Big Greek Baby Secret Page 7

  The problem was that once she found out, she likely wouldn’t want anything to do with me. Or, like so many women before her, she’d only want me for my money or my connections. I liked what we had together when I was just Dimitri. Normal, rich guy Dimitri.

  So, I’d pulled out of our hug, bid her goodnight, and walked home. It would be that simple. We’d be two people who’d shared a wonderful day together and parted as friends. It was easier that way. That would be how we said goodbye.

  Rather than walking around the resort and following the main road down to my villa, I decided to cut through the middle. Typically, I avoided the resort. Mostly because of the crowds. But also because I didn’t want the employees getting too used to seeing me around. If they did, they’d start asking questions, and I wanted to lie to as few people as possible.

  I walked between two of the buildings and down a small gravel path to the pool area. Private villas bordered the area around the pool, but all of the blinds were pulled for the night. Maxine and I had stayed out later than I’d thought.

  As I was crossing next to the pool, headed for the beach, a light to my left flicked on. I looked over and saw the light pouring from a wide-open window. Then, like watching an old movie, Maxine entered the screen.

  She wasn’t paying any attention to the window or me beyond it. She grabbed a book from the nightstand next to the bed. A physical book, I noticed with a smile. I wondered what book it was. I hadn’t asked her on the beach what she was currently reading, but now, the idea consumed me. I wanted to know.

  I turned away and walked down to the beach. From there, I followed the path Maxine must have followed her first day on the island. The path that led from the resort pool to my villa. I imagined I was stepping in her prints in the sand, and before I knew it, I was home.

  The villa, with all of its windows, sat dark and lifeless on the hill. When I got inside, I walked around, turning on lamps and flipping light switches—turning the place into a lighthouse, though it hadn’t yet occurred to me who I was trying to beckon.

  By the time I got in bed that night, the truth had settled over me.

  I wasn’t ready to say goodbye. Not yet.

  Chapter 8

  Maxine

  I woke up with the sinking realization that I wouldn’t see Dimitri again. We hadn’t made any plans to get together, and arriving at his villa uninvited would make me look like a complete stalker. Besides, he’d already given up an entire day for me. I couldn’t ask him to do it again. Regardless of how close I felt to him, we were still virtual strangers. He didn’t owe me anything.

  I woke up feeling groggy and a little hungover—though I hadn’t had more than a glass of wine the day before—so I opted to take a shower. The resort had amazing water pressure and my bed-head was severe enough that it needed some taming, anyway. When I got out, I slipped into my bikini, which I’d hand-washed in the sink and left to try in front of the air conditioning vent, and a matching red sundress.

  I’d anticipated being at the conference every day, so my luggage was mainly pencil skirts and button-downs. However, I’d had the foresight to pack some summery clothes for evenings on the beach, and I was forever grateful to past Maxine for doing that. Wandering around the island in business-casual wear would not have been ideal.

  Once I was dressed, I grabbed a beach bag with my wallet, room key, and the mystery novel I was currently reading and headed out to the lobby. I had two more days to explore Barkas, and I didn’t want to waste any time.

  On my way to the lobby, I decided to head across the street and buy more loukoumades for breakfast. I know it’s a stretch to say that the deep-fried dough balls covered in honey syrup and cinnamon are anything other than a dessert, but I was starving and on vacation, and being on vacation means calories don’t count. I could eat sensible breakfasts once I was back to my real life in Wisconsin.

  I was making a beeline for the front doors—thinking of nothing but the deep-fried heaven that awaited me across the street—when I heard my name being called.

  I turned, and it took a few seconds to recognize the man in front of me. Not because his face was easy to forget—trust me, it wasn’t—but because I’d come to terms with the fact that I’d probably never see him again.

  “Dimitri?” I asked, as though he might be an illusion.

  He looked nervous, hand running across his perfect, clean-shaven jaw. “Yeah, hey. Good morning.”

  “Good morning,” I said, swiveling my feet towards him. “What are you doing here?”

