Will smiled briefly and walked away.
* * *
Grace stretched in the bed at the sound of her phone alarm. She’d slept like a log. Muscles that she’d forgotten she even had reminded her they’d been in full use recently. The night came back to her frame by frame. Her body felt like it had been put through some sort of assault course. The sheets were still a little damp from the shower she’d had the moment she’d got in. Unable to wait to dry herself properly, she’d been desperate to go to sleep and pretend that nothing had happened. At least she didn’t need to worry about getting pregnant at her age, but she hoped she was the only woman that Will had slept with recently. A visit to an STD clinic didn’t bear thinking about.
It was time to get on with the day. A lesson beckoned with an older Greek woman, Irene, another of Rose’s castoffs that had been transferred to her timetable. Her pupil had an English pen pal and wanted to improve her letter writing. Irene was a sweet widow, who always pressed homemade cookies onto Grace when it was coffee time and wouldn’t take no for an answer, like most of the Greeks she’d met. At least it wasn’t Nick she was teaching, who might ask some awkward questions. She was sure she had scarlet woman written all over her face. The lesson was in half an hour, and she still had to dress and go to Irene’s house. She’d better get a move on. Meeting Angeliki afterwards wasn’t something she could even think about now. One step at a time.
Seated on the terrace of the Hotel Artemis two hours later, Grace was beginning to feel a little better. The anniversary of Phil’s death was over and done with, and no one need ever know what had happened last night. She was confident of Will’s discretion, if nothing else. He hated gossip. If the two of them could get back to being friends again, with none of the sex stuff thrown in, that would suit her.
But if she’d helped ruin that idea for good, she only had another two and a half weeks to get through, and then she’d be back home in Oxfordshire. She wouldn’t dwell on why the thought didn’t bring her a whole lot of joy.
Angeliki took her seat at the table and raised her hand for the waiter.
‘Cappuccino?’
‘Yes, please, the usual.’
Angeliki had a strange air of suppressed excitement about her. It was just a simple coffee before she went back to work. The vet wasn’t quite as busy these days as many of her regular customers had taken their pets on holiday with them and she was up for drinking her coffee out of the surgery. But she was definitely twitchy. What was going on? And why was she looking at her like that?
‘Are you OK, Grace?’
‘Yes, I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be?’
Grace reassured herself that Angeliki couldn’t possibly know what had happened between her and Will. The island jungle drums weren’t that good.
A message came in on her friend’s phone and Angeliki glanced down briefly. There it was, that secretive look again.
Seconds later, there was a rustling behind the nearest olive tree on the terrace, and Sofia leapt out from behind it.
‘Surprise!’
Grace rose to her feet to hug her friend.
‘My God. What are you doing here?’
‘You seemed so down yesterday that I took a few lieu days and jumped on a plane.’
‘And… how did you know where I was this morning?’
Grace had had enough surprises in the last twenty-four hours. It was lovely to see her friend, but the whole thing was mighty confusing. Sofia and Angeliki were smiling at each other now.
‘Ah, that’s the clever bit. I’d heard you talk a lot about your new friend, Angeliki the vet, so it wasn’t exactly hard to track her down and ask her a few questions. She was also worried about you, so we hatched a plan.’
‘You sneaky little…’
Angeliki pulled up another chair for Sofia.
‘What you mean to say is how lovely it is to have us both here with you, worrying about you.’
Grace had to smile. They’d gone to a lot of trouble to show they cared about her. She held out a hand to each of them.
‘Thank you, Angeliki, for helping Sofia to keep this a secret. And thank you, Sofia, for dropping everything to come and see me. Is that better?’
Sofia summoned a waiter with the flick of a hand.
‘Much better. Another cappuccino here, please.’
There was some chat about Sofia’s flight and Angeliki’s problem cases, which Grace tuned out of. She waited for Sofia to focus on her. It didn’t take long.
