Big Greek Baby Secret Page 9

  His eyes rolled upward and I could see him flipping back through his memory, his fingers keeping track.

  Finally, he hemmed and hawed and then shrugged. “Maybe…seventeen?”

  “Seventeen?!” I practically screamed. “How did you have time to date seventeen girls? That’s more than four per year you were in high school!”

  Dimitri held a hand up to his chest and the other extended towards me, palm flat. “I’m feeling very judged right now. I thought this was a safe space.”

  I slapped his hand away and laughed. “You sure got around.”

  “Only as a teenager,” he said.

  “Yeah, you slowed down as an adult. Were women scared away by your serial dating ways?” I teased.

  He smiled. “Probably more by my hermit ways.”

  “Why do you live alone on the beach? And how can you spend every day with me?” I said, finally asking the question that had been on my mind for the past two days. “Doesn’t anyone wonder where you are?”

  “Not really. I told Petra where I’ve been, and she was surprised, but mostly just happy to clean the house in peace,” he laughed. “She likes to play music really loudly while she works, but she can’t when I’m there taking phone calls.”

  “So, Petra is the only person in your life?” I asked, hoping I wasn’t hitting a nerve.

  “At the moment, yeah,” he said.

  Though, he said it in a way that made me wonder how long this “moment” had lasted. A year? Two? How long had this gorgeous, thoughtful man been living by himself?

  “You could go out and meet anyone you want, Dimitri. You’re a great guy,” I said, reaching out to touch his shoulder.

  His eyes trailed across my face, and I could practically feel them burning across my skin. Finally, he met my eyes and winked. “I met you.”

  “Someone who isn’t leaving tomorrow,” I whispered.

  It seemed to be too much for either of us to handle at the moment. We rolled onto our backs and stared up at the sky.

  I told Dimitri I’d be content to eat street food and wander around again, but he insisted that my last night in Barkas should be done right. He sent me home to change into the nicest thing I had packed and told me he’d pick me up in an hour.

  The last night of the conference had been planned to be a cocktail party, and I’d packed a blue cocktail dress that hugged my curves and dipped dangerously low in the front. Slipping it on, now, I realized how completely inappropriate it would have been for the business conference. People there probably would have thought I was an escort. But, for a night on the town with a gorgeous Greek man, it was absolutely perfect.

  I twisted my hair back into a loose knot and secured the effortless-looking beachy up-do with enough hairspray to put a new hole in the ozone. I had just finished and slipped into my strappy black heels when I heard a knock on the door.

  I hustled across the room, opened the door, and nearly fell backwards.

  Dimitri. In a suit. Wow.

  “You look stunning,” he said, running his eyes slowly down my body and then returning to my face, a slightly dazed look on his own.

  Dimitri. In a suit. Wow.

  That seemed to be the only thought I was capable of. He had on a navy-blue suit with dark brown leather shoes. He’d ditched the tie in favor of leaving a few of his buttons open, hitting the perfect note between formal and island-appropriate. The suit fit him perfectly. It made every part of him look sharper and more toned (if that was even possible). It was exquisitely tailored.

  I looked up and he was smiling at me, making me realize I hadn’t responded yet.

  “Oh, thank you,” I said, running my hand nervously down the front of the dress. “You look…incredible.”

  He extended his elbow to me and I wrapped my arm through his. As we walked through the resort, people stared as we passed, and I couldn’t tell whether it was because—like the people at the market—they recognized Dimitri, or because we looked so good together. For my own sanity, I decided upon the latter. I didn’t want to focus on anything else for the evening. I only wanted to think about how lucky I was to be the woman on Dimitri’s arm tonight.

  The past few days, we’d either taken a cab or walked—or ridden a donkey—but tonight, there was a black town car idling at the curb. Dimitri stepped up to it and opened the door for me.

  “Do you have a driver?” I asked, mouth open in surprise.

  “Only on special occasions,” he replied.

  There was a bucket of champagne in the center console of the backseat and I gladly accepted a glass, sipping on it as we drove through the narrow island streets. When we arrived at the restaurant, the driver jumped out to open our doors, but Dimitri waved him away and walked around to open mine himself.

