‘Thank you,’ Georgia gushed as the pleased-as-punch man deposited them on the doorstep of their hotel and then waved his farewell. She wasn’t totally sure Zander would find his way back to his room without assistance—she’d needed two attempts the first time for her own room—so she followed him up.
‘Left,’ she dropped in just at the last moment.
He turned and looked at her. ‘Not right?’
‘Not right.’
Left it was. One more corridor and they were at his door. ‘What about dinner?’ he asked.
She groaned. ‘That would have been good to mention back at the entrance. We’ll have to retrace our steps.’
‘Hang on, I’ll just get a jacket.’
He was back in moments with a light jacket over his T-shirt. Whether it was for the evening cool or whether he wasn’t used to going to dinner in a T-shirt, it didn’t matter. He always looked extra good in a collar so the stylish jacket was very welcome from her point of view. He’d morphed back into casual Zander as the afternoon wore on. The same man she’d spent so much time staring at and smiling at back in the King’s Arms.
That was a slight analgesic against the dull ache of his rejection the past fortnight.
Discovering the city with him was a joy. His inquisitive mind and her gentle probing drew fascinating information from the locals. Twice he’d bemoaned not bringing his recorder with him on their walk to capture the lyricism and beauty of the language and the particular sound of voices as they soaked into the ancient limestone. He wouldn’t make that mistake again.
The hotel had a small outdoor balcony restaurant on its roof and a serve-yourself arrangement inside. Georgia laughed at Zander’s bemused expression.
‘When was the last time you ate at a buffet?’ she said. Though this was no ordinary buffet. Colourful fruits she’d never seen before spread out on one table and dishes of aromatic mysteries on another. She loaded a little bit of each onto a large plate and planned to round off her day of Turkish discovery here.
Some of it was odd, some of it was tasty, and two things were just plain amazing. She went back for seconds of those. They talked about the flight, the drive out, their impending early start for the balloon trip; anything they could think of that wasn’t about London.
As if by agreement.
Here, they could be two totally different people. She didn’t have her purposeless life or her humiliating proposal to deal with. He didn’t have his work or his marathons to distract and absorb. And they didn’t have the Year of Georgia between them.
Or the kiss, and what it meant.
Or his running from the dance studio. And what that meant.
She knew that she never would have achieved this amazing experience if not for the shove that Zander’s radio promotion had led to. She would have drifted along in her rut for who knew how long before eventually bumping to shore and clambering out, miles off track.
‘It’s hard not to sit up here and feel that anything is possible,’ she murmured out over the night lights of Göreme.
‘Anything is possible.’
She laughed. ‘Spoken like a true executive. For most people a lot of things are impossible. Financially, socially, time-wise.’
‘You just have to get your priorities in order.’ He shrugged.
She stared at him. They could make small talk or she could ask him something meaningful. ‘Do you prioritise activities over personal things?’
He looked up. Cocked his head.
She sank back into her over-stuffed chair, stomach full and single drink warming her from the inside out. ‘You keep yourself closed off from people, yet you’re so busy and active all the time. That must be a conscious choice. It would take quite a bit of work, I would have thought, to be around people all the time but not really interact with them on a meaningful level. It must be exhausting.’
Wary eyes considered her. ‘Are we talking about my staff again?’
‘No. But that’s a good place to start. Why do you work so hard to keep them at a distance?’
He thought about not answering. She could see it in his expression. But something tipped him the other way. ‘Because I’m their manager. I don’t want to be friends with them.’
‘Is it that you don’t know how to be friends with them?’ Or maybe anyone.
‘Pay them more and give them half-day Friday off and I’m sure they’d feel more friendly.’
‘You don’t buy friendship.’
‘I bought yours. At fifty grand to be exact.’
That stung. Not because it wasn’t true that it was his money funding her fabulous year of self-revelation, but because it cheapened what she would gladly have given him for free.
‘You don’t think I’d have chosen to be your friend without the Year of Georgia?’
‘We never would have met without it.’
That was true. If she’d run out of his radio station a few moments earlier or later she might have been sitting here alone. Or not at all. So much of who she was finding deep inside was because of Zander’s prompting. His goading.
She sat up straighter. Tired of the subterfuge. ‘If we’d met in a coffee shop and I’d got to know you I would have wanted to be your friend.’ Though she’d never have worked up the courage to speak to him. She’d have considered him way out of her league.
Her sub-conscious use of the past tense suddenly became remarkably apparent. Exactly when did she decide that Zander Rush was in her league?
‘Is that what we are? Friends?’
‘That’s what I think we are. Though I know you wouldn’t call it that.’
‘What would I call it?’
‘Acquaintance? Contact? Obligation?’
‘You’re not an obligation, George.’
But she was just an acquaintance? ‘I’m sure you’re not going to tell me what a great time you have trailing me all over London for my classes. Not when you bailed on the belly dancing at the first decent opportunity.’
He studied the way the dark liquid swirled in his glass. ‘I owe you an explanation about that...’
‘Is there even a Tuesday night network meeting?’
His eyes lifted. ‘There is. That’s real. But I did use it to get out of the dance class.’
She just stared.
‘I wasn’t...’ He paused and tried again. ‘I wasn’t comfortable there.’
Her jaw tightened. ‘Was it me or everyone else?’
He didn’t answer. Her stomach sank.
So it was her.
‘It’s a very confronting form of dance when you’re on the receiving end,’ he said.
‘You didn’t look too confronted.’ Until he’d looked at her. ‘I was just