Chapter 14
The island was a jumble of jagged rocks, dotted with sparse vegetation and surrounded by clear turquoise water.
Angelos’s mansion stood atop a cliff, jutting out into the waters of the Aegean.
It was sleek and white like his perfect smile.
Mia trembled as his Kalamata eyes ran over her and he extended his hand.
If she refused to take it, would he fling her over his shoulder again?
Throwing her chin back, she held out her hand.
- One Week with the Greek
CALLIE
I awoke to the sound of a donkey braying. Disoriented, I rolled over only to find myself in a strange room. In a strange bed. “What the . . . ?”
Oh my God, I was in his bed.
Horrified, I shot up and peeked under the blanket to make sure I was still clothed. Weird, I didn’t remember pulling the blankets around me. Then again, I was high as a kite when I fell into the bed.
How long ago was that? I blinked at the light streaming in the window. Good, I hadn’t been out that long then. With any luck Nikos was still busy examining the members of his fan club. At the thought of his beautiful hands all over some other woman, a stab of jealousy hit me right in the gut.
I ignored it. Ha! Jealous? He could touch anyone he wanted to as long as it wasn’t me. I definitely did not want him fondling me.
I grabbed my crutches and hobbled carefully out the door. As I made my way through the living room, I spotted my phone on the coffee table. The screen was cracked but it was miraculously intact. But how had it ended up on Nikos’s table?
“Dimitris found it on the beach,” said the voice that had haunted my dreams.
Yes, I had dreamed about him again—a torrid encounter on his examining room table. How could I not have dreamed of him when I’d been in his bed, embraced by his scent?
He smelled even better now, standing directly behind me, as if he had freshly showered. Blood rushed to my head as I turned to face him. His firm mouth quirked up at the corner and he nodded at my phone.
“Dimitris?” I could barely form the word.
“Yeah, one of the kids you threatened with a knife a few days ago.” His dark eyes crinkled with humor. “Good job, by the way, they’re terrified of you. They keep talking about the Keetsen Weets. Took me a minute to figure it out.”
“They were spying!” I protested. “I wonder who they learned that from?”
Nikos shrugged and walked toward the kitchen. “Want some breakfast before you go?”
“Breakfast?” I repeated dumbfounded. I looked around. The light filtering in the room hit the furniture at a different angle, and a glance outside revealed the sun high in the sky. “I slept all afternoon?”
“And all night,” he added. “In my bed.”
Oh, shit. I was worried he’d catch me napping in his bed when, in reality, I’d camped out in it all night.
“How’d you sleep?” He had the courtesy to look concerned.
“Well, considering the number of elephant tranquilizers you slipped in my water yesterday, like the dead.” I raised my chin, unwilling to admit to having crawled into his bed. “I have no idea how I ended up in your room. Did you put me there?”
“No, I came home, and you’d disappeared.
When I went to take a shower, I found you passed out in my bed.
” He wandered back toward the kitchen, and I pretended not to notice his ass in his linen pants.
The whisper of fabric just skimmed his body.
I could almost make out his muscles flexing. He held up a copper pot. “Coffee?”
“Caffeine would counteract the tranquilizers,” I admitted, tearing my eyes away from him. “Where did you sleep?”
“I have another bedroom. The kids’ room.” He took out two small cups and put the little copper pot on the stove.
“Kids’ room, huh?” I snarked. At least he had space for his many offspring.
“Yeah, my nephews.” He gestured at a photo on the bookshelf.
“Right, your ‘nephews,’” I mumbled as he walked past me to the patio door.
“Do you need me to carry you again?”
“I can take care of myself, thanks.” I propelled myself outside and sat on the chair he pulled out for me. Why was he suddenly being so nice? And so communicative? Was it because he’d seen me naked?
I turned my attention to his ridiculously gorgeous view of the sea. I breathed in the fresh salt air and turned my face to the sun, listening to birds singing from the leafy branches of the fig tree that hung over the patio.
“What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be out on your boat pretending to fish?”
“ Pretending to fish? I’ve been fishing since before I could walk.” He set the coffee down on the table. “You’ve eaten what I’ve caught, you know.”
“No.” I shook my head and as he poured me a cup. “I never cook your fish.”
“Hmm.” He ran his fingers through his thick, dark hair, and a few wayward curls fell onto his forehead. “Well, I thought I’d hang around this morning to make sure you woke up. I was worried you’d hit your head yesterday and hadn’t told me.”
“I’m not that foolish.” I took a sip of the coffee, thick and black like they liked it here. It was growing on me. Like most things on this island.
“Are you hungry?”
“I could eat something,” I admitted as my stomach growled.
While he went inside, I peeked at the book that was lying open on his chair, its pages rustling in the breeze. It was the same book I’d snooped through yesterday, still open to that image of an old broken drinking vessel.
“You can borrow a copy if you’d like,” Nikos’s voice came from behind me. I jumped in surprise and tried to feign disinterest. “You’re going to be homebound for the foreseeable future. You’ll need something to entertain you.”
“What is it?”
“ The History of Lyra . My grandfather wrote it. I’m translating it, so I have several copies.”
He set our plates down on the mosaic table. I was sure breakfast for him meant a couple slices of toast, so I was surprised that he had brought out scrambled eggs with tomatoes, feta, and mint and served it with thick hunks of Maria’s homemade bread.
I took a bite, wanting to hate it. “Oh, come on . . .”
His eyebrows drew together as he passed me a napkin. “What? Is it that bad?”
”No, it’s delicious. God, is there anything you can’t do?” I narrowed my eyes at him. “Let me guess, the eggs are from your hens, the tomatoes and mint from your garden. You milked the sheep to make the feta, and you made the bowls in your pottery studio. Am I right?”
