Paradise Nights: Taken by the Bad Boy

Serena shook her head emphatically. ‘I like his suggestion better too. I was just giving you options.’

‘The man doesn’t need options, Serena. He needs hope,’ said Pete. He thought of seduction and of courtship and wondered where a compliment might fit in the grand scheme of things. ‘And may I say you’re looking divine this evening, as usual. Care to join me and my melancholy friend here for a drink?’

‘You can have ten minutes,’ she told him with a toss of her head. ‘Then I’m off to check on Chloe. She’s a little sensitive right now to the influence Nico has over Sam.’

‘And you couldn’t have mentioned this earlier?’ demanded Nico, shooting her a dark glare.

Serena shot him a halfway apologetic glance. ‘I thought you knew.’

‘I’m curious,’ said Pete, steering them both towards a table. ‘Does Nico supporting Chloe’s authority over Sam count as courtship or seduction?’

‘Pardon?’ said Serena.

‘I’m saved,’ he told Nico. ‘She doesn’t know either.’

‘Huh?’ said Nico.

‘Never mind. Coffee?’ he asked Serena. ‘Have you eaten?’

‘No, and no. But I’d rather have wine with my meal than coffee.’

‘Good luck with that,’ he murmured, and turned to browse the blackboard menu. ‘What’s good here?’

‘The fish,’ said Nico dryly. ‘I caught it this morning. And I’ll order the wine.’

They got their wine but held off on ordering meals in favour of waiting to see if Chloe returned.

‘Bring any passengers in?’ asked Nico.

‘They’re still in Athens. I’ll go back for them in the morning. They’re booked to go to Kos.’ Pete relaxed back into his chair, more content than he’d been at any point during the last two days. ‘Was my coming here tonight on the off chance of meeting up with Serena an act of courtship or seduction, do you think?’

Nico shook his head. ‘Hell, I’ve got it pegged as an act of desperation.’

‘I think it was sweet,’ said Serena, favouring him with a smile. ‘What’s in the folder?’

‘Mail and scheduling paperwork in case I ended up sitting here by myself. Chloe warned me about the bridge party. I figured I might need a prop.’

‘Good move.’ Serena flicked open the folder and began to browse. ‘Aerial cattle mustering in the Northern Territory? Really?’

He’d forgotten about the job ads he’d shoved in there. ‘It could be fun,’ he said.

‘Yeah, for about five minutes.’

‘It’s seasonal, Serena. Read on. Five minutes is as long as it takes.’

‘I was thinking of it as a more permanent position.’

‘No.’

‘Oh.’ She flicked over to the next page. Pete sighed. This one involved transporting men and supplies to and from oilrigs off the Western Australian coastline and this one was permanent. Doubtless he’d hear her opinion on it too.

‘It’s not exactly family-oriented, is it?’ she said after a read through.

‘It doesn’t need to be,’ he countered. ‘Does it?’

‘I’m just saying that it’s something you might want to think about if you’re looking at a long term position, that’s all.’

‘Interesting advice,’ he said mildly. ‘Coming from you.’

Nico snorted, Serena ignored them both, turning that paper over to stare down at the next one. A fax this time, marked urgent, and not strictly a job advertisement. ‘What’s this?’

‘Private.’

She looked up, her startled gaze clashing with his.

‘Sorry.’ She shut the folder and pushed it back towards him. Yours, her actions said, but there was a question in her eyes and on her lips. Knowing Serena, it wouldn’t be long before she voiced it.

‘They want you back, don’t they? They’ve asked you to go back and fly rescue helicopters for them again.’

He didn’t reply. Didn’t think he needed to. It was Nico who broke the silence. ‘Your ten minutes is up, Serena. It’s time to go find Chloe. Please,’ he added.

‘For you,’ she told her cousin as she scraped back her chair and stood to leave. ‘Because I love you and I know she’ll come round. You’ll see. And as for you.’ Pete found himself on the receiving end of an apologetic smile. ‘I’m sorry I pried. Even sorrier about the lack of room service. But I am glad you’re here.’

Serena found Sam and Chloe in Chloe’s tiny two-bedroom apartment nestled at the back of the hotel grounds. Sam looked up from his seat at the kitchen table but there was no smile for her as she greeted him. Instead he nodded curtly and turned his attention back to the schoolbooks surrounding him. Chloe stood at the kitchen bench chopping salad ingredients into a bowl. A steaming dish of moussaka sat cooling on the stove. Sam still looked mutinous. Chloe still looked upset. The silence pervading the room could have been heard over a full scale military tattoo it was that loud. ‘So. you’re eating over here?’ she said lightly.

