Paradise Nights: Taken by the Bad Boy

‘Everyone’s down at the beach fixing nets,’ Sam said next. ‘You could come down too.’

‘I have a few things to do here first.’ He was trying to be discreet. Trying very hard not to go looking for Serena the minute he set foot on the island. Although … Maybe seeing her now was better than seeing her later. Maybe being seen with her openly, in the company of others, was the epitome of discreet in Sathi. Who knew?

Sam studied him curiously. ‘Serena’s down there.’

‘So I saw.’

‘She keeps talking to herself. Nico reckons she’s pining for something.’

‘Does he now?’

‘Yeah. Serena reckons Nico’s got a death wish.’

‘Maybe I will come down,’ he said, stifling a grin. After all, Sam had come looking for him. Nico and Serena and Chloe had to be thinking it was okay for him to join them otherwise they wouldn’t have let Sam come looking for him in the first place. Right?

Besides, denial wasn’t exactly one of his strong suites.

What Pete Bennett wanted, he usually got.

Fast.

Serena had decided to be cool, calm, and in control if the flying one decided to join them down on the beach. Cool was a shoe in given that she was wearing short white shorts, a pink and lime bikini top, and currently stood knee deep in water. Calm and in control were proving a little more problematic given that her heart was hammering and her brain had chosen to replay the beach kiss scene in From Here To Eternity and suggest it as a viable greeting option.

‘Not!’ she muttered vehemently and glared at Nico when he laughed.

Maybe if she’d had a little more forewarning she might have been able to manage calm and in control. Honestly, couldn’t he have called ahead to let her know he’d be flying in?

Didn’t the man know how to use a phone?

On the other hand, maybe he wasn’t even stopping, just dropping passengers and flying on. That was possible too.

Not that she cared if he stayed or if he left. No. He was a distraction, nothing more, and distractions could always be replaced by other distractions.

Trying to paint signage while scanning the waterfront walkway every few seconds, for example, was very distracting.

She botched the curve of the middle letter about the same time she spotted Pete and Sam heading towards the beach from the direction of the village. Not the most direct route from the hotel by any stretch of the imagination, but the reason for their detour could probably be explained by the newspaper Pete carried in one hand, and the woven blue and white shopping bag he carried in the other. The reason for her botched paint job probably had something to do with the way he filled out a white crew-necked T-shirt and an old pair of cargo trousers cut off at the knee.

‘There they are,’ said Chloe.

‘Mmm.’ She was trying for an indifferent-sounding ‘mmm,’ but figured from Chloe’s smirk that it had emerged as a whimper. Hopefully Chloe would think she was staring at the shopping bag.

Pete took his own sweet time making his way down to the boat. He stopped to kick off his shoes when he reached the sand. Stopped again to share a few words with a couple of elderly tourists.

When he stopped with Sam to poke at a mound of seaweed and watch a tiny soldier crab scuttle back into its hole in the sand she could have screamed.

He knew exactly what he was doing to her. Making her wait. And want. And want some more.

Damn but he was good at this game.

‘Serena,’ said Pete with a nod, when he and Sam finally reached her. He leaned into the boat and set the shopping bag and the papers inside it before sending her a lazy, noncommittal smile, but it wasn’t enough. She wanted more. Exactly how much more currently being a subject of much internal debate between her body and her brain.

‘Hey, flyboy.’ She was not changing her plans for him.

‘Apple and honey cake?’ he said affably.

She was going to become a successful international photojournalist! She didn’t want to be a suburban housewife. ‘No,’ she snapped, before reconsidering the question actually on the table. ‘Yes.’ She jammed the paintbrush back into its pot. ‘Thank you.’

‘You’re welcome.’ He eyed her warily. ‘Something wrong?’

‘It’s this island,’ she muttered.

‘She needs to get off it,’ said Nico, zeroing in on that woven shopping bag like a seagull after a crust. Chloe wasn’t far behind him. Not that she blamed them. Marianne Papadopoulos might have been the biggest gossip on the island, but her pastries could make grizzled Greek fisherman get down on their knees and beg. The woven shopping bag Pete had carried down to the boat was one of the ones she saved for special treats and Nico knew it. ‘What’s in the bag?’

‘Apple and honey cake,’ she said. ‘And it’s for me.’

‘Actually, I bought it for all of us,’ said Pete. ‘I would have bought something just for you but I’m being discreet.’

‘Makes sense to me,’ said Nico, delving into the bag. ‘Look, she even sliced it for us. Who’s the big bit for?’

‘Sam,’ said Pete. ‘As directed by Mrs Papadopoulos herself.’

‘She likes you, Sam,’ said Chloe, eyeing the slice. ‘That’s a big bit of cake.’

Sam looked at the cake, looked at Chloe. ‘You can have it if you like,’ he offered awkwardly. ‘I’m not that hungry.’

Chloe stared at him in startled silence, Nico smiled, and Pete turned away but not before Serena caught the hefty dose of concern in his eyes. Serena didn’t know what was going on. But it felt big.

‘Thank you, Sam, but I couldn’t. I’d never hear the end of it,’ said Chloe, trying to make light of his unexpected gesture and not quite managing it. Her eyes were too bright. Her voice wobbled too much. ‘It’s yours.’ She reached into the box and selected a smaller piece. ‘Save it for later if you don’t feel like eating it now.’

Later, by Sam’s reckoning, turned out to be approximately two seconds later. He took the cake and, head down, went back to examining the nets for holes. Loading themselves up in similar fashion, Nico and Pete did the same.

‘I should have taken it, shouldn’t I?’ whispered Chloe anxiously, her gaze still on Sam. ‘He offered, and I turned it down. I did it all wrong.’

‘No.’ Serena laid a hand on the other woman’s arm. ‘It’s okay, you did fine. It was sweet of Sam to offer, and right of you to turn it down.’ Her thoughts turned to Nico and to what she as a good and helpful cousin might do to support his cause. ‘Of course, if you wanted to capitalise on the whole food sharing business you’d go over there and very casually offer to help Sam cook up the sea bass he caught this morning, and even more casually suggest that Nico come over later and help you eat it.’

Chloe blushed furiously, her eyes wide and panicked as she turned back to Serena. ‘But, Serena, I couldn’t! That would put Nico in a terrible position. It’d be almost like a date or something.’

‘What if it was? Would that be so bad?’ Serena shook her head. ‘Get to know my cousin, Chloe. You might be surprised.’

‘I don’t want to be surprised! Nico will leave here soon. They always leave.’ She shrugged and looked back towards the village. ‘Whereas me … I couldn’t leave here even if I wanted to. My parents are old. Someone has to run the hotel. That someone is me. I have to make good, especially now I have Sam.’

‘You know from my point of view Nico’s leaving here is somewhat negotiable,’ said Serena, after a moment. ‘He could make this place his home, given the right incentive. Look at him showing Sam how to roll the nets. He likes fishing. He likes being a part of this community. He likes you.’

Chloe stayed silent, but her gaze skittered back to Nico and Sam. She was scared of opening herself up to hurt, Serena got that. But surely she could see that in this case the prize was well worth the risk? ‘So if you like him, maybe you need to think about giving the man a reason to stay.’

Serena ate apple and honey cake while Chloe headed up the beach towards the nets and Pete headed back down the beach towards her. They stopped midway to chat, while Serena brushed the crumbs from her hands and wet sand from her legs and tried to remember how she was supposed to be acting around this man. Cool, calm and collected, that was it.

Definitely a stretch.