“About the tomatoes, yes. The hens are my neighbors’. The feta from the market and these old plates from IKEA. Sorry to disappoint you.”
“Well, I suppose you do have to find the time to actually treat a patient or two.” I shoveled another forkful in my mouth. I was suddenly ravenous and making no effort to hide it.
He slid a small bowl of olives toward me. “These are from the olive grove your resort will be built on. If it gets approved.”
“You mean when it gets approved. I know about your ‘artifact,’ and word is it’s a fake.”
“We should know soon enough. The archaeologist didn’t think so.”
“It’s a fake. I’m counting on it.” I took one of the small purplish olives and brought it to my mouth.
His eyes followed my fingers and lingered on my lips while I took the firm flesh and worried it against my teeth.
It was like a tiny, luscious salt bomb and reminded me of the sea.
It was an almost primal experience to eat products from the source, as if the whole place was distilled into it.
The French have a word for that— terroir —or the essence of a place.
Before moving here, I thought I understood it, but I hadn’t really until I put this tiny miracle in my mouth.
At our restaurants, we sourced local produce, but we were still at least two degrees removed from the food we prepared. Here I’d had the source of the stinky goat cheese dancing on my tin roof.
“You like it?” Nikos’s deep voice woke me from my reverie. I realized I had closed my eyes, and maybe had moaned?
“It’s perfect,” I answered, and then turned my attention back to my coffee. “So is that why you’re so against the construction of the resort? Because it’s threatening your olive grove? I was told that it was no longer functional.”
Nikos leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. “It’s not the loss of the grove itself. Though that’s one tragedy. Can you imagine losing trees that have been there for over a century?”
“No.” I couldn’t argue against that. “Maybe we could build around them. It’s a high-end eco-resort. I’m sure there’s something that can be done.”
“An eco-resort?” he scoffed. “Who told you that?”
“I’ve studied the plans. We want to bring the most profit to the island while respecting the environment.”
“Please, if they wanted to respect the environment, they’d leave it as is. Do you think late-night DJ pool parties, gas-guzzling yachts in the harbor, and tourists trampling on the hills isn’t a violation of the island?”
I shook my head. “That’s not the goal. It’ll be a spa, with fine dining. A place for people to come, meditate, escape. They’re not trying to turn the island into Mykonos.”
As soon as the words left my mouth, I realized they were a lie. Hadn’t Gaz said exactly that to me? That the place would be the next destination for the elite, jet-setting crowd?
“Then they lied to you.” He stared at me, his jaw muscle working.
That was a bit too much coming from him. “There’s one person who has lied to me and that’s you.”
He didn’t argue with me.
Neither of us spoke for a minute as we watched a gull dive into the sea. Finally, he said, “Why is it so important to you? You want to be stuck out here? You don’t strike me as someone who can be away from the city for very long.”
“What makes you say that?”
He nodded at my phone. “It’s like an appendage.”
“I am not permanently attached to my phone. It’s just become an obsession lately because I have such shoddy service and want to be able to take advantage of any good Wi-Fi when I can.
In my normal life I’m not on it that often,” I lied, embarrassed by how dependent I had become on my phone, especially since I’d been trying to grow my social media following.
“Then there’s this.” He gestured at me with one hand. “You look a little high maintenance. How many designers are you wearing? I bet you go shopping in every city you visit.”
“Wow, judgy a little? Yes, I invest in my wardrobe. Designer pieces last for years, so it’s more sustainable than buying a lot of cheaper clothes that fall apart after a few months.
Most of it’s vintage anyway.” This particular criticism stung.
It wasn’t always easy finding clothes that flattered me, but I wasn’t about to hide behind oversized items. I liked my curves, and I liked wearing clothes that complemented my body.
If that meant spending extra, I was willing to sacrifice in other areas.
“Anyway, what I wear is none of your business.” I folded my hands under my breasts, drawing his gaze to my cleavage.
“I like what you wear. I just meant that there’s no High Street here, so you might get bored.”
“I think I can keep myself occupied.”
“Right, I forgot you have toys.”
I threw an olive pit at him. “Are you going to keep bringing that up every time we have a conversation? Because if so, I’m just going to go back to not talking to you.”
“Sorry, but it’s hard to get that image out of my head.” The air between us became heavy. We stared at each other, and I wondered, briefly, what he’d do if I reached out and touched his hand.
But he was the one who reached out. The blunt pads of his fingers pushed back the hair that had fallen over my forehead, then slowly down my temple to my jaw, lingering there. I held my breath as he angled my head up slightly and clicked his tongue. “You have a bruise here. You did hit your head.”
He went back inside and came back with another compress and disinfectant. He tilted my head up and gently pressed the cool cloth to my temple. When he started humming “Hard Headed Woman,” I was helpless to do anything but just stare up at him.
“You never answered my question,” he said finally. I was staring at his mouth, I realized, and shook my head.
“Which one?”
“Why is the resort so important to you?”
“Because it’s an opportunity. For the first time in my career, I’ve been asked to head a kitchen. It’s huge. If I eventually want to go back in France, I’ll have to put this place on the map first.”
He stiffened. “Right, so it’s a steppingstone. As long as you get what you want, who cares who you step on in the process.”
Ouch, that hit hard. I hated how he was making me think about the possible repercussions of what we were planning. Yeah, I wanted to get ahead, but not at the expense of other people. But I wasn’t about to take morality lessons from a dude who’d done nothing but lie to me since I got here.
“Look, I told you. The resort is going to be good for the island. I’ll make sure of it.”
He didn’t look convinced. “Okay, well, let’s get you settled then, Mother Teresa.”