A Proposal Worth Millions

by Sophie Pembroke

  * * *

  In the car, Sadie switched the radio on before she even fastened her seat belt, turning the volume up high enough to make conversation next to impossible. Dylan smiled to himself as he settled into the passenger seat. So, that was the way she wanted to play it. Fine.

  He was willing to bet there were no radios at Ephesus. She’d have to talk to him then—for a whole day, trapped inside some ancient ruins.

  Of course, she’d probably try to just lecture him on the history of the place. Which was fine by Dylan; he knew she couldn’t keep it up forever.

  Eventually, they were going to have to talk about the heat between them.

  Satisfied, he sat back to enjoy the drive, watching the foreign landscape skimming past the window. He had to admit Turkey was a gorgeous country.

  Beside him, Sadie let out a little gasp—just a slight gulp of air, but enough to alarm him. All thoughts of the scenery forgotten, he jerked round to see what the matter was.

  On the wheel, Sadie’s knuckles were white, her fingers clinging so tight there was no blood left in them. Her face had turned entirely grey. But it was her eyes, wide and unfocussed, that worried him most.

  ‘Sadie? What is it?’ No response. The car kept rolling forward in its lane, falling behind the car in front as her foot slackened on the accelerator. ‘You need to pull over. Sadie. Sadie!’

  The sharpness in his voice finally got through to her and, blinking, she flipped on the indicator. Dylan placed his hands over hers as she swerved onto the side of the road, ignoring the beeping horns of the cars behind them.

  The car stalled to a stop, and Dylan let out a long breath as his heart rate started to stabilise. ‘Okay. What just—?’

  Before he could finish his sentence the driver’s door flew open and Sadie flung herself out of the car, inches away from the passing traffic. Without thinking, Dylan followed suit, jumping out and rushing round to find her already leaning against the rear of the car.

  He slowed, approaching her cautiously, like an unpredictable and possibly dangerous wild animal. God only knew what was going on with her, but he knew instinctively that this wasn’t part of the game they’d been playing since he’d arrived. This was something else entirely.

  She didn’t stir as he got closer, so he risked taking her arm, leading her gently to the side of the car furthest from the road.

  ‘Sit down,’ he murmured, as softly as he could. ‘Come on, Sadie. Sit down here and tell me what the matter is.’

  Bonelessly, she slid down to the dry grass, leaning back against the metal of the car. Dylan crouched in front of her, his gaze never leaving her colourless face.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked again. ‘What just happened?’

  ‘I forgot...’ Sadie’s said, her voice faint and somehow very far away. ‘How could I forget?’

  ‘Forgot what, sweetheart?’

  ‘That we’d have to drive this way. Past this place.’

  ‘This place? Where are we?’ Dylan glanced around him but, as far as he could tell, it was just some road. Any road.

  Oh. He was an idiot.

  ‘This is where it happened?’ he asked.

  Sadie nodded, the movement jerky. ‘Adem was driving out to some meeting somewhere, I think. A truck lost control along this stretch...’

  And his best friend had been squashed under it in his car. He hadn’t stood a chance.

  ‘I haven’t been this way since it happened,’ Sadie said, her gaze still focussed somewhere in the distance. ‘When I suggested Ephesus... I wasn’t thinking about this. I wasn’t thinking about Adem.’

  The guilt and pain in her voice made him wince—and feel all the worse because he had a pretty good idea exactly what she had been thinking about at that moment.

  ‘We don’t have to go on,’ he said. ‘We can just go back to the hotel. I can drive.’

  But Sadie shook her head. ‘No. I want... This is the worst of it. I just need to sit here for a moment. Is that...? Will you sit with me?’

  ‘Of course.’ He shuffled over to sit beside her and lifted his arm to wrap it around her as she rested her head against his shoulder. He couldn’t offer her much right now, but any comfort he could give was hers. Always had been.

