He poured another dollop of sun cream into his palm and gently rubbed it into her thigh. She hoped he wouldn’t pay too much attention to this less than perfect area of her body. ‘You think all the women in my life have a jealous spirit?’ he asked, his hand lingering on her hip.
‘Of course. They must have.’
‘But why? I only try to make them happy?’
‘Because, you silly vain man, they must hate knowing that they’re just one of many.’
‘Can I help it if women find me irresistible?’
‘Oh, Theo, what a typically arrogant Greek man you are. It would serve you right if one day you fell in love with a woman who had enough sense to tell you to get lost.’
He grinned. ‘But I have already, Laura. You.’
She pushed him away with a laugh and crossed the terrace for their drinks. She handed him his ouzo. ‘Sorry, but the ice has almost melted to nothing.’
‘Like my chance of seducing you,’ he said, with a wink. Then changing his tone, as though the game was over, he said, ‘When are you expecting Max back from the airport with the first of your houseguests?’
Laura glanced at her watch. ‘In about an hour. That’s if Izzy’s plane has landed on time.’
‘And this Easy, whom you mentioned last night during dinner, tell me more. What does she look like? Is she as beautiful as you? Does she have your pretty auburn hair and delicate complexion?’
‘Her name’s pronounced
Izzy
and she’s far prettier than I am. She’s younger, slimmer, and with hair that doesn’t need to be chemically enhanced as mine does. And I’d appreciate it if you allowed her to settle in before you go offering her the benefit of your charming beachside manner. Just keep your distance.’
He raised one of his thick eyebrows. ‘Why must you continually think the worst of me, Laura? I always respect women. I give them plenty of space. I never crowd them. That isn’t my style.’
‘Would that be before or after you’ve broken their hearts?’
Theo took a long sip of his drink and eyed her thoughtfully. ‘You are protective towards this friend. Am I right? You think she could come to harm with me?’
‘Yes, to both questions.’
‘Why? What has happened to this Izzy that you feel the need to wrap her in cotton wool?’
‘Oh, the usual. A stupid man who took pleasure in humiliating her.’
‘Ah, the cruelty of some men,’ he said, with a wry smile. ‘She is divorced, then?’
‘No. Fortunately for her she wasn’t married to the idiot.’
‘But there is a new boyfriend on the scene? Or is she still searching for her Mr Right?’
Laura shook her head. ‘There’s no new boyfriend, and if I know Izzy, she’s probably decided that Mr Right is a figment of every young girl’s imagination and that — ’
‘But Max is your Mr Right, isn’t he?’ Theo interrupted. ‘He is far from being a figment of your imagination. He is very real.’
Laura thought of the wonderful man to whom she had been married for twenty-one years and smiled. They had met when she had just turned twenty and was recovering from the break-up of a relationship she should never have got herself into. Stupidly, she had been having an affair with her boss. Always a mistake, that, and especially if he’s married. It had been the silliest thing she had ever done, but she’d believed his every word, that his marriage was over, that any day now he would be leaving his wife. In the end, and after he’d tired of her, he had called a halt to their relationship by giving her the sack. With her pride in tatters, she had gone home to her parents for a weepy cry on their shoulders and had met Max at a ball.
From the moment he had asked her to dance there had been an instant attraction between them, but knowing that she was on the rebound she had held off from his advances, not wanting to hurt him any more than she wanted to be hurt again. But his warmth and exuberance won her over, and within the year they were married. The following spring their daughter Francesca was born. Their marriage had been full of love, laughter and happiness, but above all else, it was founded on trust. ‘Yes,’ she said finally, in answer to Theo’s question, ‘Max is my Mr Right. But Izzy hasn’t been so fortunate. She was landed with Mr Wrong and her outlook has been appropriately coloured.’
‘Then I will make a pleasant surprise for her. I will be her Mr Sweep-Me-Off-My-Feet.’
Laura rolled her eyes. ‘My goodness, what a self-deprecating man you are.’
‘But wouldn’t it make her feel better? Wouldn’t it lift her jaded spirits?’
‘What? Have some Lothario trying to get her into bed and then be waving her goodbye before the sheets are cold the following morning?’
‘You are so very cynical, Laura. Did someone do that to you a long time ago? Before the wonderful Max?’
She frowned. ‘Most women get that treatment at some stage in their lives.’
