Chapter 7
She had known he was Greek when she first saw him. There was no mistaking the proud nose, the strong jaw, the dark eyes. But hearing him say those words asteri mou —my star—snapped her out of the fantasy she had woven around herself.
And then her childhood friend, Christina, appeared her outraged cry echoing in the still night air, “Mia, what are you doing with Angelos Mavromatis?”
- One Week with the Greek
CALLIE
W hat the actual fuck? Anger coiled in the pit of my stomach and I wouldn’t have been surprised if smoke was coming out of my ears.
“Yeah, I speak English.” He had the audacity to glare at me like he was the one who had been wronged.
“Why didn’t you tell me that?” I demanded.
He shrugged his massive shoulders. “You never asked.”
“I shouldn’t have to ask!” I shouted. “Normally, when you’re in a foreign country and you meet someone who speaks your language, you exchange a few words. It’s called solidarity.”
He shifted the oars out of the water and onto his knees. “Maybe I would have, if you’d ever deigned to address me. You thought I was some illiterate fisherman. All you’ve done since you got here is issue commands.”
“Whoa!” I waved my hands to clear the smoke of his blatant lies.
He was accusing me of being an overbearing snob?
Okay, I could be bossy sometimes; I’m a chef, that comes with the job.
But a snob? “I never addressed you ? All you’ve done since I got here is glare at me like I murdered your dog or something. ”
I leaned back and crossed my arms. Not only did he speak English, he spoke perfect English. “Why don’t you have an accent?”
“I’m from New York.” He shrugged like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Schenectady.”
“Schenectady!” I took a deep breath so I wouldn’t push him overboard. “But you’re Greek!”
“Yeah, you can have more than one nationality, you know.”
I stared at him, speechless, my mouth hanging open.
This was like some kind of nightmare. The only person on this island with whom I had any shared language and culture was the asshole who’d let me confess how I couldn’t stop thinking about him touching me.
He’d sat there and listened to it all. God, what had I even said?
I knew I’d mentioned my vibrator, his hands, his beautiful biceps.
“You know, when I said earlier that you had a shitty personality, that was an understatement. You are a first-class scumbag. A lying . . .” I said as I searched for the right word, “rat bastard!”
He stiffened, and I could see that I had hit a nerve. “I never lied to you.”
“Ha! Withholding the truth is the same thing!” I lunged for his oars. “If you’re not going to row, I will.”
I fell against him, my mouth inches from his. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t do anything but stare into his dark eyes. He had long lashes—like ridiculously long—and a small freckle under his right eye. His large hands held my waist, and I was suddenly hyper conscious of how strong and warm they were.
As if reading my thoughts, his eyes flicked to his hands then back to my face. A small, wicked smile ticking up the corner of his mouth, he said huskily, “Well, I guess now you got your wish.”
“Asshole.” I pushed him away and sat as far away from him as I could.
He began to row, whistling as he did so. I wrapped my arms around my waist, wishing I could get the feel of him off me, but it was like his hands had branded me. I wouldn’t be surprised if I had scorch marks on my skin.
I refused to speak to him or even look at him until we reached the harbor. As soon as he threw the rope around the metal hook in the concrete, I started to climb out of the boat.
“Wait, I’ll help you,” he said.
“Too late for that.” I stumbled up onto the dock, swung my purse over my shoulder and marched on wobbly heels toward the taverna.
His footsteps thudded on the concrete walk behind me, and when I stopped in front of the busy terrace, he nearly knocked me into a table where several pretty, young women were having lunch.
“ Yia , Niko,” they giggled in greeting. I rolled my eyes. Of course, he would have a local fan club. He’d probably fucked every willing, single woman on the island.
“Are you going to the taverna?” I spun around to face him.
“Yes.”
“Okay, then I’ll go somewhere else.” I shoved past him, and he had the nerve to touch me again! I shook him off.
“As your tour guide, I wouldn’t advise you to eat anything at the only other restaurant on this side of the island.”