‘Yes.’

‘How about joining us for coffee a little later, then?’

‘I can’t, Serena.’

‘You’re angry with Nico.’

‘I’m angry with everyone, including myself,’ said Chloe tightly.

Wholesale anger. Not good. ‘You need company. Anger loves company.’

‘You mean misery.’

‘Exactly. So we’ll all come and eat over here with you and Sam, then, shall we?’

Chloe picked up a knife and began dicing carrots, dumping them into an already overflowing salad bowl. Clearly Chloe hadn’t been paying a whole lot of attention to the amount of salad she actually needed when she’d been cutting it up. Serena looked from the salad to the oversized casserole dish full of fragrant moussaka. ‘How many people were you planning on feeding tonight?’

Sam looked up briefly and caught her eye, a smile tugging at his lips before he ducked his head and went back to his homework.

‘C’mon, Chloe,’ she said quietly. ‘Nico’s beside himself. He thinks he’s hurt you. Both of you.’

Chloe remained silent, so did Sam.

‘He was only trying to help.’

More silence.

‘You think walking a line between what you want and what Sam wants is easy? It damn near rips my cousin in two sometimes, Chloe. He doesn’t deserve your anger.’ Sam slid her another furtive glance from his spot at the table. ‘And he certainly doesn’t deserve yours,’ she told him bluntly. ‘Finished your homework yet?’

Sam nodded warily. ‘Just now.’

‘Perfect,’ she said, turning back to Chloe. ‘Sam’s ready to eat. We’re all ready to eat. And here you are with enough food to feed a dozen people. Invite us over. It’ll make everyone feel better.’

‘What do you think, Sam?’ said Chloe faintly. ‘Shall we invite them over here for dinner?’

Sam shrugged. ‘It’s your house. Your food.’

‘Yours too,’ said Chloe.

Sam looked away, all shut down.

Chloe looked down at the bench, but not before Serena caught the sheen of tears in her eyes. She reached up and tucked a strand of Chloe’s straight dark hair back behind her ear with gentle fingers. Chloe looked up and shot her a miserable smile. ‘Sorry,’ she whispered.

‘Don’t be. Just send Sam to go get Nico and Pete. I’ll stay here and help you set the table. Trust me. It’ll be fun. It’ll work.’ She reached over to the little radio by the kitchen sink and switched it on. ‘We’ll make it work.’

Pete wasn’t averse to having dinner at Chloe’s place rather than the taverna. Judging by the swiftness with which Nico pushed back his chair and stood to leave, neither was he. ‘What about the gossip?’ Pete asked Nico, surreptitiously eyeing the formidably gossipy Marianne Papadopoulos and co. Gossip being the reason they’d all been meeting at the taverna in full view of everyone in the first place. ‘Will having us to dinner be a problem for Chloe?’

‘Do I look like I care?’ said Nico.

Good point.

They had to pass the bridge party table on the way out. Pete nodded to them. Nico went one better. Nico stopped.

‘I need some flowers,’ he said to Marianne Papadopoulos.

She pursed her lips, her old eyes shrewd. ‘Happens I have a garden full of them. I’m open to trading suggestions.’

‘Two kilos of fish from tomorrow’s catch,’ said Nico, ignoring the amused glances of the other card players at the table. ‘For a fistful of whatever I like from your garden.’

A glimmer of a smile played about those thin wrinkled lips. ‘My scented pink roses are in flower,’ she said with the air of someone bestowing something special. ‘They’re not just any old flower. You want some of those, you’ll need to trade up.’

Nico eyed her narrowly. ‘The best of tomorrow’s catch for the best in your garden.’

Marianne’s smile bloomed. ‘Agreed.’

‘I need them now,’ he said.

‘You can have them now. Mind you use the secateurs hanging on the tool shed door to cut them. I’ll have no ragged stems in my garden.’

‘Anyone care to concentrate on the cards?’ asked Theo, his voice long-suffering.

‘Hol Listen to you!’ said Marianne Papadopoulos. ‘Was a time you asked for flowers from my garden in just the same way, old goat!’

‘I gave them back to you, didn’t I?’

Nico snorted. Theo glared. Pete edged away from the table, Sam was right behind him. The boy had a good eye for a fast brewing storm. Best not to get caught in the eye of it.

‘I’ll meet you up at Chloe’s,’ said Nico when they reached the hotel grounds. ‘You two go on ahead.’ He strode off down the laneway in the direction of the village. Sam looked after him, his expression wistful.

