Page 31 of Enemies to Lovers

‘Okay,’ I chuckle. ‘Now I know you’re laying it on thick.’

‘Laying it on thick?’ Adonis asks, and it makes me laugh harder.

‘Being charming,’ I clarify, and Adonis raises his eyebrows and smiles in agreement.

‘I am very charming, yes,’ he says, and he cups my face with a hand, his thumb stroking my cheek. Okay, then: contact has been achieved. I look up at him from beneath my eyelashes, not feeling brave enough to look at him head-on. Did he just see Jamie do the same?

‘Come on,’ he says, voice lowered. ‘I want to show you something.’

I turn round to where Jamie was standing, remembering that we were in a quasi-conversation, but he’s no longer there. I can’t see him anywhere in fact.

‘Okay,’ I reply, and Adonis takes my hand to lead me away from the crowd.

Around the corner to the beach is the entrance to a cave, where we go down a steep ramp into its belly. Adonis uses the torch on his phone, and it lights up what can only be described as anenchantingdisplay of Mother Nature. Rocks emerge from the ground in thin spikes, like icicles coming from the wrong direction. Some are as big as Adonis, others about up to the knee, a sandy-orange colour with ridges.

‘What is this?’ I marvel.

‘Stalagmites,’ Adonis says. ‘It is … I think you say … a deposit? Of the minerals? It comes from the water.’

‘It’s beautiful,’ I say.

‘I thought you might like it.’

‘It’s like being underwater,’ I go on. ‘Or how I imagine the bottom of the ocean to be, you know? Like we could float through in our diving gear, looking at all the fish.’

I tread carefully through it all, holding on to Adonis’s arm.

‘This is my favourite part,’ he says, his torch on a mural painted onto one of the flatter parts of the cave wall. It is intricately done. Whoever painted it spenthours on it, probably coming back day after day until it was finished. It’s of a man, lying on the beach with the waves crashing behind him, and a woman curled around him, holding him tightly. They both have their eyes closed, as if they’re sleeping.

‘It’s Hero and Leander,’ Adonis tells me. ‘You know this?’

I shake my head. ‘It’s Greek mythology?’

‘You are correct,’ he says. I keep my eye on the art as he leans in to explain. ‘Hero was a priestess of Aphrodite. She was not allowed to be with men. She lived in a temple on the other side of the village to Leander. When, one day, he saw Hero, he immediately fell in love. She was the most pretty lady he had ever seen.’

I find myself smiling, even though this is so cheesy.

‘Leander was a good man, with a kind heart and a devotion to Hero. Soon she fell in love with him, like he was in love with her. Every night Hero would light a lamp for Leander, to guide him across the river so they could spend time together. For a while they were very happy. But one night the wind was strong, and it blew out the lamp Hero had lit. Leander persisted because it was important to him to see his love. But because of the wind, and because he could not see the lamp, he lost his way and drowned.’

‘He died?’ I say. ‘That’s so sad.’

‘In grief, Hero threw herself into the sea and drowned as well. Somehow, though, they found each other, and we know this because their bodies were found just likethis, on the beach, in a tight embrace. This is how they were buried, too.’

‘Whoa,’ I marvel.

‘I think the right people come together, always,’ Adonis says. ‘In the end.’ He turns to me, only partially illuminated by our torch. He’s smiling. He’sflirting.

‘I think you’re correct,’ I smile back. ‘The right people always do come together in the end.’

I stare at him, daring myself not to look away. Adonis’s smile fades until he is serious, and he reaches out a hand to my waist to pull me closer. I step towards him. I look up.

‘Oh, shit – sorry,’ comes a woman’s voice, giggling in shock at walking in on two people who very obviously aren’t catching up about the weather. It’s one of the blondes from earlier, the one who kept her hand on Adonis’s waist. ‘I think my secret spot is otherwise engaged,’ she says to someone in an American accent. I’m frozen to the spot in horror.

The person she is talking to is Jamie.

He looks at me, and I hold his gaze in the moonlight. Something about it makes my heart sink, and I hate myself for it.

‘Let’s go,’ Jamie says to her, and Adonis and I leave not long afterwards.

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