‘I think there is,’ Maria said as she gathered up the accounts. ‘But I will leave you to tell me another day.’
I smiled at her in gratitude and she waved a farewell before heading back to her home in Holki, the island’s only village.
Alone, I wandered around the villa I’d called my home for the last three years.
Matteo had been understating things when he’d said the place was comfortable; it was amazing. Two sprawling floors of white stucco with a red terracotta roof, right on the beach, overlooking the aquamarine waters of the Aegean Sea. I had a bedroom bigger than my apartment back in New York, and the kitchen alone was bigger than my grandmother’s house back in Kentucky. I also had the use of an exercise room, an outdoor infinity pool, and a gorgeous garden bursting with bougainvillea and hyacinths.
In my time here I’d made only a few changes—I’d added a herb garden outside the kitchen, and personalised the study, making it into the business headquarters of Amanos Textiles.
The main operation of the company still took place in the women’s homes, which was how I’d wanted it. I remembered my grandmother hemming clothes in the evenings after work to make a few extra dollars, and I knew how important it was that women were able to work as well as look after their families.
Deciding the best antidote for my restlessness was work, I headed back to the office and pulled up a report on my laptop. One of the women who spun cloth had suggested a new colour for the cloth, a deeper shade of the turquoise, and I had just received a report from a chemist about the possibility of deepening the dye.
A few minutes later the rat-a-tat whirring of a helicopter hovering nearby startled me out of my studies. Search and rescue helicopters were fairly common to the area, but I’d never heard one so close.
As I peered out of the picture window of the large lounge my mouth dropped open and my stomach swirled with dread—and more than a little excitement. It wasn’t a search and rescue helicopter. It was a private one, with an A and an E embossed on its side, about to land on the villa’s never-used helipad.
It was Matteo.
In three years he’d never come the island. Everyone knew of him, of course, and I’d heard how he’d come in a whirlwind five years ago and bought the place, staying only for a day. Due to his presence on the island—or lack of it—many of the villagers followed him in the news, just as I did, but they’d never seen him.
And now he was here...for me?
A thrill ran through me and instinctively I suppressed it. If Matteo suggested his outrageous proposition again I was going to refuse, wasn’t I? Surely that was the sensible, sane thing to do.
And yet...
And yet he was here. And that reality undeniably thrilled me.
I watched, my heart starting to pound, as he emerged from the helicopter and started up the path towards the villa. He strode with purpose, dressed as always in an immaculate three-piece suit, looking polished and diamond-hard. And here I was in a pair of cut-off shorts and a T-shirt stained with blotches of turquoise dye. I was hardly the epitome of a professional woman, but I supposed that was one of the fringe benefits of working in a cottage industry on a remote island.
I wasn’t prepared for visitors...visitors like my husband.
And right now he was coming through the front door.
* * *
I’d given her a week. A week to wonder, to wish, to regret. And hopefully to see sense. The week apart from my wife had only lent fire to my resolve to make this marriage real. And now I was on Amanos, ready to make it happen.
I strode through the villa I’d bought five years ago as an investment property, little knowing then how I would need to use it. I didn’t really remember its tastefully bland decoration, but something about it felt subtly different. Enhanced.
Was it simply Daisy’s presence? Where was she?
Then she stepped into the centre of the living room, her face pale, her chin tilted. ‘Hello, Matteo.’
I stopped where I stood, taking her in. Even in a pair of ragged shorts and a stained top she looked eminently desirable. Her legs seemed endless, and the wisps of hair escaping her ponytail framed a face that was heart-stopping in its pure loveliness.
How had I not seen her beauty before? Not recognised it on that rainy street in Manhattan? Perhaps I’d become hardened to it, because I was so used to the polished, brittle glamour of the women I usually consorted with. Now that kind of calculated beauty’s finish had cracked, and I’d seen the ugliness underneath. Daisy, on the other hand, seemed fresh. Pure and uncomplicated...unlike our marriage.
But that was all about to change.
‘What are you doing here?’ she asked unsteadily.
‘I want you to reconsider my proposal.’
‘That’s right to the point.’
‘I don’t see any need to dissemble.’