Chapter Nine #2
‘Your shoulders are tense and your fingers are curled into your palms, Winnie. I’d love to see you untense. Let your body relax.’
She tried. Frankie had said something similar to her yesterday when she’d joined her for a little early-morning yoga, but it was a whole lot more difficult now with Jesse watching her unflinchingly.
‘Stop thinking so much,’ he said. ‘It’s getting in the way of your pleasure.’
She nodded and closed her eyes, because his eyes had slipped lower. She’d invited him to look at her body, but she hadn’t counted on the fact that his gaze would feel like stars on her skin, or that she’d hear his breath hitch in his throat, or that she’d ache for him to touch her.
‘What do you want me to say, Winnie?’ he said.
‘I could tell you that the slopes and curves of your body are pretty damn perfect to me, or that the sweep of your hip makes me want to press my body against yours. I could tell you that I’d die to feel the weight of your breasts in my hands, to run my tongue over your nipples, or to slide my hand down your body because your skin is fucking luminous. Is that what you need from me?’
She didn’t speak, because in truth she didn’t know what she needed.
‘But I think what you really need to hear is that I want you. That the fact that Needledick screwed someone else doesn’t mean you weren’t good enough as a woman, or special enough, or beautiful enough. You’re plenty beautiful enough.’
Jesus. Tears slipped down the side of her face, because he was right. Rory’s affair had struck at the heart of her femininity and left her feeling second-rate as a woman, and what Jesse had given her tonight had gone a little way towards restoring her battered dignity.
Sitting up, she wiped her hands over her damp face and sighed heavily.
‘Come on.’ Jesse leaned in and pressed a single, lingering kiss against her shoulder. ‘Put your dress back on, Legs. I’ll walk you home.’
Walking back down the moonlit lane after safely depositing Winnie back at Villa Valentina, Jesse couldn’t believe how the evening had panned out.
The fact that he’d even invited her to come over at all had been unintentional, but asking her to pose naked for him?
He must be out of his mind. He should have called a halt to it when she agreed, but when she’d turned her back and offered him her zipper he’d lost any ability to call a halt to it.
The only thing that truly surprised him was that he’d kept his hands off her, because the woman was spectacular naked.
She didn’t even seem to realise it; he was unaccustomed to women so lacking in vanity or confidence.
Needledick ought to thank his lucky stars that he was in a different country, because he’d crushed Winnie’s self-belief like seashells beneath a riptide, and for that he’d earned himself a smack in the mouth.
He let himself into the house through the unlocked kitchen door, grabbed a bottle of brandy and headed back outside to sit on the low-slung chair he liked to use sometimes to look at the vast night sky.
It was one of the many things about Skelidos that had beguiled him.
Winnie had asked him earlier why he’d come here, and had he been more honest he’d have told her that he’d come here to hide, and that somewhere along the way he’d cut all ties with home and family and cast himself adrift.
Not that he imagined anyone missed him; killing the woman you love had a way of making people feel awkward in your company.
Closing his eyes, he let his mind slide back to another place, and another time, and another blonde, and then his heart seemed to shudder in his chest, a timely reminder that he needed to protect it.
Jesse traded on being skilled with his hands, but he’d never managed to sculpt his heart back into the exact right shape.
It was a bad fit these days, sharp and jagged behind his ribs.
Studying the constellations to distract himself, he took a mouthful of whisky straight from the bottle and wondered whether to ask Panos to punch him in the face tomorrow to knock some sense back in.
Angelo had been at the B it really was like stepping back into the 1950s.
‘I’ll put some coffee on and bring it out to you,’ Frankie said, wondering if he’d be tempted by the idea of food this morning.
Winnie watched Stella leave with Angelo behind her.
‘I hope he’s more polite this morning or she might clip him around the ear with the newspaper.’
Outside, Stella suggested Angelo take a seat at one of the driftwood tables in the shade and then poured a tall glass of bottled water over ice and lemon from the glass-fronted fridge at the outside bar.
She was aware that she didn’t know where anything was and hated the idea that she looked anything but in control under Angelo’s scrutiny.
They’d barely used the outside bar yet save for making themselves a G he moved awkwardly and she saw his jaw tighten as he opened the front page.
‘And your room?’ she said. ‘Do you have everything you need?’
He snapped his sunglasses out of the top pocket of his crisp open-necked shirt. ‘The bed isn’t exactly world-class hotel standard and the air-con could stand to be improved, but I can work with it.’
Stella wished she hadn’t asked now. The bed in his room was perfectly fine; they’d even added an extra mattress topper to ensure that their first guest slept comfortably.
‘You can always move to one of the other rooms if you’d prefer?’ she suggested. ‘We don’t have anyone else booked in until next week, so feel free to go and bounce on all the beds on the first floor.’
He glanced down at his sling. ‘Do I look in any condition for bouncing, Miss …?’
‘Stella,’ she said. ‘No need to stand on ceremony.’
