Trusting him was easy; it was me that was the problem.
When we were about halfway down the cliffside, Theo stopped in front of a low white wall with a rounded wooden door blocking the entrance. It had a foreboding-looking padlock on it, but Theo picked it up and began jiggling it.
“What are you doing?” I watched Theo clank the lock around noisily a few more times before it suddenly gave, popping open.
He unhooked the lock, then swung the door open in a long creaking motion. Soft light puddled out from behind the door, and I stood on my tiptoes to see over his shoulder. Through the door I could see a few lounge chairs strewn with white cushions and a cluster of potted plants. A wall reflected moving water.
“Theo, what is this?” I asked, louder this time.
“Paradise.” He hooked his arm through mine. “Come on.”
I don’t know which made me more nervous, the touching or the extreme quiet, but I certainly wasn’t going to turn down the promise of paradise. I followed him—warily—into what turned out to be the courtyard of a small cave house. A smooth infinity pool, lit up aqua in the night, occupied most of the space, extending to the edge of the property’s ocean view. Water flowed over the side, creating the illusion of the pool merging with the sea. Stars pinned up the darkness, and the half-moon reflected brightly in the pool.
I’d never seen anything so beautiful. And the quiet stillness that hovered suddenly over us made my heart feel too big for my rib cage.
“Well?” He looked at me in his smug Theo way, but I couldn’t help proving him right.
“It’s perfect.” I exhaled, feeling the uneasiness, anxiety, panic—all the things I’d been fighting since I’d arrived in Santorini—melt away into the darkness.
“You’re welcome,” he prompted, giving me one of his charming smiles.
“Theo… I…” My voice froze in my throat, nerves tingling my spine. “I needed this. Thank you.”
The smile that washed over his face shone brighter than the moon’s reflection in the still water. So bright, my knees wobbled. “I know. Let’s go.”
He steered me toward the edge of the patio so I had a full view of Oia. The dark sky melted into the even darker ocean, and the hillside lit up with other houses and glowing pools. Normally when I saw something this breathtaking, I wanted to paint it, but I knew there was no way I could capture this view. This was something you had to experience with all of your senses.
I glanced back at the cave house. The whitewashed walls looked freshly painted, and cobalt-blue shutters had been drawn against the dark windows. “Who lives here?”
He was already kicking off his shoes, pulling his T-shirt over his head. “It’s a rental that doesn’t get rented out very often. The owners stop by every few weeks or so. You can tell by whether or not they put their colorful cushions out.”
I looked at the all-white patio furniture. “And they let you swim here?”
Theo shrugged. “I wouldn’t say they let me, Kalamata, but they sure haven’t stopped me.”
Only disbelief could snatch my attention from this kind of view. “We don’t have permission to be here? We’re breaking in?”
He grinned, putting his hands on my shoulders. “Relax. No one broke into anything. You saw that latch was open. And don’t worry about your criminal record. If anything, I’m breaking in. You’re my unsuspecting guest.”
His smile was hard to resist. And the pool. My rule-abiding soul wanted me to make a run for it, but instead I kicked off my flip-flops and dipped my left foot in, letting the water lap against my bare skin. It was the perfect temperature, and the hum of the pool’s filter layered effortlessly against the sound of the rolling waves down below.
Forget rules. This was perfection.
I pulled off my T-shirt and shorts and carefully eased myself into the pool. The water was a degree or two below body temperature, but it cooled me from the inside out. I lowered down, allowing myself to spin, eyes closed, arms outstretched. When I opened my eyes, Theo was still on the ledge, his eyes wide.
“What?” Something was different about this look of his—it wasn’t his usual I’m trying to dissect your every move stare. This was more surprise. Like the look he’d given me back at the airport when he’d first seen me. I stood, adjusting the strap of my favorite swimsuit—a black one-piece with a wrapped top and a cutout below my rib cage—and settled self-consciously back into the water.
“Nothing.” But he didn’t glance away.
“Okay…” I flipped onto my back so I could see the stars. There were so many that they looked more like a haze than separate lights. And the moon. Crisp and heavy and so very, very bright. It was probably overlooked in the land of sunset, but this moon was special.
When I righted myself, Theo had dropped down so his shoulders were in the water. He backed up against the edge, eyes still locked on me.
He was reading me again. “Why are you staring at me?” I demanded, sending a wave of water his way.
“I don’t know. Sorry.” He shrugged, wiping the water from his face. “Moonlight looks good on you, I guess.” He sounded nervous.
It looked good on him, too. My heart leapfrogged. I opened my mouth, not sure what to say.
“Boyfriend,” he said quickly, beating me to it.
That broke the tension. I smiled. “You’re so funny.”
“Aren’t I?” His hands floated up to the surface, hovering in front of him, and he dropped his eyes down toward the water. “Why don’t you ever swim? You obviously know how.”
I glanced out into the darkness. I could lie, but it felt wrong to here. “I prefer pools over the ocean. The ocean is sort of… scary.”
He nodded and, for once, did not insist that I elaborate. Instead, he started clearing his throat. “That’s a… uh… nice bathing suit you’ve got on there.”
“Theo! Boyfriend!” This time I sent a wave of water his way, and he ducked, a huge smile on his face.
“Yeah, yeah. I know. All I’m saying”—he ducked under the water, then came up, water streaming—“is that’s not what you were wearing on the boat with your dad.”
I bit the inside of my cheek. Hopefully the darkness was masking how red my face was turning. “Yeah, because my dad was there.”
“So, what, then? This is like your official breaking-into-a-cave-house suit?”
“Exactly.” I swam to the pool wall, resting my arms up over the edge so my legs could flow freely behind me. Theo’s attention felt… Nice? Terrifying? Like standing at the top of a particularly slippery slope. Theo’s charm was massively inconvenient. “So how many times have you broken in here?”
“I still disagree with the term ‘breaking in,’ but…” He shrugged, then looked up at the sky as if tallying. “I don’t know. Fifty times? A hundred?”
“A hundred? Seriously?” I shot him a look of disbelief.
He drifted up next to me, hooking his elbows over the edge of the pool so we were side by side. “It was really hard for me to move here. I’m happy to be here with Bapou, but I thought I’d finish high school in London, and I was really angry at first. Finding this place to escape to helped. Also, no one is ever here. And a pool is meant to be swam in. Its main purpose is to be filled with people. I’m doing whoever lives here a favor. Do you think this pool wants to be alone?”