AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She looked around her and breathed in the scented air. ‘It must be a heavenly place to live,’ she told him.
‘Oh, it is,’ he agreed gravely. ‘Indeed, it is.’
And after that the evening seemed to get better and better.
‘You have brothers and sisters?’ he asked.
Jade took a large swallow of wine. ‘No. And you?’
Something indefinable came into his eyes as he shook his head. ‘Just a brother. And a—’ He hesitated, momentarily. ‘Step-sister. But I like big families. And you?’
It was something she had never, ever considered until this moment. Children were somewhere off in a hazy, rosy future which she’d somehow never im- agined happening, not to her. She had never given much thought to children, but tonight she was, and she had the strongest suspicion that he was, too. She remembered their eyes meeting over the head of the tousle-haired toddler, of that spark which had flown between the two of them; a spark born out of mutual need and understanding. But what on earth was she admitting to? That she wanted to stay here and have his children? To live on a Greek island with one of its inhabitants? She, who had always been so ambitious, so determined to succeed?
Yes, yes, yes!
‘What’s the matter?’ He interrupted her silence. ’You don’t approve of big families?’
As the truth dawned on her, it felt like coming home. ‘Oh, no—I absolutely love them!’
He smiled, his eyes gently sweeping over her shining eyes, her dazzling smile. ‘I’m glad,’ he said softly.
Never had a meal seemed to take so long; Jade had no appetite for it. She remembered having odd dates where the meal had assumed the greatest im- portance because the man she was out with had seemed so dull. And yet tonight—delicious as the barbouni smelt, and however sweet and succulent its flesh, she couldn’t wait to be away from here, to be some place alone with Constantine, to taste the delights of his lips, discover the safety of his arms.
At last they were away and walking back down the dusty road, until they reached her cottage. He hadn’t tried to kiss her, not once, and when they stood outside her door Jade turned to him in confusion.
He nodded as he read her eyes. ‘Not tonight, agape mou.’ And then he said something in Greek softly beneath his breath.
‘What did you just say?’
He gave a soft laugh. ‘Epikindhinos. It means dangerous. Just like you. There is danger in the witchy slant of your eyes, in the pale waterfall of your hair. And the dangers that lie within those dark red lips, and all the secret places of your body—ah! They are too manifold even to dare to imagine!’
Jade found herself laughing at his extravagance; somehow he had turned the tension into humour, and she found herself admiring him for it. The first man who hadn’t tried to leap on her on a first date. Typical that it should be the only one she’d ever wanted to!
He picked up her hand and carried it to his lips, placed a fleeting kiss there. ‘We shall spend the day together tomorrow.’
‘Doing what?’
There was a fleetingly ruthless smile. ‘Doing our best not to make love. Being—circumspect. That is what we must do. And now, my golden-haired angel—go and sleep. Dream of me until I arrive tomorrow morning.’
Not surprisingly, she did dream of him, and wonderful dreams they were, too—but the reality of the real man who arrived the following morning at eight o’clock far outshone the dream version.
He spent three days doing exactly what he had said he would do—being circumspect.
Jade was flattered; and frustrated.
She knew how much he wanted her, and how much she ached just to have him kiss her, but he didn’t.
Instead, he took her snorkelling, took her round the island on the back of his motorcycle. They swam and they picnicked. He taught her elementary Greek and backgammon—he beat her—and she taught him some very corny jokes and Scrabble—she beat him. She never met a member of his family, and he seemed as reluctant to discuss his ‘other’ life as she was, and Jade found it very easy to simply put her London life into a compartment of her mind, and forget all about it.
For those three days they were together from early morning until midnight, and it was as though no world existed for them bar the island. There was no past; the future they did not dare to touch upon; instead there was just the glorious and golden present.
And then her last day arrived. They spent a morning snorkelling off a beach which was almost deserted, lunching again in the small restaurant which had become their regular haunt and where Kris, the owner, spent the whole time virtually bowing to Constantine.
He seemed terribly well respected, thought Jade, as she accepted the metaliko nero—mineral water— he handed her.
But as the day wore on, they both grew notice- ably quieter and eventually he took her back to the cottage.
‘Where shall we eat tonight?’
