Paradise Nights: Taken by the Bad Boy

‘Leave me alone with her and you’re a dead man,’ she muttered.

Pete contemplated his options. There was really nothing for it but to take Serena with him. He grabbed her hand and raced towards the water, Serena giggling helplessly as they sped past their latest chaperon, kicking up spray as feet met water, before finally getting far enough into the water to plunge beneath it.

He surfaced a fair way out, with Serena right beside him, and turned back towards Marianne, who clearly preferred a more leisurely entry into the water. ‘We’re just heading over to the cave. We’ll be right back.’

Marianne’s hands went to her hips. Pete grinned and set off for the cave at a fast crawl with Serena matching him all the way, agile as a seal and just as sleek.

‘I’m ruined,’ she said with a reckless smile.

‘But you haven’t done anything,’ he argued. Nor had he. Yet.

‘You’re right.’ She gave Marianne a wave. ‘Maybe I’m only partially ruined. If we stay within her sight and you stay, oh.’ she gestured about a body length’s distance with her hands ‘… about this far away from me, we might even manage discreet.’

Oh, yeah. Discreet. Vaguely platonic. He’d forgotten about that. ‘Do we need to manage discreet?’ he queried. ‘Is it really essential?’

‘This is Sathi,’ she said. ‘It’s a necessity.’

So he played by the rules and they dived for shells in the shallows and stayed within sight of Marianne and finally swum back to her and floated about and made small talk about the various sights to be seen on the island. By the time they left the water and had dried off an hour had passed and there was no time left for sightseeing anyway.

‘I’d better be heading back.’ He slung his towel in his carryall, watched with a sigh as Serena slung a dress over all those glorious curves and twisted her hair back into a pony-tail.

‘You can drive,’ she said, picking up her carry bag and heading across the sand towards the bike.

‘Are you sure?’ he said, deftly catching her bag and slinging it over his own shoulder. He didn’t much like riding shotgun but he’d said he’d do it. Fair was fair.

‘Very sure. Go ahead.’ A tiny smile played about her lips. ‘I insist.’

Three days later, Serena sat on the little beach at the water’s edge, paintbrush in hand as she touched up the name on her grandfather’s prize fishing boat. Not changed it, mind. The name of a fishing boat never changed once it had been bestowed, but touch-ups were allowed, and the free flowing black scrawl was sorely in need of it. The boat was called Plenty, and Serena was trying very hard to convince herself that that was exactly what she had.

Nico had decided that she needed another break from the Vespas and had organised one of his fishing crew to cover for her for the day, so one thing she had was plenty of time. He’d convinced her to come down to the beach beside the fishing-boat docks and repaint the name on the boat while he rolled out the nets and set to repairing holes. Sam had found them not long after they’d beached the boat, Chloe had found them not long after that, but instead of ordering Sam home she’d sat down and started repairing the holes in the net too, with a deftness that spoke of previous experience. Technically, thought Serena, she had plenty of company.

In just under two weeks her stint on the island would be up and she’d be free to do whatever she wanted.

Plenty to think about there.

It was a crying shame that the only thing she had been thinking about lately was a laughing, complicated man with the smile of a rogue, the soul of an eagle, and a heart that seemed to beat in time with her own.

‘Fool,’ she muttered.

‘There she goes again,’ said Sam, looking up from his inspection of the net and shooting Nico one of those man-to-man looks. ‘Talking to herself.’

‘Let it be a lesson to you, Sam,’ murmured Nico. ‘Wear a hat.’

‘How do you know I’m not talking to you?’ she said to Nico, reloading her brush with paint before spearing him with a dark glare. ‘It’s possible. Extremely possible.’

Nico rolled his eyes at Sam. Sam grinned back. ‘I saw that,’ she said darkly.

‘She’s been twitchy for days,’ continued Nico with a sigh. ‘Moody. Some might even say pining. One might even hazard a guess as to what she’s been pining for.’

‘Oh, good. A man with a death wish,’ she said with a toss of her head. ‘And I am not pining for anything. I’m just … contemplating the universe.’

And then a helicopter appeared on the horizon where sea met sky, heading towards them low and fast.

‘Look! It’s Pete,’ said Sam, and Nico sniggered.

The chopper drew closer. Close enough for Serena to see Pete and two passengers. Sam leapt to his feet and waved. Chloe waved too. Even Nico looked up and grinned.

Serena gritted her teeth and turned her attention back to the Greek word for Plenty.

‘Can I go see if he’s staying over?’ asked Sam as the chopper headed for the landing pad behind the hotel. ‘He might want to come and mend nets too.’

‘If he’s staying,’ she muttered. ‘Sometimes he doesn’t.’ Sometimes he just dropped by to torture her.

‘If he is staying he’ll probably be after a room at the hotel,’ Nico told Chloe.

‘You banished him?’ said Chloe.

‘You banished him?’ demanded Serena.

‘Had to,’ he said. ‘By order of Marianne and Theo. They fear for your virtue.’

‘Quite right,’ said Chloe. ‘A girl can’t be too careful. Not on this island. You have no idea how people gossip.’

‘We went swimming,’ said Serena. ‘That’s all we did.’

‘That’s not what I heard,’ said Chloe dryly. ‘Marianne had to save you from total ravishment at the cove. She got there just in time. One second later and he’d have had his hands all over you. That’s her story and she’s sticking to it.’

‘It’s a good story,’ said Serena with a wistful sigh. ‘I even vaguely recognise some parts of it.’ She turned to Nico and eyed him narrowly. ‘Exactly when did you banish him?’

‘The day you went swimming,’ he said amiably. ‘I phoned him and explained the situation and he offered to bunk down at the hotel straight away. Said he had his reputation to think about. And yours. Mentioned the word discreet a few times. Mentioned something about a whale shark and a yellow-flowered bathing cap.’ Nico shuddered. ‘I didn’t want to know.’

Serena sniggered.

‘So he’s staying at the hotel?’ Sam asked Nico, his eyes bright.

Nico nodded. ‘Most probably.’

Sam took off across the beach with an unguarded enthusiasm Serena envied, only to halt abruptly some ten metres away. Serena watched as he turned back, not towards her or Nico this time, but towards Chloe. It was the first time he’d paid her the slightest attention all morning. ‘What room can we give him?’ he asked her. ‘The big one? Number seventeen?’

‘Provided no one’s in it,’ she said, looking up at him from her spot on the sand, her hands full of fishing net as she considered his question. ‘Otherwise he can have number two. That’s another one we sometimes use for upgrades. Tell Reception to put it through at the discount rate.’

Sam left at a run and Chloe watched him go, her face alight with happiness. ‘Did you hear that?’ she said in wonder. ‘Sam said we. As in him and me. He didn’t even think about it. He just said it.’

‘You give the pilot your best room?’ demanded Nico. ‘At a discount rate? For what?’

‘I like him,’ she said, pleasure easing to puzzlement.

Nico glared at her.