  He leaned down and I stepped up onto my tiptoes, turning my face to the side. The day before, he’d surprised me when he’d kissed my cheeks, but I wouldn’t be caught off guard today. I was a world traveler. Experienced, cool. He planted a kiss on my right cheek, and my heart fluttered.

  I wanted to believe he’d come there to see me, but I quickly reminded myself that he lived in the resort, and it was possible that he came to the lobby every day. That didn’t jive with the picture I had of Dimitri in my head—the lonely recluse who stayed in his private villa and didn’t intentionally interact with anyone—but it made more sense than him coming down specifically to see me, right?

  His face fell, ever so slightly. “Well, I thought. Maybe, if you don’t have any plans. I mean, you probably do…”

  He came to see me!

  Celebration bells rang in my head, but I tried to silence them. It was rare to see him unsure, to see him self-conscious, and I wanted to savor it. A man like Dimitri could walk into any room and take control of it. He could capture the attention of every woman within a second, yet I made him nervous. That was a real confidence-booster.

  “I’m actually free today,” I said as casually as I could, waving a flippant hand through the air. “My only plan was to dawdle around.”

  “Dawdle around?” he asked, a smiling stretching across his face. He could obviously see through my attempt to feign nonchalance.

  “Isn’t that what all the girls are saying these days? Dawdle?” I said, biting my lower lip to hide my own smile.

  Dimitri shook his head playfully and placed a hand in the center of my back, leading me to the exit. “Have you had breakfast yet?”

  “Not yet.”

  “There’s a great breakfast place down the street,” he said, pointing past the loukoumades stand. “They have croissants and fresh fruit and omelets with potato and sausage.”

  I nodded noncommittally and turned my face into the closest approximation of a smile possible.

  Dimitri looked at me and frowned. “You don’t look excited.”

  I released a sigh and shrugged. “I was going to eat loukoumades again.”

  “Okay,” he said with a smile. “That’s fine with me. Why didn’t you just say so?”

  “Because I was going to eat a lot of them.”

  “Like, how many?” he asked.

  “An ungodly amount, Dimitri. I didn’t want to have to show you this side of me, but I have a raging sweet tooth.”

  He laughed and moved his hand from my lower back to sling his arm around my shoulders, pulling me into his side as we walked across the street.

  “Well, I’d hate for you to have to rage out on me. Let’s feed that sweet tooth before things get ugly.”

  I could feel the rising sun beating against my back. Birds chirped. The air was filled with cool sea air and the smells of cooking oil and sugar. Life was beautiful.

  After I’d eaten too many loukoumades to admit to, Dimitri insisted we see the other side of the island. He hailed a taxi and we weaved through the early Monday-morning traffic of people heading to work until we reached the cliffs on the opposite side of the island. Dimitri asked the driver to pull over, and we slid out of the car, Dimitri checking his watch.

  “Perfect timing.”

  “Do we have an appointment?” I teased. As far as I knew, we were being spontaneous.

  “We do,” he said, though he refused to tell me what it was.

  We walked down
a set of stone stairs that had been worn smooth by years of travelers, down onto a small beach wedged between the mountain and the water. Rocks rose up high on either side, almost blocking out the sky, and I was so busy looking up that I almost missed the kayaks floating in the shallow water of the shore ahead of us. A man was standing next to them, making sure they didn’t float off.

  “Are we going out on the water?” I asked, clapping my hands together.

  “I thought we would. Have you ever been out in open water before?” he asked, handing the man a folded stack of bills and then grabbing hold of the oars.

  Clearly, Dimitri had made a serious plan. He had a man waiting at the water’s edge with kayaks for us to take out. That didn’t speak to last-minute planning. I liked knowing that he’d been thinking about me while we were apart.

  “I’ve been in a boat,” I said, slightly embarrassed by my lack of experience. “On a lake. Once.”

