Chapter Twelve
Another table for three. This time by the seawall, and looking up at the lighted windmills standing guard over the island. Surprisingly, Bethany didn’t feel like the third wheel, but rather like she was a princess snug between two princes. The lights reflected on the water, music drifted in the air, and the world was just perfect.
She met Paul’s gaze and raised her glass. “To new friends.” She turned to her left and clinked her glass against Justin’s. “And old, forever friends.” Then she brought the chilled wine to her lips and sipped.
“To friendship.” Justin tapped Paul’s glass, and they raised their glasses together.
“To friendship,” Paul echoed, his golden gaze growing heated.
While the men’s words and actions were proper, the underlying chemistry set Bethany’s body on fire.
She fanned her face with her hand and leaned back in her chair. Looking out at the water, she wondered how the hell this chaste arrangement was ever going to work. The sexual energy wrapped around her and smothered her senses more than the heady sweetness of the night blooming jasmine.
Being with Justin and Paul, on any level, made her skin flush and her mind cloud. She needed to get a grip on her hormones. Maybe find a sexy man—not one of them—and get laid.
She pasted on a big smile and accepted her fate: friendship with the only two men in the world that made her crazy enough to climb walls for an orgasm at their hands. But she wasn’t going to cause them any problems. And she’d keep reminding herself until the guilt of her thoughts eased from her mind. They were just thoughts.
They wanted a platonic relationship. Friendship it was. Pure friendship.
Yeah, you keep telling yourself that, she thought.
“I’ve had Greek salad with feta cheese, but this seems to be done up in a different way,” she said, gesturing to the dish in the center of the cozy table and steering the conversation to a safe subject.
“That’s not feta, but a special version of Mykonos’s own white cheese. It’s called xinotiro. It has a slightly creamier texture and is a bit tart, even sour, compared to Feta. They make it like the kopanisti you tasted earlier. The dish is called a dako,” Justin said, surprising her since it had been Paul who had rattled off their order in Greek and appeared to be the food expert.
“Toasted whole-grain rusks are soaked in water to soften,” Paul explained, moving a large spoon through the salad. “Then they’re broken into pieces and topped with tomatoes, onions, the cheese, capers in this case, and local seasonings.”
“It’s drowned in olive oil,” she added.
“Yup,” Justin said. “The stuff is addicting. You’ll crave it long after you get back to New York.”
While Justin arranged a forkful of the dako and handed it to her, Paul scooped into the dish and heaped a serving on her plate. They worked together with such ease and efficiency, it made her mind drift back to the naughty fantasy she’d once whispered to Justin in the privacy of their bed.
She blinked to clear the vision, moved in her seat to shake the sensation, and redirected her thoughts, again, to the meal they were sharing.
She slipped the fork between her lips and savored the taste of the unique salad.
“This is taramosalata,” Paul said, breaking a piece of the crusty bread and running it through a pink dip. “Think of a doctored version of caviar.” He held it for her to take, and she gladly accepted it from his hands. Tasting the lemony fish spread, she sighed in contentment.
“Everything is full of flavor and just delicious,” she said. It wasn’t even fishy.
The waiter arrived, brings servings of golden calamari and tiny fried fish.
“Aitherina,” Justin said, squeezing fresh lemon juice on the fish. “I called those tasty little suckers fish chips the first summer I spent here.” He popped one in his mouth and chewed. “Yum.”
“Eww. They still have heads and tails,” she exclaimed, shaking her head and folding her hands in her lap.
“They’re too small to debone. You eat them whole.” Using his fingers, Paul picked one of the thinner fish, bit off the head, flipped it over to eat the tail, and then offered it to her.
“No,” she said, leaning back from the table. “I’ll pass.”
“Give it a chance, Bethy.” Paul’s words rolled over her as he looked into her eyes and held the fish to her lips. “You’ll like it.”
Holy smokes. It didn’t feel like he was talking about fish. He was speaking about them. She twisted her hands in her lap, wondering why she wanted to make him happy, and why it mattered so much to let him know she trusted him.
She swallowed her objection and parted her lips. He fit the fish between her teeth and tilted his head in approval. She chewed, pleasantly rewarded by the fresh and delectable taste of sea.
“It’s good,” she whispered.
“Yeah, I know,” Paul said, smoothing his thumb over her lower lip and down her chin. “Want another?”
“Okay,” she said, motioning for him to eat the head and tail before offering it to her again.
Strange as it was for a friend to feed her, his attention warmed her. She relaxed and listened as Justin and Paul recalled the last time they’d eaten at the restaurant. The water had been rough, and waves had sprayed over the sea wall. No one had sat at the first row of tables. But the weather hadn’t stopped them from enjoying the appetizers and the fresh-off-the-boat fish, just as they were doing together.
“It seems like a lot of people’s socializing is centered around meals or coffee breaks,” she said.
“It is,” Paul said. “Greeks make time for friends and slow down for meals. Sometimes dinner can last hours. So much is done at the table.”
They ate family style, with Justin and Paul explaining the how and what of the best-tasting seafood and sides she’d ever had. No fillets. No neat plates of sectioned off food groups.
Horta, boiled greens, were piled high as the table’s centerpiece. The calamari disappeared quickly, and the iridescent remnant of the oil on the white plate testified to its freshness. The grilled octopus cut with a fork and melted in her mouth. The crisply fried small local barbouni, the sweetest red mullet fish she’d ever had, was the biggest pain in the ass to debone. She waited—impatiently—as Paul meticulously cleaned it for her, but it was so worth the wait. And last, but not least, Justin’s favorite side, French fries, sat amidst the table of seafood.
