‘I turned him down,’ Sadie admitted, with a wince.
Rachel stopped bouncing. ‘Because you slept with him?’
‘Because...it didn’t feel right.’ Of course, nothing had felt right since Dylan had left either. But how much harder would this be if she had to see him all the time for work, too? No, much better this way, with her safely tucked away in Turkey and him travelling the world, popping in for the occasional friendly visit. Knowing Dylan, they’d be lucky to see him more than once a year.
Another depressing thought.
‘Well, I suppose you know best,’ Rachel said, although her tone clearly said otherwise.
‘I hope so,’ Sadie whispered.
Otherwise it was entirely possible she’d made the biggest mistake of her life, sending Dylan away.
* * *
‘Well, you’re in a foul mood,’ Dylan’s sister Cassie said. He dropped into the wooden chair beside her, exhausted after an hour or more racing around the scrubland that surrounded her home with her two boys.
‘Hey, you should be nicer to the guy who’s been keeping up with your two tearaways for the past week.’ Not that it was a chore particularly. Keeping two six-and nine-year-old boys entertained took energy and concentration, and worked marvellously as a distraction. Of course, it helped that it was also fun.
Much more fun than dwelling on how things had ended with Sadie anyway.
Cassie handed him a cold beer and he took it gratefully. ‘Want to tell me about it?’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Dylan lied.
‘Seriously?’ Raising her eyebrows at him, Cassie put her own bottle down and ticked her observations off on her fingers. ‘First, you arrive here with no warning. You drag the boys off to play outside whenever they ask you questions about your travels. You haven’t been to see Mum, even though you’ve been here for days. And, most importantly, you’ve almost drunk all my beer.’
‘I’ll buy you more beer.’
‘That’s not the point.’ Cassie sighed. ‘Go on, I’m listening. Detail your boring work problem and I’ll make the necessary sympathetic noises as needed. Unless it isn’t work...’ She sat up straighter. ‘In which case I might be much more interested.’
‘It’s nothing.’ Dylan took a swig of his beer, glad it was a million miles away from the local wine he’d drunk with Sadie in Turkey. The fewer reminders the better right now. He’d spoken to the board, had got them to approve the investment and had handed the whole mess over to his assistant before he’d left for his sister’s place in Sydney. He just wanted to move on.
‘Which means it’s a woman,’ Cassie guessed. ‘Okay, let me see... She’s married to someone else? Or just not interested. Oh, Dylan, did you finally find a woman who doesn’t want you?’
‘Not exactly.’ Although, really, wasn’t that the truth? Sure, she’d wanted him for one night, but that had been it.
Dylan sent up a silent apology to every woman he’d ever spent just one night with, even if he’d been upfront about it from the start. Being on the opposite end showed him exactly how much it sucked.
‘So what happened?’ Cassie pulled her feet up under her on her chair, just like she’d done when she’d been little. ‘You’ve got me all curious now. Don’t leave me hanging.’
Dylan sighed. Cassie had always been stubborn. There was no way he was getting out of this conversation without giving up at least the basic facts.
‘I went to Turkey to see an old friend, to see if I could help her business out. We...connected in a way we hadn’t before, that’s all.’ He shrugged. No big deal, no drama, no hole in his chest filled with a swirling vacuum of rage and confusion and disappointment. Nothing to see at all.
‘That’s all?’ Cassie asked sceptically. ‘So, what, you slept with her, left as usual, and now you’re, what? Missing her?’ She shook her head. ‘You’re such an idiot.’
‘Thanks for the pep talk.’ His little sister always did know how to kick a guy when he was down. At least, that was what her first husband had said. Her second hadn’t commented on it so far. Dylan liked him a lot more than the first.
‘Seriously, Dyl, when are you going to stop running before you even have a chance to see if there could be something there?’ Cassie waved her bottle at him accusingly. ‘You’re always the same. You find someone you like, indulge in a fling or whatever, then walk away before it can go anywhere. And this time it really looks like it could have! I haven’t seen you this bummed since that deal in London went wrong.’