  ‘It’s crazy, really,’ she said, the words slightly muffled by his shirt. ‘That one place—one insignificant patch of road—can hold such power over me. There are no ruins here, no markers, no information boards. Just me, knowing that this...this is where he died.’

  ‘We don’t have to talk about it.’

  ‘Maybe I do.’ Sadie looked up, just enough to catch his gaze, and Dylan almost lost himself in the desolate depths of her eyes. ‘I haven’t, really. Haven’t talked it out, or whatever it is you’re supposed to do with the sort of grief that fills you up from the inside out until there’s nothing left. I just...got on with things, I suppose.’

  He could see it, all too easily. Could picture Sadie just throwing herself into the Azure, into making sure Finn was okay, and never taking any time to grieve herself. For the first time he found himself wondering if this was the real reason Neal had asked him to come.

  ‘If you want to talk, I’m always happy to listen,’ he said. Whatever she needed, wasn’t that what he’d promised himself he was there for? Well, any idiot could see that she needed this.

  ‘I don’t know what to say.’ Sadie gave a helpless little shrug. ‘It’s been two years... It seems too late. There was just so much to do. Taking care of Finn, the Azure, all the arrangements... He’s buried back in England, near his family, you know? Of course you do. You were there, weren’t you? At the funeral?’

  ‘I was.’

  ‘So it really is just me and Finn here.’ She sounded like she might float away on a cloud of memories at any moment. Dylan tightened his hold on her shoulders, just enough to remind her to stay.

  ‘And me,’ he said.

  ‘You’re not permanent, though. You’re like...in Monopoly. Just visiting.’ She managed a small smile at the ridiculous joke, but he couldn’t return it. There was no censure in the accusation, no bitterness at all. But that didn’t change the way it stung.

  Even if every word of it was true.

  ‘I just don’t know how to be everything Finn needs,’ Sadie went on. ‘Mother, father, his whole family... I don’t know how to do that and save the Azure. But the hotel is Adem’s legacy. It’s the only part of him left here with us. So I have to. And I’m so scared that I’ll fail.’

  Her voice broke a little on the last word, and Dylan pulled her tighter to him. Whatever she needs.

  ‘I’m here now,’ he said. ‘And I will come back, whenever you need me. Me, Neal, your parents, your sister...we’re all here to help you. Whatever you need.’

  It wasn’t enough; he knew that even as he spoke the words. He wanted to promise he’d stay as long as she needed him. But he had a rule, a personal code, never to make promises he couldn’t keep.

  Everyone knew Dylan Jacobs couldn’t do long term—him better than anyone.

  ‘I’m here now,’ he repeated, and wished that would be enough.

  * * *

  I’m here now.

  Sadie burrowed deeper against the solid bulk of Dylan’s shoulder, and ignored the fact that, even then, he couldn’t bring himself to say he’d stay.

  She was glad. He wasn’t her boyfriend, her lover, wasn’t anything more than a friend. She wasn’t his responsibility. And even if she had been...it would have been a lie to say he’d stay, and they both knew it. Better to keep things honest.

  She stared out at the scrubland before them and tried to ignore the sound of cars roaring past behind her. How could she have forgotten that driving to Ephesus would bring them this way? No, scrap that. She knew exactly how. Because all she’d been thinking about had b
een getting Dylan away from the hotel, fully clothed. Putting temptation out of reach before he fought past any more of her defences.

  And yet here she was, clinging to him as if for her sanity, giving up all her secrets.

  Maybe she should get some of his in return.

  ‘Why do you hate the name of the Azure?’ she asked, more for something else to focus on than any other reason. The fact that it probably led to a funny story with another woman—and a reminder why she couldn’t become too reliant on him—was just a lucky bonus.

  But Dylan said, ‘My father walked out on us in another Azure Hotel. I was ten. We were there with him on some business trip. He just got into the car and drove away.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Sadie winced. Great way to lighten the mood.

  Dylan shrugged, and she felt every muscle move against her cheek. ‘It happens. He...he wasn’t good at commitment. He stuck out family life as long as he could, then one day he just couldn’t take it any more. I’ve never seen him since.’

