“The flowers, the picnic, the whole thing with Moti… It was all for you.”
Wait a minute.I swung around. He wasn’t gazing at me.
“I was trying to make you jealous, Hannah,” he said.
Another gasp. This time, from Captain Bailey.
I was caught off-guard myself, although it made sense in retrospect.
You used me?He laughed when I confessed about using him to get Dolly off my back. He’d used me too—to get to Hannah.
He ignored Captain Bailey’s reaction and forged on. “I wasn’t ready to commit then, but I am now. I’ve gone about it the wrong way, but if you let me, I’ll spend the rest of my life making up for it.”
Our eyes bounced from Nikos to Hannah.
“You’ve been awful to me,” she said.
“I know.”
“Mean.”
“I know.”
“You don’t deserve my love.”
Nikos hung his head, misery settling on his shoulders. “I know.”
“But you have it anyway. You’ve had it all along.”
“What?” Captain Bailey said as Nikos’s eyes lit up.
“I know it’s against the rules,” Hannah said. “I know you told me to never fall for one of the passengers, but it happened. Nikos and I met last summer, on another charter. I’m sorry, Mom. I know you met my father on a yacht just like this, and I know it was so much more for you than it was for him. That’s why you’re so adamant about the rules. But I love Nikos. I love him, Mom.”
Mom.
Now all eyes bounced between Hannah and Captain Bailey.
My mind flashed back to Ken and Judy, the Canadian couple Alex and I had run into in Santorini.
Judy’s sister and niece got here yesterday, so we thought we’d come and see them.
Their niece. Captain Bailey’s daughter. Hannah.
She didn’t have allergies to the flowers Nikos sent me. She’d been crying.
And now I knew why the captain was so determined to keep Alex and me apart. It wasn’t just the rules. It was more personal.
“You have no idea how happy you’ve made me.” Nikos stood and went around to Hannah. “No more of this.” He took the pitcher of water from her hand and placed it on the table. “I mean, unless you want to,” he added when he noticed her expression.
“I’m still on duty, Nikos.” Then, when his face fell, she softened and threw her arms around him. “Oh, what the hell.”
As we watched, captivated by the intensity of their kiss, the next person succumbed to the spell that had been cast on the table—a spell that was making us all spill our guts out.
“I like to play dead.”
Our eyes swung to Dolly. She was standing, as if trying to make herself bigger than her secret.
“For those few minutes when everyone is fussing around me, it feels like I matter, like I’m worth something. Because I sure as hell don’t feel worthy of much. Truth is, I’m a coward. A fake. I’ve been faking it all my life. The only time anything felt real was when I was with you, Fia.” She raked in a deep breath, her bosom puffing out like her heart had just been released from its shackles.
