AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Except her stomach didn’t growl; it was lower down that she ached. And though she was all wound up from their row, and all churned up at being sent away, thoughts of Costa still brought in new feelings.
Her breasts hurt. Perhaps it was her new Pill, but they felt heavy, and her nipples stung as if they were crying out to be pinched, and her body was all tight and restless.
And on top of allthatshe was sad.
It wasn’t just Costa she adored, but Yolanda too. And her party had come to matter to Mary. Now she was about to be put on the next chopper out, and she would never know how Costa had achieved all his business successes, or find out how the party went, or meet poor Roula...
Mary was frantic for some sort of omniscient debriefing, with pie charts and an analysis to fill in all the gaps when it came to this man.
Mary couldn’t sleep. She just lay there, wide awake, for hours. And it wasn’t just the row, or the fact that she was leaving tomorrow, or the million other reasons that kept her from rest...
She unzipped her bag and took out the little fridge magnet and, as she had on so many nights in a new and unfamiliar place, she decided it needed to be on the fridge.
Except, for all the luxury of her guest suite there was no fridge.
But then, why would there be, when there was natural spring water in a stone jug by the bed and bountiful supplies outside in the kitchen? And there was a fleet of staff a mere phone call away to cater to her every last whim.
Mary cast her eyes around for anything metal that would suffice for tonight, but there was nothing.
‘Oh, Mum,’ Mary whispered, ‘what have I done?’
She waited for the inexplicable comfort of her mum’s gentle smile and the comfort she needed. But for some reason it didn’t come. Possibly her mum was cross at her daughter’s wayward venture. Or maybe she just preferred to be surveying things from a fridge!
And so Mary lay there in the bed. It wasn’t that she was afraid to get up, even though she knew Costa was angry. She’d felt no fear, even when they’d fought.
She was just sad that she was being sent away in the morning, and it was torture recalling the feel of his body pressed to hers and the bliss of his deep kiss...and knowing she would never have it again.
Hearing movement, she sat up. There was the sound of windows and doors being closed and then the little glass window above her door went dark and she realised the lights were all off. There was some more movement as, better late than never, Costa Leventis took his grumpy self to bed.
She waited a full fifteen minutes and then wrapped a towel around her and stepped out quietly, determined to get her magnet safely in place on the fridge in the kitchen and to have it down again by dawn.
‘Oh!’ Mary exclaimed when she passed a large sofa and saw that Costa was half sitting and half stretched out there, with his hands behind his head.
He hadn’t been closing the doors; he’d been opening them up, she realised, as a gentle breeze dusted her skin and the salty scent of the ocean reached her. It was almost as if they were outside.
‘I thought you’d gone to bed.’
Costa, who felt not a single need to justify his movements to her, barely glanced up as she padded past towards his kitchen.
Deliberately so.
Mary Jones would not manipulate him.
Except he could see her in his peripheral vision, and when he briefly closed his eyes he saw only the image of her gliding past him again and again.
‘I won’t disturb you,’ Mary said, even as she did just that.
She was at the fridge now and, unlike Costa, clearly felt the need to justify her every movement and share her every random thought.
‘I’m just putting my magnet up.’
‘Help yourself,’ Costa said.
‘It goes everywhere with me. I can’t sleep otherwise.’
He said nothing to her rather odd statement, even if he was a little curious. Costa could stonewall better than most and simply refused to engage. It was possibly safer.
But though he continued to gaze out to the yachts beyond, and the incredible night sky, still the image of her slender frame moving past him played over in his mind. Like a little ethereal being, she was so pale, and she had made no real noise as she’d slipped out of the guest room and glided by.