  ‘What did you do?’ Sadie tried to imagine ten-year-old Dylan standing alone in the foyer of some strange hotel, but in her head the image morphed into two-year-old Finn, watching her cry as she tried to explain that Daddy wasn’t coming home.

  ‘I took my mum’s purse and bought us three bus tickets back home—for me, Mum and my sister Cassie.’

  ‘You became the man of the house.’ She could see it so easily—Dylan just taking over and doing what was needed because there was no one else to do it. He’d been bogged down with commitment since the age of ten. No wonder he avoided it so thoroughly as an adult.

  ‘I was all they had left. Mum didn’t deal with it well.’ From his tone Sadie could tell that was a huge understatement. ‘By the time she could cope again I pretty much had it all in hand.’

  Suddenly, a long-ago conversation came back to her. ‘I remember Adem joking about all those dreadful part-time jobs you had at university. You were sending money home to your family?’ Dylan nodded. ‘That’s why you shared that awful flat in London with Neal too, right? Even after you were both earning enough to move somewhere nicer.’

  All those puzzling facets of Dylan Jacobs that had never made sense fell into place to make a perfect diamond shape. A whole shine and side to him she’d never even considered.

  ‘I’m like my dad in a lot of ways,’ Dylan said, and Sadie frowned.

  ‘Doesn’t sound like it to me.’

  ‘No, I am, and I know it.’ He shrugged again. ‘I’ve come to terms with it, too. I always want to be free to chase the next big thing, just like him. Difference is, I’d never let myself get tied down in the first place. I don’t ever want to let anyone down the way he did.’

  ‘You wouldn’t,’ Sadie said, knowing the truth of it in her bones.

  ‘Anyway. He’d already abandoned my mum and sister. I couldn’t do the same, so I took care of them however I could. Besides, they’re not like you. They’re hopeless on their own.’

  ‘Oh?’ Part of her felt warmed that he didn’t consider her helpless and hopeless. But one small part of her brain wondered if he’d stay if he did. She stamped down on that part pretty quickly, before it could take hold.

  ‘Yeah. My mum’s on her third marriage, my sister’s on her second. Every time something goes wrong I have to fly in and help pick up the pieces.’ He shook his head. ‘We really don’t do commitment well in my family.’

  Except for his commitment to them, which he seemed to hardly even recognise. ‘I think commitment is something you have to practise every day,’ she said. ‘Every morning you have to make your commitment all over again or else it fades.’

  ‘Maybe you’re right.’ He looked down at her, his expression thoughtful. ‘I mean, you’re the most committed person I know, so I guess you must be.’

  ‘The most committed person you know? Is that meant to be a compliment?’

  ‘Most definitely,’ he assured her. ‘Anyone else would have given up already, chucked in the towel and gone home. But not you. You committed to Adem and you won’t let him down, even now he’s gone. You’re incredible.’

  ‘Or possibly insane.’ She shifted a little away, uncomfortable at his praise. Hadn’t she let her husband down already, by being so distracted by fantasies of his best friend that she’d forgotten to even think about him today? Dylan being there confused her, made her forget to recommit every morning. He made her think of other paths, other possibilities—just as he had twelve years before.

  To Sadie, that felt like a pretty big betrayal in itself.

  ‘There’s always that possibility too,’ Dylan said. ‘But either way... I admire you, endlessly. You should know that.’

  Sadie looked away, pushing her hands against the dirt ready to help herself stand.

  ‘Ready to move?’ Dylan jumped to his feet. ‘We can still go back to the Azure...’

  ‘I want to show you Ephesus,’ Sadie said stubbornly. That was the plan after all.

  ‘Fallen-down buildings it is, then.’ He reached out a hand to pull her up and she took it tentatively. But once she was on her feet he pulled her close into a hug before she could let go. ‘Sadie...your commitment—I meant what I said. It’s admirable. But don’t let it lock you into unhappiness either, okay? Adem would hate that.’

