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Chapter Two
Breathe. He’s only a man, even if he looks like a god.
After the incident in the street, they’d walked through a set of quaint shops where she’d purchased a cheap and cheerful embroidered bag after refusing to let Nico the not-Greek-god pay for an expensive replacement. He’d then suggested a bar down a narrow street filled with pretty white buildings, where they now sat waiting for the bartender to finish serving another customer.
“What should I get?” Marianna squinted at a small menu.
“Have you been to Corfu before?” he asked, and she shook her head. “Ah, well you have to try the tsipouro. It’s strong, but very good here. They make it in-house.”
When the bartender appeared, Nico ordered their drinks. The melodic words rolled off his tongue in a way that mesmerized her. A sexy man speaking a foreign language was pretty much the definition of hot.
“Efharistó,” she said with a smile. Thank you. It was one of the handful of words and phrases she’d memorized in preparation for the trip.
He raised his glass. “Yamas. To your health.”
She repeated the word slowly, testing the feel of it on her tongue, before touching her glass to his. She raised the glass to her lips and took a sip, sending herself immediately into a coughing fit.
“What the hell is this made from?” She sucked in a breath, the strong alcohol hitting her hard. “It tastes like paint stripper.”
“It’s made from grapes.” Nico watched her with an amused smirk. “And yes, it’s strong.”
“You don’t say.” She pressed a hand to her chest. “I feel like I’ve been punched in the face.”
“That would be me, remember?”
Marianna cringed. “I wish I could forget.”
“You’re Australian, right?” Nico asked, taking a sip of his drink.
“Good guess.”
“Not a guess,” he said. For some reason, the comment struck her as a little cryptic, but perhaps he recognized the accent. “Are you here with anyone? I saw you walk out of the café with somebody.”
He’d seen her with Daniel? She’d noticed him when she’d first exited the café, but how had he noticed her? Marianna was skilled in many things, but standing out in a crowd was not one of them. Well, except when she made a fool of herself for mistaking someone trying to help her as a pickpocket.
“That was my brother,” she said. “He’s here on business.”
“And you?” He leaned forward slightly, his arrestingly pale eyes glowing against deeply tanned skin and a touch of dark stubble.
“Pleasure.” The word seemed to suck the air from her lungs.
“The best reason for a vacation.” His lips quirked. “You picked a good place.”
Was it her imagination or was she getting some serious vibes from him? What had the romance novels told her? When the male characters were attracted, they seemed to lean toward the heroine. Check. Their eyes often roamed over the woman’s body. Double check. And their voices were often described as gravelly or low or rumbling.
Check, check, freaking check.
“I had heard that Greek men are very beautiful.” She sipped her drink, trying her hardest not to cough this time.
This is it. You’ve got a sexy Greek man drinking with you, bikini is on, and liquid courage is acquired. You’re three for four! All you need now is a venue.
He cocked his head, a lock of dark hair falling over his forehead. “And what’s your assessment? Are you happy with the offerings?”
Her fingers came to the end of her hair, and she rubbed the strands back and forth between her thumb and forefinger. “Yes, very happy.”
His eyes raked over her, hungry and hot. It was like being lit on fire from the inside out, the sensation growing stronger as his gaze lingered on her mouth. And boy oh boy did he look like a god. Seriously. None of the men gracing the digital covers on her ereader even came close to Nico. It occurred to Marianna then that she was way out of her depth.
But what on earth was she supposed to do now? He’d accepted her offer for a drink and was making polite conversation with her. According to her checklist, things were going well.
But phase two of her seduction was to start flirting. That’s the bit she wasn’t so sure about.
Marianna had quite the stable of talents. She could speed-read, knit just about anything and make Instagram-worthy macarons. From scratch.
But this… She swallowed. This was her downfall.
Think, dammit. How do you flirt?
The romance novels were a little less clear on this. Not quite as instructional as she would have liked.
So many women complained that men wanted to jump straight into bed without doing the whole “getting to know you” thing first. But Marianna would have given anything to have Nico lean over and whisper “let’s go back to my place” so she could avoid this whole awkward part of her plan.
Maybe she should try and dazzle him with her intellect. Lots of the romance novels had smart kick-butt ladies as the heroines, and Marianna liked to think of herself as an intelligent woman. So maybe it would be best to go with her strengths?
“Do you want to know something interesting?” she asked him.
