“Ah,” he said, pulling down the tailgate. “It happened. The island worked its magic on you.”
“Yes,” she said with a laugh. “It really did.”
“I have something for you. A gift.”
He slid a paint can off the truck and held it out to her.
“Éla,” he said. “Let us go to the house.”
When they reached her front door, Skye put down the can and Andreas knelt. He extracted a penknife from his pocket and used it to pry open the lid.
“I thought it would be nice for the shutters,” he said. “This door as well, perhaps.”
The paint was not the bright, deep blue of the Santorini domes, nor did it have the rich intensity of the Aegean. This blue was velvety soft, and it stirred something within her.
“It is the color of the sky,” Andreas said. “In Greece, it represents a fresh start.”
“It’s perfect,” she said, her voice catching. “But you’ve given me so much already. I’ve barely given you a thing.”
“Óchi,” he said. “What you have given me is more than anyone ever has.”
The air thickened. The wind, for once, had fallen away.
“Shall we walk?” she said.
They went side by side up the winding path, their steps quiet on the uneven ground. Skye had always felt the pull of the ridge, a place that held her secrets, where she could lean against the sun-warmed stone and let the world fall away. Below, the sea stretchedvast and sparkling. A boat cut across it in the distance, trailing a ribbon of white foam.
She sat, and so did Andreas, his knee grazing hers.
“You are pink,” he said. Before she could reply, he had taken off his cap and placed it on her head.
“Thank you,” she said as he raked a hand through his curls, mussing them up.
“I like to do this,” he said, tapping the tip of her nose with a finger. “I like to look after you, even if you don’t need me to.”
Skye searched his eyes. They were flecked with gold, shooting stars on a night sky.
“I am sorry,” he said. “Eurora was my wife for only one year. She was not faithful. I discovered very soon after the wedding that she was no longer in love with me. Perhaps she never was. We were young.” The words sailed out on a sigh. “My ego was very bruised. The problem is that I am proud and I am stubborn. I did not want you to think of me in that way, as a man who had been rejected and humiliated.”
Skye’s jaw tightened. “She’s the one who should feel humiliated,” she said. “She had you and she cheated? What an idiot.”
A smile found its way to his lips.
“What about after Eurora?” Skye asked. “Have there been others?”
Andreas tugged at a tuft of grass.
“Some. But it was never serious. I learned that it is better to be alone than with the wrong person.”
“How will you know when you find the right person?”
A beat passed. Shorter than a breath. Longer than it took for Skye to see his answer before he gave it. It was there in the tenderness of his gaze, the fullness of his lips, the heat of her own longing.
“For me,” he said, “it was there at the very beginning. I saw you outside the house, a key in your hand, and the moment you turned around, I was lost. From that second to this, I have been yours.”
Skye drew in a long, shuddering breath.
“And you’re only getting around to telling me this now because?”
