Page 100 of The House Swap

With that, she disappeared back inside her villa, the door shutting firmly behind her.

Poppy took that as her cue, getting into the passenger seat.

‘Well, that was awkward,’ she said, as soon as Jem was in the car.

‘Just a little. Sorry about that. I really thought they would be asleep.’

‘It’s okay. Not your fault.’

Briefly, things seemed normal between them, but then Jem reached across the gearstick, placing his warm hand over Poppy’s and squeezing gently, and that was when the moment was broken for her, as she remembered the paperwork she had seen inside his dad’s villa.

She wanted to pull her hand back, but she didn’t. She had to keep up with this charade until she was back at Tom’s villa.

The drive back was quiet. Jem spoke a few times and Poppy did her best to respond normally, not wanting to alert his suspicions, but mostly she focused on the dark glass of the passenger window.

When he pulled up outside the villa, he shut off the engine.

‘You all right?’ he asked.

‘I’m fine.’

He studied her for a moment, a frown on his face. ‘You don’t seem it. Was it seeing Sue?’

‘It was uncomfortable,’ she admitted, ‘But I won’t have to see her again. I’m just tired, is all.’

Jem seemed to accept her excuse. He insisted on walking her to the front door, and the fact she was leaving in a few days hung between them.

‘I’ll see you before you go,’ he told her, reaching out to brush a strand of hair back behind her ear. It was an intimate gesture, much the same as how things had ended after their last dinner, and for a moment Poppy worried he was going to make a move. But he didn’t, stepping away, a half-smile on his face, before he turned and headed back to the car.

She watched him go, suspecting he knew as well as she did that she had no intention of seeing him again. She couldn’t, not now when there were so many questions surrounding him.

Inside the villa, she flipped on the light, trying to make the place look more welcoming, then she closed and locked the door, leaning her back against it.

Jem’s handsome face remained in her mind, as she thought back over the time they had spent together, but this time she wasn’t reminiscing. Instead, she was questioning every moment.

For the first time since they’d met, she realised she didn’t know him at all.

32

Poppy had been avoiding social media since the whole Simon Daley drama had blown up. Even to the point of logging completely out of Facebook, Messenger and Instagram.

Her plan had been to stay off the sites until she returned to England. But finding out that Jem could be related to Simon changed things.

She had told him what had happened to her before she had come to Crete, how Simon had tried to sabotage her career, turning the book world against her, and he had been full of sympathy. But had it all been an act to gain her trust?

As far as she could remember, she hadn’t ever mentioned Simon’s name, though.

Was it possible that even if they were connected, Jem had no idea about what Simon had done?

The cameras, though, and the things being moved in the villa. How did she explain those?

Unless her first instinct had been correct and Martin was behind everything.

It did seem a little coincidental, though, that she had travelled all the way to Crete and was being tormented here, as well as back home, and that the name Daley had cropped up again.

What if they were all in on it together?

The thought occurred to her and she dismissed it just as quickly.