The boy had delivered Chloe’s invitation with a wariness Pete had found painful to watch, and he wasn’t nearly as invested in the kid as Nico. Nico had probably found it excruciating.

‘Reckon I can find my own way to Chloe’s apartment if you’d rather go with Nico,’ he told the boy, offhand.

‘He wouldn’t want me around,’ mumbled Sam.

Pete shrugged. ‘I say he would. Matter of fact I think it’d mean a lot to him if you helped him pick those flowers for Chloe.’

Sam slanted him a gaze. ‘You don’t know that.’

‘You’re right, I don’t. But that’s what I think.’

Sam stared at him, his face a study of indecision as hope warred with fear. And then the boy was racing after Nico, falling into step beside him and shoving his hands in his pockets for good measure. Not a word passed between them but Nico slowed to accommodate the boy and the shadow of a smile flitted across the kid’s face.

‘Guess I was right,’ he murmured, and, leaving them to the choosing of flowers and the careful cutting of stems, he turned on his heel and headed for Chloe’s.

‘Sam and Nico will be along soon,’ he told Chloe when she opened the door to him. ‘Thanks for the dinner invite.’

‘What are they doing?’ Chloe wanted to know.

‘Just some business they had to take care of.’

‘What kind of business?’

‘Their business,’ he said with a grin. ‘Have a little faith, Chloe. Alternatively, have a glass of wine. You look like you could use one.’ He handed her the half-full bottle the waiter had recorked for them at the taverna. ‘From Nico. I’d have bought some too only no one lets me buy alcohol around here.’

Chloe smirked. ‘So I’ve heard. The general consensus is that you’re quite forward enough without it. Come through.’ Stepping aside, she gestured for him to enter.

Serena was setting the table when he entered the kitchen and Pete felt something shift and fall gently into place at the sight of her performing that simple task. Mealtimes and the setting of the dinner table had been important to his family too, once upon a time. Before his mother had died. Before his father had fallen apart, leaving Jake, and him as next eldest, to step in and make sure that clothes got washed and people got fed. He’d been sixteen at the time, Jake had been eighteen, and they’d managed well enough. Managed just fine, considering …

But food had generally made it to a person’s stomach directly from the fridge or by way of the kitchen counter. Food had rarely stopped by the dinner table en route. Not his choice. No one’s choice really. That was just the way things had shaken down.

He’d grown used to eating meals on the run. To loading up a food tray in a Navy mess hall, or stopping for take-away on the way home from work. Food was fuel, no need to celebrate the eating of it.

Maybe that was why the simple act of Serena laying knives and forks on the table cut at him so deeply, reminding him of his mother and of family the way it should be.

Maybe that was why he crossed over to the domestic goddess, set his palms to her face and touched his lips to hers for a kiss that spoke of tenderness, and thanks, and a moment in time he wanted to cherish.

Serena’s eyes fluttered closed and the cutlery she’d been holding clattered to the table as Pete’s lips met hers. There was passion in his kiss; there always was. A lick of heat and a dash of recklessness that called to her and made her tremble. But this time his passion was tempered with sweetness and a longing she’d never felt from him before. This wasn’t a hello kiss. It wasn’t seduction.

This kiss was all about coming home.

‘What was that for?’ she said shakily when he finally released her.

‘Would you believe for setting the dinner table?’

‘Are you serious?’

He sent her his charming, reckless smile. ‘Maybe.’

She narrowed her eyes, mulled over his words and cursed him for being so much more than she wanted him to be. ‘You love the idea of coming home to this every night, don’t you? Coming home to family. You’re not a carefree playboy at all. You’re a fraud!’

‘Only lately. Sorry I interrupted.’ He picked up the cutlery and dumped it back in her hand. ‘Feel free to continue. You looked like you were enjoying it and Lord knows I’ll enjoy watching you.’

‘Don’t get any ideas,’ she snapped. ‘I’m a career woman.’

His smile deepened. ‘I know that.’

‘Guess you’re not the only fraud around here,’ Chloe murmured to him as she handed him a glass of wine. Serena opened her mouth to protest, Chloe raised a delicate eyebrow and shoved a glass of wine in her free hand too. ‘Watch her deny it,’ she said to Pete.

‘Just because I don’t mind setting a dinner table doesn’t mean I want a life of domestic servitude,’ she muttered loftily, taking a sip of her wine before putting it down and carrying on with the task of laying out the cutlery.

