Twenty-one
Tess’s stomach was filled with a rather rustic white wine and a Greek-style pizza – Kalamata olives, hunks of creamy feta cheese, red onion and tomatoes – that had been as big as an olden-day stagecoach wheel. Now, laying on a lounger on the fine, white stone beach, she was considering a snooze. No amount of prodding at her phone was getting Wi-Fi and Vodafone had texted (how it had got through was anyone’s guess) to tell her her data allowance had been reached and no more would be available until tomorrow unless she wanted to ring a number she was sure was going to cost a month’s wages.
‘Come in the water!’ Sonya called.
Tess opened one eye and looked at her friend some hundred metres away, shoulder deep in azure sea. The outlook was spectacular, ocean still and sparkling, sun high in the sky, small boats coming in and out, the faint sound of Greek music from the beachside tavernas. The recognition of the music reminded her of the previous night. Dancing. In front of a whole restaurant. And that kiss …
‘In a minute,’ she called back to Sonya. And it would be a very long, Greek minute if she got her way.
‘Perhaps a cocktail? Compliments of my friend Yiannis’s taverna.’
At the sound of Andras’s voice, Tess sat up and opened both eyes. There was their boat captain, holding a tray with three delicious-looking drinks filled with ice, straws and neon plastic monkeys clinging to the rims.
She grabbed one and sucked greedily, only pausing to say, ‘We need to talk.’
‘I agree,’ he answered, putting the tray on the small table and dropping on to a vacant lounger. ‘I have a restaurant to run. I cannot be your guide man for the whole of the day.’
‘What?’ Tess said, turning her head. ‘No. You need to tell me exactly why I have to be your fake girlfriend.’
‘Ah.’
‘And, I’m afraid, if the reason isn’t good enough then I’ll have to—’
‘My mother wants me to marry my cousin.’
She put the cocktail glass down quickly, eyes moving back to Andras. He was prostrate, eyes hidden behind aviator sunglasses, arms behind his head, that skin-skimming T-shirt taut across his body and revealing just a hint of the waistband of his jeans.
‘Oh.’ It was all she could manage.
‘It is a good enough reason?’ he asked, turning his head to face her.
‘Well … I didn’t know the Greeks were into arranged marriages.’
A long, low sigh left him. ‘It is not to do with religion. It is mainly to do with my mother.’
‘And you couldn’t just tell her no?’
‘Not unless I want to suffer the same fate as Uncle Dimitri.’
She immediately imagined a stoning or one of those medieval torture racks, with Andras strapped to the wood, squirming under tight rope bindings … naked. She swallowed. No, that wasn’t torture, that was Christian Grey-esque. And she needed to stop this right now. The fact he was right here, practically her boyfriend – so close and yet so far – wasn’t making anything easier.
‘So, you couldn’t have found a nice, easy-to-please Greek girl to … fill the position.’ She cleared her throat as a flush spread up her body.
‘No,’ he answered. ‘My mother knows all the Greek girls and I think that might please her almost as much as marrying my cousin. Plus … He stopped and she found herself leaning a little towards him, eager to hear what was coming next.
‘Yes?’ she asked.
‘For some reason, when I invented the girlfriend … she was English.’
Tess felt her lips form into a smile. ‘Ah ha.’
‘With blonde hair,’ he continued, turning his face towards her.
She couldn’t see his eyes through those mirrored sunglasses. She didn’t like not seeing his eyes, particularly when her heart had started palpitating, reminding her that she hadn’t had sex in a few weeks, which was basically for ever.
‘And blue eyes,’ he finished.
She wet her lips and cleared her throat before making any attempt to reply. ‘And there I was.’
‘Yes,’ he answered. ‘There you were. In my restaurant.’ He smiled. ‘And I knew you were perfect.’
‘Perfect?’ she queried.
‘Yes.’ He nodded. ‘We had already argued. You are wrapped up into your work with the Internet. You would not think this could be anything but a business transaction. A favour for a favour.’
‘Ah, I see,’ Tess said, sitting up a little and elongating her body. ‘You couldn’t pick someone who was going to fall in love with you.’
‘Yes,’ he answered. ‘How did you know?’
‘Well, let me see …’ She tapped her left index finger with her right as she started to count. ‘You’re a Greek waiter …’
‘Restaurant owner,’ he interrupted.
‘Sorry – restaurant owner. This means you’re basically on show to holidaymakers for four months of the year—’
‘It is really about seven months,’ he said. ‘We start at the beginning of April and finish at the end of October.’
‘What I’m trying to say is you must have your fair share of swoony singles trying to get a piece of your meze.’
She watched the corners of his mouth twitch upwards in amusement.
‘Do they tell you they love you?’ Tess carried on. ‘Do they whisper it over the candles, with dewy eyes as you serve up one of those apricot and vanilla cheesecakes? Are there tears at the steps of the transfer bus?’
‘I don’t date—’ he started.
‘Purlease! Don’t give me the “I don’t date customers” line. You’re dating one right now. Me. Your best fake date ever.’
‘I don’t date at all,’ Andras finished.
