They emerged from a side passage out onto the bigger main street, with larger stores and the occasional street vendor stall. Here, after the charm of the old town streets, Kuşadasi looked more modern, ready to compete in the world tourist market. It was important to show Dylan that they had both here.
Suddenly, Dylan stopped walking. ‘Hang on a minute.’ Turning, he walked back a few paces to a stall they’d just passed. Curious, Sadie followed—not close enough to hear his conversation with the stallholder but near enough to see what had caught his attention.
She rolled her eyes. A sign advertising ‘Genuine Fake Watches’. Of course. In some ways Dylan really was just like Adem—they had the same absurd sense of humour and the same reluctance to let a joke lie untold.
Still, she smiled to see that Dylan wasn’t pointing out the error to the stallholder, and instead seemed to be striking up a friendly conversation with him as he took a photo on his phone and examined the watches. Another way he was like her husband, she supposed—that same easy nature that made him friends everywhere he went. She’d never had that, really, and couldn’t help but envy it.
‘Enjoying yourself?’ she asked, as he returned.
Dylan grinned. ‘Immensely. What’s next?’
She’d planned to take him to the caravanserai—she just knew his magpie mind would love all the tiny shops and stalls there, too, and it was a huge tourist attraction with plenty of history. But it was getting late and her stomach rumbled, nudging her towards the perfect way to remember why she was so lucky to live in Kuşadasi—her favourite restaurant.
‘I think lunch,’ she said, watching as Dylan slipped his own no doubt authentic and ridiculously expensive watch into his pocket and replaced it with the genuine fake he had just bought.
‘Fantastic. I can show off my new toy.’ He shook his wrist and, despite herself, Sadie laughed, feeling perfectly at home for the first time in years.
* * *
From the way Sadie was greeted at the door of the restaurant with a hug from an enthusiastic waitress, Dylan assumed she was something of a regular. Despite the queue of people ahead of them, they were led directly to a table right in the centre of the glass-roofed portion of the restaurant, with vines growing overhead to dull the power of the sun as it shone down.
He couldn’t catch the entire conversation between Sadie and the waitress, but he did notice it was conducted half in English, half in Turkish, with the waitress particularly shifting from one to the other with no sense of hesitation at all.
‘Adem’s second cousin,’ Sadie explained. ‘Or third. I forget. Most of the Turkish side of his family moved over to England at the same time his mum did, as a child, but one cousin or uncle stayed behind.’ She handed him a menu. ‘So, what do you fancy?’
‘I get to order for myself today, then?’ he teased, and she flashed him a smile, looking more comfortable than she had since they’d left the Azure that morning.
‘I think I can trust you not to choose the burger and chips. But if you’re fishing for a recommendation...’
‘No, no. I think I can manage to choose my own food, thanks.’
She shrugged. ‘Sorry. I think it’s the mother thing. Finn always wants to debate all the options on the children’s menu before he makes his choice.’
The mother thing. It still felt weird, identifying Sadie as a mother. Maybe because he’d spent far more time with her before Finn’s birth than since. Just another reminder that she was a different woman now from the one he’d fallen so hard for in Oxford all those years before.
‘So, what do you fancy?’ she asked, folding her own menu and putting it to one side. Dylan got the feeling she had it memorised.
‘The sea bass, I think.’ He put his own menu down and within seconds their waitress was back to take their orders.
‘Can I have the chicken salad today, please?’ Sadie asked, smiling up at her friend. ‘With extra flatbread on the side.’
‘Of course. And for you, sir?’
As he looked up Dylan spotted the specials board behind the waitress. ‘Actually, I think I’ll have the lamb kofta off the specials, please.’
Sadie frowned at him as the waitress disappeared with their menus. ‘I thought you wanted sea bass?’
He shrugged. ‘Something better came along.’
She didn’t look convinced, but rather than press the point she pulled a notepad from her bag and opened it to a clean page. Apparently they were back to business.