‘Just because I like watching you set a dinner table doesn’t mean you couldn’t chase your chosen career.’ He leaned forward, battle ready, a blue-eyed black-haired thief of hearts who could have charmed the moon down from the sky if he put his mind to it. ‘I’m quite capable of setting a table myself. Or not at all if it comes to that.’

‘You were right,’ Chloe told her from the counter, her movements deft and practised as she swiftly uncorked another bottle of wine. ‘Standing here listening to you two argue about a simple everyday task that takes about two minutes is so much better than standing here brooding.’

Sam and Nico arrived not long after that, the latter with pink roses, white daisies and green ferny things in hand. ‘Pretty,’ said Serena as Nico handed them over to a suddenly tongue-tied Chloe. ‘A man who can find flowers like that at this time of night is both romantic and resourceful.’

‘Although not entirely discreet,’ murmured Pete.

‘He doesn’t need to be discreet,’ countered Serena. ‘His intentions are pure.’

‘Not that pure,’ said Nico.

‘What about honourable?’ said Pete.

‘They’re mostly honourable,’ said Nico.

Chloe glared at them both. ‘Do you mind? There’s a child present.’

Sam rolled his eyes, Pete grinned his sympathy. ‘I just figured Sam should probably know the difference between courtship and seduction too. You know … for future reference. At first I thought it had something to do with speed, seduction being the faster of the two methods of wooing a woman. Then I got to thinking it might have something to do with a man’s intentions, but, no, man’s intentions are a grey area. Who in their right mind would base it on that?’

‘A woman might,’ said Nico. ‘They get some strange notions in their heads at times.’

‘You’re right,’ said Pete.

‘Aren’t they sweet?’ said Serena. ‘All that brawn, so little brain. Puts me in mind of Winnie the Pooh. He was a bear of little brain too.’

‘But cuddly,’ said Pete. ‘Generally happy with his lot.’

‘Well, that rules you out, flyboy,’ she murmured, handing him a plate of food. ‘You can’t even find your lot.’

She was right. But it still stung. ‘I’ll know it when I see it,’ he said defensively.

‘It’s in your folder,’ she said dryly. ‘Three pages in.’

Pete unwound over the course of the dinner, everyone did, with the help of Chloe’s excellent cooking and hospitality skills and Serena’s knack for turning conversation into entertainment. Caring bubbled beneath the surface; bonds of friendship and of blood; ties of affection and of love.

The ache around his heart was gone.

They didn’t make it a late evening, what with early starts for him and Nico the following morning and Sam looking increasingly sleepy.

‘Walk me to the door,’ he murmured to Serena as Nico made his farewells to Chloe and Sam.

‘I’m sorry the evening didn’t quite go to plan,’ Serena said to him when they reached Chloe’s front step. ‘It probably wasn’t what you had in mind. It certainly wasn’t what I had in mind.’

‘I’m not unhappy with the way it turned out,’ he told her.

‘The lack of mind-blowing sex doesn’t bother you?’

‘Is this a trick question?’ Because he didn’t have the faintest idea how to answer it.

‘No, it’s just a regular question.’

He still didn’t know how to answer it. ‘Hell, Serena.’ He opted for the simple unvarnished truth. ‘I just wanted to see you again.’

‘Are you courting me, Pete Bennett?’

‘Damned if I know.’ He thought he might be. He thought he might just keep that bit of information to himself.

‘When are you leaving in the morning?’ she asked.

‘Early.’

‘When will you be back?’

‘Soon. Alternatively, you could come up with another reason to get off this island. You could come with me in the morning.’

‘You do miss the mind-blowing sex!’

Pete reached out to run a wayward strand of her hair through his fingers, noting with interest the way her eyes seemed to darken at his nearness and his touch. ‘Maybe a little.’ Maybe he wasn’t the only one.

‘The need is there, don’t get me wrong,’ she told him. ‘But practically speaking it’s just not possible to get away right now. I have Nico and Chloe to throw together… Vespa hire to arrange so I don’t let my grandparents down. How about we aim to meet up in Athens in a few days’ time?’

‘We can do that,’ he said. And with more bravado than sense, ‘It doesn’t bother you that I had to come and see you tonight?’

‘Should it?’ she whispered, her eyes dark and fey.

‘I don’t know,’ he muttered. ‘But it sure as hell bothers me.’

‘Where’s Nico?’ Serena asked Chloe when she came back into the kitchen. ‘And Sam?’

