by Mandy Baggot
‘I am so sorry for this,’ he whispered to her. ‘I did not think this through.’
‘Clearly,’ she said, through gritted teeth. ‘Or you might not have picked someone whose only dance move is the occasional dab when she’s drunk.’
‘What?’
‘Just hold me up.’
Andras nodded towards Babis and the gentle sound of strings being softly strummed drifted around them, circling the restaurant and echoing off the beamed ceiling. He squeezed her hand. ‘Tell me your real name.’
‘It’s Tess,’ she answered.
He nodded. ‘We will tell my mother that it is short for Patricia.’
‘Hang on … just wait … this is only for tonight, right? I mean—’ Tess began.
‘Shh,’ he said, placing a forefinger over her lips.
Her stomach rolled in response to the contact. She really should have slipped in a singles night before she came away. Her body seemed to be telling her she was in desperate need of a fix of male attention right now.
‘Just listen to the music,’ he purred.
She closed her eyes, trying to loosen her shoulders and remember that she was in Greece. Here no one knew who she was. What she did for a living. Or that she was single again at twenty-nine and had been left at the altar by the only man she had ever loved.
Suddenly her hand was being lifted up and she opened her eyes to Andras, as he manoeuvred her arm, turning her until she was alongside him. He positioned her hand to rest at the base of his neck and held it there, his eyes connecting with hers. God, this was erotic. Their fingers, on top of each other and the heat from the nape of his neck seeping into her was causing volcanic bubbling in her insides.
Then his free hand snaked around her waist and, in time to the bouzouki, she was pulled into him, until their bodies fell next to each other, connected at the hip.
Why had Babis chosen this song? Andras hadn’t danced to this since he had danced with Elissa after their wedding in Corfu Town. It had been a half-empty bar, no one there they knew, just the band and strangers clapping their hands in time. But it had meant everything. It had been a celebration of their love, their unity, starting their lives their way … but it hadn’t lasted. And now, here he was, dancing in his restaurant with someone he didn’t even know, with his mother and half the Georgiou family watching.
‘Sorry,’ Tess whispered as her foot stepped on his.
He smiled at her. Despite the situation he was in with this charade, he couldn’t fault her. A stranger, coming to his aid, joining in with this farce, after he had been so judgemental to her earlier that day. He knew why he had criticised her need for connection with the outside world and her work, but his feelings about it weren’t her fault. And here she was now, dancing with him in front of his family, just because he had asked her to.
He spun her around then caught her with one arm, lowering her slowly backwards and leaning along with her. ‘Thank you,’ he whispered. ‘For doing this.’
She smiled. ‘Just for tonight.’
He brought her up again, faces close, noses almost touching. ‘A week,’ he stated so only she could hear.
‘What?’ she gasped out loud.
He acted on instinct, covering her mouth with his and holding her close as he muffled her voice with a kiss.
Seventeen
It took Tess a millisecond to realise what was happening and then her first reaction was to hit Andras. He was taking advantage again. Leading things. Dictating. She was the decision-maker. In everything. But then something else began to happen. Andras’s tongue started practically having sex with hers. What was he doing? Whatever it was, she had never been kissed like this before. It was as if she had erogenous zones on her taste buds and they were all exploding like kernels in a popcorn-maker. She didn’t want him to stop. She wanted him to carry on, possibly for the whole holiday.
Then he broke away, letting her go and stamping his feet, raising his arms in a move not dissimilar to a Spanish bullfighter. She felt a bit dizzy, her mouth still reacting to his, even though the lips were back with their owner and she was standing like newborn Bambi. And then she caught sight of Sonya. Her best friend was staring at her, eyes wide, a look somewhere between alarm and shock, her hand on her chest, fingers searching for the almost-engagement necklace.
What was she doing? Dancing with this man? Kissing this man? On the very first night, when she’d sworn off men for the whole holiday. Despite the crazy circumstances, she had gone along with it and now she had broken her promise to Sonya. She needed to put a stop to it.
