The Sundress

Chapter 1: The Boyfriend Problem

The thing about Nico Stavridis was that he drove a Toyota.

Not a beat-up Toyota, mind you. It was a current-model RAV4 in sensible metallic grey, always clean, with one of those little tree-shaped air fresheners dangling from the rearview mirror that smelled like artificial pine and quiet responsibility. It was the car of a man who had his life together but wasn't showing off about it. A man who worked in logistics—whatever that meant—and who always picked up the dinner bill but never made a thing of it.

Polly Gilmore had been dating this man for two years, and she had constructed an entirely reasonable picture of his life. Comfortable. Maybe upper-middle-class. The kind of family that went to nice restaurants for birthdays and took holidays in Bali instead of Torquay. She'd met his friends—normal guys who watched the footy and argued about craft beer. She'd been to his apartment in South Yarra, which was nice but not obscene, two bedrooms with a view of a park and a kitchen that suggested someone who actually cooked.

She had not, however, met his family.

This should have been a red flag.

"So," Nico said, on a Tuesday evening in March, while they were eating pad thai on her couch in her rented flat in Brunswick. He had that look on his face—the one he got when he was about to suggest something he wasn't sure she'd agree to, like the time he'd proposed they try rock climbing or the time he'd floated the idea of a couples' cooking class. "My grandmother's turning eighty."

"That's lovely," Polly said, through a mouthful of noodles. "Send her my best."

"She's having a party."

"Nice."

"On an island."

"Oh, fun. Like Phillip Island? I went there once for the penguin parade. Bit cold, but—"

"A Greek island."

Polly set down her fork. "A Greek island."

"A private Greek island."

The silence that followed was the kind that usually preceded either a breakup or a revelation. Polly stared at Nico. Nico stared at his pad thai. The air freshener in his Toyota, parked outside, continued to emit its quiet pine-scented lies.

"Nico," Polly said carefully. "When you say private, do you mean your family has rented an island for the party, or do you mean your family owns an island?"

"The second one."

"Your family owns a Greek island."

"It's not a big island."

"How big?"

"Maybe... four square kilometres?"

Polly picked up her phone and opened Google. She typed "Stavridis shipping" and watched the screen fill with results. Stavridis Maritime Holdings. Stavridis Logistics Group. Stavridis Foundation donates forty million to children's hospital. Forbes profile: The Stavridis Dynasty—Southern Hemisphere's Shipping Kings.

She looked up at Nico, who had the decency to look mortified.

"Logistics," she said.

"It is logistics. Technically."

"You told me you worked in logistics!"

"I do work in logistics! I manage the Melbourne port operations for the family—"

"Your family is worth—" She scrolled. "Nico. Your family is worth billions. With a B. Multiple B's."

"The company is worth billions. That's different from—"

"You drive a Toyota!"

"It's a good car! Reliable, excellent safety ratings—"

"Oh my God." Polly put her head in her hands. The pad thai sat between them like a mediator at a negotiation that had gone badly wrong. "Two years, Nico. Two years, and you never thought to mention that your family owns a shipping empire and a private island?"

Nico reached across and gently moved the pad thai to the coffee table, which was a smart move because Polly was gesturing in a way that endangered the sauce. "I didn't want it to be a thing," he said. "I wanted you to like me for me."

"I do like you for you! That's not the point! The point is that you've been living some kind of double life—"

"I haven't been living a double life. I've been living a regular life. That's the whole point. I wanted a regular life, with a regular job—"

"You manage a port!"

"—and a regular girlfriend who didn't care about money."

"I don't care about money! I care about honesty! I'm a primary school teacher, Nico. I spent forty-five minutes last week teaching twenty-seven six-year-olds how to make papier-mâché volcanoes. I drive a 2014 Honda Jazz with a dent in the passenger door from when I accidentally hit a bollard at Bunnings. I am not equipped for—" She gestured vaguely at her phone screen, which was now showing a photo of the Stavridis family compound on some magazine's "World's Most Exclusive Homes" list. "—this."

Nico took her hands. He had good hands—warm, slightly rough from the sailing he did on weekends, which Polly now realized probably involved yachts that cost more than her entire apartment building.

"Polly," he said. "I love you. I want you to come to my grandmother's birthday. I want you to meet my family. It's four days. There will be good food and nice weather and—"

"And what? A helicopter?"

He hesitated.

"There's a helicopter, isn't there."

"There might be a helicopter."

Polly stared at the ceiling. A water stain from the upstairs neighbour's leaky bathroom stared back.

"I'll need a dress," she said.

"You have dresses."

"I have a sundress from Cotton On and a black thing I wore to my cousin's wedding in 2019. I don't think that's going to cut it at a billionaire's birthday party."

"My grandmother doesn't care about dresses. She'll love you."

"And your mother?"

Nico's face did something complicated—a sort of micro-expression Olympics that cycled through optimism, doubt, fear, and something that looked like mild gastrointestinal distress.

"My mother will... come around," he said.

Polly had been a teacher long enough to know when someone was lying. She'd once caught a seven-year-old claiming the dog ate his homework while the homework was visibly sticking out of his backpack. Nico's face right now had the same energy.

But she loved him. She loved his stupid Toyota and his pine air freshener and the way he made her coffee in the morning without being asked and the way he read to her niece when they babysat and the way he looked at her like she was the most interesting person in any room, even though—as it turned out—the rooms he was used to apparently contained European royalty.

"Fine," she said. "I'll come."

Nico's face broke into a grin so wide and so relieved that Polly almost forgave him on the spot.

Almost.

"But we are having a very long conversation about honesty," she added. "And you're buying the pad thai next time."

"I always buy the—"

"Nico."

"Right. Yes. Buying the pad thai. Absolutely."

Polly picked up her fork and resumed eating, already mentally cataloguing her wardrobe and finding it catastrophically inadequate. She taught Year One at Northcote Primary. Her most expensive item of clothing was a pair of boots she'd bought on sale at David Jones. She was about to spend four days on a private Greek island with people who probably had personal shoppers and certainly had personal helicopters.

She was going to need a bigger suitcase.

Or possibly a smaller sense of self-preservation.