‘Well, I promise you, I will be more subtle. Much more sensitive.’
‘You mean you’d give her breakfast?’
He smiled. ‘We shall have to see, won’t we?’
Laura was concerned. ‘You are joking, aren’t you?’
‘It is strange, but the more you protect her, the more I feel the need to rise to the challenge.’
‘Now, look here, Theo, Izzy’s a dear friend. She’s coming for a restful holiday, she doesn’t need — ’
‘But a little romance might help her relax even more.’
She watched Theo stretch out his long brown legs as he made himself more comfortable in the chair beside her and wondered if there wasn’t an element of truth in what he was suggesting. After what Izzy had gone through this last year, maybe a light-hearted holiday romance would be the very thing to boost her self-confidence. Maybe it was time for Izzy to have a little fun, and if anyone was capable of giving her that, then surely it was Theo.
‘By the way,’ she said, deciding it was time to change the subject - it didn’t do to let Theo bask in his own magnificence for too long - ‘when does your guest arrive from England?’
‘Tomorrow afternoon.’
‘And how long is he staying?’
‘Most of the summer, I think. He has the artistic temperament and needs peace and quiet to work on his latest book.’
‘He’s a writer?’
‘Yes. He writes dark tales of death and destruction. His name is Mark St James. You have heard of him, perhaps?’
‘I most certainly have. Max is a big fan. How exciting! Will we get to meet him?’
‘If you are good to me I will give it some thought.’ Then, leaning forward in his seat, he stroked her leg provocatively. ‘We could strike a deal: your wounded Izzy for my infamous author. What do you say?’
‘And there was me on the verge of asking you to stay for lunch. Suddenly I’ve changed my mind.’
‘As your Max would say,
no problemo.
I have an appointment for lunch anyway. But I could come for dinner tonight. I will dress myself up ready to make the big impression on the lovely Izzy.’
Chapter Two
Izzy had spent the last three hours sitting next to a hyperactive child, who had divided his time between pushing past her to go and play with the gadgets in the toilet and bouncing in his seat so that he could spill his foil-wrapped meal more effectively than any muck-spreader. ‘He’s so excited about the holiday,’ his mother kept saying, and showing no sign of restraining him as his trainer-clad feet kicked at the seat in front. ‘He’s never flown before.’ And hopefully never will again in my company, Izzy had thought.
But now, and having retrieved her luggage from the carousel, she was scanning the arrivals hall for a familiar face. She wasn’t used to travelling alone, and though it wasn’t a large airport, it still made her feel lost and unsure. But Max was easy to spot in the crowd of chatting holiday reps and taxi drivers, and not just because he was waving madly at her and wearing a brightly coloured shirt, but because he had such silvery-white hair. Laura often joked that he had started going grey while he was still in his twenties due to a misspent youth, but Max insisted that it was because he had fallen in love with Laura so unexpectedly that the shock had nearly killed him.
He greeted Izzy with one of his cheery bear hugs, which lifted her off her feet and made her think, as it had the first time she had met him, how like Steve Martin he was. It was a game she played: when she met someone for the first time, she matched them up with a celebrity lookalike. In Max’s case it had come to her in a flash. He was Steve Martin in appearance, with his twinkling eyes and short white hair, and he was certainly Steve Martin in manner, with his quirky, self-effacing sense of humour. ‘The good thing about Max,’ Laura would say, ‘is that if he ever loses his marbles no one will notice.’ At heart he was essentially a big kid, and right now, as he took control of her trolley and steered it through the crowd, occasionally shouting ‘Coming through,’ Izzy knew that if Laura had been here, she would have been rolling her eyes at his antics.
Big kid or not, she couldn’t deny how relieved she was to be in Max’s safe hands, even if he was now standing on the back of the speeding trolley like a latter-day Ben Hur and she was having to run to keep up with him. And though it was against all the rules laid down by the book she had been trying to read on the plane -
One Hundred Ways To Be A Thoroughly Modern Woman
- was it really such a sin to want to hand over responsibility and let somebody else take the strain?
‘How was your flight?’ Max asked, when they were standing outside in the bright sunshine and were loading her luggage into the back of an open-topped Jeep.
