A Proposal Worth Millions

‘No,’ she said, giving him a curious look. ‘Why? What’s wrong with the name it has?’

‘No reason.’ She stared and waited. He sighed. He should have known that wasn’t a good enough answer for her. ‘I had a bad experience at an Azure Hotel once.’

Her wide grin made the admission worthwhile. ‘Let me guess. Some woman’s poor husband showed up at the wrong moment?’

Of course that’s what she would think. And, really, who could blame her? ‘You know me.’ But not all his secrets—which was probably for the best. For both of them.

‘Okay, so if we’re not going to knock this place down, what do I need to show you to convince you we’re worth your time, money and effort?’

Honestly, he could probably make the decision based purely on the numbers. But that would have him flying back to Sydney tomorrow, instead of spending time with Sadie. He had to give her a real chance to convince him.

‘Here’s my proposal. I want a proper tour of the hotel. Then I need to see the local area—get a feel for the economy and tourist potential. Numbers are all well and good, but you need to visit a place to get a real feeling for it.’ All true, up to a point. ‘Then we’ll sit down together and see if I can help you save this place.’

She nodded. ‘Okay. Do you want me to set you up with the local tour company we use?’

Where would be the fun in that? ‘No. I think this will work much better if you show me yourself.’ Not to mention give him a clearer idea of how Sadie was really coping after her husband’s death. Multitasking was the key to any successful business, after all.

Sadie nodded her agreement, and Dylan sat back to anticipate dessert, hoping his smile wasn’t too smug. Everything was going to plan.

* * *

After a restless night, full of dreams that were half memory, half fantasy, Sadie met Dylan in the lobby the next morning, dressed in her best black suit and determined to impress with her business skills. His proposal had been more than fair. Neal must have told him what dire straits they were in at the Azure, but still Dylan had agreed to spend time on the ground, studying and evaluating everything himself, before he made his decision.

Sadie suspected that had more to do with friendship than good business sense. Still, he’d made it very clear over dinner what he needed from her—professionalism—and she intended to give it to him in spades.

Except Dylan, when he arrived, was dressed in light trousers and a pale blue shirt with the sleeves rolled up, sunglasses tucked in his pocket, making her feel instantly overdressed—even though she was the one who was appropriately attired. How does he always manage that?

‘Right, let’s get going,’ he said, as he approached. ‘Lots to see today!’

‘Before we start our tour,’ she said, stalling him, ‘I realised there was something I forgot to show you yesterday, and I’d hate you to miss it.’

Striding across the lobby, she led him to the windows at the far side of the elevators. Dylan wasn’t the sort to stop and sniff the roses, unless someone reminded him to, and she couldn’t have him missing the most magnificent thing about the Azure, just because he forgot to look.

‘Oh, really? What’s that?’ Dylan asked, following, his eyes on the screen of his smartphone.

‘Our view.’ Sadie stared out across the bright blue waters, the sea almost the same colour as the sky, white foam echoing the wispy clouds overhead. They were high enough to see for miles, out along the coast and out to sea. Her heart tightened the way it always did when she looked out over the water and coast beyond the Azure. Whatever had happened here, she was lucky to have had the chance to live in such a beautiful country. She had to remember that.

‘There’s a path from the back door that leads straight down to the beach,’ she murmured, but Dylan’s eyes remained fixed on the view, just as she’d known they would.

It was this view that Adem had used to convince her, back when buying a crumbling hotel had just been a pipe dream.

Look at it, he’d said. Who wouldn’t want to be here?

And in that moment she hadn’t been able to imagine anywhere she’d rather be than in the Azure Hotel, making Adem’s dreams a reality.

Dylan looked similarly entranced, his phone forgotten in his hand. Sadie allowed herself a small smile. Perhaps this would be easier than she’d thought.

‘Of course, the view would still be there, even if you knocked this old place down and rebuilt it,’ he said, turning his back on the view, but his tone told her he was joking. Mostly. ‘You could put in a whole glass wall in the lobby, and rooms with a sea view could have folding glass doors and balconies. Really make the most of the asset—and change the name while you’re at it...’

Sadie rolled her eyes. Some woman—or her husband—had really done a number on him in an Azure Hotel, hadn’t she? Funny that Adem or Neal had never told her that story, when they’d shared so many others.

Was that why he couldn’t see it? The romance of this place? This old building was more than just its stones and its view. It was the heart of the place.

‘Time for the rest of our tour, then. But I want you to remember—this is all business.’ Sure, he’d said it himself the night before, but it couldn’t hurt to hammer the point home. ‘I want you to treat me and the Azure like you would any other business proposition. We’re here to impress you, our client. So, what do you want to see first?’