  Even though I knew we both looked like a million bucks—Dimitri’s suit looked like it might actually have cost that much—I had a worry we would be overdressed when we arrived at the restaurant. That fear dematerialized as two men pulled open the large doors set into the ornately carved stone building.

  The lobby was full of women in floor-length gowns and men in suits. Though, I noted no one looked quite as dashing as Dimitri did. He ushered me inside and walked straight to the marble-topped hostess stand, paying no attention to the stares everyone in the lobby was throwing him. Now, it became a little harder to not pay attention. Women looked at him like they wanted to rip a piece off and stuff it in a doggy bag to-go, and the men looked at him like he’d just spat in their appetizers.

  As soon as the hostess looked up from her seating chart and saw Dimitri, she jumped, stood a little straighter, and smiled broadly. “Right this way,” she chirped.

  She led us to the back of the restaurant and seated us at a round table in a dark corner. The overhead lighting was dim and a string quartet played in the corner.

  “She seemed to recognize you,” I said, trying to place as little meaning on my words as possible. I wanted them to sound like a casual remark, but with the conversation we’d had the day before, I wasn’t fooling anyone.

  “I’ve been in here a time or two,” he said. “You’ll want to order the chef’s special. It’s guaranteed to be made with the freshest ingredients in the kitchen, and I’m convinced the chef here can do no wrong.”

  “Be careful, Dimitri,” I said, looking around the room. “You’re letting your inner rich guy show through.”

  “Everyone here is rich,” he whispered back, his eyes bright and playful. “It’s the only place I can truly be myself.”

  Despite the quiet atmosphere, I leaned back and laughed, clearly disturbing the older woman in a lavender gown sitting next to us, who cast me a nasty glare.

  “Sorry,” I said to him, sitting up straight and folding my hands tightly in my lap. “I’ll be on my best behavior.”

  Dimitri placed his hand palm-up on the table and curled his fingers, beckoning for me to place my hand in his. With an offer like that, I couldn’t refuse.

  He squeezed my fingers and looked deep into my eyes. “Always be yourself.”

  I melted.

  The food was incredible. I didn’t recognize a single thing on my plate and I knew I would never be able to describe it, but it arrived at the table looking like a work of art, and I devoured it in less than three minutes. Dimitri kept my wine glass full, and I wondered what a glass of wine ran for in a place like this. It couldn’t be cheap. The dessert fork on my place setting looked like it cost more than my car back home.

  For the first time, I realized how truly rich Dimitri had to be. We’d known each other only a few days and he had spent hundreds of dollars on me. He’d bought me a hat and paid for every meal. I’d kept trying to let the company pay for things—though I hadn’t bothered to offer at this place, because Diane would have fired me on the spot if I charged a $500 meal to the company card—but he’d refused, insisting it wasn’t a big deal.

  Which I couldn’t comprehend. I came from a world where money was everything, especially if you
didn’t have it. It determined whether you were able to follow your dreams or whether you spent your whole life working a job you tolerated to pay the bills. Money mattered, but it didn’t seem to for Dimitri.

  The chef came out personally to thank us for dining at his restaurant. He wore exactly what every chef I’d ever seen on television wore—a white shirt with buttons on the far side and a white hat with black pants. He had dark hair and a thick black mustache, and he kissed my hand twice before the conversation was over.

  As nice as the restaurant had been, it felt nice to be out in the normal world again. We followed the road until, like most every road on the island, it delivered us to the beach. I slipped my heels off and dangled them from my fingers. Dimitri took his shoes and socks off and cuffed his suit pants a few times, somehow making his ensemble more attractive.

  And so, we walked.

  We walked down to the ocean and dipped our toes in the foamy surf. We walked back up to the stone wall that separated the road from the beach and followed it until a cliff face blocked our path and we had to turn back. We walked, hoping the night would never end. I wanted to remember it forever.

