Page 56 of Below Deck Billionaire
Gesturing to the waiter, Dimitri said, ‘Another, please.’
‘Dimitri,’ Helena chided.
‘Just one more,’ he coaxed, shooting his wife a smile.
Rolling her eyes, she said, ‘One more. Or you’ll be asleep in your supper.’
He laughed heartily as he winked at Theo. ‘Never get old, Theo.’ He waved the waiter over. ‘It is a terrible thing.’
Considering Dimitri was relatively spry, he didn’t look too heartbroken as their glasses were topped up and they all clinked again, knocking back the second shot with another round of, ‘Yamas.’
‘Theo!’
Tiffany looked over her shoulder to find a man maybe ten years older than Theo approaching. He was tall and distinguished with elegant grey wings in his hair.
‘Vasilis!’ Theo smiled and rose from his seat and the two men hugged affectionately as they spoke in rapid-fire Greek Tiffany had no hope of picking up, before he performed the introductions, switching to English for her benefit.
‘And this is Tiffany.’
‘Tiffany.’ Vasilis, an old friend of Theo’s who apparently lived on Mykonos and was into real estate, glanced speculatively from her to him, back to her again, his gaze not missing the ring on her finger as he bowed over her hand. ‘Where has he been hiding you?’ he asked in accented English.
She smiled. ‘On his superyacht.’ Everyone laughed, but hey, it was kinda true.
‘Is Deidre here?’ Theo asked.
‘Of course.’ He pointed to a table closer to the back where a stunning woman in red chatted to two adorable girls who looked about five or six, with chocolate curls and matching floral sundresses. ‘The twins are here too.’
‘Gosh, they’ve grown,’ Theo remarked.
‘Time flies, my friend,’ he said, slinging an arm around Theo’s shoulders.
‘This is just what I was telling him,’ Dimitri murmured.
Vasilis opened his mouth as if to agree but stopped as the musicians started a new song, and he grinned instead. ‘Tiffany.’ He smiled at her. ‘This is your lucky day. Nobody dances the Sirtaki like me. Theo’ – he pronounced it with its full Greek inflection, the way Dimitri and Helena had done the last couple of days – ‘tell her how well I dance.’
Theo laughed. ‘You used to, back before you had grey hair and two little girls.’
‘Some things you don’t forget.’ He held out his hand. ‘Come.’ He winked at her. ‘Dance with me.’
‘Oh.’ Tiffany shook her head. She could shake her booty in a night club as well as the next person, but folk dancing was not her thing. ‘I don’t know…’
He waved away her objections. ‘It’s the Zorba song, everyone knows that dance.’
Tuning into the music, Tiffany realised she did recognise the tune, the slow and repetitive opening notes warbling from the bouzouki the soundtrack to so many Greek movies and television she’d watched over the years.
‘Follow my lead,’ he said with a wink.
Laughing, Tiffany let him tug her onto the empty dance floor. She could see people turning in their chairs to watch but was only conscious of Theo’s gaze as she stood beside Vasilis, one arm straddling his shoulders, the other raised out to her side as she shifted her weight from one foot to the other, travelling a few steps one way, then back again as she followed his lead.
Theo’s gaze followed her and she felt… sexy as the tempo of the song slowly picked up. Another expensive kaftan-style dress shifted and moved with her body, floating and skimming as she pushed her hair behind her ears to expose gold hoops swinging against the side of her neck.
Other people joined them, her arm straddling someone else’s shoulder on the other side as a line formed and then when it didn’t fit on the dance floor, it morphed into a circle, the music getting faster and faster. She laughed up at Vasilis as she fumbled the steps trying to keep up but all the time, acutely aware of Theo. Watching her.
His intense gaze a brand on her flesh that thrilled and titillated.
Then suddenly he was there, squeezing into the circle beside her, his hand sliding to her opposite shoulder, her hand sliding to his nape, instantly falling in with the tempo, smiling down at her as she smiled up at him and her heart fluttered madly, and not from exertion.
Vasilis’s wife joined them too, their twin girls spinning around in the middle of the circle as the music reached its crescendo and stopped dramatically to claps and cheers. Without conscious thought, Tiffany collapsed laughing into Theo’s arms, energised and caught up in the joy and the spirit in the taverna.
