Page 86 of The Island Villa

He was waiting for her as she emerged from the water. “Good?”

“Oh, yes.” She squeezed water from her hair and wiped her face with her hand. “I’ve messed up your plan. Sorry.”

“I didn’t have much of a plan. Bring you here. Eat something.” He shrugged as he handed her the bag. “You can swim for longer if you like.”

“No. We can do that later.” She pulled a towel out of her bag and dried her face. “I want to see your house.”

There was one couple sunbathing at the far end of the beach, but other than that, they had the place to themselves.

She glanced around, drinking in the solitude and the endless blue.

“Why so few people?”

“The water shelves steeply so it’s not great for children. Also there are no tavernas here and no stores. Nowhere to buy yourself a drink or a snack. Tourists usually choose to be a little closer to civilization.” He gestured to a path that climbed steeply upward. “My house is that way. It’s not far. Are you in a rush to get back?”

“No rush. My sister has a work meeting, and my parents are meeting the wedding planner.” She slid her feet into flip-flops but decided to let her costume dry before she put on her wrap.

He waited for her. “Cassie has a job?”

“It turns out that my sister has written a novel. I’ll tell you about it, but I might need caffeine for that.” She shaded her eyes and glanced up the path. “I remember wondering where that led. I can’t believe you live here. Did you have to do a lot of work on the house?”

“A bit. Working on this place kept me occupied during the winter. I stayed with my mother while I did it, so I was able to support her while she adjusted to living life without my father. The renovation was a welcome distraction. There’s something about hard physical work that takes your mind off things.”

“Losing a parent is hard.” She’d been in the water only moments earlier but already her skin was dry and she felt the intensity of the sun beating down. “Sorry, that sounded glib and careless coming from someone who still has both hers.”

“It didn’t sound glib. It’s true. And loss comes in different forms. You lost your mother too, in a way. You certainly lost your sense of security.”

She was surprised that he could see it so clearly.

“That sounds like something Dr. Swift would say.”

He smiled. “She’s pretty smart, that Dr. Swift.” He held out his hand and she took it, feeling the strength of his fingers as he helped her up the steep path.

“She’s only smart with other people’s problems,” Adeline said. “She doesn’t find her own easy to handle. I just wish my parents had told me what was happening, instead of springing it on me like this. I don’t understand why they kept it a secret.”

“I understand your frustration.” He shortened his stride to match hers. “My parents kept things from me too.”

“They did?”

“Yes. It turned out that my father had been ill for a while, but they didn’t tell me. Nor did they tell me that the business was on the verge of failing.”

She paused, breathless in the heat. “They kept all that from you? Why?”

“I don’t know. Pride? My dad’s stubborn determination to fix everything himself? Parental instinct not to worry offspring?” His shrug revealed his frustration. “Your guess is as good as mine. Every week I called home, and every week he told me everything was fine and handed the phone to my mother because small talk wasn’t his thing. As if heart problems and business problems were small talk. Needless to say, once I found out the truth I felt like the worst son on the planet.”

She could feel the pain and the guilt coming off him in waves and her insides ached with sympathy. “You’re blaming yourself for not being a mind reader?”

“For not asking the right questions. For not coming home sooner. If I’d been here, maybe I would have sensed something was wrong. I might have seen what they weren’t telling me. But I was living the busy life I’d created for myself and I saw nothing that they didn’t show me.”

She came across it all the time in her work. Regret.

“You couldn’t possibly have known. And they made a choice, Stefanos. That was what they wanted. They probably thought they were protecting you.” They started walking again, their pace slow but steady.

“Maybe, but if I’d known my father was struggling, I would have come home and helped and maybe things might have taken a different course,” he said. “I was angry—frustrated—that they hadn’t shared what was happening. It was a difficult time.” They’d reached the top of the path and he led her up a set of stone steps that wound through the gardens to the house.

“Parent-child relationships can be complicated.” She knew that better than most.

“I’m an adult.”

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