  “We need to take a picture,” I said suddenly, realizing for the first time that I hadn’t taken a single picture of my entire trip.

  Dimitri was already shaking his head as I pulled my phone out of my purse.

  “Come on,” I begged. “You are obviously the most important part of my entire trip. I want to have a picture to show my grandkids.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “You’re going to show my picture to your grandkids?”

  “Absolutely,” I said. “I want them to see the kind of men I was able to attract when I was in my prime.”

  “Well, I’ll take the picture, then. But only because it’s for a good cause,” he said, grabbing my phone and holding it out in front of us. Then, he paused. “But you can’t post it online anywhere.”

  “Why not?” I asked, suddenly nervous, though trying to hide it. “Don’t want your wife to see?”

  “I just like my privacy,” he said.

  “I won’t post it, but even if I did, I only have a hundred friends and, like, half of them are my relatives. So, I think your privacy is pretty safe in my hands.”

  Dimitri nodded and held the camera up. “Cheese!”

  I turned and looked at him just as the camera clicked. “You say ‘Cheese’ here, too?”

  He shrugged. “Not really. I just know Americans say it, and I wanted to accommodate you.”

  “Wow, I feel so at home,” I said, laughing.

  “You weren’t looking at the camera,” Dimitri said, turning the camera towards me so I could see. “Want to take another one?”

  The background was dark and grainy, the ocean barely visible, but Dimitri glowed in the light from the street in front of us. His dark hair, his bright eyes…he looked fantastic. And, just as I couldn’t take my eyes away from him now, I couldn’t look away from him long enough to smile at the camera. My face was turned so half of my smile was visible, and my eyes were crinkled at the edges with happiness. It felt like the truest depiction of what these days on Barkas had meant to me.

  “No, it’s perfect,” I said, grabbing my phone out of his hands and stashing it back in my clutch. “It’s absolutely perfect.”

  Dimitri wrapped his arm around my waist as we continued our walk back down the beach. Neither one of us mentioned it, but we were headed back to where we’d started. Sooner rather than later, we would be taking the car back to the resort. We would be saying goodbye.

  It felt strange to already miss him so much. He was standing right next to me. I could feel the warmth of him across my back, but I still ached for him. Would the feeling ever go away? I suspected it would, with time. But the real question was: did I want it to go away? Did I want to forget this gorgeous, intelligent, kind man?

  No, of course I didn’t.

  “Is Dimitri even your real name?” I asked, breaking the easy silence between us.

  He froze, his body going stiff next to mine. “Why did you ask me that?”

  I bit my lip. “It’s something I’ve been thinking about. Dimitri seems like a very ordinary name, and you seem rather extraordinary to me.”

  He turned to look at me, taking both of my hands in his, and shook his head. “Well, now that you mention it, it’s not my real name, no.”

  I’d asked the question, but I’d expected him to tell me I was crazy. “Of course my name is Dimitri, you loon.” But now, a million more questions filled my mind.

  “Are you hiding from someone?” I asked. It felt like the next obvious question. People don’t use aliases for no reason. “Are you in trouble with the law?”

  He squeezed my fingers and shook his head. “No, it’s nothing like that; I swear.”

  I believed him. I wasn’t sure if I should, considering he’d given me a false name, but for some reason, I did.

  “Okay, will you tell me your real name, then?” I asked, pulling our entwined fingers up to my chest. “I hope you know you can trust me.”

  An unreadable emotion flicked across his face, and then, he was kissing me.

  Our hands broke apart, my fingers finding their way into his hair, tugging on the silky locks I’d been dying to touch since the first time I’d seen him. His hands grabbed at my back, pulling me against him. His lips were soft on mine, welcoming and tender. He tasted of cinnamon and salt and sea air.

  A voice in the back of my head kept reminding me I didn’t know the man I was currently tangled around, but I couldn’t bring myself to care. His kiss unraveled me. My heart beat out a crazy rhythm against my ribcage and my hands grabbed at any part of him I could grab. I felt my leg wrapping around his calf as if it was someone else’s body. I had no control.