‘So, while we have a quiet moment—what do you think so far?’
‘Of Kuşadasi? It’s charming,’ he said.
‘Not just the town.’ Frustration creased a small line between Sadie’s eyebrows. Despite himself, Dylan found it unbearably cute. ‘Of everything. The tourist potential here, my plans for the hotel...the whole lot. Consider it a mid-visit review.’
‘I’ve only been here less than a day,’ Dylan pointed out.
‘Really? It seems longer.’ She flashed him a smile to show it was a joke, but Dylan suspected she meant it. After all, he was feeling it too—that feeling that he’d been there forever. That they’d never been apart in the first place.
A very dangerous feeling, that. Maybe Sadie was right. It was time to focus on business again.
Leaning back in his chair, he considered how to put his comments in a way that she might actually listen to rather than get annoyed by.
‘Your plans...they’re the same ones Adem mapped out when you moved here, right? And that was, what? Three years ago?’
She nodded. ‘About that, yes. And, yes, they’re his plans. He put a lot of time, energy and research into developing them. I was lucky. When he... When it all fell to me, I already had a blueprint to follow right there. I don’t know if I’d have managed otherwise.’
‘I think you would have done.’ In fact, he rather thought she might have to. ‘The thing is...are you sure that sticking to Adem’s plans is the wisest idea?’
Her shoulders stiffened, and Dylan muffled a sigh. He should have known there wasn’t a way to broach this subject without causing offence.
‘You knew Adem as well as I did, almost anyway,’ she said. ‘Do you really think he wouldn’t have triple-checked those plans before putting them into action?’
‘Not at all.’ In fact, he was pretty sure that Adem would have taken outside counsel, considered all the possibilities, and covered every single base before he’d committed to the Azure at all. Despite his enthusiastic nature and tendency to jump at opportunities, Adem had always been thorough. ‘But what I mean is, the best plans need to be flexible. Adem knew that. Things change in business all the time—and quickly. Three years is a long time. The world economy, the tourist trade, even this place, aren’t the same as they were then. That’s why you need to review plans regularly and adjust course where necessary.’
‘I thought you were here to provide investment, not business advice.’ Her words came out stiffer than her frame.
Time to put his cards on the table. ‘Sadie, I’m here to provide whatever it is you need—to survive here, to save your hotel, or just to be happy. But you have to trust me in order to get it.’
CHAPTER FIVE
TRUST HIM. WHAT A strange concept.
In the years since Adem had died Sadie had grown very good at relying on and trusting nobody but herself. After all, who else could she trust to care as much about Finn and the future of the Azure? Neal had helped, of course, but he’d always deferred to Adem’s plan.
She should have known it wouldn’t be as simple with Dylan.
Their food arrived and she picked at her salad and flatbread, loving the crunch against the soft gooeyness of the freshly baked bread. Eventually, though, she had to admit that she couldn’t hide her silence behind food forever—and Dylan was clearly waiting for her to talk first. Either tha
t or whatever information kept flashing up on his phone really was more interesting than lunch with her.
Actually, that was probably it. Still, she had to try and keep his attention.
With a sigh, she put the piece of bread she’d just torn down on her side plate.
‘Look, I know what you mean—about the market changing, and all that.’ Dylan looked up as she started to speak. She’d caught him just as he forked another mouthful of lamb between his lips, so at least she knew he wouldn’t interrupt her for a moment or two. ‘But sometimes you have to stick with a plan for a while to see its full potential. You have to give it time to work.’
There was silence again for a moment while Dylan chewed. Then he said, ‘What if you don’t have that kind of time?’
And wasn’t that the nightmare scenario that kept her awake at night? But it was also why he was supposed to be here—to buy her the time she needed to make things work. He just had to give her that chance.
‘You know, just because you’re always chasing after the next big thing, that doesn’t mean it’s always the right thing to do.’ Frustration leaked out in her tone. ‘Jumping at every new trend or idea would just make us look unsteady and inconsistent. Some people like someone who can see things through—like Adem would have done with this plan. He’d have given it a chance to succeed, I know he would.’