She began to stamp her feet, fingers lifting her dress a little, like she’d seen the one who copped off with Ben Cohen do in a Strictly Paso routine, wafting the material from side to side. Andras had stopped dancing now and was watching her, as were the rest of the diners at the restaurant, some of them clapping their hands together in time to the bouzouki. She had no idea what she was doing but it was her intention to shimmy – if that’s what this movement was – to the other side of this makeshift dance floor and propel herself out of this scenario and back to what she should be doing: pepping up Sonya.
Stamping again, she attempted to pass Andras, shaking her dress and trying to look professional.
‘What are you doing?’ he asked, amusement on those thick, beautiful lips that had rocked hers.
‘Leaving you,’ she said just loud enough for him to hear. ‘Escaping while I can. And don’t worry: Patricia won’t be patronising your restaurant for the rest of our holiday.’ She stamped again, this one hard and sending shockwaves up her calf. ‘Just tell your mother I had important business to do and—’
He caught hold of her arm. ‘You don’t understand.’
‘You said a week,’ Tess replied, entwining her hands, her arms either side of her face as she waved her head like she was a Bollywood dancer. ‘I can’t do this for a week. I’m here with my friend and I don’t have time for games like this.’
‘You think this is a game?’ Andras answered, taking her hand in his and pulling her into him again.
‘Whatever this is it has nothing to do with me,’ she reminded him, leaning against him as if it were the most natural move in the world.
‘I will give you anything you want,’ Andras whispered in her ear.
Had he made his tone deliberately suggestive or was that her libido and his Greek accent filling in the gaps? She swallowed. ‘Like what?’ She turned a full circle, still performing.
‘Unlimited Internet access,’ he said, clasping hold of her hand.
‘I’m not sure that exists on Corfu,’ she responded dismissively. ‘And your free Wi-Fi is free because it doesn’t actually work!’
‘I will make it happen.’
She was itching to check in with work and to update her social media with some photos of the sea view she’d taken from the terrace earlier, but it wasn’t enough.
‘I need a guide man,’ she stated, copying his moves as he hopped from one foot to the other.
‘A what?’ he asked.
‘Sonya wants someone to show us around the island, by boat. All the pretty little coves, all the flora and fauna and cute creatures.’ She shivered. She’d look at creatures from a safe distance. ‘This has to be a great holiday for her. Doing things. Not thinking about things at home.’
He put an arm around her waist and drew her in close, dipping his mouth down to her ear. ‘I cannot do this. With my brother’s wedding and the restaurant—’
She pulled him closer. ‘Is now the time to re-mention that I am dancing in the middle of a restaurant, on my very first night in Greece, pretending to be your girlfriend with no idea why?’
He moved their hands so they were palm to palm and swayed her backwards and forwards, hips gyrating in time to the hypnotic song she was probably going to be humming for days. Why wasn’t he immediately answering? She needed to be clear. Just like she was in business.
‘That’s my final offer,’ she said, meeting his eyes with her
s. ‘Unlimited Internet access and a guide man for the whole holiday.’ She swallowed. ‘Take it, or I’m leaving.’
He looked at her, still moving her to his rhythm. Why was she nervous about his reply? She didn’t want to be this pretend girlfriend and have to lie to his ferocious-looking mother. And she was sure they could find someone else to show them around Corfu if they had to.
‘OK,’ he replied.
‘OK?’ she said a little too keenly.
‘Come here tomorrow morning, at eight. I will get the boat ready.’
‘Eight?’
‘I have a restaurant to run,’ he reminded her.
She circled under his arm as directed. ‘And the Internet access?’
He smiled as she turned towards him again. ‘You will have to trust me, Patricia.’
Trust a man? She didn’t trust any of them. ‘It’s Tess,’ she reminded, pulling him to a halt. ‘Now end this dance so I can go and eat my food.’
‘Opa!’ he shouted, raising their arms in the air.
The bouzouki player strummed a final chord and everyone in the restaurant began to applaud.
‘Take a bow,’ Andras instructed. ‘For someone who has not danced before, you are a natural.’
