Chapter 4 Sunlight and Shadows #3
Thysa watches him go, then turns to me with an expression of pure, undiluted delight.
"He baked bread," she says. "At three in the morning. For you."
"It might just be insomnia."
"Love, I've worked for that man for three years. He's never baked bread for anyone. He barely eats bread. He gets up at three AM to check security feeds and brood about his tragic past." She pushes the yogurt toward me. "You've broken him. In the best possible way."
"I haven't broken anything."
"You touched his scars last night. At dinner.
He told me." She lets that sit for a moment, watching my reaction.
"He came into the office afterward looking like someone had reached inside his chest and rearranged the furniture.
Sat down, stared at his coffee for three full minutes, and then said 'the figs went well. '"
I can't help it. I laugh—a real, startled laugh that feels like the first unguarded sound I've made in months.
"The figs went well?"
"The figs went well." Thysa grins. "That's Kaz for 'I'm falling for you and I have no idea what to do about it.' He's fluent in six languages and emotionally literate in zero. You're going to have to be patient with him."
I pick up my coffee. It's strong and dark and exactly what I need. "Thysa, can I ask you something?"
"Shoot."
"The resort. Why is it empty?"
Her smile stays fixed, but something behind her eyes recalculates. It's quick—I almost miss it. The same micro-shift I used to see in colleagues adjusting their story in real time.
"Plumbing overhaul. Told you yesterday."
"Right. Except I haven't seen any plumbers. Or heard any construction. And the water pressure in the villa is perfect."
"The villa's on a separate system." She sips her own coffee, casual, unbothered. "Main building's a different story. Trust me, you don't want to see what forty-year-old Greek plumbing looks like when it goes. It's biblical."
It's plausible. It's smooth. It's exactly the kind of explanation that answers the question without inviting follow-up.
It's also, possibly, a lie.
But I can't figure out what truth it's covering, and pushing Thysa harder right now feels like a risk I'm not ready to take. She's the only person here besides Kaz who talks to me, and alienating her leaves me more isolated than I already am.
"Makes sense," I say, and let it go. For now.
Thysa's shoulders relax by a fraction. If I weren't looking for it, I wouldn't have noticed.
File it away. Keep watching.
I eat the yogurt—thick Greek yogurt layered with fig and honey and something crunchy that might be pistachios. It's absurdly good. The kind of food that makes your eyes close and your shoulders drop and your brain briefly stop cataloging threats.
He made this. At three AM. For me.
At 9:47, I'm standing in his bathroom trying to decide if I've lost my mind.
The blue sundress feels right—casual enough for sightseeing, fitted enough to remind him that I'm a woman with a body and not just a problem he's solving.
I chose it deliberately. After this morning in the pool, after watching his eyes track down my legs when I climbed out, after hearing him say "I was concentrating on you—every second, every breath"—I want to know what happens when he has to sit next to me in a car for thirty minutes, and I'm not wearing a swimsuit.
I want to see him concentrate.
My phone buzzes. Rachel, finally.
Rachel Winters: Got your messages. No movement from MediVista's team. Filing timeline still nine days. Keep your head down.
Nine days. I can survive nine days in a beautiful villa with a beautiful man who bakes bread and carries weapons and runs at a temperature that should require medical attention.
Copy. Staying put. Poor signal.
I hit send before I can overthink it. The message delivers. Rachel doesn't respond.
I check myself in the mirror. The sundress skims my curves without clinging.
My hair is doing something acceptable in the Santorini humidity—soft waves, sun-lightened at the tips.
The freckles across my shoulders have multiplied overnight.
No makeup except sunscreen and tinted lip balm, because I'm going to a vineyard with a man, not walking a red carpet.
You are Edith Kendrick, I tell my reflection. You exposed a pharmaceutical company for fraud. You survived depositions. You can handle a day trip with a man who has secrets.
My reflection looks skeptical.
A knock at the door.
"Edith?" Kaz's voice through the wood. "Ready?"
I take a breath. Open the door.
He's in dark jeans and a white t-shirt that fits him like a second skin.
Sunglasses pushed into his hair. Car keys dangling from one hand.
He looks like something from a European menswear campaign except for the scars visible on his forearms and the way he stands—weight balanced, shoulders angled, a man perpetually ready to move.
His eyes find me and go dark.
Not angry-dark. Not threatening-dark. The kind of dark that happens when someone's pupils dilate so fast the color around them nearly disappears.
His gaze moves over the sundress—the neckline, the way the fabric follows my waist, my bare arms, the hemline hitting mid-thigh—and when he meets my eyes again, the amber is almost gone.
Just a thin ring of honey around something deeper.
"Edith." He says my name like a man bracing for impact. "You look—"
"It's just a sundress."
"It's not just anything." His voice has dropped half an octave. Rough. Strained. "You're beautiful."
The word lands differently than it does from other men. Other men say beautiful like a compliment, a transaction, a coin dropped in the tip jar of your self-esteem. Kaz says it like a fact he's been fighting not to acknowledge, now spoken aloud against his better judgment.
"Thank you." My face is warm. My pulse is doing things. "We should go. Before it gets too hot."
He steps aside, but not far enough. I have to pass within inches of him to get to the path, and when I do, his scent envelops me; that warmth I've been breathing from his pillow for two nights, now concentrated by warm skin and proximity.
Richer up close. Darker. The kind of scent that makes you want to press your face into the source and inhale until your lungs ache.
His hand hovers near my lower back as we walk to the car—not touching, but close enough that the heat radiates through the cotton of my dress. The ghost of contact. The promise of it.
I am in so much trouble.
The convertible is parked at the gate—sleek, black, absurdly expensive.
He opens my door and pauses, scanning the ridge line, the road, the scrubland beyond the resort boundary.
The gesture is quick—two seconds, maybe three—but I recognize it now.
Not paranoia. Assessment. The reflexive sweep of someone trained to identify threats before they materialize.
"Kaz?" I keep my voice light. "Everything okay?"
He comes back to me. The alertness folds away behind a smile that's warm and devastating and doesn't quite mask what was underneath it.
"Just checking the weather," he says.
It's a lie. But it's the kind of lie I'm learning to read as protection rather than deception—a man covering something he doesn't want me to worry about.
I file it away with the empty resort, the plumbing story, the blade in the drawer.
The pattern is forming. I can't see the picture yet.
He helps me into the car, and his fingers brush my elbow—warm, brief, deliberate. The contact zips up my arm and lodges somewhere behind my sternum, and from the way his hand lingers a half-second too long before pulling away, he felt it too.
The engine purrs to life. The morning sun turns everything gold. The road winds away from the resort toward whatever hidden Santorini he wants to show me.
I should be analyzing. Should be connecting dots. Should be doing what I do—finding the discrepancy in the data, pulling the thread that unravels the lie.
Instead, I lean into the leather seat, let the wind catch my hair, and watch the way his hand grips the gearshift—scarred knuckles, careful control, inches from my bare knee.
Nine days. I can figure out his secrets in nine days.
I'm just not sure I want to anymore.