“Koukla mou, you want me to prep another barbouni for you?”
She was startled at Paul calling her his doll. She knew the meaning because Mr. Lallas had also referred to her the same way and she had Google translated the term earlier. She pushed her plate forward. “I think I’m done. Totally stuffed.”
The whole dining experience had been so strange, so comfortable, and definitely not a night out with a new friend.
Truth be told, she’d expected the comfort level to be easy with Justin. She trusted him, loved him, and knew him. And because of the comfort she knew she’d find in Justin, she’d feared things with Paul would be awkward.
Not so. Both men put her at ease, an ease that had her stomach doing somersaults.
The surprising feelings of comfort and belonging with Paul made her question her sanity. She wasn’t just drawn to him. She was connected…linked. She wanted so much more of the man standing between her and the business acquisition she’d worked hardest for in her life.
“You don’t need to be so nice to me,” she said.
“You’re easy to be nice to,” Paul replied, expertly cleaning the last barbouni with his knife and fork.
Like a surgeon making an incision, he sliced through the crispy fish, cut off the head and tail, pushed away the rows of tiny bones at the top and bottom of the body, lifted the ribcage with his fork, and lastly removed the main skeleton. After checking for stray bones, he glanced up at her.
“You sure, koukla mou?”
“No, thank you. I’m good.”
He moved half the fish on to Justin’s plate, and Justin squeezed lemon over both of their now filleted fish. “Thanks, love.”
“Seriously, you’re making me comfortable, showing you care about me, and treating me like family. You don’t need to do any of it. I’m not family.”
“You are family,” Justin said, his easygoing demeanor gone. “You’re part of me, and that makes you part of Paul. He may not need to do any of the shit you’re babbling about, but he does it because he cares. And we both want you in our life. Easy or not.”
“J, a sincere and honest friendship is one thing, and under different circumstances it could have been easy. But it’s not now. The rest of this week is going to be a bitch. Paul and I want the same thing.”
“Don’t fool yourself, koukla mou. This,” Paul said, extending his arm and circling a pointed finger around the table, “thing between the three of us and what is happening here is what has you agitated. Not the rest of this week. The way you’re feeling has nothing to do with the resort. It’s this. It’s real. And it will not go away.”
“Paul,” Justin said in a warning tone.
“Don’t deny or candy-coat it, Justin. It is what it is.” He looked from Bethany to Justin and back again. “It’s not going away because you choose to ignore it.”
Confused, because there was clearly a point she was missing, Bethany sucked in a breath and considered her words carefully. “Something is getting lost in this conversation. What I said was simple. You being nice won’t make me change my position on the resort.”
“I don’t expect your position on the resort to change,” Paul said, his amber-colored eyes growing dark and his Adam’s apple moving. “I’m talking about this energy between us. It’s here. We all feel it. We all want it. But we’re denying it.”
Still baffled, she rubbed her fingers against her temples. Did he want her out of their life, or was he talking about more than a friendship? The thought of the latter had crossed her mind, had even starred in her afternoon shower fantasy. But Paul didn’t even know her. What if he didn’t want to share Justin with her?
“I’m sorry. I’d never want to come between you and Justin,” she whispered. “I didn’t mean to imply that. We don’t need to do this if you don’t want to be friends.”
“I want to be any kind of friends to make us all happy,” Paul said, lowering his voice. “Baby, the more I get to know you, the more I like you. So much so. Don’t think for a single minute you’re doing anything wrong. You’re perfect. We’re the screwed up ones.” He waved his hand between himself and Justin.
“Maybe it’s screwed up, but it’s the safest and surest way for us to be together,” Justin said, not hesitating to take her hand.
“As long as it doesn’t cause problems between you guys, I’m okay with it,” she said, keeping how frustrating it would be on her hormones to herself.
“Paul and I are together on this. We want to be in your life, sweetheart.”
She squeezed his hand. “Good. I like you there.” Then she reached for Paul’s hand and did the same. “I like you there, too. A lot.”
“The feeling is more mutual than you could imagine,” he said, lifting her hand to his lips and placing a kiss in the center of her palm. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply it was you. Trust me, it’s me. But I’ll do what it takes to keep this good.”
“I can take it. Let’s clear the air, so we can move forward,” she said. “Any other questions, clarifications, or anything? Let’s not leave any skeletons in the closet.”
Paul placed his fork on the table and crossed his arms over his chest. “I have one. We’ve been ignoring the elephant at the table, haven’t addressed the past, and I agree we need to clear the air so we can move forward.”
She didn’t realize how hard she was squeezing her hands together until Justin nudged into the tight knot, pried her fingers apart, and took her left hand in his.
“And I’m not blaming you, but because of the way he automatically comes to your rescue, I need to ask,” Paul said, indicating Justin’s lap and their joined hands.
Justin shifted and leaned forward, looking as if he was about to explain, but Paul held up his hand, wanting to be heard.
“No, babe. It’s not jealousy, and I don’t have a problem with any of it,” Paul said, his voice going softer as he swiped his palm down his face and rubbed his chin. “I don’t understand why you broke up with such a great man, a man you clearly still have feelings for, and a man who still loves you. Why?”