‘I’m the client, huh? My wish is your command. Sounds good.’ Giving her a lopsided smile, Dylan stared around him, obviously thinking. ‘Let’s start with the bedrooms.’

‘The suites? Or the luxury doubles?’ Which would be best? He’d already seen the best suite in the place—he was staying in it. So maybe the doubles...

‘The uninhabitable ones,’ Dylan said, cutting short any hopes of impressing him that morning. Sadie silently cursed her loose tongue over dinner. It had to be the fault of the wine.

‘Right this way,’ she said, her smile fading the moment she turned away to press the ‘Call Lift’ button.

* * *

The bedrooms were worse than she remembered. A lot worse.

‘Lot of work needed here,’ Dylan said, winning the prize for understatement of the year. Sadie sighed as she took in the broken tiles, missing bed, ripped wallpaper and strange black marks on the carpetless floor.

‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘And a lot of money to do it.’ If there were anything guaranteed to send Dylan running...and she’d brought him straight there. Why had she even given him the choice?

But Dylan just shrugged and smiled. ‘But I’ve seen worse. Okay. Now let’s see the ones you’ve done up.’

Sadie wanted to ask what sort of hotels he’d been staying in, to have seen worse, but instead she decided to grab the life belt with both hands and swim for the shore. ‘Luxury doubles coming up,’ she said, with a smile that made her face ache.

At least she knew they had carpets.

* * *

By the time they were done viewing the hotel, Sadie was exhausted from excessive smiling and from scraping around in her brain for the answers to Dylan’s incredibly detailed questions. At least she could never complain that he wasn’t taking this business proposal seriously. For all his tourist clothes, he’d been professional to the hilt, asking questions she’d never even imagined she’d need to know the answers to.

Back in the lobby, she looked over her scribbled list of things to look up for him. It was up to two pages already, and he’d only been there less than a day.

‘I’d better get back to the office and type up my notes from this morning,’ she said. ‘I should have answers for you by this evening...’

‘Oh, I’m not done with my tour yet, Mrs Sullivan.’ He flashed a smile. ‘I want to see the town next.’ He looked her up and down, and Sadie resisted the urge to hide behind her clipboard. ‘Why don’t you go and get changed into something more suitable for sightseeing?’

Something more suitable... What had happened to this being all business? What was he imagining—a Hawaiian shirt and a bumbag? But she had said he was in charge, so she bit her tongue. Hard. ‘Give me ten minutes.’

He nodded, but since he was already frowning at the screen of his phone she wasn’t sure he noticed her leave.

As she dashed up to her room she ran through the morning again in her head. Dylan had seemed somewhat underwhelmed by the hotel as a whole, with far more questions than praise, but Kuşadasi was bound to impress. The local economy and the blossoming tourist trade was what made the Azure a safe bet. She just had to make sure he saw that.

Dylan was so like Adem, in so many ways, she thought as she slipped into a light sundress. Adem had always worked on gut instinct, trusting his feelings to lead him to the right decisions. And instinct mattered to Dylan too—so that was what she needed to win over.

Hadn’t he made it clear his business specialised in short-term, in-and-out projects? All she needed to do was hold his attention long enough to get him to invest. Then the Azure would take off, she’d be able to pay him back or buy him out in no time, and it would be back to just her and Finn again.

Grabbing her sunglasses and bag, Sadie took a deep breath and headed down to wow Dylan Jacobs. Whether he liked it or not.

CHAPTER FOUR

IT ALMOST FELT like a date, Dylan thought as they sped down the Turkish roads towards the town centre. The Azure Hotel wasn’t quite close enough to walk in—another point against it—but with Sadie sitting beside him in a pale cotton sundress, her dark hair loose to her shoulders, he found it hard to be objective.

Because this—being alone with her, exploring a new place, relaxing in her company—was everything he’d dreamed about once, in the secret places of his mind he’d never fully admit to. Back in the days when he’d let himself think about a world without his best friend, or one where he’d met Sadie first.

He hadn’t let the fantasies into his mind often—he’d learned early in life there was no point wishing the world to be any different than it was unless you were willing to do something to change it. And he hadn’t been willing, not in the slightest. If even imagining it had felt like betrayal, the idea of acting on those fantasies had been beyond contemplation.

Adem had been the right guy for Sadie—he’d always known that. Known he couldn’t offer her half as much, so he’d never considered trying—not that he’d have risked or betrayed his friendships that way anyway. A woman like Sadie needed love, commitment—she deserved forever. And he didn’t have that in him.

