The Power of the Legendary Greek

To her surprise, Isobel’s taste buds sprang to life with the first mouthful. Once it seemed her stomach meant to behave, she ate all the omelette and some of the salad and bread that came with it, finding that eating alone, with only the stars for company, did wonders for her appetite. Isobel drank some water and then sat back to gaze out over the garden, her eyes fixed in longing on the floodlit pool. She’d love a swim in it before she went back to her cottage. But fond hope of that with Mr Congeniality on the premises.

A knock on the bedroom door brought her out of her reverie. She picked up the crutch and went slowly into the room, smiling at Eleni. ‘It was a lovely supper. I’ve taken some pills and I feel much better now.’

‘Good, good,’ said the woman, beaming. ‘I bring more yoghurt for face. Use before bed. I help you to bathroom now?’

‘No, thank you. I can manage myself.’

The woman frowned. ‘Then I come back later when time to sleep.’

‘All right, Eleni,’ sighed Isobel, knowing when she was beaten. ‘Before you go, could you put the big chair near the veranda doors? Efcharistopoli.’

Isobel eyed her reflection critically in the large bathroom mirror. Her eye was ringed with interesting shades of plum, but at least it was now almost open again, and her sunburn had toned down, thanks to Eleni’s yoghurt. Pleased with her new mobility, Isobel limped back into the room to sit in the big, comfortable chair, content just to look out into the night while she waited for her visitor.

‘Come in,’ she called later, in answer to the expected knock.

Luke strolled in, his eyes on her face. ‘Kalispera. You look better. Eleni tells me you ate most of your supper.’

‘Yes. It was delicious.’ Isobel sat still and tense, wondering what he wanted to talk about.

‘May I sit down?’

‘Of course.’

Luke drew the dressing table stool nearer Isobel and stood by it for a moment. ‘Shall I fetch your notebook? Since you suffered so much to achieve it, I have decided to grant your interview.’

Isobel stared at him blankly. ‘Interview?’

‘I collected your belongings on the beach,’ he informed her. ‘There was a notebook, also several pencils in your bag. Do you deny that you are a journalist, Miss James?’

Isobel took in a deep calming breath, then took the pad from the backpack on the floor beside her and handed it over.

‘Look for yourself.’

Luke’s mouth tightened as he turned over pages of drawings. ‘What are these?’

‘I would have thought that’s obvious, Mr Andreadis. I drew the boats from the veranda of the cottage when I first arrived, and the other sketch this morning on the beach next to yours. Ideally, I would have used watercolour, but I had no way of getting the materials down such a steep path.’ Isobel looked at him coldly. ‘Other people take holiday snaps. I make sketches.’

‘Which,’ he said slowly, leafing through them again, ‘are most accomplished.’

‘Thank you.’

Luke ran a hand through his thick curls, then looked up, surveying her in silence for so long that Isobel grew restive. ‘It is now I who must make apology,’ he said at last, as though the words were drawn out of him with pincers.

‘Accepted.’ She eyed him curiously. ‘You dislike journalists and guard your privacy very fiercely, Mr Andreadis, so are you some kind of celebrity here in Greece?’

He shook his head. ‘No, just a successful businessman, Miss James. I am in shipping, but also much in the news lately, due to a successful takeover of a private airline.’ His mouth turned down. ‘And I have no wife. This also attracts interest from the press.’

‘About whether you’re gay?’ she said, secretly delighted by the look of outrage on his face.

‘Ochee! I may lack a wife, but it is common knowledge that I enjoy the company of women. Did you think I was gay?’ he demanded.

‘Not easy to tell on such brief acquaintance.’

His eyes narrowed to a glitter, which put her on the alert. ‘Even though we have been in enforced physical contact from the first moment of our meeting?’

Isobel’s face heated. ‘I wasn’t conscious for most of it. And, now that I am, no further contact is necessary. Not,’ she added hastily, ‘that I’m ungrateful for your help.’

He shrugged. ‘I had no choice but to give it, Miss James.’

She eyed him in disdain. ‘You made that very clear—but I’m grateful just the same.’

His eyes softened. ‘It has been a bad start to your holiday.’

‘It has indeed.’ She pushed her hair away from her throbbing forehead. ‘So, if you can spare the time to drive me to my cottage tomorrow to get on with it, I’d be very grateful, Mr Andreadis.’

‘You cannot manage alone there yet,’ he said dismissively.

‘I most certainly can. There is absolutely no difference between getting myself around this room and doing the same at the cottage.’

‘And how will you feed yourself?’

She’d been prepared for that. ‘If Eleni will buy food for me before I go, I’ll manage very well until I can walk properly again. My ankle feels better already,’ she lied. ‘In a day or so I’ll be back to normal.’

He eyed her in silence for a moment. ‘Before you make your escape from the Villa Medusa, please indulge my curiosity. Tell me something about yourself. From your drawings, your interest obviously lies in art, Miss James.’

‘Yes. I have a Fine Art Degree.’

‘You teach?’

‘No. I manage an art gallery and live in the flat over it as part of a deal which includes putting my work on sale at the gallery, as well as the paintings I sell privately.’

‘You live near your family?’

Isobel looked down at the hands she’d folded in her lap. ‘No. My wonderful grandparents brought me up, but they’re dead now.’

Luke leaned forward slightly. ‘And your parents?’

‘I never knew them. They were killed in a motorway pileup in fog when I was a baby.’

‘That is a sad story,’ he said sombrely. ‘But you were fortunate to have grandparents who cared for you.’

‘True. They were the only parents I ever knew, and I couldn’t have wished for better. But, though I’m short on family, I’m blessed with very good friends,’ said Isobel, trying to ignore her headache. ‘In the past my holidays were spent with one of them but, since her marriage a couple of years ago, I travel alone.’

Luke got up. ‘Have you informed this friend of your accident?’

‘I saw no point in worrying her. I’ll be fine in a day or two.’

‘But you are not fine now. Your headache is bad again, yes?’ ‘Afraid so,’ she admitted.