Page 21 of Love on the Rocks
As he was leaving, he said a few rapid-fire words to Maria and she laughed again, snatching the money from my hands. “You, okay.Pame.” And then gestured to the stove.
“Really? You’ll let me use your kitchen?”
“Ne, ne,” she said as she gestured to the countertop and began pulling out my produce, inspecting it while her husband tossed a fish at me. “Yia ton Niko.”
“I’m not cooking for him,” I said, tossing the fish back. That asshole could cook his own fish.
Chapter 9
A week had passed but still Angelos could not get her out of his mind. His fingers tingled with the ghostly memory of her silky skin and hair. The deep green of the summer leaves in the park reminded him of her eyes. And when he slept, he dreamed of her and woke hard and yearning. He had to find her.
- One Week with the Greek
NIKOS
So far, she’d cooked for everyone but me.
Maria had practically let her take over the kitchen, which had astonished me, since Maria never even let Takis help her cook. Since ‘Miss Calista’ had arrived, I came to the taverna every day for lunch before heading back to my practice in the afternoon and every day, there she was, preparing more of her mysterious dishes.
I couldn’t understand why she was still here. One night in that old cottage should have been enough to send her packing, and it had been nearly a week. And what’s more, she looked even more beautiful than the day she’d arrived. It was like she was taunting me.
She was clearly teasing me with her food. She made a point of smirking at me every time she surprised one of the regulars with a new dish.
Today she’d made a big show of setting down a plate of seared scallops and fava bean puree in front of Panos, bending down so I had a full view of her cleavage. My mouth watered, and not just from looking at her food.
“Niko, this is delicious.” He elbowed me, holding his fork in front of my face. “Want a taste?”
“Re malaka, I’m not eating off your fork. Anyway, she made it for you.” I took another forkful of theimam bayildithat Maria had prepared for me and glanced at my watch.
“What time is she coming?” asked Panos. The “she” he was referring to was an American archaeologist named Diana Russo. She’d written to me yesterday because she’d come across a copy of my grandfather’s book in a used bookstore in Thessaloniki and was intrigued by the photo of his “treasure”—a half-broken drinking vessel with an etching of three women swimming with a dolphin. My grandfather had found it when he was a kid, playing near the grotto in Orpheus’s Cove. He’d always maintained that it was Minoan though he’d never tried to have it authenticated. It had been displayed prominently on his bookshelves as long as I could remember.
If it turned out that it was of archaeological interest, it could be exactly what we needed to delay Greystone’s resort indefinitely. My eyes shifted to Callie and it was my turn to smirk. But then the joke was on me because I couldn’t look away from her.
I found her completely mesmerizing. She’d changed slightly since she’d been here, ditching her body-hugging dresses for a more bohemian style. Her hair was no longer perfectly coiffed but tied up in a chiffon scarf with loose wavy tendrils framing her face. She had abandoned the red lipstick—shewasn’t wearing any makeup at all, but her skin was glowing, and her cheeks were flushed from running back and forth to the kitchen. Today, she wore flared pants with a billowy blouse with a cinched waist and a deep plunging neckline that revealed tempting glimpses of creamy skin and clung to her full breasts. And her shoes—well, they were as unsuitable as always—a pair of burgundy leather boots with boxy heels.
She looked like the lead singer of a classic rock band, which gave me an idea for another way to annoy her. It was my duty and principal goal, after all. I nodded at Panos’s guitar. “Pass me that, will you?”
As soon as I started strumming the first chords of The Doors’s “People Are Strange” her head jerked my way, and she leveled a razor-sharp glare at me. I grinned back. It was so easy to torture her. And I loved doing it—I’d started to memorize all her micro gestures of annoyance, how she flicked her hair, the way her plump lips flattened into a line, the blush that crept up from her chest to her neck, the slight tic in her left eye.
She made a few more trips between the kitchen and the dining room while I played more ’70s rock hits for her. I could tell I was getting under her skin. As she passed by carrying dessert plates, our eyes met again.
I stopped strumming and asked, “Any requests?”
“Let me think about it,” she answered, setting a plate with some sort of chocolate confection in front of Panos. Flashing me a saccharine grin, she said, “How about ‘You’re so Vain’?”
The corner of my mouth turned up. “Don’t know that one by heart.”
Then, in a moment of inspiration, it came to me. I started strumming the first notes of Fleetwood Mac’s “Gypsy,” and she turned around slowly and crossed her arms, giving me another unforgettable view of valley between her breasts.
“Son of a . . . how did you know?”
“That you were a Stevie Nicks fan?” My eyes ran over her outfit. “Wild guess.”
“Well, I suppose when you’re in your line of work, being able to read people is a requirement.”
“And what line of work would that be?”
“Oh, you know, small-time espionage. Prevarication.”