  ‘I know.’ The truth of his words trickled through her, fighting back against the guilt.

  Dylan kissed her forehead, warm and comforting. ‘Come on, then. Let’s go and see some history.’

  At least, Sadie thought as they got back in the car, this history belonged to other people. Her own was already too confusing.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  SADIE SWUNG THE car into the dusty, rocky car park at Ephesus and smiled brightly at him, as if the scene at the roadside hadn’t happened at all. Dylan was almost starting to doubt it had himself; it had been such a strange moment out of time when he had seemed to look deeper into the heart of Sadie than he ever had before.

  That sort of revelation should have added some clarity to the situation, he felt. Instead, he was more confused than ever.

  He hadn’t meant to confess all his family’s dark and depressing past to her, but somehow, with her sharing secrets, it had only seemed fair that he give back too. He’d tried to keep it as factual and unemotional as possible, knowing that the last thing she’d needed had been him falling apart too. She’d just needed to know that he’d understood, and that he cared. Hopefully he’d given her that.

  But just reliving those moments had stirred up something in him he hadn’t expected—something he’d barely had to deal with in years. The small boy left alone in charge of a family seemed so many light years away from where he was now that he never really drew a comparison day to day. He could almost forget the way the horror had slowly crept through him as he’d realised what had happened, and the searing pain that had followed, always when he’d least expected it, over the months to come, when it had struck home again what it had meant for his future.

  Dylan shook his head. The moment had passed. No point dwelling any longer on things he couldn’t even change twenty-odd years ago, let alone now.

  They walked up through a street of stalls and cafés, selling hats and tourist tat, more scarves and costumes. Dylan ignored the sellers, but focussed in on the nearest café. Maybe something to eat and drink would do them good.

  ‘Are you sure you want to do this now?’ he asked. ‘We could stop and grab a bite to eat before we go in.’

  But Sadie was already striding ahead towards the ticket booths. By the time he caught up she had two tickets in her hand, ready to pass through the barriers.

  Apparently, nothing was going to stop her today. Least of all him.

  ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘There’s masses to see, and we’ve already lost time.’

  Dylan gave thanks
for the bottled water and cereal bars in his backpack, and followed.

  The path led them through scrubland littered with broken stones—some plain, some carved, all seriously less impressive than he suspected they would have been once. Information boards told them about the area, what had been here before Ephesus, and what had happened to the geography of the place.

  ‘Did you know, there have been settlements in this area since six thousand BC?’ Sadie asked.

  ‘I didn’t until I read that same information board.’ Was she seriously going to talk history for the rest of the day? He supposed he could understand the need to put some distance between now and that heartbreaking conversation at the side of the road, but still. At some point they were going to have to return to the real world. ‘Come on, I want to see the city proper.’

  As they continued along the path, recognisable buildings started to appear—ruined and worn, but with walls and doorways and even decoration in places. Sadie stopped to read every single information board—often aloud—to him, despite the fact she must have been here plenty of times before. Dylan was sure it was all fascinating, but he had other things on his mind.

  She’d admitted that she hadn’t dealt with Adem’s death, not really. He should have seen that sooner, or at least been more mindful of it. Was that why she was clinging so hard to the Azure?

  And, if so, what would happen when she finally did deal with everything? Would she be ready to move on? Maybe even with him, for a time?

  They turned off the path into an amphitheatre, and Sadie went skipping down the aisle steps to the stage, standing in the middle and calling out a line from some play or another, listening to the words reverberating around the stones.

  Dylan took a seat on the carved steps, right up at the top, and watched her explore. Leaning back, he let the sun hit his face, the warmth soothe his body. Sadie wasn’t the only one to have confessed all that morning, of course. He’d expected to feel shame or be pitied or something after telling her all about his family. But instead, next to her emotional outpouring, his ancient pains seemed like nothing. Still, somehow it felt good to have shared them. And it had helped Sadie too, he thought. She seemed lighter after her confessions that morning.