A Proposal Worth Millions. Sophie Pembroke

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.