“ My tour guide? I don’t recall hiring you in any capacity.” Ugh, I wanted to punch that smug grin off his face. “And that was without a doubt the worst tour I’ve ever had. Don’t pretend like you didn’t let us drift out there for hours!”
He raised those large hands again, palms in the air. “Minutes maybe? It was definitely less than a half hour. I thought you’d enjoy the view.” He cocked one thick eyebrow, challenging me to define what he meant by view.
“You know, I’ve met some self-absorbed douchebags in my life, but you really take the cake. I think I preferred it when you were just some mute, scowling bastard with a rusty fish hook up his ass!”
I started to walk away. But I couldn’t leave it at that. He’d struck a nerve—a particularly sensitive one that brought me straight back to my days of being bullied in school.
I turned to face him again. “Why? Why do you dislike me?”
He lifted a shoulder. “It’s not personal. We don’t want the resort here. I dislike you on principle.”
“On principle. Good to know you have some of those.” Righteous anger swirled in my gut.
This was personal to me, and it was about to get personal for him.
“And for the record, it wasn’t my idea to try to open a resort on this .
. . this”—I gestured at the brown hills in the distance searching for an insult that would hit home—“this pile of rocks!”
His jaw clenched and I spun around, marching down the harbor, past more adoring girls, and ran smack into Yiannis. He jumped back. “Everything okay?”
I wasn’t falling for his puppy-dog expression. He knew that that asshole spoke English. And they were up to something. I was sure of it.
“Just dandy!” I replied.
“Dandy?”
“Yeah, why don’t you go ask your friend what it means? They use words like that all the time in Schenectady.”
His eyes bugged. “You are angry.”
“Yes, yes, I am. And I’m also hungry.” I hadn’t eaten anything since yesterday and was beginning to feel faint. “Can you tell me where I can buy groceries?”
“Let me offer you lunch. Come, to the taverna.” He gestured at me to follow him.
“No, thank you. It will be a cold day in hell before I find myself in a room with your friend again.”
“The mini market is in the next street over, up the stairs a bit.”
I stormed up the stairs, turning down the tangle of narrow streets until I spotted a building with a dark-green awning and crates of fresh fruits and vegetables outside.
Normally, I would have been thrilled by the prospect of shopping in a foreign market, lingering in each aisle, trying to imagine the many creative uses for new ingredients.
But I tore through the tiny shop like a doomsday prepper on a mission, flinging as much as I could in my basket.
By the time I got out of there, my highly impractical tote bag was bursting at the seams.
I paused only once on my march back home, attacking a bar of chocolate halva at the top of the hill and squinting in the direction of the port where I was sure that arrogant bastard was entertaining his giggling fangirls with stories about me. “It’s not personal, ha! We’ll see about that.”
* * *
I spent the rest of the afternoon rage cleaning and cooking.
That lemon tree outside the kitchen proved useful in getting the livestock odor out of everything; when life gives you lemons, mix them with bicarb and scrub every surface ’til it gleams. I dusted and scrubbed the entire place, cursing the whole time.
Then, as the goats milled around outside, I burnt some sage, waving the smoke around to get rid of any bad vibes.
Finally, I attacked the food, not giving a damn that I was probably using up all the fuel in that generator.
I was going to create a menu that would knock the socks off our investors.
I almost laughed at the irony of it. When I’d discovered the pristine cove this morning and imagined that enormous concrete slab of a hotel towering on the rocks above, I’d had a real moment of doubt about this project.
However, now I was more determined than ever to succeed just so I could thumb my nose at that lying SOB.
I still couldn’t get him out of my head. What was wrong with me? Despite everything, I could still feel his hands on me. Shaking off the shiver of pleasure that ran through me, I concentrated on my sauce.
When I cooked as a kid, I’d always imagine that I was a powerful witch, brewing up potions.
I still felt like there was magic at my fingertips while I worked to transform simple ingredients by mixing and pairing them together.
A delicate alchemy of flavors, developing recipes was a sorcerer’s work, and now I was even more determined to brew up the best food of my life.
They wanted investors? By God, they would have them on their knees, hands cupped and begging for my food.
