Page 73 of Hot Greek Summer

‘I didn’t care to listen to him.’

Stella was used to being in control of the amount of romance she allowed into her life, but this time she’d well and truly handed over the reins to Angelo. It wasn’t so much that he’d lied, because he hadn’t, except perhaps by omission. It wasn’t even that he’d made false promises, because they were both grown-ups who’d been around the block a few times.

It was much more personal than that. He’d found his way into Stella’s soft, vulnerable places, uncharted because no one had ever visited them before. He’d watered the vivid blooms of hope in her chest, chased through the butterfly glasshouse in her gut, and meandered hand in hand with her down the starlit back alleys inside her head. In short, he’d blindsided her, and now, because she felt a fool, she’d come out all guns blazing and given him his marching orders.

‘Did he ask you about the amount of gin in the cellar?’ Frankie checked quietly.

Stella shook her head. ‘He was too busy denying the personal stuff to get around to that.’

‘And you didn’t tell him about the arbutus bush?’ Winnie said.

‘Of course I bloody didn’t,’ Stella said. Ajax’s warning to keep the gin’s secrets were etched indelibly in all of their heads.

Up until now, their time on the island had been mostly sunshine, new beginnings and excitement; Gavin’s arrival and the discovery of the kind of man Angelo really was had interrupted their idyll like a stubborn stone stuck in the tyre of a bicycle when you’re freewheeling down a hill on a summer’s day. A constant, ticking undercurrent of threat.

‘Where is he now?’ Frankie asked.

Stella shrugged miserably. ‘No clue.’

Over at Panos’s bar, a card game and a few beers had led Gavin and Angelo to strike up conversation, and in doing so they unwittingly traded information. Gavin learned that he definitelydidknow that guy’s face from back at Villa Valentina, because he’d been plastered all over magazines and TV back home for the last few years. Seth Manson.

Angelo learned that Stella had been made redundant from her job as a ball-breaking businesswoman, and that Gavin had always felt slightly intimidated by her and got the impression that she was a bit of a man-eater.

It was quiet in the bar that afternoon, and Panos pulled up a chair with a round of beers on the house. Because Angelo was Corinna’s brother and Gavin was clearly related to the Englishwomen and would be in their circle of confidence, he felt easy about speaking freely of the fire. He disclosed his private fear that they wouldn’t be able to replace that blessed arbutus bush in time to stop the island from running out of gin, and he shook his slightly balding head and shrugged, because the thought of Skelidos without its gin was too bleak a notion to contemplate.

Just after dawn the following morning, Frankie unrolled her yoga mat on the soft, cool sand beyond their terrace then stood looking out to sea. She’d always loved this time of day best of all, but especially since coming here to Skelidos. The morning skies were a calorie-free sweetshop, candy-floss pink tumbled with parma violets and streaks of honey-gold cinder toffee, vivid where it hit the ocean on the horizon. Soon enough the sea would become the star of the show, brilliant turquoise rippled like a slice of agate with aqua and lapis, and Frankie enjoyed watching their battle to be the most beautiful. What a gift, she thought. What a quiet, peaceful joy it was to have a ringside seat to such splendour.

‘Morning.’

She turned to see Seth had arrived, as he did most mornings. Her heart considered a flip, a reflex reaction more than a voluntary one.

‘Good morning,’ she murmured as he shook his towel out. She glanced back towards the villa, wondering if Angelo would come for a last session before he left, but all was quiet. Just as well. It would have been tricky to maintain her inner calm when she felt like planting her foot up his backside.

‘Just us this morning,’ Seth said, twisting his head from side to side and rolling his shoulders.

‘Seems that way,’ Frankie murmured, beginning to work through some simple stretches and breathing exercises.

They fell into companionable silence for a couple of minutes, and little by little Frankie felt the tension begin to ebb from her body.

‘Would it be all right if I have a go?’

And there was that tension again.She turned and found Gavin hovering uncertainly on the edge of the terrace, a towel under his arm.

‘You want to try yoga?’

He was just about the last man on earth likely to opt to voluntarily do yoga.

‘Is that OK?’ His face was a mask; it was impossible to guess his inner agenda.

Frankie shrugged. What could she say? No? That wasn’t very yogic, so despite the fact that it was going to seriously screw with her karma, she nodded and waved her hand for him to lay his towel down.

He seemed momentarily thrown and unsure what to do next, the flare of shy acceptance in his familiar grey eyes reminding her of a child in the playground who hadn’t expected to be allowed to join in a game.

‘Just lay your towel on the sand and follow my lead,’ she sighed, gesturing to a spot just behind her, alongside Seth.

Without turning back, she started from the beginning again for the benefit of her ex-husband. How bizarre was this? If anyone had told her a couple of months previously that she’d be leading Gav and Seth Manson through a yoga session on a beach at dawn, she’d have laughed until tears rolled down her cheeks. Yet here she was.

Twisting smoothly from her waist she looked over her right shoulder at Seth, who, to her relief, followed her movement and looked away over his own shoulder. He really was a fine figure of a man, all hard edges and strong, tanned muscles. But then wasn’t it his job to look that way? His face and his sixpack were his fortune.

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