‘Napoleon? Who’s Napoleon?’
That made him crack a smile. Gosh, the impact of those only seemed to grow the more she teased out of him. ‘You haven’t heard of him? Bonaparte? Otherwise known as Napoleon I?’
‘I’ve heard ofhim, but I didn’t think he needed water at his advanced stage of decomposition. I thought you were talking about a cat or something.’
‘I don’t own a cat.’
‘No cat, no dog. I’ve got it. You’re a “no strings” kind of guy. But you do like to hydrate dead dictators.’
The little grumble from the back of his throat was reward enough for teasing him. She’d used to tease Gabri occasionally online for her earnestness about plants and ecology and the environment. ‘Actually, I was planning to hydrateyou.’
She couldn’t quite help where her brain went. ‘Is that what the kids are calling it these days.’
Instead of dignifying her joke with a reply, he gave her a light pinch to the arm followed by a kiss to her forehead.
He led the way to a niche in the crumbling stone façade, off to one side, where there was a tap protruding from the wall, with a marble slab next to it, engraved in Italian. Toni could nonetheless easily understand the words,Napoleone il Grande. He filled the water bottles while Toni absently traced other incomprehensible words in the marble.
Before the merger with I Do and her new expertise in destination weddings, the only thing she’d known about Elbawas that Napoleon had been exiled there between his forays into taking over Europe.
‘Did Napoleon find this spring or something?’
‘I don’t think so. But he’s still the most famous person with an association here.’
‘So it’s branding?’
‘Exactly,’ he said with a twinkle in his eye, before handing her a bottle and lifting his own. ‘It’s good water; it has health benefits apparently. Cin cin.’ He took a long gulp.
‘I’m not sure what Napoleon would think about being used for marketing, but I am thirsty.’ And having way too much fun teasing him.
But the joke was on her when she took a sip of the sweetest water she’d ever tasted, fresh and cool.
‘Mmm, that is good water. I could almost believe there’s some kind of magic here that makes everything taste better, but it’s probably just that I’m on holiday.’
‘It’s the Elba granite minerals in the water –andthe fact that you’re on holiday. It’s a very suggestive place.’
She choked on the water. ‘What’s suggestive about it?’ She glanced around with a cringe, looking for something phallic that she’d missed.
‘You know,’ Gabri continued with a wild gesture, ‘the sea, the views. You feel something. It’s suggestive.’
Eyebrows up, she gave him a wry grin. ‘I think you might be confused about the meaning of “suggestive”. Maybe look it up when you get home.’
‘Suggestivo is not suggestive?’
‘I don’t think so,’ she said, giving him a pat on the arm, even though the island certainly seemed to have givenherideas.
After stowing the bottles, Gabri turned the moped back in the direction they’d come, but turned off the main road almostimmediately, the motor puttering desperately up a sloping track that quickly became a dirt path.
When the path grew stonier and the poor moped seemed close to death, he pulled off to the side and cut the engine.
‘Where are we?’ she asked warily as she hopped off.
Gabri rummaged under the seat for a beat-up old rucksack, which he packed the water bottles into, and a stained cotton-mesh bag. Then he took a deep breath and grinned, all traces of his grave, dismayed expressions gone without a trace.
‘We are in the beautiful middle of nowhere,’ he said, stretching out a hand. ‘Come and see how this suggestive island provides for its people.’
No sound reached Toni’s ears aside from the crunch of their feet over the stones as they made their way farther into the forest. They were high above the sea, inland, so even the rush of the waves couldn’t be heard – although she caught glimpses of the distant water, rippling gold.
The quiet was disorienting – or possibly that was the pines, stretching up to the sky. None was straight; they grew leaning precariously, as though performing a choreographed dance and the crowns were the jazz hands. She wondered which of the Elba winds was responsible for that lean.
