Chapter 11
She couldn’t resist or suppress the wash of emotion at Cillian’s words, or the sight of his familiar features on the small screen. He had his hair long and floppy; he wouldn’t let anyone cut it at the moment. Honey blond, like his father, with green eyes. But he had Toni’s smile, her chin.
‘Maybe you’ll get something from the Italian tooth fairy while you’re here.’
His face lit up and she wondered for a moment if she shouldn’t have got his hopes up. Cillian had had plenty of disappointments in his life already.
‘Maybe she brings ice cream!’ Daphne added, giving Cilli a squeeze.
Toni tried not to wince. ‘I’m not sure ice cream and the tooth fairy go together, but there might be a separate fairy for ice cream. Be gentle when you wobble it,’ she warned him with a pang. ‘But you have to keep brushing your other teeth, even if that one hurts.’
‘I know, Mum.’
After staring at the screen for a minute, he disappeared without saying anything further. The few minutes had been better than nothing, but her arms felt emptier than ever when she ended the call.
A rustle behind her heralded Gabri’s return to the terrace through the netting curtains.
Barefoot, his shirt unbuttoned and his hair curling wildly after his shower, he made a strange – and startlingly handsome – waiter as he set the table with salad and refilled her wine glass before returning for the dinner plates.
She wished she could switch it off, this reaction to him in her skin. He’d been honest to the point of blunt that he had no interest in a relationship – not that she was interested in anything either. They only had a week anyway.
A week of this stifled awareness, confusing, heart-pounding attraction.
‘That’s a very big sigh,’ he commented as he set two plates on the table.
‘Oh, I—’ She gulped.
‘Everything okay at home?’
That was a plausible cover story. ‘Yes, it’s just the— This smells amazing!’ She inhaled deeply as he set a sprig of basil on top. ‘I recognise the garlic, but what else is in this?’
‘Have a taste,’ he invited instead of answering, swirling his own forkful of the wide ribbons of pasta.
‘You’re going to make me guess?’
‘No,’ he said with an easy-going smile. Gone was the haunted ex-husband from earlier. He’d had time in his kitchen – away from her – and he was back in his safe space. ‘Just try it first.’
The garlic was sharp, not cooked through the way she usually prepared it, but mellowed by the creamy sauce and the savoury meatiness of diced mushrooms. The whole dish was a comfort zone, blended and balanced flavours bringing the moment to life.
‘It tastes so good, it makes you glad to be alive,’ she commented with a laugh. ‘Your simple existence, hmm?’
‘One day on the island and you understand already.’
‘You told me a lot about your sanctuary online, although you never mentioned it only had one bedroom. The prickly pear is a surprise too.’
‘That one didn’t come up in conversation.’
‘Are you going to tell me the secret?’ she prompted, gesturing to her bowl with her fork.
‘What secret? This is the simplest dish I could possibly make. I’ll get some fish and make the local stew another time, but I thought we were hungry tonight, so this is quick.
It’s garlic butter sauce. That’s all. Garlic and butter.
Plus the mushrooms and parmesan, and I add sage from the garden and some pepper, but nothing else. ’
‘Why is it so good? Don’t tell me it’s because of the place – the moment.’ She was worried it might be, the gentle sunshine and the sea, the wide view of a bigger life – and the compelling company.
‘Simple flavours are good – like simple people. And the ingredients are as fresh as you can get. I dug up this garlic yesterday.’ He took a sip of his wine and flashed her a smile, as if to say, What you see is what you get. She knew that was wrong.
‘Well, it’s delicious. Thank you.’
He muttered something in response that might have been in Italian, but she understood he was waving off her thanks. ‘It won’t be the tooth fairy, by the way,’ he said abruptly.
‘Hmm?’
‘If he loses a tooth here, we have a little mouse called Topolino who comes and collects the teeth – not a fairy. Allora, we kind of have the fairy too, but she’s lazy and uses the mouse to do her dirty work.’
‘Topolino the tooth mouse?’
‘Just be glad you’re not here in January when the ugly old witch visits all the children. The good ones will receive gifts, but the bad ones only get coal and if they try to look at her, she hits them with her broom.’
‘We’ll take the mouse.’
‘Good. And I will be your ice cream fairy this week.’
She burst out laughing. ‘I can kind of imagine you with wings.’
‘What?’ He straightened, puffing out his chest, which only made her laugh harder. ‘Aside from ice cream, what would you like to do tomorrow?’
‘Maybe we should do something a little busier than relaxing on the beach, since I might need to work up to that one.’
‘How busy? Kayaking? Windsurfing? I must admit, when I thought you were a man working for Great Heart Adventures, I assumed we’d be out hiking or on the water every day.’
‘You changed your assumption simply because I’m a woman?
One of our best guides is a woman, you know.
’ She smiled thinking of Kira, the tough and prickly climbing instructor who hadn’t dealt well with Great Heart’s pivot to weddings.
But she’d softened since the winter, when she’d finally met someone special enough to make her believe in love.
Gabri gave an apologetic shrug. ‘You have a point. You did tell me you like to go open water swimming – and climbing in the gym.’
She hesitated with her own sheepish lift of her shoulders. ‘Neither as often as I’d like. I am only the receptionist at Great Heart. My husband was a mountain guide and I just got a job there because the owner knew I needed one.’
