Page 40 of Hot Greek Summer

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&B for two days and they’d barely seen him at all, so when he tapped the kitchen door as they breakfasted on his third morning they all jumped, startled.

‘Angelo, hi,’ Frankie said. ‘I’m so sorry, I didn’t realise you were downstairs.’

He held a hand up. ‘Is there any coffee going?’

Stella nodded, getting up. ‘Why don’t I go and open up the front door and you can sit out on the terrace. The morning paper should be here by now. It’s a relaxing place to start the day.’

The youngest son of the family in the local store did a newspaper run most mornings, just one of the charmingly old-fashioned things they’d discovered about the island. They locked the villa doors at night out of habit rather than necessity. Crime was pretty much non-existent on the island; 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&T out there in the evenings.

‘How’s the shoulder?’ she asked as she placed the glass down and handed him the newspaper she’d picked up from the front step.

‘Nothing I can’t handle,’ he said, flipping the paper out flat with his good hand. Stella wasn’t convinced; 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.

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