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were somebody else. One of her clients, maybe. One of those rich, confident women who breezed into the salon and seemed to smile for no reason at all. Who studied their phones with expressions of pleasure, not dread. She stared down at the dish of shiny olives and wondered if it would be wise to eat one before deciding to err on the side of caution because black teeth were never a good look, except maybe at Halloween.
Instead she sat back and luxuriated in the fact that for the first time since she’d been on Paramenios, she actually felt as if she were on holiday.
Leon had driven her all the way round the tiny island, past postcard images of sleepy white villages with purple bougainvillea scrambling around bright blue doors. She’d marvelled at crystalline turquoise waters fringed with unexpected greenery and the soar of distant mountains. They’d skirted tiny shops bursting with trays of ripe, plump peaches, and seen lines of drying octopi, which stretched in front of the dancing sea. Yet all the time she had been acutely aware of the Greek’s hard body as she clung to his waist. Had found herself grateful that her pillion position gave her a legitimate excuse to wrap her arms around him and feel all that hard muscle rippling beneath his black T-shirt. Which came as a bit of a shock to someone who wasn’t remotely tactile. Who found it hard not to recoil if someone touched her. The truth was that she’d never met a man she considered irresistible.
But Leon Kanonidou was another matter...
And now, sitting opposite him sipping a delicious drink he’d told her was made from almonds and cinnamon, she luxuriated in the sensation of being happy in her own skin. Until she remembered Pansy, miserable and scared in her prison cell in England, and a shiver of guilt ran down her spine.
Aware that Leon was regarding her expectantly as if awaiting a reply to his question, she dragged her thoughts back to the present. ‘I love it,’ she said. ‘It’s the prettiest restaurant I’ve ever seen.’
‘And does it make up for the coach trip to see the vases?’
‘Oh, I think you could definitely say that. Not an ugly vase in sight.’
He smiled, lifting his fingertips to summon a waiter, but the proprietor himself came scurrying over, nodding his head intently while the order was given in Greek.
Once the man had departed, Leon leaned back in his chair. ‘I’ve ordered fish. I hope you like it. It’s the only thing on the menu.’
She hesitated, aware that so far he had made all the decisions and although she was quite enjoying somebody else being in charge for a change, maybe it was time she asserted herself. She looked at him with challenge in her eyes. ‘What would you say if I said I hated it?’
‘I’d say you’d never eaten fresh fish which had been hauled out of the water just a few hours before and then thrown on a fire scented with herbs fresh from the mountainside, so that the flesh is as soft as butter melting in your mouth.’
His voice was caressing now and Marnie was suddenly aware of the weight of her hair as it fell over her breasts and the sweet, tight tug of her nipples. And suddenly Pansy was forgotten. Everything was forgotten except for the way he was looking at her and making her feel. Was that why she blurted out her next words, which afterwards would make her cringe for being so unbelievably naïve? ‘You make everything sound so...’
‘So?’
His gaze pierced through her like a blue sword aimed straight at her heart. Marnie wanted to say romantic, but suspected that wasn’t the right word. Because romance was soft, wasn’t it? And there was nothing soft about this man, no matter how silken his question. There was something hard and invulnerable about him—something which attracted yet cautioned her at the same time. She wanted him to kiss her, she realised. She wanted it in a way which was inexplicable—yet she didn’t know a thing about him. She smiled up at the proprietor as a delicious-looking platter of sizzling fish was deposited on the table, alongside a bowl of Greek salad and two plates.
‘Why don’t you tell me something about yourself?’ she said, her years as a hairdresser reminding her that people liked nothing better than to talk about themselves.
‘Ohi.’ He shook his head, tendrils of dark hair moving sinuously against the olive glow of his skin. ‘I’m far more interested in you, Marnie Porter. Who you are and how you came to be here.’
She felt a sudden rush of nerves, though she kept her face impassive—the result of years of knowing that social workers would be studying your expression and trying to work out what you were really thinking. But Marnie didn’t want to talk about her past, which had been rubbish. She didn’t want to consider the equally scary future either, with all the worrying possibilities which lay ahead. She just wanted this. Now. Whatever this was. So she stalled. She was an old hand at stalling. ‘What exactly do you want to know?’
‘You’re English?’
‘Yes, I am. From London. Well, Acton.’
‘Act On,’ he repeated, making it sound like two words instead of one. ‘I know London very well but I don’t think I’ve heard of Act On.’
‘There’s no reason why you should—it’s hardly in the buzzing epicentre of the city, though there is a transport museum, which is very popular with schoolboys.’
‘But not with you, I think?’
‘No. Not with me.’
He smiled as a waiter slid a sizzling fish onto each of their plates, before raising his dark eyebrows at her. ‘And this is your first time in Greece?’
She nodded. ‘It is.’
‘Where are you staying?’
‘You don’t think I could be staying where you found me?’ she questioned innocently. ‘At the Paradeisos? Don’t I look like their usual type of client?’
There was a pause. ‘If you want the truth, then no.’
Marnie stiffened because this was familiar territory. Who could blame her for being defensive when she’d been considered second-best for most of her life? Being second-best was the reason she’d worn hand-me-down clothes and shoes. And why she’d been stuck in the homes of people who didn’t really want her, or her sister. ‘Too trashy, I suppose?’ she demanded hotly.
