"I'm still young," I defended, not sure why I even felt defensive. I guess because I had no practice against judgmental maternal figures. I didn't have a mother. Or aunts. No one to lecture me about my clock ticking.
"Eh, not so young," she said, shrugging as she went to the fridge, pulling out ingredients. "Pretty, though. Good hips."
Oh, goodness.
Good hips.
I knew what that meant.
Good childbearing hips.
What a strange day I was having.
Just a few short minutes later, a small bowl was in front of me.
Lettuce, olives, tomatoes, cucumbers, feta crumbles.
I knew Greece just well enough to know Choriatiki when it was in front of me.
I have to admit, I was not, as a whole, a salad person. But knowing that this was simply an appetizer to hold me over to a bigger meal, I dug into it, watching as Cora moved around the space with the calm efficiency of a woman who had been cooking and providing meals with love for a very long time.
Which was an odd thing for me even to think since I had absolutely no experience with such things. But, hey, I'd seen TV and movies. I had cinematic experience. It could almost count as real. You know, if you lied to yourself well enough.
A short while later, my bowl was taken away, replaced with a white plate.
"Dolmadakia," she said. "Eat," she added, turning away, cleaning up after herself.
Dolmadakia.
Which appeared to be grape leaves stuffed with beef and rice and maybe some vegetables.
Very healthy.
Very unlike me.
But it smelled good.
My stomach, half full from the salad, grumbled, demanding I dig in.
Already, my head was feeling clearer, the final traces of the drugs seeming to leave my system, even if I still had a giant black hole of the events of the day before.
"That's good, yes?" she asked, clearly not needing to ask since I had cleared my plate, just barely stopping myself from licking it clean.
"Very good," I corrected, watching as she put leftovers onto a plate, then placing it into the fridge. Likely for Christopher. "Thank you," I told her, offering a genuine smile as she took my plate.
"You'll bring Alexander back, yes?"
"I will do everything in my power to," I told her, not comfortable with promises. I'd been on too many jobs, had seen too many things go sideways, to ever hand those out willy-nilly again.
"He's a good boy."
"He's a terror, and you know it, Cora," Christopher corrected, coming in at my side.
"Reminds me of someone," she added, wiggling her brows at him, daring him to contradict her.
"I've never denied being that," he agreed, eyes warm.
"Remember to eat," Cora told him, giving him another sweet smile, then making her way out of the kitchen.
"She's very nice. She thinks I'm too skinny," I added. "I've never had a maternal figure cluck over me like that. It was sweet.
Why was I telling him private details about my life? Yes, that was a good question. For which I had no satisfactory answers. I was just going to keep blaming Bellamy for it.
"Are you tired?" he asked, side-stepping my little reveal. Which I was grateful for.
"Unbelievably," I admitted, gritting my teeth as I planted my hands on the counter, pushing the chair back, getting to my feet.
"Come," he demanded, smooth voice softer than I had been anticipating, something that sent a little ripple of desire through my system. Further proving how tired I was.
I fell into step with him, following him back out toward the living area, down a hallway that opened up a bit in the back like a mudroom, clearly what was meant to be the exit. Only it wasn't. It was the start of a massive addition built off of the back of the cave house; a little more modern with its clean lines and abundance of gleaming windows.
We stepped into a lounge area, colors in darker blues than the front of the house, just a little more masculine, seeming to suit their owner better. There was a bathroom, an office, and then a hallway of doors. Bedrooms, one could imagine. More of them than seemed necessary unless Cora and some of his security people needed places to crash aside from him and his brother.
I was led to the end of the hall, across from what was clearly the master, based on the size compared to the others.
"You can stay here," he told me, pushing open the door to yet another white room with cream and light blue accents on the full bed. "There is a bathroom through here," he told me, walking over to the doorway, flicking on a light. "Feel free to roam around inside the house if you can not sleep," he told me. On the surface, it sounded like a nice thing to say. Except I was reading below that, hearing that while I could roam the house, maybe get myself a cold drink or a snack should I need it, I was not allowed to go outside. I imagined that if I tried, a guard would be all too happy to escort me back inside.
It was okay, though.
It was a short time.
I was being taken care of.
I was going to get paid.
If nothing else, Bellamy knew where I was. The perfect ally, he was not. But if Quin and the guys really got on his ass about where I was, he would lead them to me.
It was okay.
I had been in much stickier situations in my life than locked inside a mansion of a crime lord in Santorini.
"Got it," I agreed, nodding.
"We will talk more in the morning about negotiations."
"That's what I'm here for," I agreed, nodding. "But let me know if you hear from him at any point before then."
"You'll be the first to know," he assured me, making his way to the door, stepping into the hall. "Goodnight, Miss Miller."
I had the sudden—and wholly irrational—urge to blurt out my first name, to hear the way it would roll off his smooth tongue, the way it would shiver into me.
But that was ridiculous.
So I let him close the door.
I listened for footsteps to move away and disappear.
Then I went ahead and locked the door.
Taking a deep breath, I moved to the closet. Finding nothing inside but a spare, fluffy white robe, I grabbed it as I moved into the bathroom to run the water for a shower.
I climbed out of my dress and my bra and panties, filling the sink with water and liquid hand soap. Luxury it was not, but I had gotten very used to hand washing my intimates in sinks over the years when I found myself without spare pairs to wear.
Finally, freshly cleaned, wrapped in the towel as a makeshift night dress, I climbed into bed, figuring I would stare at the ceiling until it got darker out, but passing out almost immediately.
—
I woke up disoriented, which wasn't an altogether new sensation for me. When you lived most of your life on the road, you got used to waking up in strange places, having that moment of panic and uncertainty until your brain let all the pieces fall back together again.
They trickled back.
The yacht.
Bellamy and Fenway, who were both going to hear it from me in the near future.
Christopher Adamos.
His brother, Alexander.
The job.
The money.
The house.
Which was where I was, settled in the guest room.
One look out the window said it was still dark, but with a lack of any electronics in the room, and my missing phone, it was impossible to tell if it was in the middle of the night, or simply the very pre-dawn hours.