More silence. But he wasn’t angry, she thought. He kept on eating, as if she’d just commented on the weather. She’d never been able to needle him.

Oh, she’d missed him. For ten long years it had felt like an ache, a limb missing, phantom pains shooting when she least expected. Watching him now, it felt as if she was suddenly whole again. He was intent on his pancake, maybe giving her space-who knew with Nikos?

He’d fitted right in with the people at the party, she thought. But then she thought, no. She’d got that wrong.

Nikos was an embodiment of what the people she worked with wanted to be. They went to gyms and solariums and plastic surgeons and every other expensive way to get their bodies to where Nikos had his.

All they had to do was haul fifty or so craypots a day for life, she thought, and found she was smiling.

‘What?’ he said, and she was suddenly smiling straight at him, almost pleading for him to return the smile.

And he did. In force. His smile had the capacity to knock her sideways.

The waiter, about to descend to take away their plates, paused with the strength of it. This was a classy establishment. Their waiter knew enough not to intrude on such a smile.

‘I’ve missed you, Thene,’ Nikos said, and his hand was reaching over the table for hers.

No. She found enough sense to tug her hands off the table and put them sensibly in her lap. But she couldn’t stop herself saying the automatic reply. ‘I’ve missed you, too.’

‘So come home.’

‘Because I’ve missed you?’

‘Because the country needs you.’

Here it was again. Duty. Guilt.

‘No.’

She closed her eyes and the waiter decided it was safe to come close. He cleared the plates and set them again, ready for soufflé. Maybe Nikos was watching her. She didn’t know.

Duty.

It had torn her in two ten years ago. To go back now…

“You know Demos wants to open the diamond mines again?” he said, almost conversationally, and her eyes flew open.