With her cheeks suddenly flaming from the exertion of the moves and the humidity in the air, Tess dropped her torso into a swift bow before heading off on pins-and-needles feet she was certain would never be the same again. Casting a glance back at Andras, shaking hands with diners, his dark hair a little ruffled from their dance, she wondered just what she had let herself in for.
‘So, despite everything we’ve been saying since we flew from Luton, you’ve got a new boyfriend,’ Sonya stated as Tess dropped into the chair opposite her. ‘I did see what I thought I saw, didn’t I? You and the supposed fake boyfriend performing a very convincing tongue-on-tongue role play over there.’
Tess sighed and reached across the table, taking Sonya’s hand in hers. ‘That kiss,’ she began, ‘was as fake as you could get.’
‘Really?’ Sonya exclaimed.
‘Really,’ Tess answered. ‘If he does it again I’m going to have to insist on breath mints. It must be all that garlic they put in their cooking here.’ Her stomach knotted up with the lie. His taste had been nothing but man perfection.
‘Ew!’ Sonya replied.
‘But the good news is … I’ve got ourselves a guide man!’
‘Who smells like garlic?’
‘That’s some of the bad news,’ Tess stated, sipping from her Coke with three sugars.
‘Some of the bad news?’ Sonya said. ‘I’m not sure I like the sound of that.’
She just had to say it quickly. Get it out there. ‘I have to be the fake girlfriend for a week.’ She picked up the rose-gold-coloured carafe and began filling Sonya’s glass. ‘Here, have some more wine.’
Eighteen
Andras watched the swallows dip and swerve across the morning skyline, their wing tips sometimes brushing the ocean, other times frisking the cypress trees either side of his view. How did it feel to be free like that? Just flying with the breeze, changing your direction in an instant with no consequence?
He had tossed and turned all night, a dozen things fighting for space in his already cluttered mind. His lack of a new business partner. His role in the wedding with Marietta. His new girlfriend from England. What had he been thinking, kissing her? Granted, at first it had been on impulse, to stop her blowing their cover, but he hadn’t needed to commit to it quite as much as he had. Maybe it had something to do with not having had a woman in six months. At first, after Elissa left, he thought he could just throw himself into the tourist crowd. There were plenty of women looking for a Greek Romeo to while away the hot summer nights, but it had all felt so … wrong. He was using and being used and he wasn’t sure which party got the rawer deal. He may not want to be burned again but it seemed fickle sex wasn’t for him either. Perhaps he and Papa Yiannis had more in common than he thought.
He leapt upwards from the chair he was standing on, bare torso straining, as he caught hold of the ceiling beam. He was going to have to do a few things he didn’t want to do today. One was finding Spiros a donkey, and the other was leaving someone else in charge of the restaurant.
He pulled his body up, forearms biting. He had hoped to persuade Victor to take Tess and Sonya out on the boat, but his head waiter had reminded him it was his day off and, whereas ordinarily he would be only too happy to cancel, he was visiting his mother in the hospital. The only choice left was to take the women out himself and put Mathias in charge. He hated leaving anyone else in charge. Not because he thought the restaurant wouldn’t survive without him, but because he knew the restaurant could survive without him. Now, the main concern was getting out on to the water before his mother involved him in wedding planning he had sworn he didn’t have time for.
‘Oh my!’
Sonya reached out a hand that landed hard on Tess’s arm and she stopped walking, eyes following her friend’s line of vision.
They had come down the road way to the restaurant, entering through the back. And now there was Andras, wearing nothing but a pair of jeans that moulded around him like a second skin, back stretched and showing every perfectly positioned muscle working beautifully as he rose up and down from one of the beams in the restaurant ceiling.
Tess liked male backs almost as much as she liked a strong forearm. There was something about a set of muscular shoulder blades and that shaped curve that ran down to the coccyx. She swallowed, unable to keep her eyes from roving over his form – tight biceps pumped from the workout.
‘We should say something,’ Sonya whispered. ‘Announce we’re here.’
