Page 57 of Reclaimed By His Billion-Dollar Ring

He got out of the car, feeling those tectonic plates inside him again, fractured and cracked, grinding against each other. Still seeking release.

Soon, but not quite yet.

She got out as well, and in the silence the immediate chorus of cicadas was all about them as the mid-morning sun beat down. There was a tumbling stone wall less than a metre high to their left, and he stepped through a gap, turning so that both the car and the airport’s perimeter fence were in front of him.

Without him asking, Calanthe came and stood beside him. But she was not looking at the airport—rather at the olive trees all around.

‘Looks like there’ll be a good harvest,’ she said, as if searching for something to say.

‘Yes. I’ve given a hand here many a time...helping my grandmother.’ He paused. ‘She owned a good few hectares of olive trees.’

Calanthe glanced around her. ‘Which were hers?’ she asked.

He nodded towards the airport. ‘Over there,’ he said.

Calanthe frowned. ‘Oh, that’s a shame!’ she exclaimed. ‘But I guess maybe the island wanted an airport?’

‘It did,’ Nikos confirmed. ‘It was controversial at the time—a dozen years ago or so—and I remember a lot of debate, with a lot of pros and cons thrashed out in the local newspapers and in the bars and tavernas. In the end, as you can see, it went ahead.’ His voice changed a little. ‘It’s helped to encourage more tourism, and helped develop the island economically—reduce its dependence on farming and fishing.’

‘Isn’t that a good thing?’

Though there was a question in her voice, she knew it was not just about the subject under discussion. Why was it under discussion at all. What was going on?

‘Overall, yes. Except that when there are projects like this, issues like this, there are always winners...’ He paused. ‘And losers.’

He walked away, along the line of the old tumbling wall, and Calanthe followed him, placing her footsteps carefully in the rough grass. Some way ahead of her, Nikos stopped again. She caught up with him and he nodded towards the section of airport behind a white two-storey building.

Beyond it was a single runway. As well as the cicadas all around, Calanthe started to hear the noise of a plane’s engines, approaching from over the sea, its port and starboard lights blinking at the edges of its wings as it came into view, its descent quickening. It wasn’t a large plane, just a standard tourist charter, easily capable of using the scale of runway here. It banked, and then landed with a deafening roar, engines in noisy retro thrust to slow its speed.

Calanthe put her hands over her ears until the engines cut out. ‘Well, anyone living too close to that would definitely be one of the losers!’ she exclaimed.

‘Not that much,’ Nikos said. ‘Except in high season there aren’t many flights. There were other losers, though.’

She looked at him. His voice had changed. Taken on an edge.

‘And winners,’ he went on, with the same edge in his voice. He nodded to the building in front of them. ‘Old Stavros was one of the winners. He was a shrewd old boy, and he owned as many hectares of olive trees as my grandmother. All of them are now under the other half of the airport, abutting my grandmother’s land. Stavros liked to keep his ear to the ground...keep an eye on what people were doing. Including my grandmother,’ he said, and now there was a heavy note in his voice. He paused. ‘He played his cards very close to his chest, though. Few people got the better of him.’

Calanthe looked at him. There must be some point to this, but she had no idea what. Was Nikos about to tell her why he’d brought her here?

It seemed not.

He turned on his heel, his back towards her.

‘Let’s get back to the car,’ he said.

There seemed to be tension in his voice now, and his face was set.

She frowned, but followed him, stepping through the gap in the wall and getting back into the car.

He turned it around, heading back the way they’d come. Once on the main road he drove back towards the ferry port and then, a few kilometres along, turned inland onto a metalled but narrow road, towards the island’s hilly centre.

They drove through a small village with a little church, a single bar, a mini-supermarket and a pharmacy, and out the other side, all the time gaining height. Then, about a kilometre beyond the village, a stone wall extended to their right, with a wooden gate in it. Inset into the wall was a ceramic plaque declaring, in both Greek and Roman lettering, Villa Irene.

‘Irene,’ Nikos remarked, ‘was the name of my grandmother.’

He drove slowly through the gate, between oleander bushes, and pulled up outside a solid-looking house with white-painted shutters and a white door. It looked neat and attractive, with large glazed ceramic pots either side of the front door, vivid with red geraniums.

‘This is her house,’ Nikos announced, cutting the car’s engine.

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