He flicked the page of the newspaper over and slid his sunglasses over his face. ‘Perhaps a little ceremony might be professional when it comes to running a professional establishment,’ he said. ‘Like coffee.’
What the –? Stella opened her mouth and then shut it again, aware that to respond would be discourteous but ready to unceremoniously tip his glass of water over his head.
‘Did someone mention coffee?’ Frankie said, walking out onto the terrace with a tray carefully balanced in her hands. Angelo watched as she slid it carefully down on the other side of his table.
‘Coffee,’ she said, placing the unplunged cafetière down on his side of the table and then adding a milk jug and a little bowl of demerara sugar cubes beside it.
‘I wasn’t sure how you took it,’ she said.
‘Black.’ Angelo placed the sugar and milk back on the tray.
‘Oh,’ Frankie faltered, and Stella simmered. ‘Well, there’s fresh juice.’ Frankie set a glass down. ‘And I don’t know if you’re hungry, but I baked these just this morning, and the jam is fresh greengage from our garden.’
She lifted out the basket of pastries and laid the small pot of jam beside them with butter and a silver knife.
Angelo looked at them once, and then put them back on Frankie’s tray. ‘Just coffee is fine.’
‘I can make you something different if you’d prefer? Bacon, or some eggs perhaps?’
He closed his eyes and pinched the brow of his nose. ‘Please. Just coffee.’
Stella hated the downcast look on her friend’s face as she gathered the things back onto the tray and took everything back inside except the coffee.
‘I’ll leave you to your paper,’ she said, stepping away to follow Frankie. She made it as far as the door before her annoyance got the better of her, carrying her back to his table.
Clearing her throat when he didn’t look up, she said, ‘The bed may not be world-class standard, Mr Vitalis, but that breakfast would have been. Frankie has been diligently testing out recipes and she’s a fabulous cook. You could have been kinder.’
He slid his glasses far enough down his nose to look over them.
‘I’ve stayed in many fine hotels, and no one has ever questioned my breakfast choice before.’
‘This isn’t a fine hotel. It’s a bed and breakfast on a sleepy backwater island, and so far this morning you’ve insulted our beds and rejected our breakfast. Corporate mattresses and ice-cold air-con might be in short supply here, but common courtesy certainly isn’t.’
‘You’re doing a fine job of proving yourself wrong with your rudeness.’
‘Really? I don’t think so,’ she said, thoroughly annoyed. ‘Enjoy the view with your coffee, Mr Vitalis. It’s one thing you certainly can’t criticise us on.’
‘Man, he’s something else!’
Stella stomped into the kitchen, all guns blazing. ‘I’ve a good mind to call Corinna and tell her to come and get him. I don’t give a stuff if he’s a paying customer, I’d rather have an empty B&B than have him stalking around like a sodding thundercloud. Spike his coffee in the morning, Frank.’
‘I think you’ll find that’s illegal,’ Winnie said, tearing apart one of the cinnamon pastries Frankie had made that morning. ‘Bloody hell, Frank, this is amazing. He doesn’t know what he’s missing.’
‘He seems over-stressed to me,’ Frankie said, storing the rest of the pastries away. ‘I wonder if he’d like some chamomile tea or something?’
Stella stared at her. ‘Being stressed isn’t an excuse to be rude,’ she said. ‘And he was rude.’
‘Don’t let him wind you up, Stell,’ Frankie said. ‘He might chill out yet. How can you spend time on an island as peaceful as this without relaxing?’
‘I don’t get why he wanted to come here at all,’ Winnie said. ‘It seems like an inconvenience to him.’
‘Can I suggest you ladies keep your voices down if you’re going to be indiscreet about your paying guests?’
They all turned guiltily to see Angelo standing in the doorway with his empty coffee cup and cafetière in his hand.
‘I brought this inside to save you the trip.’
‘Thank you.’ A flush crept up Frankie’s neck. ‘I’m sorry if you thought we were talking about you just now.’
‘You were.’
She looked at the floor like a scolded child. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘I’m not,’ Stella said. ‘I’m afraid the kitchen is private, as is whatever is said in it, Mr Vitalis. There’s a bell at reception. In future please ring it if you need anything and someone will always come to help.’
He pushed his good hand through his black hair and looked as if he wanted to give Stella the sharp end of his tongue, but she held his gaze head on and he seemed to decide better of it and stalked out.
‘Well,’ Stella said, when the other two looked at her. ‘He needs to learn some manners.’
Her mouth dropped open, because someone, presumably Angelo, had rung the bell. In fact he must have held his hand pressed down on it, because it was more like an ongoing fire alarm than a polite ding.
‘Right.’ Stella marched down the hallway and found him leaning with his elbow on the buzzer. ‘Can I help you with something?’ She rearranged her mouth into a cabin-crew-worthy smile whilst shooting nine-inch nails at him with her eyes.
‘I wasn’t sure where to leave the newspaper.’
‘On the coffee table would be perfectly fine, thank you.’
He placed the newspaper down, and they stared each other down for a few long, hard seconds before he turned on his heel and left the building.