Chapter 16
Faye bashed the keys of her computer as she sat at her desk.
It wasn’t right and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t get her accounts to add up.
It was something she liked to do every night before she finally left the office and clocked off.
But now it was nearly eleven and her eyes were seeing stars, not euro signs.
She should stop, look at it again fresh in the morning, but…
she wasn’t a quitter, and how hard could it be to find the probable one mistake?
Suddenly the door of her office burst open and there was Kostas, filling the space, striding towards her with purpose.
‘OK, we need to go back to the beach,’ he said, already half-behind her desk and looking like he might forcibly make her stand up.
‘What?’ she said, wheeling back a little on her chair.
‘To skim stones. Come on. We do not have to go back to Kerasia. We can do it here at your paradise beach.’ He reached out but, before he could make contact with her arm, he paused, retracted but stayed standing close. Very close.
‘It’s eleven o’clock at night,’ Faye said, unmoved. ‘And I’m working.’
‘It is too late to be working unless the VIP guest needs assistance.’
‘Well, I think you showed me earlier that you definitely do not need assistance with skimming stones. And I need to balance these accounts.’
He turned around, facing the computer screen. ‘What is wrong with them?’
‘Stop! No! You can’t look at them!’ She leapt off her chair, brushed past him and put her back to the screen, covering the spreadsheet. ‘It’s confidential! You could get me fired!’
‘Only if someone finds out. Show me.’ He tried to look around her, edging himself into her space.
‘Back off!’ Faye ordered viciously.
Kostas seemed to freeze, and then, after a moment, he took a step back and held up his hands. ‘OK, OK, I am moving back. I wouldn’t want to accidentally see a few hundred euro here or there.’
‘Why do you do that?’ Faye asked, exiting out of the program as soon as Kostas was far enough away not to see anything.
‘Do what?’
‘Take the piss out of anything you think is below your millionaire pay grade?’
‘Take the what?’ he asked, spitting out a laugh.
‘If you wanted five stars and a personal concierge, why didn’t you stay in Corfu Town?’
‘Because it is not the north east coast. Are you suggesting that one of your guests leaves your establishment for another? I am not certain that will help with balancing your accounts.’
‘Neither will going to the beach to skim stones,’ she answered.
‘But I promise one will be far more entertaining than the other.’
She shut down the computer and took a step towards him. ‘You don’t know how much I love a spreadsheet.’
‘You don’t know how much I have started to love doing things on the beach with you.’
Suddenly the climate control in her room felt highly inadequate as his eyes danced with hers and her body began to interpret it as a language so unused in her life it really could have been as ancient as Ancient Greek.
This was flirtation. This was chemistry.
Wasn’t it? Or maybe she was delulu. Wasn’t that what it was called in Insta reels?
‘So,’ Kostas said, stare unmoved. ‘Are you coming?’
Possibly very soon if he kept this kind of eye contact up. Argh! What the hell was wrong with her?
‘I need to be in my bed before midnight,’ Faye stated. And she had not thought through the connotations of that sentence at all.
‘I am saying nothing to that except that I am a gentleman, and whatever a lady says is to be respected.’
There was a slight change in his expression. Was that sincerity amid the devilment? Why was she wondering? Still looking?
‘Fine,’ Faye said, walking around her desk. ‘Let’s go.’
‘Good,’ he replied. ‘I have a buggy outside ready.’
Faye stopped. ‘You haven’t.’
‘You said I get to use one whenever I like,’ he told her. ‘I will drive us along the beach to the very best stones.’