Page 36 of The Island Villa

“Maria has made a wonderful meal. She’s made your favorite spanakopita, Cassie, and that lamb dish with herbs, and—”

“Stop!” Cassie was grinning as she scooped up Ajax and kissed him on the head. “Enough talk about flights and food. Where is he? Your new man! I am dying to meet him. Adeline is too. The suspense has been killing us.”

“He’ll be joining us soon.”

Catherine glanced at Adeline and saw nothing more than a polite smile.

If she was feeling even a flicker of interest or anticipation, then it was well concealed.

How could she, the most emotional of creatures, have produced a child who was so calm and unemotional? Even as a child, Adeline had been more like her father. Thoughtful. Quiet. Happy in her own company. And then there was Cassie, who was so like Catherine it was unsettling to watch. She was impulsive, and romantic, and big hearted—all traits that made her vulnerable to making all the same mistakes as her mother.

The thought made her cold.

“Tell us about your wedding plans.” Cassie put Ajax down and stroked him behind the ears. “How many people?”

“Just us, and Daphne is flying in from New York. And Maria, of course. Oh, and Stefanos.”

Cassie straightened. “Stefanos? I thought he lived in Toronto?”

“He did. He worked in tech—I don’t know exactly what he did, but it was a good job. Flew all over the world. But he gave it up when his father died, and he came home.”

“And he stayed? Why?” Cassie was ever-curious. She’d been the same as a child. Why, why, why. Another way in which she resembled her mother, although Catherine couldn’t complain. That particular trait had enabled her to craft sixty novels.

“He wanted to be here for his family.” And she knew Maria worried about him, but was it even possible to be a mother without worry? It seemed to her that children were born, along with a lifetime of anxiety. The worry didn’t go away as the child grew; it simply changed. First, there were the baby worries—is he sleeping? Is he eating?—then the toddler worries—don’t fall in the pool, don’t run across the road—and the teenage worries—don’t take drugs, don’t risk your life doing things your teenage brain tells you is safe but is demonstrably unsafe.

Catherine had often wondered whether she would have had children if she’d known in advance how fierce the anxiety would be.

Adeline spoke finally. “He’s living at home now?”

“Goodness no. He bought a plot of land up the coast. He’s been renovating a villa up there over the winter. It was crumbling away, but not anymore. And he has been building up his father’s boat business, which is useful. He’s promised to take a look at our boat, which has been misbehaving.” Catherine wasn’t really thinking about Stefanos. Her mouth was forming words, but she was thinking about Andrew, and how the whole atmosphere was going to change once he arrived. How their lives were going to change.

She felt apprehensive, but also excited.

She was making a fresh start, and she wanted to make that start right now. She didn’t want to wait a moment longer, and she didn’t have to because she heard the sound of footsteps on the path and then Andrew appeared looking relaxed, and familiar and so handsome (why was it that strands of silver hair made a man look distinguished and attractive, and not simply old? Life was so unjust) that it took her breath away. Her heart flipped and she thought that although life could be unjust, it could also sometimes be miraculous.

She probably didn’t deserve this, but she was going to take her good fortune anyway and hold it close.

“Here he is! I know this will be a surprise, girls, but I hope it’s a good one.” Feeling as nervous as a teenager introducing her date to her parents for the first time (although she had to imagine how that might have felt, because her parents had never been interested in any part of her life), she walked to his side and took his hand.

She braced herself for an explosion of joy and delight, and instead encountered a stunned silence.

She looked at Cassie first. Cassie, who could always be relied on to be smiling, enthusiastic and supportive in all things.

Cassie wasn’t smiling. Her eyes were two wide pools of blue, her mouth a soundless circle as she tried to speak but failed to produce any words.

It was Adeline who eventually broke that silence, but only after taking several large gulps of air.

“Dad?” Her tone hovered somewhere between disbelief and incredulity. “What are you doing here?”

10

Adeline

Adeline was hit by a wave of dizziness. The heat pressed down on her and the atmosphere felt suddenly oppressive and airless.

Her father?

Here in Greece?

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