Georgios says something in Greek and points to me.
‘Ooh,’ Gran says, eyes twinkling. ‘Tell her what exactly?’
Yannis takes his well-worn leather cap from his head and studies the ground, as if hoping it’ll swallow him whole. What is going on? Is Georgios going to confront his grandfather in front of me? If so, it seems a little much.
‘Georgios, it’s OK. I don’t need to speak to your grandfather about any of this.’
He gives me a ‘just wait and see’ smirk. ‘OK, good point, Evie. If my grandfather won’t speak up, how about you, Floretta? Want to enlighten Evie on your conniving little scheme?’
‘What scheme?’ I ask with a frown. Are these two allowed to be this close with the restraining order and all? Sure, they may have agreed to a truce but do the rules still stand?
‘Go on,’ Georgios urges, his eyes bright with a frenetic energy, a smile playing at his lips. ‘Iknewthere was more to this; it just seemed too much of a stretch for them to ask us to fake-date for such thin reasons.’
My usually talkative Gran remains mute.
‘What’s he talking about, Gran?’ I’m truly in the dark.
Chapter 35
Gran turns on the hose and mimes not being able to hear. The old doddery lady routine is back. I roll my eyes, and shut the hose tap off.
‘Well …’
‘Spit it out – we don’t have all day.’
She makes a show of huffing and puffing before throwing the hose to the ground. ‘Fine. Yannis, shall I?’
He gives her a nod and continues fiddling with his hat.
‘Yannis and I were lamenting that our favourite grandkids remained resolutely single. And how could that be? They have the beauty, the brains. They’re both a catch.’
Yannis smiles. ‘They are.’
They share a secret laugh. What the hell is going on?
‘We came up with a plan to set you two up. We knew a blind date wouldn’t work – you’ve both railed against them in the past, plus you’re both terrible at love, so one date wouldn’t be sufficient time for you to see how suited you are. Thus the fake-dating idea was born …’
I reel. ‘What? But you didn’t evenknowI was coming to Santorini?’
She scoffs. ‘Of course I did, Evie. You mother called and told me you were on the way to keep an eye on me after she heard about my quickie marriage. She constantly calls and threatens me with all sorts of things but this time it gave me an idea …’
‘But how? You were almost arrested for disturbing the peace. Unless …?’
She grins. ‘Genuis, wasn’t it? Yannis is good friends with the Hellenic Chief of Police so we roped him into helping out. We had to make it believable, or it wouldn’t have worked. We made sure we argued loudly in a public place with a lot of witnesses so it would travel up and down the grapevine so I’d have to call your mom and tell her and she’d send you straight over. She’d already told me the day before that you’d been made redundant so we had to move fast.’
As soon as I sent Mom the text the morning I was made redundant, she phoned Gran who set this whole crazy plan in place. By the time Mom and Posy called me the next day, Gran had already been fake-arrested and the restraining order was put in place, in the hopes I’d agree to come keep an eye on Gran. Talk about taking a risk I’d be convinced to come!
My eyebrows shoot up. ‘When you commit, you really commit.’
‘Thank you, darling.’
‘Was Mom part of this?’
‘God no! She’s called the Fun Police for a reason.’
Yannis continues, in halting English, ‘Once that took place we had the excuse that I couldn’t be on the premises, so I had to send Georgios in my place.’
‘We’d spoken to your driver, Evie, so we knew when you’d be arriving. Unfortunately your plane was late so we told him he had to make haste because Yannis had already sorted a time for Georgios to visit me so you’d see him in the flesh, arguing away and being mean to your dear old gran—’
