‘Wow,’ said Lily to everyone.
Matt looked at all the women looking at him and Lily and then at Lily and made a snap decision that he was pretty sure Lily would be on board with. ‘Carole, this has been great. Lily and I are going out for dinner now. We’ll catch you when we get back.’ He grabbed Lily’s hand and started walking, to a lot of –seriously– catcalls and whistles.
‘That was a very good call,’ Lily said as they speed-walked down the drive. ‘Why are we walking so fast?’
‘I think we’re running away.’
And then they broke into an actual run, until Lily pulled Matt’s arm, and panted, ‘Stop, I have a stitch.’
They found a great little restaurant tucked away in a quiet residential street in the local village, with the owner delighted to show them to a table and increase his Monday night business.
They talked about nothing serious at all through platters of delicious local cuisine and a bottle of island-produced wine, clapped a violinist sitting in the corner of the room playing a mixture of haunting and jazzy melodies, and basically had a wonderful evening, made even better by the anticipation of the night to come.
‘Oh my goodness,’ Lily said as they left the restaurant, ‘we completely forgot to go back to the airport to try to get on a flight tomorrow.’
‘Oh God, yes. I actually do need to get back. Mainly because I need to pick up the dog from Gemma on Wednesday.’ Matt looked at Lily – well, the top of her head, because she seemed to be suddenly staring hard straight ahead of her, like she didn’t want to hear about his ex-wife or the marital dog. He wasn’t sure what to say so he looked at his watch. ‘It’s far too late to go now.’
After a short pause, Lily looked up and said, ‘Looks like we might just have to deal with being forced to spend another day hanging out in a luxury villa on a beautiful Greek island.’ She twinkled at him and he felt as though his heart might perhaps burst.
When they rolled back into the house, after a stroll round some of the village’s winding streets, Carole and her friends – a lot of men as well as women now – were dancing on the terrace, music blaring, garden lights flashing, waiters still providing copious drinks.
‘Pretty sure no one will notice if we just go straight to bed,’ Matt said.
‘Definitely. They’re busy.’ Lily indicated towards Penelope and another woman. It took Matt a moment to take in what he was seeing and then he put his hand over his eyes.
‘Was that…?’
‘Yup. Belly dancing wearing nipple tassels. With some serious appreciation from the male guests.’
‘Oh my God. I hope Carole’s paying the waiters danger money. We need to get ourselves upstairs fast.’
‘I feel inspired,’ Lily said as they held hands up the stairs. ‘I think I want to be like that when I’m their age.’
Matt tried hard to imagine Lily doing a nipple tassel shimmy in her sixties and realised that whatever she was doing when she was that age, he wanted her to be doing it with him.
Matt woke up first in the morning, his arms around Lily again. The room’s solidly built shutters were keeping out most of the sun, but from the brightness of the splinters of light that were filtering around their edges, it felt like it had to be at least ten.
This was the perfect way to wake up, the perfect way to start a day.
Lily had always slept longer than he had in the mornings. He lay for a few moments, just holding her, the way he always used to when they were together. Well, until one of them had to jump out of bed for work. They really hadn’t ever had enough time together.
In the half-light he could just make out her lashes lying against her cheeks. She heaved a big contented-sounding sigh and snuggled further against him. Yep, he really did want to stay here forever.
He reached for his phone to settle in to read the news while Lily slept.
He had a message from Norm. He’d taken his yacht and sailed to Naxos and was staying with a friend there. They were going to play golf later today and Norm was having a jolly good time actually. Right. Was that something to share with Carole? Probably not.
They ought to get out of bed and try to get themselves on a flight today. Matt was pretty sure that Carole would cope with Norm’s departure with the help of her friends, and he did have work to do back in London, and it sounded like Lily did too. He wasn’t going to wake her up, though.
She eventually stirred a good half hour later.
‘Morning.’ He smiled at her blinking at him.
‘I feel like I’ve been drugged. That was such a good sleep.’
‘Same. I’ve missed waking up with you.’
‘Me too.’ She smiled sleepily, and, again, he was lost.