‘Nico’s gone to talk to Theo about fish-hooks for tomorrow,’ said Chloe. ‘I dare say he’ll also find a way to casually mention that dinner’s over, Pete’s back in his hotel room, and that you and he are about to head back to the cottage. He’ll be back in a few minutes. Sam’s putting the rubbish out.’

Serena started stacking plates in the dishwasher while Chloe found containers for the remaining food.

‘I was watching you with Pete Bennett tonight,’ said Chloe, uncharacteristically hesitant. ‘He’s more than passing fond of you, Serena.’

Serena shook her head. ‘He’s playing a game, that’s all. And he’s very, very good at it.’

‘Maybe he is,’ murmured Chloe. ‘Maybe that’s exactly what he’s doing. But for what it’s worth I think you should start thinking about what you’re going to do if he ever decides to stop.’ Sam swung in through the back door and Chloe turned towards him. ‘Thank you, Sam.’

Sam shrugged awkwardly.

‘Had enough to eat?’ Chloe said next.

He nodded.

‘Then it’s bedtime.’ Chloe paused awkwardly. ‘Would you like me to come up with you?’

‘I’m not six,’ he said scathingly, shooting her a dark glare before scooping up his schoolbooks and heading from the room.

‘I thought things were improving,’ said Serena into the silence Sam left in his wake.

‘They are. This is one of our better days,’ said Chloe with a strangled laugh. ‘I don’t know how to help him, Rena. He wants nothing from me. He’s so defensive. So fiercely independent.’

‘Maybe he’s had to be,’ she said gently. ‘It can’t have been easy looking after his mother.’ Watching her die.

‘I know.’ Tears welled in Chloe’s eyes. ‘I hate the thought of it. There was no need for it. One phone call from my sister, one single phone call, and I’d have been there. She knew that, but no. She was too proud for that; too damn selfish. Even if she wanted nothing for herself why didn’t she ask it for Sam, Serena? Why? What kind of mother makes an eleven-year-old bear the brunt of her illness alone?’

There was a slight shuffling noise in the doorway and Serena turned just in time to see Sam’s retreating form. Her stomach clenched. The kitchen and dining area was a large one. The doorway stood a fair distance away. He probably hadn’t heard them. And yet.

‘He heard us.’

‘No,’ Serena muttered, desperately trying to believe it. ‘He was too far away. And even if he did hear us, we didn’t say anything wrong.’

‘I criticised my sister.’ Chloe’s eyes were like bruises. ‘I shouldn’t have done that, even if I believed it. Not in front of Sam.’

‘He didn’t hear you.’ Serena held Chloe’s panicked gaze with her own. ‘He couldn’t have,’ she said firmly. And prayed that it was so.

CHAPTER NINE

THERE was something to be said for sitting beneath a stripy blue beach umbrella next to a little tin shed half full of Vespas and dreaming about a man. It helped pass the time, decided Serena. It kept a brain agile and a body … aware. The breeze playing with her hair put her in mind of Pete’s hands in it, the sun on her skin reminded her of the warmth of his body. She wanted to be back in his arms. Soon. That was a given. The trick lay in figuring out how to get there without disgracing her family in the process.

Nico delivered her lunch a little later than usual. He looked tired, subdued. As if he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders and then some. But he handed her the day’s mail and her lunchbox, same as usual, and hunkered down in the chair beside her.

‘Chloe was waiting down at the docks when the boats came in this morning,’ he said finally.

That sounded promising. ‘Moon kissed roses will do that to a girl.’

‘Sam’s not at school.’

That didn’t sound promising at all.

‘She thought he might have been waiting for the boats to come in. Waiting for me. He wasn’t.’

‘Oh.’

‘Chloe told me what she’d said about his mother. She thinks Sam overheard her.’ He ran a hand through his already untidy hair. ‘Some of his clothes are gone. His wallet … Chloe thinks he’s gone.’

‘Gone where?’

Nico shrugged helplessly. ‘I checked the ferry terminal, the ticket office. He didn’t buy a ticket off the island, no one saw him getting onto a ferry. Chances are he’s somewhere on the island. I thought I’d take a Vespa out and look around. He’s probably just gone for a swim, or a walk. He does that sometimes. Skips out for a while. That’s probably all that’s happened.’

Serena nodded. ‘Yeah. He’ll be around.’ She looked up at the hill, looked out over the sea. ‘Where could he go?’

By mid-afternoon all the Vespas bar the one Nico had taken out were back in the shed. None of Serena’s customers had seen Sam; no one had seen Sam, according to Chloe, and Serena had decided to shut up shop for the rest of the day.