Page 104 of Never Too Late to Date

He’d got her smiling again.

Just as she gave him a playful punch on the arm, she saw Giannis’s car pass them and turn up the drive to Panos’s place. Oh great, now her son would think she’d intended to come with Christian all along, and they were in it together somehow, especially as he knew about the boat trip.

‘That was Gianni. Let’s go. The gang’s all here.’

Maybe she could ask Christian to get out at the bottom of the drive. Although she had a pretty good idea what his answer would be.

She paused the car at the entrance to the farm and observed his eyebrows go virtually up to the top of his head at the suggestion that he be dropped off.

‘Don’t be ridiculous, Suze. He knows we were together in the car. I’ll explain what happened if it means that much to you.’

Exactly what she’d expected from him. She put her foot down, throwing him back against the seat.

‘Whoa. Easy, tiger.’

‘I just want to get this over with.’

‘Me too. But I’d prefer it if we were both still in one piece.’

He’d always been rude about her driving. Ironically, Christian had been the one who’d taught her to drive at seventeen, and, to be fair, although she wasn’t in the mood to be fair, he’d been an unexpectedly patient teacher. He’d stepped in because she and her dad had rowed every time she’d even stepped into a car, let alone attempted to drive it.

Scraping her dad’s precious Rover along the wall of their garage hadn’t helped. The swearing had brought her mum and a couple of the neighbours out on onto the street. What she wouldn’t give to have a conversation with her dad now, even if it were just a row.

Suzie skidded to a halt in front of the farmhouse and pulled up the handbrake with what even she could see was unnecessary force. Thinking about her dad and what he’d meant to her, the way he’d been at her side for every moment of her childhood, past the troubled teenage years to adulthood and beyond, brought tears to her eyes.

Had she denied the man next to her the greatest gift that she could have given him? Being a proper father to his own son? He’d freely admitted that parenthood wasn’t on the agenda for him back then, but who was she to play God?

The reality of the situation hit her anew. It had been fine when he was just an old boyfriend, firmly consigned to the past, and nothing to do with her carefully constructed life in Greece. An old boyfriend, forever fixed in her mind as a young man, and safely thousands of miles away in another country.

But now the not-quite-so-young-man was here, on her island, appearing round corners, shocking her at every turn, the spitting image of the son they’d made together, out of love. She’d set the whole sequence of events in motion by accepting the tour, but where would it end?

A hand pulled hers gently off the handbrake.

‘Are you OK?’

The warmth in his voice gave her strength.

‘Yep, let’s do this.’

Chapter Twenty-Four

Suzie deliberately lagged a few steps behind Christian as he walked towards the familiar table under the pergola where Panos, Giannis and Lydia were waiting.

As they got closer, she could see it was all set for a big breakfast. It was the Greek way in stressful times, or indeed most times, to prepare a feast. There were plates of pastries as well as bread, cheeses, olives, different types of fruit and yoghurt and a big bowl of strapatsada, the popular mix of scrambled eggs with feta and tomatoes, which she was sure was homemade by Lydia rather than hastily grabbed from a shop.

Panos held out his arms towards them both.

‘Welcome. Welcome. Did you travel together?’

‘No!’

Suzie’s voice was loud enough for all of them to take a step back. She needed to get a grip.

Christian recovered first and reached forward to shake Panos’s hand.

‘No, we didn’t. She picked up this reprobate at the entrance. Hello, I am Christian. Pleased to meet you, or héro polí as I think you say. I hope I’ve got it right.’

The smile that accompanied his words was totally convincing. Christian had always had bucketfuls of charm, she couldn’t deny it. It was his reliability that she’d had cause to question, not his ability to make people like him.