But now, with Sadie in the driver’s seat, sunglasses on and legs bare under that sundress, he could feel those imagined possibilities rising again. And just for a moment he let himself believe that she wanted him here—for more than just his money.

A light turned red and they pulled to a stop, the jerk breaking the moment, and reality sank back in. If this were a date he’d planned, he’d know where he was going. Sadie would be smiling at him, not looking tense and nervous and sad. The familiar guilt wouldn’t be sitting in his chest—smaller than when Adem had been alive, sure, but still ever present.

Plus he’d probably be driving.

The lights changed again, and Sadie manoeuvred expertly past waiting cars and swung into a suddenly vacant parking spot by the marina that Dylan hadn’t even noticed. He had plenty of experience driving abroad himself, but for once he was glad to be driven. It was nice to see Sadie so in control in this place.

‘Come and look at the ocean,’ she said, sliding out of her seat and into the sunshine. ‘It’ll give you a feel for the place.’

They stood by the railings together, staring out at the Aegean, and Dylan felt a comfortable warmth settle into his bones—one he wasn’t sure was entirely due to the sunshine. He was enjoying Sadie’s company just a little too much. He’d always found her presence relaxing, to a point, but before he’d never allowed himself to indulge in that feeling too much. Here and now, though, it felt all too natural.

He shut his eyes against the sparkle of the sun on the water. Business. That was what he was here for, and that was what he needed to concentrate on. He couldn’t afford to forget himself here—he needed to keep on top of his other projects while he was away, as well as work on the Azure proposal with Sadie. Already that morning he’d had enough emails from his assistant back in Sydney to remind him that things never worked quite as smoothly when he was away. He had to stay on top of everything.

Eyes open again, he shut his mind to the view and the warmth of the sun, and turned his attention instead to the practical aspects of the place. A marina, filled with top-end private yachts—and further up, cruise ships. Suddenly he understood exactly why Sadie had parked where she had.

‘So, this is your subtle way of telling me that Kuşadasi is a popular cruise-ship destination?’ he said, turning his back on the marina to lean against the railing and study her instead.

She gave him a perfectly innocent smile. ‘Pure coincidence, I assure you. But as it happens, yes, it is! Tourism is the heart blood of this place. The ships stop here regularly, filled with people ready to explore the town—and spend their money on souvenirs.’

Which all sounded good until you studied the logic behind it. ‘But how many of them make it up the hill to the Azure?’

‘That’s not the point.’

‘Of course it is. If the bulk of the tourists visiting this place are only here for the day, what do they need with a hotel?’ She winced at his words, but recovered quickly. He had to admire her tenacity, even if her argument was weak.

‘The cruise ships are only a small part of the tourist industry here—and, actually, they’re the gateway to a whole new market. Some of the people who visit for a day might never have even considered Turkey as a holiday destination before—but after a few hours here they may well decide to come back for a longer stay. Or to tell their friends that it was a great place to visit. Or even look into buying holiday apartments or hotel time shares here.’

A slim possibility. People who liked cruises—like his mother and her third husband—tended to take more cruises, in Dylan’s experience. But who knew? Maybe she was right. He’d need more figures before he could make a value judgement.

‘Okay, then,’ Dylan said, pushing away from the railings. ‘So what is it about this town that will make them come back?’

‘The history,’ Sadie replied promptly. ‘The shopping. The atmosphere. The food. The views. Everything.’

‘So show me everything.’

‘That could take a while.’

Dylan shrugged. ‘We’ve got all day. So, what’s next?’

Sadie looked around her then nodded to herself. ‘Let’s take a walk.’

That date-like feeling returned as they walked along the seafront towards a small island, linked to the mainland by a walkway. Dylan resisted the urge to take her arm or hold her hand, but the fact it even needed to be resisted unsettled him. Not just because this was Sadie but because he’d never really thought of himself as a hand-holding-in-the-sunshine kind of guy. He tended to work better after dark.

Sadie turned and led him along the walkway leading out into the sea towards the island, and Dylan distracted himself by reading the signs of fishing tours on offer and checking out the tourist trap stalls set up along the way, selling bracelets and temporary tattoos.

‘What is this place?’ he asked, nodding to the island up ahead. Covered with trees, it appeared to have a fortified wall running around it and plenty of people wandering the path along the edge of the island.

‘Pigeon Island,’ Sadie replied promptly. ‘You see over there, above the trees? That’s the fortress of Kuşadasi—built in the thirteenth century. It was there to protect the Ottoman Empire from pirates—including Barbarossa himself.’

‘I didn’t realise I was here for a history lesson, as well as a tourism one.’

