Xenakis's Convenient Bride

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CHAPTER THREE (#u27eaabda-8b0e-5702-b767-f25d66b167bb)

THE WATER CURTAIN had been only a drawing and some footings when his father had died. Stavros was laying the tiles around the base of the two columns, standing back to assess his work, when Calli spoke.

“I’ve been making spanakopita. I thought you might like some.”

He’d been trying to keep her at a distance these last few days, feeling exposed since she had blithely forced him to face what he had been avoiding for twenty years.

Swim for shore. I’ll be right behind you.

He had always had a defiant streak. He came by it honestly. His father had flouted rules just as often.

Why do I have to wear a life vest if you don’t? he had asked his father as they’d boarded the small skiff.

Do you want to go fishing or not? I’ll be fine. Put on your vest or we’re not going anywhere.

Sebastien had asked Stavros why he owned a boat he didn’t use. That was why. Boating made him sick and it wasn’t mal de mer.

He’d always had it in his mind that he would overcome that weakness, though. Perhaps he would even sail these waters one day.

To what end? So he could do this? Relive the day he had, for once, done as he had been told and swam? Swam as if his life depended on it, because it had?

While abandoning his father to his death.

He kept thinking that Sebastien could have the damned yacht. He didn’t want it. It certainly didn’t bring him any sort of happiness, exactly as Sebastien had called it that night in St. Moritz.

He should have helped his father get to shore. That was the voice he used money and toys and women and death-defying feats to muffle. It wasn’t only his opinion. That truth had been reinforced in his grandfather’s interrogation after the accident and colored every word his grandfather had spoken to him since.

Use your American name. It’s better for business. Translation: “You don’t have the right to use Stavros. That was your father’s name.”

You want the company to succeed, don’t you? Don’t let your father’s dreams die with him.

Think of your mother and sisters. Do you want them to be well supported or not? It’s up to you.

Basically, “do as I say or I will turn all of you onto the street.”

Despite Stavros saying nothing to Calli about the way his father had been killed, she had offered a doe-eyed empathy that had been too tender a thing to bear. He had brought her back here and worked until dark, only pausing when she had brought out a plate of ground lamb sprinkled over triangles of grilled pita, and a dollop of tzatziki with a salad of peppers.

“I’ll have to start over with the moussaka tomorrow, but no sense letting this go to waste,” she had said.

She was acting compassionate when he had only ever seen grief in his mother and sisters and that well-deserved censure from his grandfather.

Yet, since that day on the spit, he hadn’t been dwelling on the accident so much as how his grandfather had yanked them off this island and sold the house immediately after the accident. He had changed their names and refused to hear Greek under his roof, denying Stavros this connection to his roots. To his memories of a happy childhood.

“Keep the keys for the Vespa,” Calli had told Stavros when he finished up that evening. “If I need it, I’ll let you know.”

Her generosity had been hard to assimilate against the criticism that had dominated his life for nearly two decades. He had taken the keys, but turned from her kindness like it was too hot, too bright.

He had worked half days on the weekend, spending the afternoons reacquainting with the island, allowing himself to remember more than his fatal mistake, all the while trying not to wish her curves were spooned against his back. He didn’t need a woman cuddling him through this. He had to face it alone.

He had come to a decision among the seared hills and unforgiving water. He wasn’t a boy any longer and his grandfather would no longer be his master. He would buy back his former home, if only to have somewhere to go when his grandfather made good on his promise to cut him off.

The decision eased the turmoil in him, put a fire in his belly. Put him in a conquering mood as he eyed the woman who moved with such unconscious grace. Her loose hair swung as she set the plate of triangular pastries on the low table next to the lounger. Her peach-colored shorts hugged her perfect ass and her breasts moved freely under her sleeveless pink top. The tails of the shirt were knotted above her navel, exposing a strip of skin he instantly wanted to touch. Taste.

He wanted her, wanted to lose himself in her. He wanted to imprint himself on her as if he could imprint himself on this island with the action. As if he could become the man he should have been by conquering her.

While she wanted to stroke his hair and say, “There, there.”

He moved to the sink in the wet bar and washed his hands, shaking them dry as he said, “Quit feeling sorry for me.”

She blinked. “I don’t.”

“What are you out here for, then?”

“I thought you might be hungry.”

“I am.” He advanced on her, watching her eyes widen. “But not for food.” A small lie. He was starving and broke after using the wages he had been given last Friday to pay her back for the stitches. “No appetite for charity, either.”

* * *

Calli scented danger, but held her ground.