‘What’s the point in staying?’ Dylan asked. ‘I mean, we all know that I’ll be leaving eventually, right? When the next big opportunity comes up, I’ll be on my way. Why make that harder than it has to be?’ He couldn’t even deny the accusations Sadie had thrown at him. He didn’t stay—and she wouldn’t go. Permanent mismatch.
‘That’s just horse droppings!’
‘You’ve been watching your language around kids too long.’
‘I’d use stronger if I thought it would make you listen!’ Cassie sighed, and settled onto the edge of her chair, staring earnestly up at him. ‘Did you even think about staying and fighting for her? That’s what you do, you know, when you love someone. You stay and figure things out. Every morning you wake up and decide to try harder. That’s all there is to it.’
‘She told me to leave. She has a son...commitments. There was no place for me there.’ Even if it had felt, just for a moment, like he could have fitted into their lives perfectly.
‘Honestly, Dyl, if you believe that you’re stupider than even I ever thought. Just because Dad left doesn’t mean you will. Of course you can settle down, of course you can commit, when you find the right thing.’
‘And how, exactly, do you know that?’ Because he sure didn’t.
‘Because you’ve already done it once.’ Cassie sat back in her chair, a smug look on her face.
Dylan blinked. ‘How do you mean?’
‘You did it for me and Mum. You spent years taking care of us, committed to making sure we were okay even when we went out of our way to mess that up.’ She smiled gently at him, and Dylan felt some of the truth of her words sink into his bones. ‘You never thought about walking away, did you?’
‘No. I suppose I didn’t.’
‘And you’ve never stopped either. You still check up on us both. You’re always there for my boys—and I know you always will be. That’s why I named you their guardian in my will.’
‘You did?’ Why hadn’t he known that? Unless Cassie had thought the idea of it would have freaked him out. Which, before this week, it probably would have.
Cassie nodded. ‘Too right. I wouldn’t trust anyone else with them.’
‘Thanks. I think.’
‘And I bet we’re not the only ones,’ Cassie went on. ‘What about your friends? I mean, you said you went out there to help this old friend out. You’ve always done that, too. Whatever your friends needed, you were there. That’s commitment too, you know.’
‘I never thought of it that way
,’ Dylan admitted. All those years, he’d committed to the people who mattered to him—his friends and family.
The truth struck him hard in the chest. Friends and family? Sadie was already both, in his heart.
He was already committed, and he hadn’t even noticed.
Now he just needed to convince her of that.
Maybe he wasn’t Adem. But maybe he could be what she needed now instead.
And maybe, just maybe, he could be what Finn needed too. After all, he knew better than anyone how fundamental having a father figure in a boy’s life could be. Maybe he could even give Finn what he and Cassie had lost when he had been ten.
Cassie took another swig of her beer. ‘Little sisters are always right, you know. So, need me to book you a ticket to Turkey?’
But Dylan was already on the phone to the airline.
* * *
Sadie hung back from the gravestone, flowers held awkwardly in her hands. Her dad was waiting in the car with Finn, ready to take them back to the airport, so she didn’t have long. But coming to the churchyard had seemed like the right thing to do before she left.
But now she was here, staring at a stone that spoke about a beloved father, son, husband and friend, she didn’t know what to do next.
Adem wasn’t here, not for her. She knew his parents felt better having him close, but for her no motionless, cold stone could ever represent her warm, loving, enthusiastic husband. She felt his presence far more in the heat of a Turkish summer or in the halls and rooms of the Azure.
And maybe that was why she needed to be here. To ask for his blessing, or advice, or something. To tell him that she needed to move on at last.
‘I’ll always love you,’ she said, placing the flowers carefully by the stone. ‘But I think you know that anyway.’ She’d told him often enough in life.
Sighing, she crouched down in front of the flowers. ‘We had a wonderful life together, didn’t we? And we made the most precious little boy. But... I don’t think you’d want me to stay in this limbo. And I’m starting to think I can’t.’