Page 23 of Love on the Rocks
“That would be wonderful!” Diana beamed.
We made plans to meet at my place the next morning, so she could pick up the cup before she caught the ferry. After she left, I sat there dazed. This had to be a sign from my grandfather. And it reassured me that I was doing the right thing by scaring Greystone off and that I shouldn’t feel guilty about the ruse I’d hatched for Callie.
When Callie came back out, her bag slung over her shoulder, I ambled over to her.
“I see your fan club is international,” she said without turning her head to look at me.
“Oh, were you eavesdropping?” I asked.
“Please, unlike you, I don’t spy. I heard English, that’s all.” She was curious no matter how disinterested she tried to appear.
“It might interest you to know what we were talking about,” I teased, picking the guitar back up from where I’d left it leaning against the wall.
“Nothing you have to say is of any interest to me,” she quipped and began to walk away as I strummed the chorus to “Gypsy.”
Without turning around, she held her arm in the air, her middle finger aimed right at me. I chuckled and played louder.
Chapter 10
“What have you discovered?” Angelos studied the photographs his private detective had placed in front of him. There was one of his little star, dressed in a maid’s uniform, the stiff black fabric barely containing her gorgeous curves. His hand curled into a fist. “Why is she dressed like this?”
“She’s a maid and has been since you ruined her father.”
Angelos so rarely gave a second thought to his former competitors. Now, he was confronted with the consequences of his actions, and he felt . . . nothing. Except outrage that it meant she was a servant.
Her predicament, however, also gave him a way to get her into his bed: her father was sick and needed treatment. He would arrange it if she agreed to his terms.
- One Week with the Greek
CALLIE
“What do you mean there’s been another delay?” I sighed into the phone. Amazingly I had service today; I’d taken the opportunity to call Fred and immediately wished I hadn’t.
“There’s been some sort of discovery—some trinket that may be of archaeological interest,” Fred said. There was a nervousedge to his voice that I didn’t like. “They’ve already tried to pull a similar tactic on us.”
“Tactic? So it’s not real?” My breath had caught at the mention of an artifact. Honestly, it wouldn’t surprise me if there were thousands of artifacts on the island. We were so screwed if this was for real.
“Don’t worry. It’s probably a fake. It’ll be another week at most.”
“Another week? Fred, I’ll go out of my mind!”
“I’m doing everything I can. I’ll send you the details as soon as I get them,” he assured me. “I’m sorry, I have a meeting now. I’ll write later today.”
He hung up and I stared at my phone in disbelief. Then I closed my eyes and repeated my new mantra:
I’m opening a restaurant. I’m opening a restaurant.
I repeated the words anytime I started to feel overwhelmed or defeated. It helped distract me from my depressing living situation. As did an all-consuming desire to prove to that lying mass of muscle that I was tougher than he thought I was.
The proof? I didn’t even care anymore that I had no electricity, that my toilet was outside, that my only neighbors were goats. No hot water? No problem. Cold hand baths were invigorating, and I didn’t need to wash my hair that often. Reading by candlelight, lights out by eight o’clock? Romantic in a very Victorian Gothic kind of way. And really was there a better wake-up call than the clattering of goat feet on the roof of a tin shed at five a.m.?
At least that’s what I’d convinced myself to get through this week. I just needed to hold out for the meeting with the permit guy. I could do this, dammit, if it meant I would have my own restaurant, and then, fingers crossed, a feature in a Netflix documentary.
I’m opening a restaurant. I repeated the mantra every morning as I headed down to the port to get first dibs on seafood when the fishermen returned. There was so much to choose from—the red mullet was delicate and flavorful, the squid and octopus plentiful, and there were these amazing bright red shrimp that were a local delicacy.
I’d pop by the market for fresh fruit and veg, then head over to the taverna to prep my ingredients before the noon rush. Maria and her husband Takis often hovered over me, sharing their opinions, which I was glad I didn’t understand because their bemused expressions when they studied my small portions told me all I needed to know.
When they did try my food, Maria would just click her tongue and insist I eat something of hers. Honestly, her food was better than mine. Simple, fresh with straightforward flavors—grassy olive oil, lemon, the sharp acidic bite of fresh feta and myzithra. On the first day she made me tryimam bayildi—eggplant stuffed with tomatoes, onions, and fresh herbs and bathed in the best olive oil I’ve ever had. The olive oil was local, Takis explained—again through elaborate pantomime—a communal effort made from everyone’s small harvest pressed together in the local olive mill.