Dylan winced at her words and Sadie realised that her comments could possibly be construed as more of a personal attack than a professional one. But it was too late to take them back now.
‘Okay, I admit Adem was always better at committing than I was,’ Dylan said. ‘To a plan, or anything else for that matter. But he always knew when changes needed to be made, too. That’s what made him such a good businessman.’
The most frustrating part was that he was probably right. In this one area Dylan had known Adem better than she could have—they’d worked together straight out of university, until Dylan had left to start his own business abroad, and Adem, newly married and planning a family, had declined to join him after a long talk with her. But until then they’d been the company’s dream team, working completely in sync. Dylan was the one person in the world who truly knew what Adem would have done in her situation, and that irritated her.
‘So what? You’re going to give me a list of changes for the Azure and just enough pocket money to do them, then disappear for six months and let me get on with it?’ she asked. ‘But what happens next? I bet I can guess. You come back and move the goalposts again—because the market’s changed or whatever—and give me a whole new list of changes.’ She shook her head. She wouldn’t do it. ‘I can’t work that way, Dylan. I can’t live that way either. It’s not fair to ask me to.’
‘I never would,’ Dylan shot back. His fork lay forgotten on his plate now, and the intensity in his gaze as he leant across the table was almost intimidating. ‘That’s not what I’m saying at all. All I mean is...let’s go through Adem’s plans together, see what needs tweaking or updating. I’m not throwing the baby out with the bathwater here, Sadie. I’m certain that Adem’s plans are solid—or were three years ago. But just because you’ve made one plan doesn’t mean you can’t adapt or improve it when a better idea comes along.’
‘Like switching from sea bass to lamb.’ He made it all sound so simple and sensible.
Dylan smiled, relief spreading out across his face. ‘Something like that.’
‘Okay. I’ll think about it.’ And that was all the commitment she planned to make to this man.
‘That’s all I ask.’
They finished eating in silence. Sadie settled up the bill and they were back out on the street before Dylan asked where they were going next.
‘The caravanserai,’ Sadie said, with a faint smile. ‘Another tourist site with a lot of history. I think you’ll like this one.’
‘I’m sure I will.’
The caravanserai, a fortified marketplace dating back to the seventeenth century, loomed up above them, its crenellations making it look more like a castle than a shopping centre.
‘So, what is this place?’ Dylan asked, squinting up at the tall walls.
‘These days, part marketplace, part hotel and entertainment venue.’ Sadie strolled through the marble arch, the splash of the fountains and the greenery surrounding the inner courtyard helping her relax, just like they always did. ‘But back in the day it was a protected place for merchants and such passing through the town—they could be sure they and their merchandise would be safe behind these walls.’
‘So I can see.’ Dylan placed a hand against the stone wall. ‘Solid.’
‘Come on. Come and look at some local wares.’
There were fewer goods on offer now that the caravanserai was mainly a hotel, but Sadie suspected Dylan would enjoy what there was. She gave him a quick tour of the ground floor, slipping through stone archways into shady stores hung with rugs and other fabrics. Once she was sure he had his bearings, she left him examining some beautifully painted bowls and pottery and escaped back out to the courtyard and the refreshing sound of the falling water from the white fountain in the centre.
She needed a moment to think, a moment alone, without Dylan’s presence scrambling her senses. She wasn’t sure if it was because she associated him so closely with Adem, or because it felt at once so strange and yet so natural to have him there in Turkey with her, but either way it confused her. She couldn’t think straight when he was smiling at her, talking apparent sense that only her personal knowledge of his history and her gut instinct could counter.
She settled down to sit on the edge of the fountain, letting the coolness of the marble sooth her palms, and circled her neck a few times to try and relieve the tension that had spread there over lunch.
