She veered to the left and heard a stifled curse from behind her. She ducked into the famous bookshop that was situated in a cave that had been turned into a building. Like many of the buildings built into the caldera walls of Santorini.
‘It’s a…bookshop.’
She turned around to face Ares. He looked stunned as he took it in. No doubt he’d expected her to make for the first exclusive boutique or jewellery store. She was interested in those too but she liked confounding him.
‘I’ve always wanted to see this place.’ Cassie wandered further in and gazed at the shelves and poetry written on the walls. It was quirky and coming down with books. Heaven.
She picked up a big glossy hardback of photos of Greece. She could sense Ares’s tension beside her and glanced up. ‘Look, if you—’ She stopped talking when she saw the expression on his face. It looked pained.
She put the book down. ‘What is it?’
He shook his head, expression clearing. ‘Nothing, I’ll wait outside.’ He slipped his shades back on and ducked back out through the small doorway. After a few more minutes’ browsing, Cassie followed him outside to find him leaning against a wall, hands in his pockets.
He looked relaxed but she could see the tension in those impressive muscles. He saw her and stood up straight. They resumed walking along the street. When it became clear that he wasn’t going to elaborate, Cassie asked, ‘What was that about?’
‘What?’
Cassie rolled her eyes. He was being obtuse. ‘You know very well—you looked as if you’d just eaten a side of cold suet pudding.’
The faintest glimmer of a smile touched the corner of his mouth. ‘Suet?’
Now Cassie’s mouth twitched. ‘A particularly revolting dessert we used to be served in boarding scool.’
She felt him glance at her and he said, ‘Boarding school?’
She nodded. ‘Since I was eight, in Switzerland. I came home for holidays and half-term. But my parents let me do the baccalaureate in Sadat.’
He seemed to digest this and Cassie had resigned herself to him dodging her initial question when he said, ‘I’m dyslexic. So…being surrounded by books makes me a little uncomfortable.’
Cassie felt a little punch to her gut at that admission. ‘There are so many more ways to read now.’
He shook his head. ‘I know, but not so much when I was growing up. My parents weren’t very willing to accept that a child of theirs was in any way imperfect.’
Cassie stopped in the narrow street, forcing people to swerve and go around them. She put her hands on her hips, filled with indignation. ‘That’s outrageous. Some of the most successful people on the planet have dyslexia. If anything it means you’re above average because you’ve had to mask or engineer your way through life in a way that takes serious ingenuity and intelligence.’
Ares looked at her, eyes glinting, a minuscule smile playing around his mouth. ‘That’s quite a defence.’
Cassie flushed, embarrassed. ‘There was a girl in my school who was constantly sidelined and put at the bottom of the class, just because she had difficulty reading and writing. It made me so mad. Anyone could see she was more intelligent than the rest of us.’
‘You pitied her.’
Cassie let out a short sharp laugh at the thought of the only friend she’d really made at boarding school allowing anyone to pity her. ‘No way, she pitiesme. She’s a force. She’s already working at the UN.’
Cassie started walking again, following the flow of tourists to the best vantage point for watching the sunset. She gestured to Ares, who kept pace easily beside her. ‘You’re one of those success stories.’
His mouth compressed and he said, ‘It’s more that I was bred to be a success no matter what.’
Cassie thought to herself that she was sure it was more than just breeding, but Ares put his hand on her elbow to steer her through thickening crowds and that made any more words dissolve on her tongue.
They were approaching the promontory now, a vantage point that afforded a ringside view for the setting sun, which was slowly but steadily getting closer and closer to the horizon.
Ares guided Cassie to one of the few spots that hadn’t been taken and they sat down, surrounded by chattering tourists, all facing the same way, oohing and ahing as the sky started to go through a veritable kaleidescope of colours.
‘You know, you’d be getting just as specatacular a view from your boat and it wouldn’t be half as crowded.’
But I’d be lonely.Cassie wondered if she would have had the nerve to come and do this if she’d been on her own. She liked to think so but she hadn’t thought twice with Ares. Even if he was here at the behest of her brother and not because he wanted to be. That stung a little.
‘Oh, be quiet and enjoy the view,’ she said.
