Chapter Eight
‘Ladies, we’re here!’ Corinna’s voice floated in through the open front door to Stella, Frankie and Winnie all standing like soldiers on their strategically placed spots inside.
‘Should we go out to greet them or stay here?’ Winnie whispered. ‘We should go out, right?’
They’d been playing statues for the last five minutes in anxious readiness, and now they all surged towards the door and spilled out onto the terrace.
‘Corinna,’ Stella said, kissing their as usual impeccably turned out friend warmly on both cheeks. ‘And you must be Angelo.’
She looked up at Corinna’s companion and then stepped back to look up again, because he was a good six foot two and towered over her even though she was in heels.
It wasn’t only that; he struck her as a dead ringer for Don Draper and had the brooding charisma to match.
He was as expensively dressed as his sister in tailored dark trousers and a charcoal shirt; the sling for his injury was black and discreet.
He held out his good hand towards her, no nonsense. ‘Angelo Vitalis.’
Stella shook it, unfazed by his brusqueness. She’d spent her life dealing with professional business people, and everything about this man screamed business.
Winnie and Frankie moved in to introduce themselves and received the same cool handshake, and Corinna caught Stella’s eye behind her brother’s back and smiled tightly.
‘Shall we?’ Stella stepped naturally into the role of leader, ushering them all inside.
‘We’ve put you in the Captain’s Suite,’ she said, reaching his key down from the board behind the desk. ‘It’s the biggest room on the first floor with a great view out over the sea.’
Angelo nodded curtly as he accepted his key.
‘Would you like breakfast in your room in the morning, or out on the terrace maybe?’ Frankie asked. ‘It’s gorgeous out there first thing.’
‘I don’t eat breakfast,’ he said, in the same immaculate American English as his sister. ‘I just need Wi-Fi and peace and quiet.’
‘What? No breakfast at all?’ Frankie said, her face falling.
He shook his head, and Winnie felt terrible for her friend because she’d put so much time and careful thought into preparing an appetising breakfast menu that would nourish someone recovering from injury.
‘This way?’ Angelo said, gesticulating towards the stairs, clearly keen to get settled.
‘Can I get you some water?’ Winnie said, her hand on the full iced jug on the desk.
‘To the room, please.’ His small, curt smile brooked no argument and came nowhere close to touching his eyes.
‘I’d appreciate it if you could arrange to have my luggage sent up within half an hour,’ he said, picking up his briefcase and pausing briefly to kiss Corinna on each cheek. ‘I’ll call you later.’
All four women watched as he strode away and up the staircase.
Corinna wondered if it would have killed her brother to have been slightly more friendly.
Winnie felt deflated, as if their efforts to be hospitable had gone unnoticed.
Frankie thought despondently of the fridge full of carefully chosen food and hoped he’d come around to the idea of breakfast after he’d had a couple of days to unwind.
And Stella thought how hot his backside was as he climbed the stairs, but also that she didn’t care one bit for how offhand he’d been with both his sister and her friends just now.
She had the measure of Angelo Vitalis after a lifetime around board tables with people just like him.
She’d grant him a free pass on account of having just travelled with a no doubt painful injury, but he was going to be in for a shock if he thought he’d get away with being unappreciative for long around here.
‘It’s odd having someone else but us here, isn’t it?
’ Winnie had kind of got used to the relaxed vibe they’d created at Villa Valentina over the last couple of weeks and she missed it already.
They sat around the kitchen table, speaking in hushed voices over lunch even though there wasn’t a chance that Angelo could hear them up in his suite.
‘I don’t like him very much yet,’ Frankie said, feeling disloyal to Corinna. ‘How can he not eat breakfast?’
‘He might warm up a bit once he’s settled into the more relaxed pace of life here,’ Stella said, even though privately she had her doubts.
They’d lugged his cases up the stairs after Corinna had left, and when she’d tapped his door he’d called out that they could leave his cases in the hallway along with a jug of water and he’d prefer not to be disturbed until morning. So far, not so good.
‘Maybe a G&T would loosen him up,’ Winnie said, even though she was nowhere near brave enough to ask him if he’d like one.
‘God, don’t let him see the cellar,’ Stella said. ‘He doesn’t seem the kind of man to approve of home-brew.’
Frankie picked a plum from the fruit bowl and polished it on her dress. ‘We really need to make time to do our first bottling. I’ve already started to gather ingredients to dry so our stocks don’t run out.’
‘Well, not today, that’s for sure,’ Stella said. ‘The last thing we need him to do is find us brewing potions in the cellar like the Witches of Eastwick. Let’s get an idea of how he’s going to spend his time for a couple of days first.’