‘There’s a lot of history here,’ Sadie pointed out. ‘And a lot of tourism to be had from history. Wait until you see the caravanserai.’

‘I look forward to it.’ History wasn’t really his thing, but Sadie seemed so excited about taking him there he was hardly going to mention it. Maybe it would be more interesting than he thought, looking back instead of forward for once.

‘There’s a seafood restaurant and café and stuff inside,’ Sadie said, as they reached the path around the island, ‘although I thought we’d head back into town for lunch. But I wanted you to see this first.’

She stopped, staring back the way they had come, and Dylan found himself copying her. He had to admit, Kuşadasi from this angle was quite a sight, with its busy harbour and seafront. He could see what Adem had loved about the place.

‘Does Turkey feel like home now?’ he asked, watching Sadie as she soaked up the view.

She turned to him, surprised eyebrows raised. ‘I suppose. I mean, we’ve been here for a few years now. We’re pretty settled. I can get by with the language—although Finn’s better at it than me.’

‘That’s not the same as home.’ At least, from what little Dylan knew about it.

‘Well, no. But, then, I never really expected that anywhere would be home again after Adem.’

One quiet admission, and the whole mood changed. He was wrong, Dylan realised, and had been all along. This was nothing like a date at all.

He looked away, down at the water, and tried to imagine what kept her there in Kuşadasi. It couldn’t just be history and sheer stubbornness, could it? Especially given how strange and lonely it must be for her there every day in Adem’s place, without him beside her.

She shook off the mood, her hair swinging from side to side as she did so, and smiled up at him. ‘What about you? Where’s home for you these days? Neal says you’re operating mostly out of Sydney?’ Changing the subject. Smart woman.

‘Mostly, yeah. My mum left Britain and moved back home to Australia when she remarried again, and my sister is out there too now, so it makes sense.’ And this time, finally, he had faith that they might both stay there now they’d each found some happiness in their lives. He felt lighter, just knowing they were settled.

‘Do you see them often?’ Sadie asked.

Dylan shrugged. ‘It’s a big country. We catch up now and then.’

‘Between business trips.’ Was that accusation in her tone? Because he wasn’t going to feel bad for running a successful business, even if it meant always being ready to jump at a new opportunity and run with it—often in the opposite direction from his family.

‘Pretty much. Between the office in Sydney and the one in London, I probably spend more time in the air than in my apartments in either city.’

He’d meant it as a joke, but even as the words came out he realised he’d never thought of it like that before. All those years trying to get his family settled, and he’d never stopped to notice that he didn’t have the same grounding at all. He’d just assumed his business—solid, profitable and reliable—was enough to give that security. But in truth he was no more settled than Sadie was, in this country she’d never chosen for herself.

Maybe they were both drifting.

‘We’re both very lucky to live in such beautiful places, though,’ Sadie said.

He tried to return her smile. ‘Yes, I suppose we are. So, why don’t you show me some more of the beauty of this place?’

‘Okay.’ She stepped away, back towards the promenade to the mainland. ‘Let’s go and take in the town.’

* * *

Home.

Sadie considered Dylan’s question again as she led him into the town of Kuşadasi proper. She took him by the longer back route to give him a true feel for the place. In comfortable silence they walked through narrow cobbled streets filled with shops. Half their wares were hung outside—brightly coloured belly-dancing costumes and leather slippers butting up against shops selling highly patterned rugs, or with rails of scarves and baskets of soaps on tables in the street. The smell of cooking meat and other dishes filled the air as the local restaurants prepared for lunch, the scent familiar and warming to Sadie.

As they walked she could see Dylan taking everything in—reaching out to run his fingers over the walls, his eyes darting from one shop display to the next. Had she been so fascinated when she’d first visited? It seemed so long ago she could barely remember.

Would this place ever truly be home? Could it? Or would it always just be the place where she’d lost the love of her life?

When she thought of home she thought of her family—and so, by default, of the pretty English village where she’d grown up, just outside Oxford. She remembered playing in the woods with her sister Rachel, or taking walks on the weekend with their parents and stopping for lunch in a country pub. And she thought of later meeting Adem and his friends in Oxford, when she’d travelled in every day for her first proper job after training in a small, independent spa and beauty salon there. She thought of the first flat she and Adem had rented together in London, after they’d been married.

She didn’t think of the Azure. Not because she didn’t love it but because it seemed so alien to all those other things. Like a permanent working holiday.

She loved Turkey, Kuşadasi, the Azure. And maybe Dylan was right in an odd, roundabout way. If she wanted to stay there, she needed to find a way to make it feel like home.

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.

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