  The truth was, even though I’d lived an hour away from Lake Michigan my entire life, I’d never had much experience out on the water. I’d spent most of my time at the lake reading on the shore, and the one time I’d gone out on a boat, I’d gotten seasick (lake sick?), though I didn’t plan on telling Dimitri that.

  “Well, this should be fun, then,” he said, handing me my paddle.

  I slipped into the kayak easily enough, and the water close to shore was calm and easy, but as soon as we got past the sand bank, the waves began to rock against the boat. My arms burned trying to keep up with Dimitri; it was clear, looking between us, that he was infinitely more confident in the water. I fumbled my oar too many times to count, whereas he sliced through the water with an easy kind of determination.

  Dimitri made it look easy. His muscles rippled in the early morning sun, and the cold spray of the Aegean coated his arms, making him look like he belonged in a sports drink commercial. Come to think of it, part of the reason I was struggling so much might have had something to do with how often my gaze got stuck on Dimitri.

  “Are you doing okay back there?” he called over his shoulder.

  I’d fallen a good deal behind and when I tried to answer, I realized I was breathing too heavily to raise my voice enough for him to hear me. He turned around, saw me almost hyperventilating, and stopped paddling.

  “Why didn’t you say you needed a break?” he asked.

  “That requires working lungs,” I wheezed.

  He laughed and paddled back towards me. When he got close, he set his paddle across both of our boats and I did the same with mine, linking us together.

  “We can rest here for a bit,” he said.

  “We won’t get hit by a cruise ship or anything?” I asked, looking around nervously.

  He laughed. “We are too close to shore to worry about big boats, and small boats would see us in time to turn. We’re fine.”

  So, we floated. As I’d suspected the day before, the slight sunburn on Dimitri’s nose had already turned into a gorgeous tan. If it hadn’t been so attractive, I would have been annoyed.

  I wanted to talk to him, try to dig deeper into his mind, but I was honestly too exhausted. I needed every bit of our break to catch my breath and prepare myself for the trip back to shore. So, I leaned back on my kayak and stared up at the sky, feeling the ocean moving beneath me, and only feeling the tiniest bit seasick.

  When I finally sat back up, ready to keep going, the shore was much farther away. “How did we get so far out?” I asked.

  Dimitri turned and looked back at the now distant shoreline, the sun’s reflection off the water dancing across his jawline. “The tide moved us further out.”

  “I didn’t know that would happen!” I said, nearly shouting in panic. I had been prepping myself for going back only as far as we’d come, but now, I had to paddle back twice as far. I honestly didn’t know if my arms could handle it.

  “How did you think the ocean worked?” he asked, smiling at me like I was the most naïve girl in the whole world. “The thing about the ocean,” he said as we began our paddle back, “is that it is always working to pull you out to sea. Even when you don’t notice it, you are slowly drifting farther away from the shore. It’s always easier to go out than to get back.”

  I could feel the truth of his words in the burning of my biceps. I doubted whether I’d be able to even lift my own shirt over my head in the morning. However, I also felt like his words were speaking to something larger. My feelings for him seemed to work that way. Even when I wasn’t trying, I could feel myself being pulled in further and further. I’d begun to worry I wouldn’t be able to make my way back.

  When we finally reached the shore, I ran from the kayak like I was running from a burning building and collapsed in the sand, arms nothing but limp noodles at my sides while Dimitri brought in the kayaks.

  He sat next to me in the sand and patted my back. “I’m sorry you didn’t have fun,” he said.

  I turned my head to the side and looked up at him, not having enough energy to sit all the way up. “I had a great time.”

  “You’re half dead,” he said, gesturing to my limp body in the sand.

  “That doesn’t mean I didn’t have fun.”

  He shook his head and laughed. “You’re an interesting character, Maxine White.”

  I decided to take that as a compliment and thanked him, eliciting another round of laughter.