‘A mountain guide?’ He sounded impressed.
She nodded, resisting saying more. ‘You don’t want to hear me talk about him,’ she muttered. And she didn’t want to talk about her husband when she was continually distracted by the glimpse of Gabri’s chest as the breeze caught his open shirt.
Lines came up on his forehead – lines that had the audacity to make him even more distinguished. ‘You don’t have to hold things in just because my marriage ended in a different way from yours. Say what you want to say.’
She turned her fork around in her hand. She was obviously too transparent in person.
This had been easier in the online chat.
‘I don’t particularly want to talk about Miro.
I mean, I wish I could talk about him in some other context, but in every single context, he’s dead.
It sounds horrible, but I’m sick of him being dead. ’
The fork clattered to the table as something cold seeped through her skin. Despite the sunshine, despite the vibrant garden all around and the very warm and real human being sitting across from her, she’d just remembered that part of her was dead too.
‘I’m even worse company than I thought I was,’ she muttered with a wobbly smile.
Then all her senses were firing on overdrive, like a shot of adrenaline, because his warm, rough hand landed on hers. His hold wasn’t firm – it was hesitant, as though he wasn’t sure he wanted to touch her either – but he didn’t move it away when she flinched.
Neither said anything. She didn’t meet his gaze. She just let the pressure of his hand hold her together for a moment.
‘I can’t imagine,’ he said eventually, his tone suggesting he knew it was a trite platitude. ‘Perhaps the island will…’
While he paused to consider the end of his sentence, Toni shook her head. ‘The island can’t fix anything, as beautiful as it is. You just think so because you were able to leave everything behind when you came here. I don’t have that choice. I’m not looking for refuge like you were.’
She glanced at him in time to see a grim nod.
‘Was it before or after?’ The words spilled out before she could think them through. ‘You don’t want kids because of what happened with your wife? Or you never wanted kids to begin with?’
His jaw was so tight, the muscles were delineated like the cracks in the stone around the cove. This time, when he looked up, the darkness was impossible to miss. ‘I don’t know.’
She wanted to push him, since she was pushed by everything that she’d felt over the past day that she hadn’t wanted to feel, but she was too much of a coward.
Dipping his head and leaning closer, Gabri proved he was not. ‘No. If I’m honest, I never wanted kids. I wanted her and she wanted kids and then… I had neither.’
The way he said I wanted her rippled over Toni’s skin, setting off the foolish spark. To be wanted like that…
‘Now you’re blissfully alone, answering to no one but yourself,’ she filled in as gently as she could manage.
‘So are you,’ he countered.
‘What?’
‘This week,’ he qualified. ‘This week, you answer to no one but yourself. You can be blissfully whatever you want.’
She didn’t know if he realised the effect his words had on her imagination.
If she truly answered to no one, she could lean over the table, grasp his face between both of her hands and kiss him, let out this whirlwind that had been gathering inside her since the first time she’d flirted with him at the marina.
It wouldn’t matter that he didn’t like kids, that when love got difficult, he’d escaped to an island paradise instead of facing up to it. She wouldn’t be kissing him out of love. She’d be kissing him because she wanted to. And she did want to. There was little point denying it.
But twenty-four hours on his island paradise wasn’t enough to make her completely lose her head. She leaned on her elbows, lifting her chin in his direction. ‘There’s a difference, though. I have to go back.’
He nodded slowly, his gaze dropping to his plate. ‘You don’t have to go back yet though,’ he said lightly.
He couldn’t have known the direction of her thoughts, but that simple statement rippled through her like an invitation.
‘You’ve discovered I’m the last person to judge you for anything,’ he continued.
‘Even talking about your husband.’ The flicker of a glance was enough to make her come up in goosebumps.
‘You can be selfish for a week. In fact, I insist. Do whatever feels right – whatever you need. No expectations, no guilt.’
She wasn’t sure she was capable of entirely letting go, but the concept had its appeal – even if he had no idea what she imagined when he talked about whatever feels right.
Instead of voicing any of her churning thoughts or unexpected desires, she simply quipped, ‘Are you tempting me to the dark side?’
She wasn’t prepared for the grin he bestowed on her. ‘You’ll love it.’
‘You’re right about one thing,’ she began, retrieving her own fork. She wasn’t certain this conversation had been a good idea, but recklessness seemed to have taken root. ‘This week, I only answer to myself.’
It would be easier if she could remember who she was and what she truly wanted.
‘Allora, how do you want to stay busy tomorrow?’ he asked, rubbing his hands together. ‘We could go hiking up Monte Capanne, forage for some dinner ingredients and take in the views of the whole island?’
‘Your famous foraging tour,’ she commented as she considered the option. ‘I don’t want to miss that, after you told me so much about it.’ But tomorrow, when she was still out of balance somehow? Hiking might involve too much talking. ‘I think I’d like to get back to the water first.’
He fiddled with his wine glass as a cover for studying her, but she felt his assessing gaze anyway. ‘You said you swim? Open water? How well?’
‘Very well,’ she said with a lift of her chin. ‘I used to be a member of a sea swimming club in Weymouth.’
When a smile tugged at his lips, a glint in his eye, Toni could finally breathe again. Gabri could just be a friend, not a temptation or a danger to her hard-fought peace of mind.
‘In that case, let’s go windsurfing.’