But I couldn’t do that on a hot plate.
With a sigh, I poured myself a glass of wine from the bottle I’d bought back at the market. I couldn’t read the label, but I recognized the word Lyra and figured it must be local.
“Whoa, way better than I was expecting,” I said out loud as I took my first sip of the earthy red wine. I caught sight of myself in the old mirror above the fireplace. “Cheers.”
Great, I was already talking to myself.
I was a social person; despite growing up an only child, I’d always craved companionship. And here I was alone, in a foreign land, with no one to talk to except my own reflection in a cracked mirror.
I went outside and settled down into a rickety chair, startling as that crazy dog from earlier lifted his head and yawned. He was laying next to the door like a shaggy gray rug—ugh, probably flea-infested too. He stared at me with his very human eyes and his tail wagged.
“You again? Are you going to start speaking to me in English too?” I asked him as I pet his head warily. “You wouldn’t know where I could find a working kitchen would you?”
The sun had already begun to set behind the distant temple.
As usual, I’d lost all sense of time as I cooked.
Another night in the cottage was looming before me, and now that the sun was going down, it was getting chilly and a little creepy.
The wind blew long strands of my hair across my face and made the chimes cling together in a frantic melody.
“You’re not going anywhere tonight, right?” I asked the dog, who yawned back in reply. “I might have something to convince you to stay.”
As I poked through the various jars and other preserved foods I’d purchased earlier, searching for a can of tuna in olive oil—dogs ate fish, didn’t they?
—a nervous bleating sounded out back followed by rocks clattering against the window.
The dog bounded up, barking ferociously, and I grabbed my sharpest knife, heart pounding.
I saw a flash of a blue football jersey and heard a childish giggle.
“Hey!” I yelled, charging around the corner to find that my shaggy friend had cornered a dirt-streaked boy against the wall. Two other boys were running away in the distance, shouting and making funny faces.
The cornered boy pushed at the dog, yelling the one Greek word I recognized, “ malaka ,” the equivalent of “wanker.” Not only was he insolent, the kid had a death wish.
His eyes widened when they fell on my knife—my prized Japanese carving knife that Levi had given me for my birthday. He steepled his hands together, whispering a litany of Greek words. Only then did I notice that his entire right arm was in a cast.
I sighed and lowered my knife. “Relax, kid. I’m not going to hurt you.”
His eyes widened. “English?”
“Let me guess,” I muttered, “you speak English too?”
He nodded, dark hair tumbling over the scratch on his forehead. “The doctor teach me.”
Okay, good to know there was an English-speaking doctor on the island, in case I had a mental breakdown in the next few days, which seemed like more and more of a possibility. “Did he also teach you that you shouldn’t spy on people in the dark?”
“Is not dark.” I raised my knife again and he held up his palm. “Okay, is a leedle dark.”
“What are you doing here? Who sent you?” I had an idea that these boys might also be in cahoots with the big, broody bully.
“No one. We saw light. We thought . . . the magissa , she’s back.”
“ Magissa ?”
“Yes, you know.” He hooked a finger over his nose and cackled.
“A witch?”
“Yes, yes, a weets. She lived here many years.”
Huh, so the place was haunted by the spirit of an old witch. For some reason, instead of scaring me, the knowledge made me feel like I had some magical presence looking out for me. I nodded and smiled knowingly. “Ah, well, guess what?”
I leaned in a little closer and he eyed me warily. “What?”
“The witch is back!” I cackled and held my knife up again. He screeched and took off as fast as he could, kicking up rocks behind him.
“Tell your friends that the Kitchen Witch is here to stay!” I yelled after him, laughing diabolically as he disappeared into the gathering night.
The dog stared at me like I’d lost my mind. “What? You’re the one who bared your teeth at him.”
I walked back inside, thankful for my one working oil lamp in the kitchen and the stash of candles I’d bought earlier. For all my big talk, I shivered and breathed a sigh of relief when I heard the dog’s nails tapping against the stone floor. “You’re not going anywhere tonight, buddy.”