Kelly Hunter - Paradise Nights - Taken by the Bad Boy

The kid shrugged. ‘She might.’

‘Why not ask Nico to talk to her? He knows you. Hell, he knows you and your aunt.’ And all the politics involved. ‘I’m assuming it’s Nico’s boat you want to work on?’

The kid nodded. ‘She won’t listen to Nico. All she does is fight with him.’

He’d noticed.

‘But you … you got no percentage either way.’

‘Exactly.’

‘She’d listen to you without getting angry about other stuff.’

Pete ran a hand around the back of his neck and looked to the sky for inspiration. The boy reminded him of his younger brother just after their mother’s death. He had that same mix of defiance and vulnerability about him and it got to him, caught at him, and tugged at memories best forgotten. ‘The way I figure it, you still have a few years of schooling left before you can leave. The way I figure it, going to school is non-negotiable.’

The boy’s scowl deepened.

‘Doesn’t mean you can’t try and strike some sort of deal with your aunt when it comes to your free time though. A kid like you knows how to deal, right?’

‘Maybe.’

‘So you tell her you’ll go to school next week—no nicking off at lunchtime to meet the boats—if she’ll let you work for Nico next weekend. If he’ll have you. You tell your aunt you haven’t talked to Nico about it yet, got it? Maybe you’ll save him some grief.’

‘Got it,’ said the boy.

‘On the other hand, Nico can probably fend for himself so don’t sweat it if she does skip straight to thinking this was his idea. He might enjoy telling her it wasn’t.’ There, he’d done as much as he could for both Nico and the boy. Got way more involved than he ever intended to.

‘Yeah, well …’ The boy looked away. ‘Thanks.’

‘No problem.’

Pete watched as the boy lit off down the hillside towards the village, half sliding, half striding down the rocky track. ‘Hey, kid …’ The boy skidded to a halt and looked back at him wary and waiting and so damn vulnerable it made his heart ache. ‘I’ll be around some, these next few weeks. Let me know how it goes.’

The boy nodded, once, then he was gone.

Pete was three strides away from the bedsit door before he felt Serena’s eyes on him. Two before he spotted her standing just inside the kitchen doorway, half hidden by the fly-screen door. ‘You can come out now,’ he said, cocking his head in her direction. ‘You could have joined us before, come to think of it.’

‘What? And interrupt all your good work? I don’t think so.’ She emerged smiling and unrepentant, a vision of sensuality from the tips of her bare feet, up and over her white gypsy skirt and sleeveless pink stretch top that revealed more creamy skin than it covered, to the glorious tumble of chocolate-coloured curls that fell to her waist. Pete Bennett knew women, lots of women. Beautiful, funny, intelligent women, but not one of them could even come close to the one standing in front of him for undiluted sex appeal and staggering impact on a man’s senses. She sauntered—clearly there was no other word for it— over to a small silver coloured garden tap and started filling the bucket beneath it before sliding him a sideways glance from beneath long, dark lashes. ‘His name’s Sam.’

Pete filed the name away for future reference and regarded the goddess of buckets and sensuality curiously. ‘Where’s his father?’

‘The wording on his birth certificate says “Father: unknown”.’

‘His mother?’

‘She died in an Athens boarding house nearly a year ago of hep C. As far as anyone can gather, the only person looking after her was Sam.’

Rough. Damn rough on a kid. ‘Is the Chloe who came down to the harbour to find him this afternoon his real aunt?’

‘Yeah.’

‘So where was she when her sister got sick?’

‘You sound a touch judgemental.’

‘Feels about right,’ he said mildly. Given the picture she was painting.

‘I do like a man who’s in touch with his feelings.’

‘Let’s not get carried away,’ he said dryly.

Serena turned off the tap, picked up the bucket and strolled towards a cluster of herbs by the kitchen door. ‘Chloe was right here, running the hotel. She hadn’t heard from her sister in over a year and a half.’

‘Close family.’

‘You’re being judgemental again,’ she told him.

‘Uh-huh.’

‘I like that about you.’ A tiny smile played at the edge of her lips. ‘Where was I?’

‘Aunt Chloe.’

‘Oh, yeah. According to Chloe, her sister lit out for Athens some twelve years ago, defiant, disowned, and three months pregnant. She was sixteen. Chloe was thirteen at the time and tried to play peacemaker. She failed. Her parents were unmoveable and her sister didn’t want either Chloe’s pity or the savings she sent her. The family fractured.’

‘How’d the boy end up here?’

‘Chloe’s sister named her next of kin.’ Serena shrugged. ‘Chloe loves Sam, but she can’t handle him. Sam’s carrying a lifetime of rejection and an ocean of resentment around on his shoulders. He’s fiercely independent. Chloe’s fiercely overprotective. She’s determined not to fail him. They clash.’

‘So where does Nico fit into all of this?’

Serena chuckled, her expression lightening as she gave each clump of herbs a drink. ‘Smack bang in the middle; between a boy who desperately needs to feel worthy and a woman he’s crazy in love with.’

Pete shuddered. ‘No wonder he’s gone sailing.’

‘You underestimate my cousin, flyboy. My money’s on Nico claiming them both before summer’s out.’

‘It’s a pretty picture to be sure.’ So was she. ‘Tell me,’ he drawled. ‘What would you have been wearing if this hadn’t been a purely platonic evening meal?’

‘Lipstick for starters.’

She didn’t need it.

‘And probably a dress.’

‘Strappy?’

Definitely.

‘Short?’

‘No. Something demure. Just above the knees. A first-date dress.’

‘What colour?’

‘For you? Blue. So that when you looked at me you’d think of something you already loved. The sky.’

‘Oh, you’re good,’ he said in admiration.

‘Yes, I am.’ Her accompanying grin rammed that particular point home. ‘Now you. If this wasn’t a strictly platonic dinner deal where would you have taken me?’

‘For you?’ He didn’t have to think hard. ‘The Trevi Fountain in Rome. I’d buy you a gelato and give you a bright new penny so you could toss it into the fountain and make a wish. And then we’d walk wherever our feet took us—a sidewalk trattoria or a bustling restaurant— and everyone in the room, myself included, would say a heartfelt prayer of thanks for beautiful sirens in sky-blue dresses.’

‘Oh, you’re very good,’ she said wistfully.

‘Thank you. I aim to please.’

‘I’m sure you do,’ she murmured as she slid the bucket back beneath the tap. ‘You interest me, flyboy, I’ll give you that. There’s just one thing I can’t quite figure out. Something that doesn’t quite fit your carefree and extremely appealing image.’ She smiled archly and sent a shaft of heat straight through him. ‘What you said to Sam … the way you listened to him, helped him … the way you told him to get back to you.’ She turned and headed for the door with a sway to her hips that was truly distracting. ‘It was nice.’

NICE? Nice? Pete Bennett had been called a lot of things by the women who sauntered through his life, but nice had never been one of them. It didn’t feel like a compliment. Okay, so he could, on occasion, be nice. Nothing wrong with that. But what if nice mutated into caring? What if caring morphed into really caring? Then where would he be?