The short sentence almost made Tess catch her breath. He didn’t date. What did that mean? He wasn’t in a relationship if he needed her, so what else was there apart from dating? Being happily on his own? She shuddered like a keen wind had shattered the wave of heat.
‘What do you mean you don’t date? Are you … a monk?’ Tess asked.
He laughed and shook his head. ‘No.’
She would probably get it more if he had said yes. She swallowed. ‘I don’t understand.’ She blinked, still looking at him. ‘Are you secretly gay?’
He lifted up his sunglasses, revealing those dark eyes. ‘What would that have to do with not dating?’
She didn’t know really. She was clutching at straws. ‘Well, I thought, with your mother keen for you to marry, and you asking me to …’
‘And me not saying the cousin she wanted me to marry was female …’
She nodded. ‘That’s true. Although I’m not sure how that would fit with her Greek traditions.’
He laughed then, loud and hard. ‘No,’ he agreed. ‘And I am not gay, Trix.’ He pulled in a long breath. ‘I just do not date. It is as simple as that.’
Simple? Not dating wasn’t simple. It was crazy. Mad. Unthinkable. And he’d called her Trix. Why had she invented that stupid nickname?
‘But …’ She couldn’t help herself. She had to know. Perhaps this was going to be an insight into how she could stop people from proposing to her after weeks. ‘What about sex?’
Long seconds seemed to pass by and Tess could feel the sun on her skin, each centimetre sizzling as she waited for his response. This time he took the aviators off and put them down on the table. He shifted his body weight, turning onto his side and looking directly at her.
‘I have sex,’ he stated.
The three words all seemed to roll over Tess like a deep tissue massage. She found herself holding her breath.
‘But that is all,’ he answered shortly. ‘Sometimes good sex, other times really, really great sex – you know …’
She was actually considering if she did know, because he was making this no-dating-at-all sex sound like the Big Mac of All Sex. Perhaps this was where she had been going wrong. Thinking that casual dating was casual enough. Andras just had sex. No Italian meal as a prelude. Just sex.
‘There is no confusion. We have sex. We say goodbye. There is no breakfast in the morning or holding hands. Everyone knows where they stand, no?’
He was staring at her and she couldn’t look away. She wanted to have sex with him. In fact, she didn’t think she had ever wanted to have sex with anyone more.
‘Tess,’ he whispered.
‘Uh huh,’ she replied, her stomach revolving with longing.
‘Keep very still.’
She instantly tightened her core, her whole body aching for another one of those kisses …
Then, suddenly, he waved a hand and she screamed as something fat and black took flight from around her midriff area, buzzing its way past her face. She leapt from the sunlounger, hands flapping, feet stamping into the fine stones. She hurriedly shoved them into her shoes.
‘What was it?! What was it?!’
He laughed. ‘It was just a bee.’
‘Oh no,’ Tess began. ‘Bees are yellow and black, small, should be in hives. That thing was black like a … flying beetle.’
‘It is a carpenter bee. They can be a little aggressive.’
‘Really? Well, so can I if it comes near me again.’
He laughed at her again, shaking his head. ‘Please, tonight, you must wear repellent for the insects.’
‘Ah,’ Tess said, brushing sand off her lounger before dropping down onto it again. ‘Well, thank you but Sonya and I are eating at the Durrells’ house tonight, the White House restaurant.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Andras stated. ‘I had a text from Spiro. There is a family dinner. You must come with me.’
‘What? I can’t,’ she exclaimed. ‘I have Sonya to—’
‘She can come too,’ Andras answered.
‘But—’
‘You do not need the Wi-Fi any longer?’ he asked. ‘Or someone to point out the house of the Rothschild family as we sail back?’
He knew she needed Internet connection as much as she needed air to breathe. And she needed this holiday to be perfect for Sonya.
‘And if I come …’ All she could think about was sex. Sex with him. Theoretically, if this sex was as casual as he was implying, she wouldn’t be breaking Sonya’s single rule if she had it, would she? She shook her head, refocused. ‘I want you to take us somewhere tomorrow too. Anywhere Sonya wants to go.’
‘I—’ he began.
‘That’s the deal,’ she said firmly.
‘Then we will find a way,’ he agreed.
‘Tess!’ Sonya called. ‘Come into the water! It’s just so cleansing!’
‘In a minute,’ she called back. She picked up her cocktail and took another sip.
‘She is right,’ Andras said. ‘The water is beautiful.’
Eyes moving right, she watched him strip off his T-shirt then unfasten the buttons of his jeans. Why did the guy talk about sex all the time and have a body to die for? Now, wearing nothing but those small trunks, he stood in front of her.
‘Are you coming?’ he asked.
There went her G-spot.
She rushed out an answer. ‘Soon.’
He nodded. ‘OK. Well, remember: do not forget to take off your shoes.’
Tess looked down the sunlounger to her feet. They were still clad in the gold strappies she had felt the need to slip on when soles met sand to ward off the bee. Dating. Casual sex. Whatever she did, nothing had really changed since that summer day in July last year.
‘I’ll catch you up,’ she replied, sitting back with a sigh.