‘Fine,’ she said, ‘although I came close to shoving a horrible child through the emergency exit at thirty-five thousand feet. Otherwise I don’t have a minute’s delay or a case of drunken air rage to report.’
‘How very disappointing. Okay, then, that’s the bags in, climb aboard and we’ll be off. There’s a bottle of Coke in the glove compartment if you’re in need of a cold drink. Help yourself.’
She fished out the bottle, which was wrapped in a special thermal casing, and drank from it gratefully. ‘As usual, Max, you’ve thought of everything. You’re a lifesaver.’
‘No problemo.
Now in the words of my sweet old grandmother, Bette Davis, fasten your seat-belt, it’s going to be a bumpy ride. These Jeeps are all very well, but the suspension’s hard enough to rattle your eyes out of their sockets.’
Izzy had never been to Corfu before and she took in the journey with interest. After skirting the edge of Corfu Town, Max picked up the coastal road, and before long the landscape changed from urban scruff to rural charm.
‘Breathtaking, isn’t it?’ he shouted, above the noise of the engine and the wind that was slapping their faces and sending Izzy’s hair flying. Ahead was a glassy sea of translucent blue and a carpeted headland of lush green that went right down to the edge of a stretch of bleached white sand. It surpassed all Izzy’s expectations. As though sensing her delight, Max remained silent and concentrated on the road, which twisted and turned through the spectacular scenery.
It seemed madness now that only a few days ago Izzy had nearly decided not to come. She had paid her mother a visit, to see if she would be all right without Izzy for the summer. It had been a weekend of pure, nerve-jangling hell: forty-eight hours of being cooped up with Prudence Jordan, a woman who had graduated with honours in How To Be A Repressive, Bitter Old Woman. Most of their time together had been spent in the small square sitting room at the back of the bungalow in which Izzy had grown up. The room was heavily sprigged with flowery décor - the sagging sofa and armchairs, the curtains, the lampshades, the wallpaper, the carpet, everything, had been given the floral treatment - and presiding over this horticultural nightmare was an army of china statues, lined up along the two low windows that looked out on to the garden, with their nasty unblinking, all-seeing eyes. They seemed to watch Izzy as she and her mother sanded down their teeth on stale Battenberg cake and drank tea that could have creosoted garden sheds.
A fidgety woman who could never be still, lest she was taken for an idle good-for-nothing, Prudence would switch from pressing cup after cup of the throat-stripping tea on Izzy to ignoring her and knitting furiously. She clashed the old metal needles together, the taut, cheap wool squeaking and setting Izzy’s teeth and nerves further on edge. Prudence was a compulsive knitter and had been for nearly ten years. It had started when the local church had launched a campaign calling for volunteers to make six-inch squares to be sewn into blankets and sent to Rwanda. Her mother had thrown herself into the mission with determined zeal but hadn’t known when to stop. A decade on, and even though the plight of that part of Africa was no longer as desperate as it had been, she was still at it. Somewhere there was probably an enormous stockpile of patchwork blankets waiting to be unpicked and recycled into useful balls of wool.
‘And while you’re off enjoying yourself with your fancy high-and-mighty friends, leaving me alone,’ her mother had flung across the room, ‘where will you be if I need your help?’
‘Where I’ve always been, squashed under your thumb,’ was the honest answer, but Izzy said mildly, ‘We’ve been through this before. I’ve given you the number for the villa, and Auntie Trixie only lives four miles away. She’d be — ’
‘Your auntie Patricia’s a fool.’
It was always a case of ‘your’ auntie Patricia, never ‘my’ sister Trixie.
‘Auntie Trixie isn’t a fool, Mum.’
‘Well, you would say that. You’re two of a kind, aren’t you?’
It was a well-aimed blow. Seven years ago Auntie Trixie had brought shame to the family by divorcing her womanising, beer-bellied husband; more recently Izzy had brought the family name into further disrepute by living in sin with a man, then being careless enough to let him slip away before she had got a ring on her finger.
‘If you had picked more wisely at the outset, you wouldn’t be in the mess you are,’ her mother had consoled her last autumn, as Izzy got through each day convincing herself that tomorrow would be better, that tomorrow she would put Alan behind her. But it hadn’t been that easy. She had thrown too much of herself into their relationship. They had just celebrated three years of being together when he had sprung on her that he felt they should take responsibility for their feelings and explore where they were going wrong.