‘I know.’ Maddie’s throat was so sore she could barely swallow. ‘I just don’t know how.’
‘Find a way. Your friends will help you.’
Maddie stayed silent.
‘They don’t know?’
She shook her head.
‘Please tell them. I’m begging you.’
‘I will. I promise.’
‘Good. And you know you cannot break a promise made to a Greek.’
Thanassis stood up, pulled his T-shirt over his head and stepped out of his jeans. Maddie found it hard to tear her eyes away from his muscular body, not honed in a gym, but by years of hard physical work out at sea, as evidenced by the tan lines halfway up his arms and across the tops of his thighs. She must stop gawping.
‘And now we must go for a swim to wash away those tears and let all that salt go back to the ocean.’
Maddie let her shorts drop to the ground and rushed to unbutton her shirt. She’d treated herself to a second bikini in red, now she remembered how much easier a bikini was compared to a swimsuit.
Thanassis reached for her hand, and together they ran into the sea, deliberately splashing each other until they were in deep enough to push off the bottom. For a blissful moment, Maddie forgot everything other than the sensation of water on her body as she put her head under and surrendered to the pull of the sea.
After a swim to the nearest rock and back, luckily still just about within her depth, two strong hands grabbed her round the waist and held her up in the air for a moment before flinging her back into the sea.
‘Hey!’
A grinning Thanassis came up for air, hair slicked back, and resembling a big seal.
‘Right, you’re for it.’
Maddie reached over and used all her strength to dunk his head under and hold it there.
A spluttering Thanassis came up for air and grabbed hold of her again, picked her up and marched out of the sea with her in his arms before carefully laying her down on the sand.
For a moment their eyes met as he stood over her, but Maddie was the first to look away. Thanassis was still on his feet when she looked again.
‘Another beer?’
‘Great.’
Maddie pulled herself into a seated position and took the beer he offered. He sat down next to her and raised his beer to the sky.
‘Yamas!’
‘Cheers.’
The peaceful silence as they drank gave her a chance to recover. But there were still things about him she wanted to know.
‘Can I just ask… Five years on, have you not met anyone else?’
Thanassis’s blue eyes held more than a hint of a smile.
‘Look, I haven’t been apapás, a priest. There have been a few women. But nothing serious. When you’ve had the best, it’s hard to settle for anything less.’
‘I know… Believe me, I know.’
She mustn’t start crying again.