  When I finally had the energy to move, we mounted the stairs again and took a left, headed for a town square located at the bottom of the hill. We passed by tiny wooden shops selling handmade goods, fresh baked bread, and beach clothes. I pointed to a cute coffee shop on the corner with a wooden cappuccino sign hanging above the front door, but Dimitri shook his head and assured me he had something better planned.

  The “square” was actually a large cobblestone circle with an ancient-looking fountain in the center. A raised sidewalk wrapped around the outside of the square with more shops and restaurants like the ones that had lined the street. Wrought-iron tables and chairs sat in front of cafés and a few boutiques had racks of clothes and hats hanging outside of their doors to lure people inside.

  The strategy worked on me, because I tried on a floppy straw sunhat that was hanging outside of one shop and then immediately needed to have it. I tried to pay for it, but Dimitri refused, slipping cash to the sales clerk behind the counter.

  I couldn’t tell whether it was just my jealous imagination or not, but the woman seemed to recognize Dimitri. She had pitch-black hair pulled into one thick braid that draped over her front shoulder, a chic white fedora on top of her head.

  When Dimitri handed her the cash, her fingers brushed against his for a few seconds too long, I thought. I wondered whether they knew each other. It was entirely possible—Dimitri lived on the island, after all—but I had a feeling that if two people as beautiful as they were knew one another, it wasn’t as casual acquaintances. As we left the shop, though, Dimitri plopped the hat on my head and wrapped his arm around my waist, which quelled my worries and just about made my heart burst.

  “So, what did you have planned?” I asked, rubbing my stomach and waggling my eyebrows at him.

  “You’re hungry?”

  I groaned and nodded. “I think I burned a full thousand calories out on the water this morning.”

  “Well, then, we better feed you before you wither away,” he said.

  I almost groaned again, this time because being with a man who understood the importance of food and keeping a meal schedule was my literal dream.

  Our lunch spot was located at the back of the square. It was a two-story stone building with an impressive staircase in front that led to a terrace with outdoor tables and chairs. I wanted to sit there and watch people throw coins in the fountain and mill around the stores, but a host rushed out of the open French-style doors and met us.

  “We have your usual spot open,” the man said with a thick accent.

  I looked up at Dimitri, confused, but he made a point not to me
et my gaze as we were led through the restaurant to a private balcony in the back with a single table with two chairs. It looked right out onto the ocean. The man seated us, promised their best bottle of wine, and disappeared back inside, closing the doors behind him.

  “This is fancy,” I whispered.

  “You don’t have to whisper,” Dimitri said with a grin.

  I knew he was right, but our voices seemed to echo off the stone exterior of the building. Even the water below lapping against the retaining wall wasn’t enough to fill the silence.

  “Do you come here a lot or something?” I asked.

  “No, why?” he asked, his nose buried behind the menu.

  “The host seemed to know you.”

  “Never seen him before,” he said.

  Before I could convince myself it was a bad idea, I reached across the table and yanked Dimitri’s menu away from his face. His eyes widened in shock and then returned to normal.

  “What aren’t you telling me?” I asked. He was being evasive; I just didn’t know why.

  “I’m not sure what you mean,” he said, looking over my shoulder, refusing to meet my eyes.

  “The host acted like you were famous or something,” I said. “I’ve been going to the same coffee shop every day before work for four years and ordering from the same barista, and even she doesn’t know my usual coffee order. That guy acted like you keep this table reserved just in case you decide to drop in.”

  “He probably just knew a couple out on the town would want a private place to eat and chat,” he said, reaching across the table to pat my hand. “It’s not such a crazy thought is it? That he could have mistaken us for a couple.”

  I knew he was attempting to distract me, but at the same time, I also couldn’t bring myself to care. He was holding my hand and talking about being a couple. Nothing else in the world mattered more in that moment.

  So, I let it go.

  And did it really matter if Dimitri did come to this restaurant often? Not really, which only made it seem stranger that he didn’t want to admit it to me. Maybe he brought all of his dates to this restaurant. Maybe he made a habit of bringing single female tourists to lunch here, and he didn’t want me to find out about his place.