  Dimitri grabbed my arms and pulled me away from him. His pupils were blown wide, his lips swollen and pink from kissing. “Let’s go.”

  I understood what he meant, and my breath hitched in my throat.

  As the car pulled up in front of his villa and Dimitri opened my door for me, worry flipped my stomach, but I did my best to ignore it.

  His house was sleek and modern. Vaulted ceilings, rough-hewn wood bookshelves stuffed with physical books I knew he didn’t read. His kitchen was spotless, proving he didn’t cook often, choosing instead to eat out. I held onto his hand as we moved up the stairs.

  His bedroom was the first door at the top of the staircase. A square four-poster bed with a thick white duvet and a mountain of pillows was off to the right, but the thing that captured my attention was the view.

  He had a wall of windows that looked out on the ocean. I’d noticed them from the outside the first night I’d met him, but from the outside, the glass was tinted. Inside, though, you could see for miles. Just the midnight blue of the waves, the bright orb of the moon shining down like a spotlight. It was magnificent.

  Dimitri wrapped his arms around my waist while I stood in front of the windows and trailed soft kisses up the side of my neck.

  “It’s beautiful,” I whispered.

  “You’re beautiful,” he whispered back, his lips brushing against my ear.

  I turned and pressed my lips to his, moving us back towards the bed. I wanted this with Dimitri. Or, whatever his name was. It didn’t matter. I knew who he was, even if I didn’t know his name. And even if I didn’t, we were a fling. A vacation romance destined to end in the morning when I jumped on my flight back to Wisconsin.

  The least I could do was enjoy it while it lasted.

  Chapter 11

  Maxine

  My apartment looked exactly the way it had when I’d left, which surprised me. Then, I reminded myself I’d only been gone a few days. Somehow, it felt longer than that. And shorter. My time on Barkas seemed to be separate from the realities of twenty-four-hour days.

  I dropped my single bag next to the door and crashed face-first into the couch. The airline strike had ended by the time I was due to take my originally booke
d flight home, but so many people had been rebooked and so many flights were rerouted that I’d spent a lot of time in layovers and delays. It had been almost a full day since I’d left Dimitri, yet somehow, I could still feel tingles from the goodbye kiss he’d planted on my lips.

  I’d woken up early the next morning, the room drenched in sunlight from the wall of windows, satin sheets wrapped around our bodies. His chest had risen and fallen, which had been the only indication I’d been looking at a living, breathing human and not a painting of a Greek god.

  He was perfect. Every muscle, every freckle, every inch of him.

  “When does your flight leave?” he’d asked, startling me. He turned his face into his pillow and rubbed his eyes.

  “Three hours,” I whispered back, wishing I didn’t have to ruin the moment with talk of me leaving. Just seconds before, I’d been contemplating whether I could just stay forever.

  He groaned and wrapped an arm around me, pulling me against his front, and we cuddled in silence for a few minutes.

  “I have to go,” I said reluctantly.

  “I’ll call my driver to take you to the airport,” he said. “So, that will save you five minutes trying to get a cab. Which means we can stay here for five more minutes.”

  “And I don’t need to shower or brush my teeth, so that will save me thirty minutes,” I teased.

  “And who needs clothes?” he added, kissing my shoulder. “That saves you ten minutes.”

  I laughed. “I’ll just go to the airport as a sweaty, naked mess so we can stay here in bed for another forty-five minutes.”

  “Perfect plan,” he replied.

  But I had gotten up. I’d showered and brushed my teeth and put my clothes back on. Slipping into my cocktail dress from the night before could have felt like a walk of shame, but I wasn’t ashamed in the slightest. I was glad I’d spent that night with Dimitri.

  As he’d kissed me goodbye and helped me into the back of the town car, I’d wanted to ask for his real name again. But then, at the last minute, I’d decided it didn’t matter. It would be better this way. Knowing who he was would only make it harder to forget him, and as much as I didn’t want to, I needed to forget him. I needed to think of him as my impossible vacation boyfriend, a man who could never truly exist in my life. Thinking of him as Dimitri made that possible.