as you, I suspect.” Thanasi looked over his shoulder. “Checking on mum. Haven’t you seen my messages?”
Anastasios was ashamed to admit it, but he’d barely thought of his family, and his grieving mother, since Phoebe had left the boat. He’d read Thanasi’s messages, imploring him to come home, to help with Maggie, but he’d been paralysed, adrift. “How is she?”
