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11
Despite the day on the boat, the sun, and the alcohol, Angela once again woke before dawn. She got ready quietly, so she didn’t wake Sienna. The sun was just rising above the ridge as she closed the blue gate and headed to the Fira trail. The café was her destination, no detours, no sightseeing today.
Last night’s conversation with Sienna occupied her thoughts. Though it wasn’t necessary, she appreciated her daughter’s apology. It was nice to know that Sienna had no ulterior motive for turning her down yesterday. Her daughter had never explained her actions before, at least not to Angela. She wanted to be the confidante Sienna had never allowed her to be, but she accepted she had a long way to go to make up for all the distance between them.
At the café, the same table was available, and she relished the view of the blue Aegean, the red bougainvillea hanging overhead. With only half the tables filled, the waitress attended to her almost immediately, bringing her the same café au lait she’d ordered yesterday. “Would you like bougatsa?”
“Absolutely.” Having the young woman recognize her made her feel like a regular, the way she’d been with Xandros.
There were other regulars, the man behind his newspaper, the photographer. She sipped the sweet coffee brew, inhaling its scent, tripping once more down memory lane.
Xandros would have left Santorini years ago, when he tired of being a tour guide. Just the way she was sure the young man captaining the catamaran today would eventually leave. He’d reminded her of Xandros at that age, the curly black hair, the aquiline nose, the Mediterranean complexion deepened by the sun.
That’s what she wanted from this trip, to remember how she felt, to remember how good they’d been together, even if it had been only three weeks.
She wasn’t stupid, even though her mother thought she was. She’d long since outgrown that pregnant young woman’s fantasies, wanting to believe he’d welcome her and her baby. He wouldn’t have wanted to be tied down by a child he’d known nothing about. He would have moved on to better things. Maybe he was a businessman in Athens now. He would have married and had children.
And she would be a distant memory, if he even thought of her at all.
Her mother was right.
But she was wrong about Donald. Donald wanted a pretty doll he could dress up and impress people with. He’d picked out her clothes, told her what to wear, sent her down to the salon to get her hair and makeup done. But he’d never loved her.
He was relentless, always telling her what to say, how to act, how to make an impression that looked good on him. He might have gone on like that for years. And she might have been fine because the children made up for everything.
Until the truth came out with Sienna’s accident.
The most chilling thing was that he’d only mentioned it once. I know what you did. His threats were oblique. You wouldn’t want the children to know what you’re really like. He relentlessly turned them against her. Everything Sienna wanted to do, he refused, saying Mother wouldn’t allow it. Every time he went off with Matthew in tow, he told her son that his mother couldn’t be bothered. And there was nothing Angela could do about it. The threat hung over her, that he would tell the children the truth. And she’d lived knowing that he would make sure they hated her for what she’d done.
But that wasn’t the trip down memory lane she wanted to take now.
Her bougatsa arrived, and she relished the flaky pastry, the sugary sweetness of the custard and the powdered sugar making her taste bugs twang. Her marriage was done, that part of her life over. Now she wanted to indulge in memories of her three weeks with Xandros, the touch of his hands on her, the taste of his lips, the feel of his hair beneath her fingertips.
When she raised her cup to soften the sweetness of the cream with the delicious bite of coffee, she noticed the man had lowered his newspaper and was looking at her.
A little older than her, he was still extremely attractive, his black hair salted with silver, his mustache thick, his face a little weather-beaten as if he spent much of his time outdoors.
She imagined this was the kind of man Xandros would have become.
He stood then, a tall man, maybe close to Xandros’s six foot three. Folding his paper, he laid it on the table and reached in the pocket of his cargo shorts for some coins to throw down. His trim, muscular body spoke of hard physical work, his calves corded as if he did a lot of walking or hiking. His chest was broad and his stomach flat beneath his T-shirt.
This man could have worked a fishing boat, or hauled rocks up the steep slopes to make the paths and stairways that allowed tourists to walk so easily in Santorini villages.
When he looked at her again, she turned away, not wanting him to catch her ogling.
The waitress breezed onto the terrace again, calling out to him in Greek. He replied in a deep, toe-tingling voice. It had been a long time since she’d felt the magic of a man’s attention, and it was natural that she’d be so aware of a handsome man who reminded her of Xandros.
She sipped her coffee, dipping her index finger in the crumbs of flaky pastry and sugar and licking it off. Then a shadow fell across her table, and she looked up.
The sun behind him created a corona around his head as he spoke in a rich, seductive voice. “I believe you’re thirty years late, Angelika.”
Her heart stopped, her ears roared, and her hands went numb. Her cup slipped from her fingers, hitting the saucer, and splashing coffee over the table as the cup fell on its side and rolled to the edge, where he deftly caught it.
It couldn’t be him.
But she looked into those penetrating blue eyes and knew this was no lookalike.
This was Xandros, the man who’d occupied every dream she’d had for the last thirty years.
