Page 17 of Love on the Rocks
“You know, I’ve met some self-absorbed douchebags in my life, but you really take the cake. I think I preferred it when you were just some mute, scowling bastard with a rusty fish hook up his ass!”
I started to walk away. But I couldn’t leave it at that. He’d struck a nerve—a particularly sensitive one that brought me straight back to my days of being bullied in school.
I turned to face him again. “Why? Why do you dislike me?”
He lifted a shoulder. “It’s not personal. We don’t want the resort here. I dislike you on principle.”
“On principle. Good to know you have some of those.” Righteous anger swirled in my gut. This was personal to me, and it was about to get personal for him. “And for the record, it wasn’t my idea to try to open a resort on this . . . this”—I gestured at the brown hills in the distance searching for an insult that would hit home—“this pile of rocks!”
His jaw clenched and I spun around, marching down the harbor, past more adoring girls, and ran smack into Yiannis. He jumped back. “Everything okay?”
I wasn’t falling for his puppy-dog expression. He knew that that asshole spoke English. And they were up to something. I was sure of it.
“Just dandy!” I replied.
“Dandy?”
“Yeah, why don’t you go ask your friend what it means? They use words like that all the time in Schenectady.”
His eyes bugged. “You are angry.”
“Yes, yes, I am. And I’m also hungry.” I hadn’t eaten anything since yesterday and was beginning to feel faint. “Can you tell me where I can buy groceries?”
“Let me offer you lunch. Come, to the taverna.” He gestured at me to follow him.
“No, thank you. It will be a cold day in hell before I find myself in a room with your friend again.”
“The mini market is in the next street over, up the stairs a bit.”
I stormed up the stairs, turning down the tangle of narrow streets until I spotted a building with a dark-green awning and crates of fresh fruits and vegetables outside. Normally, I would have been thrilled by the prospect of shopping in a foreign market, lingering in each aisle, trying to imagine the many creative uses for new ingredients. But I tore through the tiny shop like a doomsday prepper on a mission, flinging as much as I could in my basket. By the time I got out of there, my highly impractical tote bag was bursting at the seams.
I paused only once on my march back home, attacking a bar of chocolate halva at the top of the hill and squinting in the direction of the port where I was sure that arrogant bastard was entertaining his giggling fangirls with stories about me. “It’s not personal, ha! We’ll see about that.”
* * *
I spent the rest of the afternoon rage cleaning and cooking. That lemon tree outside the kitchen proved useful in getting the livestock odor out of everything; when life gives you lemons, mixthem with bicarb and scrub every surface ’til it gleams. I dusted and scrubbed the entire place, cursing the whole time. Then, as the goats milled around outside, I burnt some sage, waving the smoke around to get rid of any bad vibes.
Finally, I attacked the food, not giving a damn that I was probably using up all the fuel in that generator. I was going to create a menu that would knock the socks off our investors. I almost laughed at the irony of it. When I’d discovered the pristine cove this morning and imagined that enormous concrete slab of a hotel towering on the rocks above, I’d had a real moment of doubt about this project. However, now I was more determined than ever to succeed just so I could thumb my nose at that lying SOB.
I still couldn’t get him out of my head. What was wrong with me? Despite everything, I could still feel his hands on me. Shaking off the shiver of pleasure that ran through me, I concentrated on my sauce.
When I cooked as a kid, I’d always imagine that I was a powerful witch, brewing up potions. I still felt like there was magic at my fingertips while I worked to transform simple ingredients by mixing and pairing them together. A delicate alchemy of flavors, developing recipes was a sorcerer’s work, and now I was even more determined to brew up the best food of my life.
They wanted investors? By God, they would have them on their knees, hands cupped and begging for my food.
But I couldn’t do that on a hot plate.
With a sigh, I poured myself a glass of wine from the bottle I’d bought back at the market. I couldn’t read the label, but I recognized the word Lyra and figured it must be local.
“Whoa, way better than I was expecting,” I said out loud as I took my first sip of the earthy red wine. I caught sight of myself in the old mirror above the fireplace. “Cheers.”
Great, I was already talking to myself.
I was a social person; despite growing up an only child, I’d always craved companionship. And here I was alone, in a foreign land, with no one to talk to except my own reflection in a cracked mirror.
I went outside and settled down into a rickety chair, startling as that crazy dog from earlier lifted his head and yawned. He was laying next to the door like a shaggy gray rug—ugh, probably flea-infested too. He stared at me with his very human eyes and his tail wagged.
“You again? Are you going to start speaking to me in English too?” I asked him as I pet his head warily. “You wouldn’t know where I could find a working kitchen would you?”
