Page 51 of Hot Greek Summer

‘Fuck,’ he said, lifting her clean off her feet and pinning her against the wall with his hips.

Stella laughed against his mouth, wrapping her legs around his thighs as her fingers unpicked the buttons of his shirt. ‘That, Angelo Vitalis, is music to my ears.’

Upstairs, Frankie and Winnie wandered out to the edge of the terrace and scanned the beach for any sign of their mystery visitors.

‘I don’t see anyone,’ Frankie sighed.

Winnie shook her head. ‘I hope we didn’t lose customers.’

Frankie shook her head. ‘Well, I guess we’ll never know unless they come back.’ She took Winnie’s empty water glass from her hand. ‘I need to get back to the kitchen. I’m trying out Panos’s mother’s baklava recipe ready for the new guests.’

Re-emerging onto the terrace again at a brisk trot a minute or two later, Frankie dropped down beside Winnie on the bench overlooking the sea. ‘I don’t think there were any visitors at all,’ she whispered conspiratorially. ‘I think he wanted to get Stella on her own.’

‘Does she need rescuing?’ Winnie said, ready to go into battle.

Frankie laughed and shook her head. ‘Not by the sounds coming from the cellar, no. I had to leave the kitchen.’

Winnie took a second to register what Frankie meant. ‘Oh my God!’ she mouthed, slapping her hands to her cheeks.

‘Well, I just hope they don’t break any bottles,’ Frankie said. ‘How would we recordthatin the log?’

‘I’m off to meet the ferry,’ Stella said, jangling the car keys. ‘Wish me luck.’

Frankie held up her crossed fingers, and Winnie nodded, clicking her pen nervously. ‘Have you got the board?’ She’d made a board with the guests’ names on for Stella to hold up.

‘In the car already.’

‘And you know their names?’

‘Smith, Brown and Williams,’ Stella said, even though Winnie had already asked her three times that morning. ‘But if I forget, it’s on the board. Win, I’ve got this. I’ll bring them back, you can check them in, and Frankie can wow them with baklava. Everything will be fine.’

They’d allocated the guests the three connecting rooms that made up the rest of the first floor beside Angelo’s Captain’s Suite in the corner. All high-ceilinged and decorated in restful whites, greys and neutrals to make the most of the natural light, they reminded Winnie of artists’ studios. Technically, all of the villa’s letting rooms were then full, meaning that their move down into the owner’s apartment was more urgent than ever.

‘Coffee?’

As Stella set off for the port, Frankie came through to reception dressed in chic black cigarette pants and a black polka-dot sleeveless blouse, carrying two steaming mugs. With her knotted silk scarf around her neck and her big dark glasses perched on her head, she looked every inch the cool hotelier, a perfect foil to Winnie’s long, flippy ponytail and simple white sundress. In the month they’d been there they’d both been gilded golden by the sun and wore very little makeup aside from mascara and a slick of lip gloss. They didn’t even realise how different they already looked from the pale, tired Englishwomen who’d arrived on the island with suitcases full of pipedreams and no real clue what to expect.

‘Thanks,’ Winnie said. ‘You excited?’

Frankie nodded, sparkly-eyed. ‘I know we’ve had Angelo here already, but these are our first actual bookings.’

‘Is it a bit odd, do you think? Three English men travelling here together for three weeks? It’s not like we’re a party island. God knows how Ajax got the bookings in the first place.’

Frankie glanced at their reservation details. ‘Early forties. If they’re on a stag do, it’s going to be a very reserved one.’

‘I hope they like gin,’ Winnie said. Their first bottles would be ready to test in a day or two, and they’d all become slightly obsessed with the arbutus bush in the garden. Frankie had researched how to best care for it and posted a bullet-point list up on the cork-board in the kitchen, and they were on a daily rota to pop outside and just look at it for any signs of trouble.

‘Who doesn’t?’ Frankie said. ‘Even Angelo seems to have developed a taste for it.’

‘Hmm.’ Winnie wasn’t sure what to make of Stella’s sudden change of heart where the current resident of the Captain’s Suite was concerned. God knows what he’d said to her in the cellar to make her go from active dislike to insta-lust. Perhaps it was Winnie’s own romantic fragility and confusion over Jesse, but she didn’t want Corinna’s austere brother to leave Villa Valentina with Stella’s affections in his back pocket.

Back home in England, she’d worried about moving to an unknown island where she didn’t speak the language and she didn’t know the customs. She’d been concerned that they wouldn’t fit in, or maybe they wouldn’t be accepted, or even that they’d be terribly homesick and end up back on the flight home within a few weeks. Just about the only thing that hadn’t troubled her had been matters of the heart.

It was kind of funny then that all of her worries had melted like butter on a warm knife, and only their romantic lives seemed determined not to play nice. Thank goodness for cool, calm, unflappable Frankie. She had the right idea; immersing herself into life on Skelidos without having her head turned by the first attractive man to glance her way or have his wicked way with her in the cellar.

Stella practically ran into reception an hour later, darting her eyes around to make sure they were the only three people in the place as she grabbed a hand of each over the reception desk.

‘I have to say this really quick because they’ll be walking through that door in about two minutes’ time. It’s not Smith, Brown and Williams. It’s Manson, Harte and Miller.’

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