Jessica Hart – Paradise Nights: Taken by the Bad Boy (страница 2)

‘Tomas is in hospital with his leg broken in two places,’ said Pete. ‘I’m filling in for him for a time.’

‘Oh.’ Serena felt a slow smile begin to spread across her face again, she couldn’t help it. ‘You really can fly. As in forty-five minutes to Athens. Five hours to Rome. I’m very impressed. Why didn’t you say so earlier?’

‘I did,’ he said, and to Nico, ‘How long has she been here?’

‘Too long.’ Nico eyed her narrowly. ‘And she doesn’t always stay in the shade.’

Pete Bennett’s lips twitched and Serena favoured both men with a narrow eyed glare of her own. ‘The shade is the size of a postage stamp. This island is the size of an envelope. You sit here for five months solid and see how well you cope.’

‘I offered to swap,’ said Nico. ‘I offered to mix it up. A day on the boat here and there, but no …’ He shook his head sadly. ‘The daughter of a Melbourne fishmonger with family holdings that include three trawlers, six seafood outlets, and two restaurants, and she doesn’t like fish.’

‘You don’t eat fish?’ asked Pete Bennett.

‘Wash your mouth out,’ she said. ‘I just don’t like catching and preparing fish, that’s all. Gutting them, scaling them, boning them, that sort of thing. Nothing wrong with eating them. We do a lot of that around here.’ But back to business. ‘So you want the same deal as Tomas?’

‘That’s the plan,’ he said. ‘If it’s all right by you, that is. Nico wanted to run it past you before he agreed.’

‘Fine by me.’ Serena slid her cousin a sideways glance. ‘You didn’t need to ask.’

‘He’s younger than Tomas,’ said Nico with a shrug.

True.

‘And single,’ said Nico.

Serena felt her lips tilt. The good news just kept coming.

‘Might set tongues wagging, what with the grandparents away and me leaving for work so early in the mornings,’ said Nico next.

There was that. But she was feeling rebellious when it came to the gossip mafia. She’d done nothing but behave since coming to the island and still the gossips watched her every move as if she were about to run amok at any minute. ‘Let them wag.’ She eyed Pete Bennett speculatively. ‘Although we may need to tweak the deal somewhat to preserve my honour and accommodate your youth. I usually make Tomas’s bed up for him. You can make your own.’

‘Oh, that’s cruel.’ Pete Bennett shook his head and turned to Nico. ‘I thought you said she had a good heart?’

‘I lied,’ muttered Nico. ‘Take it as a warning. Women are cruel, as cruel as the sea and twice as unforgiving. Sirens all of them, luring innocent men to their doom.’

Definitely not Nico’s usual take on the world. Usually Nico embraced the notion that women were there to be cared for. He had a sweet streak a mile wide, did Nico. Thoughtfully, Serena studied her cousin. He looked much the same as usual. Same kind brown eyes, strong handsome face, and sinewy body. The unhappiness lurking within those eyes, however, ran deeper than usual. ‘You’ve been arguing with Chloe again,’ she deduced finally. Chloe ran the island’s largest hotel and was the bane of Nico’s otherwise peaceful island existence.

‘Did you hear me argue?’ Nico asked Pete. ‘Did I make any comment whatsoever that could be construed as an argument?’

‘Nope,’ said Pete with a shake of his head. ‘You did not.’

‘Uh-huh,’ she said. ‘So what exactly weren’t you arguing about?’

Nico scowled. ‘The usual.’

Which meant they’d been arguing about Chloe’s nephew, Sam. No quick fixes there. ‘How bad was it?’

Nico looked away, looked out to sea. ‘Breeze is picking up. Figure I’ll take the catamaran out this afternoon. Don’t wait dinner for me.’

Bad. ‘I’ll save you some,’ she told him. ‘And make sure you eat it when you come in.’

Nico looked back at her and this time his smile did reach his eyes. ‘Tomorrow I’ll bring you another beach umbrella. A bigger one.’

He would too. ‘And dinner with pilot Pete here? Shall I feed him or send him down to the village?’ Tomas usually ate with them. Pilot Pete might have other ideas.

‘I trust him.’ Nico shot a warning glance in Pete’s direction. ‘A man of honour would not abuse my hospitality.’

‘Are you a man of honour, Pete Bennett?’ she asked him.

‘I can be,’ he said with another one of those lazy grins that made breathing a challenge.

‘I’ll dress platonic,’ she told him. Honourable or not, she was looking forward to his company at dinner.

‘Appreciated,’ he murmured.

‘Dinner’s at seven,’ she said as a pair of likely customers rounded the bend of the road and headed towards them. ‘The kitchen door’s the one on the other side of the courtyard, directly opposite your door. The picnic table in the middle of the courtyard’s the dining room.’ She slid him a parting smile and started towards the tourists, trying to gauge where they were from. Their top-of-the-line Mercedes-quality sandals and backpacks were a dead giveaway. ‘I’m thinking German,’ she muttered.

‘Dutch,’ countered Superman, sotto voce.

They’d soon find out. ‘Yassou, Guten mittag, Goede middag,’ she said cheerfully.

‘Goede middag,’ they responded with wide white smiles, Dutch all the way to the tips of their Germanmade sandals.

Bugger.

Pete Bennett settled into the granny flat out back of the little white cottage on the hill with the ease of someone with wanderlust in his soul and no fixed address.

He’d been born and raised in Australia and he still called it home, no question. It was home to childhood memories, good and bad. Home to working memories too, some of them uplifting and some of them downright tragic. Not that it was the memories that had driven him away from Australian shores. No, he wouldn’t say that.

He preferred to call it exploring his options.

Pete showered away the dirt of the day beneath a lukewarm drizzle from an ancient showerhead and dressed casual in loose khaki trousers and a white T-shirt. If the goddess could dress platonic then so could he. Besides, it was the only change of clothes he had. He checked his watch, not quite seven, grabbed his damp towel from the bed, and stepped outside, heading for the single strand of washing line strung between two poles.

Movement at the edge of the grassy garden area warned him that he wasn’t alone. A small boy with black hair, big eyes, and a narrow, pinched face stood at the edge of the garden. The same boy Nico had taken under his wing down at the fishing dock earlier that day until the fiery-eyed Chloe had come for him. ‘Nico’s not here,’ he told the boy.

‘Doesn’t matter,’ said the boy with a shrug, finding a home for his hands in the pockets of his ratty board shorts. ‘Looking for you.’

Pete slung his towel over the line and reached for a peg, wondering just why the kid would be looking for him. The boy would get around to revealing what he wanted sooner or later. That or head back to wherever he’d come from. ‘You’ve found me.’

‘You saw what happened earlier,’ said the kid after an awkward pause. ‘I thought maybe you could talk to my aunt.’ The last word was dragged from his mouth as if he resented the family connection with every fibre of his being. ‘You know.’ added the kid when he stayed silent. ‘Chloe. It’s not as if wanting to work on a fishing boat is a bad thing. She oughta be glad I want to pay my own way.’

‘How old are you, kid?’

The boy scowled. ‘Eleven.’

Small for eleven. But the eyes were older. Pete thought of the luscious Chloe, who’d torn strips off Nico’s hide earlier that afternoon when she’d caught the boy helping him unload the day’s catch. Thought of the way Nico had listened in stoic silence, his silence giving the boy hope and his eyes promising Aunt Chloe retribution in the not too distant future. ‘Why would your aunt take any notice of me?’ Why for that matter was she riding herd on him instead of his parents? ‘I’m a stranger here.’

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.