‘Is that sign out front the one Jesse made?’ Frankie asked, changing the subject.
Winnie nodded. ‘We should try to get it hung. Which of us is best with a hammer?’
‘Don’t look at me,’ Frankie said, biting the plum. ‘Gav was the DIY king. If it needed fixing, he’s your man.’
‘Yeah, well, he’s a long way from here, Frank,’ Stella said.
Frankie nodded. Her old life seemed more distant than ever, and she felt disloyal for the second time that day because there wasn’t much about her life back in England that she missed.
Since Marcia passed and the boys left home, she’d grown lonelier than she’d known how to handle.
Life on Skelidos had changed all that in a blink.
‘Maybe Jesse would hang it for us,’ Winnie said. ‘I’ll ask him later.’
‘Later when?’ Stella asked, curious.
‘Later when I go over,’ Winnie said, slowly, stalling for time because she didn’t want to make a big deal of it.
‘I’ve not visited The Fonz yet today. I’ll just nip by and take him a carrot.
’ She suddenly began to find the pattern on the marble floor tiles terribly interesting. ‘And have a picnic with Jesse.’
‘A picnic?’ Stella said loudly.
‘With Jesse?’ Frankie added, and they both stared at her, waiting for more.
‘I don’t know,’ Winnie said, under pressure. ‘It’ll probably just be bread, cheese and water while we watch the donkeys eat carrots. That’s all. No biggie.’
‘I’m locking the doors if you’re not home by ten,’ Stella said.
‘Want to take the smoked salmon quiche out the fridge?’ Frankie said. ‘Mr Big upstairs is clearly not going to eat it.’
‘Mr Big,’ Stella said, nodding slowly. ‘I thought more Don Draper, but Mr Big works too.’
‘I’ll take the quiche,’ Winnie said. ‘But I seriously doubt you’ll need to lock me out. I’m going over at seven and will probably be home within the hour.’
She was still wearing that red dress. Jesse watched her swing her legs over his perimeter wall in the late-evening sunshine, her high heels now switched for flats and her arms full of something he couldn’t discern across the olive grove.
‘What the fuck are you doing asking her for a picnic, Anderson?’ Jesse berated himself with the rhetorical question as he went to the half-open door and watched her amble slowly towards the house, pausing to pass the time of day with the donkeys.
He saw her pull carrots out of the bag she was carrying, and noted her improved confidence with the animals as she hand-fed them.
Retrieving the platter of food he’d prepared from the fridge, and a bottle of wine, he went outside to meet her as she approached.
‘I brought quiche.’
No hi, no preamble. She’d brought quiche. Had he made her nervous? The skittish look in her eyes would suggest so.
‘I didn’t make it. Frankie did,’ she said. ‘Not for us especially though. She made it for Don Draper, or Mr Big, or Angelo, as his actual name is, but he didn’t want it.’
‘Frankie made a quiche for Don Draper?’ They’d had the odd celeb come to the island in search of escape from the long lens of the press in the past, but surely Winnie and Co. hadn’t lured John Hamm to holiday at Villa Valentina within a couple of weeks of moving here?
Winnie fetched a plate from the bag she was awkwardly balancing to show him the deep, salmon-studded quiche with its golden pastry crust.
‘Not the actual John Hamm. Corinna’s brother, Angelo. He’s our first guest at the B&B, but he doesn’t want any of the lovely food Frankie had planned for him and it’s driving her crazy.’
‘Oh,’ he said. ‘OK. Shall we?’ He nodded around the side of the house. ‘I thought we’d head round the back, you get a better view of the sunset from there.’
Winnie glanced quickly back towards the donkeys and then chewed her lip and nodded.
Surely she hadn’t taken him seriously about the invite being given on behalf of The Fonz?
Stepping ahead of her, he led the way along the path he’d laid around the side of his house to the spot where he’d already set a big checked blanket down in readiness and left crockery and glasses.
‘This is nice,’ she said, leaving her shoes at the edge of the blanket and stepping onto it barefoot.
‘Sit down,’ he said, as if she were taking a seat in his dining room rather than his garden.
She bent to place the quiche down and then lowered herself to sit up straight with her legs stretched out in front of her and her ankles crossed.
‘I wouldn’t have had you down as a tattoo kind of girl,’ he said, nodding towards the slightly faded circlet of flowers around her ankle as he put the food down and flopped beside her.
She put her hands behind her as a brace and leant back a little, her head tipped to one side as she considered her ankle.