Paradise Nights: Taken by the Bad Boy

‘He was only trying to help.’

More silence.

‘You think walking a line between what you want and what Sam wants is easy? It damn near rips my cousin in two sometimes, Chloe. He doesn’t deserve your anger.’ Sam slid her another furtive glance from his spot at the table. ‘And he certainly doesn’t deserve yours,’ she told him bluntly. ‘Finished your homework yet?’

Sam nodded warily. ‘Just now.’

‘Perfect,’ she said, turning back to Chloe. ‘Sam’s ready to eat. We’re all ready to eat. And here you are with enough food to feed a dozen people. Invite us over. It’ll make everyone feel better.’

‘What do you think, Sam?’ said Chloe faintly. ‘Shall we invite them over here for dinner?’

Sam shrugged. ‘It’s your house. Your food.’

‘Yours too,’ said Chloe.

Sam looked away, all shut down.

Chloe looked down at the bench, but not before Serena caught the sheen of tears in her eyes. She reached up and tucked a strand of Chloe’s straight dark hair back behind her ear with gentle fingers. Chloe looked up and shot her a miserable smile. ‘Sorry,’ she whispered.

‘Don’t be. Just send Sam to go get Nico and Pete. I’ll stay here and help you set the table. Trust me. It’ll be fun. It’ll work.’ She reached over to the little radio by the kitchen sink and switched it on. ‘We’ll make it work.’

Pete wasn’t averse to having dinner at Chloe’s place rather than the taverna. Judging by the swiftness with which Nico pushed back his chair and stood to leave, neither was he. ‘What about the gossip?’ Pete asked Nico, surreptitiously eyeing the formidably gossipy Marianne Papadopoulos and co. Gossip being the reason they’d all been meeting at the taverna in full view of everyone in the first place. ‘Will having us to dinner be a problem for Chloe?’

‘Do I look like I care?’ said Nico.

Good point.

They had to pass the bridge party table on the way out. Pete nodded to them. Nico went one better. Nico stopped.

‘I need some flowers,’ he said to Marianne Papadopoulos.

She pursed her lips, her old eyes shrewd. ‘Happens I have a garden full of them. I’m open to trading suggestions.’

‘Two kilos of fish from tomorrow’s catch,’ said Nico, ignoring the amused glances of the other card players at the table. ‘For a fistful of whatever I like from your garden.’

A glimmer of a smile played about those thin wrinkled lips. ‘My scented pink roses are in flower,’ she said with the air of someone bestowing something special. ‘They’re not just any old flower. You want some of those, you’ll need to trade up.’

Nico eyed her narrowly. ‘The best of tomorrow’s catch for the best in your garden.’

Marianne’s smile bloomed. ‘Agreed.’

‘I need them now,’ he said.

‘You can have them now. Mind you use the secateurs hanging on the tool shed door to cut them. I’ll have no ragged stems in my garden.’

‘Anyone care to concentrate on the cards?’ asked Theo, his voice long-suffering.

‘Hol Listen to you!’ said Marianne Papadopoulos. ‘Was a time you asked for flowers from my garden in just the same way, old goat!’

‘I gave them back to you, didn’t I?’

Nico snorted. Theo glared. Pete edged away from the table, Sam was right behind him. The boy had a good eye for a fast brewing storm. Best not to get caught in the eye of it.

‘I’ll meet you up at Chloe’s,’ said Nico when they reached the hotel grounds. ‘You two go on ahead.’ He strode off down the laneway in the direction of the village. Sam looked after him, his expression wistful.

The boy had delivered Chloe’s invitation with a wariness Pete had found painful to watch, and he wasn’t nearly as invested in the kid as Nico. Nico had probably found it excruciating.

‘Reckon I can find my own way to Chloe’s apartment if you’d rather go with Nico,’ he told the boy, offhand.

‘He wouldn’t want me around,’ mumbled Sam.

Pete shrugged. ‘I say he would. Matter of fact I think it’d mean a lot to him if you helped him pick those flowers for Chloe.’

Sam slanted him a gaze. ‘You don’t know that.’

‘You’re right, I don’t. But that’s what I think.’

Sam stared at him, his face a study of indecision as hope warred with fear. And then the boy was racing after Nico, falling into step beside him and shoving his hands in his pockets for good measure. Not a word passed between them but Nico slowed to accommodate the boy and the shadow of a smile flitted across the kid’s face.

‘Guess I was right,’ he murmured, and, leaving them to the choosing of flowers and the careful cutting of stems, he turned on his heel and headed for Chloe’s.

‘Sam and Nico will be along soon,’ he told Chloe when she opened the door to him. ‘Thanks for the dinner invite.’

‘What are they doing?’ Chloe wanted to know.

‘Just some business they had to take care of.’

‘What kind of business?’

‘Their business,’ he said with a grin. ‘Have a little faith, Chloe. Alternatively, have a glass of wine. You look like you could use one.’ He handed her the half-full bottle the waiter had recorked for them at the taverna. ‘From Nico. I’d have bought some too only no one lets me buy alcohol around here.’

Chloe smirked. ‘So I’ve heard. The general consensus is that you’re quite forward enough without it. Come through.’ Stepping aside, she gestured for him to enter.

Serena was setting the table when he entered the kitchen and Pete felt something shift and fall gently into place at the sight of her performing that simple task. Mealtimes and the setting of the dinner table had been important to his family too, once upon a time. Before his mother had died. Before his father had fallen apart, leaving Jake, and him as next eldest, to step in and make sure that clothes got washed and people got fed. He’d been sixteen at the time, Jake had been eighteen, and they’d managed well enough. Managed just fine, considering …

But food had generally made it to a person’s stomach directly from the fridge or by way of the kitchen counter. Food had rarely stopped by the dinner table en route. Not his choice. No one’s choice really. That was just the way things had shaken down.

He’d grown used to eating meals on the run. To loading up a food tray in a Navy mess hall, or stopping for take-away on the way home from work. Food was fuel, no need to celebrate the eating of it.

Maybe that was why the simple act of Serena laying knives and forks on the table cut at him so deeply, reminding him of his mother and of family the way it should be.

Maybe that was why he crossed over to the domestic goddess, set his palms to her face and touched his lips to hers for a kiss that spoke of tenderness, and thanks, and a moment in time he wanted to cherish.

Serena’s eyes fluttered closed and the cutlery she’d been holding clattered to the table as Pete’s lips met hers. There was passion in his kiss; there always was. A lick of heat and a dash of recklessness that called to her and made her tremble. But this time his passion was tempered with sweetness and a longing she’d never felt from him before. This wasn’t a hello kiss. It wasn’t seduction.

This kiss was all about coming home.

‘What was that for?’ she said shakily when he finally released her.