Of course, it was possible she’d only grown so defensive with him because he’d been criticising Adem’s plan—because it had felt like betraying the man himself, even if she knew intellectually Adem would never have seen it that way. But Adem’s plan was the only thing she had left to tell her what her husband would have wanted for her, for their son, and for their dream hotel.
In the absence of anything else she’d clung to it like a life raft. Except it hadn’t worked—and she had to face the fact that, whatever Dylan said, that failure was more on her than the plan. She had no doubt that if Adem had been there, with all his charm and enthusiasm, he’d have made it work—and they’d never have been in the position of having to beg Dylan Jacobs for help at all.
If they needed a new plan, then she needed help. She hadn’t trained for this, hadn’t ever planned to take it on. She could run her spa business with military precision and a profit every quarter—she knew what it needed and what worked. But a whole hotel? She was lost. And she was going to have to confess that to Dylan—not a conversation she relished.
But if she couldn’t trust herself to come up with a plan to save the Azure, could she really trust Dylan? Wasn’t he just another short-term sticking plaster? Oh, he meant well, she was sure enough of that. But he didn’t see things through. Everyone knew that. Why would the Azure be any different for him?
Suddenly, a shadow appeared on the stone floor in front of her—dark and lengthening in the afternoon sun. Sadie looked up to see Dylan standing over her, a contrite expression on his face and a paper-wrapped parcel in his hands.
‘For you,’ he said, handing her the package.
‘Why?’ she asked, unwrapping the paper. ‘I mean, thank you. But you shouldn’t have.’ The wrapping fell aside to reveal a beautiful silk scarf—one from the rack she’d shown him inside, but not one she’d ever have looked at for herself. Not because she didn’t love it, or because it wouldn’t suit her. The bright, vibrant colours were exactly the sort that her sister Rachel was always telling her she should wear, but she rarely did these days.
It was too bright, too bold f
or her. But, holding it, she wished more than anything she still had the guts to wear it.
‘It’s just a token,’ Dylan said. ‘An apology, I guess.’
Sadie shook her head, wrapping the scarf back up loosely in its paper. ‘You don’t have to apologise to me.’
‘I feel like I do. I didn’t mean to offend you, at lunch I mean.’ He sighed and sat down beside her at the fountain. In an instant all the cool serenity Sadie usually found there vanished. ‘You know I’d never badmouth Adem—you do know that, right? I know it’s not the same as for you but...you know what he meant to me too.’
‘I do.’ Guilt trickled down inside her chest. Dylan and Adem had been best friends before she’d even met them. Miles might have separated them, but she knew Adem had stayed in close contact with both Neal and Dylan until the day he’d died. She didn’t hold the monopoly on grief over his death.
‘I’m not just doing this for him, though—helping you, I mean.’ Dylan twisted to look her straight in the eye, and Sadie found it strangely difficult to look away. What was it about this man that was so captivating, so compelling? ‘But you have to know I wouldn’t give up on this—not on something that was so important to my best friend.’
‘I know that,’ Sadie said, but she knew it lacked the conviction of her previous agreement.
Yes, Dylan would want to do this for Adem. But she also knew that all he could really offer was a short-term solution at best. The money would keep them afloat, give them another chance, and his thoughts on the plans for the future of the hotel would be invaluable, she was sure. But it was going to take more than that to save the Azure. She needed to find a way to do that herself, once Dylan’s money had been spent and the man himself had moved on. She couldn’t rely on him to be there for anything more than cash and brief excitement at the start of a new project.
With a sigh Dylan reached across and took the scarf from her lap, unwrapping the paper again. Then, gently, he placed it around her throat, knotting it loosely at the front. The soft silk felt luxurious against her skin, and she couldn’t help but smile at the bright pop of colours around her neck. Then she raised her chin, and her gaze crashed into his, heating her cheeks until she was sure she was bright pink. His fingers straightened the fabric of the scarf, brushing against her throat, and her skin tingled under his touch.
A Proposal Worth Millions Page 5
