Dani Collins - Xenakis's Convenient Bride

“I’ll have to start over with the moussaka tomorrow, but no sense letting this go to waste,” she had said.

She was acting compassionate when he had only ever seen grief in his mother and sisters and that well-deserved censure from his grandfather.

Yet, since that day on the spit, he hadn’t been dwelling on the accident so much as how his grandfather had yanked them off this island and sold the house immediately after the accident. He had changed their names and refused to hear Greek under his roof, denying Stavros this connection to his roots. To his memories of a happy childhood.

“Keep the keys for the Vespa,” Calli had told Stavros when he finished up that evening. “If I need it, I’ll let you know.”

Her generosity had been hard to assimilate against the criticism that had dominated his life for nearly two decades. He had taken the keys, but turned from her kindness like it was too hot, too bright.

He had worked half days on the weekend, spending the afternoons reacquainting with the island, allowing himself to remember more than his fatal mistake, all the while trying not to wish her curves were spooned against his back. He didn’t need a woman cuddling him through this. He had to face it alone.

He had come to a decision among the seared hills and unforgiving water. He wasn’t a boy any longer and his grandfather would no longer be his master. He would buy back his former home, if only to have somewhere to go when his grandfather made good on his promise to cut him off.

The decision eased the turmoil in him, put a fire in his belly. Put him in a conquering mood as he eyed the woman who moved with such unconscious grace. Her loose hair swung as she set the plate of triangular pastries on the low table next to the lounger. Her peach-colored shorts hugged her perfect ass and her breasts moved freely under her sleeveless pink top. The tails of the shirt were knotted above her navel, exposing a strip of skin he instantly wanted to touch. Taste.

He wanted her, wanted to lose himself in her. He wanted to imprint himself on her as if he could imprint himself on this island with the action. As if he could become the man he should have been by conquering her.

While she wanted to stroke his hair and say, “There, there.”

He moved to the sink in the wet bar and washed his hands, shaking them dry as he said, “Quit feeling sorry for me.”

She blinked. “I don’t.”

“What are you out here for, then?”

“I thought you might be hungry.”

“I am.” He advanced on her, watching her eyes widen. “But not for food.” A small lie. He was starving and broke after using the wages he had been given last Friday to pay her back for the stitches. “No appetite for charity, either.”

* * *

Calli scented danger, but held her ground.

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