‘Uh-huh,’ Tess said, focus still on the semi-naked demigod.
Sonya cleared her throat and the sound reverberated like the thunderous roar of an advancing storm. Andras dropped down onto the chair then jumped down onto the tiled floor, reaching for his T-shirt.
‘Kalimera,’ he greeted, using the clothing item to wipe the perspiration from his torso as he advanced towards them. ‘You are early.’
Tess looked at her watch. It was exactly eight o’ clock. She looked back to him. ‘You said eight o’ clock.’
He smiled. ‘A Greek eight o’ clock,’ he answered. ‘Somewhere between eight and nine.’
‘Oh. Shall we come back?’ Sonya offered. ‘We could have another coffee and—’
He shook his head. ‘No, it is fine.’ He pulled out two chairs. ‘Please, sit down. I will get you some coffee. Then I will wash.’
Wash? Tess still couldn’t drag her eyes away from that smooth, ripped chest; the thought of that and water …
‘Coffee would be lovely,’ Sonya stated. ‘Wouldn’t coffee be lovely, Tess?’ She nudged Tess with her elbow.
‘Yes,’ Tess replied quickly. ‘And this unlimited Internet you promised?’
He nodded and held out his hand. ‘Please give me your phone.’
Tess hesitated for a moment, like he had asked for her to cut off her arm and pass that over.
‘The code for my business Wi-Fi is in Greek and is sixteen letters long,’ he explained.
‘Gosh!’ Sonya exclaimed. ‘No name of your first pet and the year you were born here.’
Tess dipped her hand into her Michael Kors handbag, pulling out her iPhone and dropping it into Andras’s palm. In minutes, hopefully she would be connected to London life, work and dating apps of opportunity. She could focus on potential no-strings mates who didn’t come with a Greek family attached. Perhaps she would have a quick scan in the toilets where Sonya couldn’t see.
‘It’s a beautiful day,’ Sonya remarked, looking across the restaurant at the view.
It was a beautiful day. Even though Tess had been tired from the journey it had been lovely to wake up to the sunshine in a cloudless sky, the sun’s first rays filtering through the terrace shutters.
Andras passed the mobile back. ‘You are online.’
/> ‘Really?’ Tess said, like someone had announced she’d won the Euromillions.
He nodded. ‘I pray for no great flood.’ He looked to Sonya. ‘Coffee with cream, am I right?’
Tess watched Sonya flush.
‘Didn’t I spoon up all your cream last night?’ Sonya asked with a giggle.
‘I have milked another goat this morning,’ he replied.
‘You have?’ Sonya asked.
‘He was joking,’ Tess stated. Then she looked up, needing confirmation. ‘You were joking, weren’t you?’
He smiled. ‘One moment, yes?’
Tess watched him head off to the kitchen, taut perfection gliding past tables. Shaking her head, she concentrated on her phone that really did now have three bars of Wi-Fi.
‘So, I looked at the map last night and there are some lovely little places not far from here,’ Sonya stated.
‘Mmm.’ The first thing she was going to do was check her email.
‘There’s Kouloura just around the corner, well, not the corner, the coast.’ Sonya laughed. ‘The coast is more a boaty term. Then there’s Agios Stefanos where all the celebrities go.’
Tess watched the roll of emails come flooding in. She tried to catch them as they flashed by. Harrods. Admiral Insurance. Music Magpie. McKenzie Falconer.
It was an email from Russell entitled Blackberry Boudoir Final and there was an attachment. Her heart was racing. Why was there an attachment with the word ‘final’ in the subject line? She was the head of that project. Only she should be using words like ‘final’. She tapped on the email.
‘Of course, our guide man is bound to know other places off the beaten track, isn’t he?’
Tess skim-read the contents of the text. Phrases like ‘not the vision they had in mind’, ‘new direction’ and ‘swift turnaround’ all merged into one until she wasn’t really taking in anything.
‘Have you brought some flat shoes?’ Sonya asked.
Tess clicked on the attachment and waited for it to load.
‘Tess?’