Playing by the Greek's Rules (Puffin Island 0.50)

‘Of course! She’d be delighted. She wants it as much as I do. And she’d really like to meet you, too. She’s keen for us to be a proper family.’

A proper family.

A long-buried memory emerged from deep inside his brain, squeezing itself through the many layers of self-protection he’d used to suppress it.

It had been so long the images were no longer clear, a fact for which he was grimly grateful. Even now, several decades later, he could still remember how it had felt to have those images replaying in his head night after night.

A man, a woman and a young boy, living an idyllic existence under blue skies and the dazzle of the sun. Growing up, he’d learned a thousand lessons about living. How to cook with leaves from the vine, how to distil the grape skins and seeds to form the potent tsikoudia they drank with friends. He’d lived his cocooned existence until one day his world had crumbled and he’d learned the most important lesson of all.

That a family was the least stable structure invented by man.

It could be destroyed in a moment.

‘Come home, Niklaus,’ his father said quietly. ‘It has been too long. I want us to put the past behind us. Callie is no longer here.’

Nik didn’t tell him that the reason he avoided the island had nothing to do with Callie.

Whenever he returned there it stirre

d up the same memory of his mother leaving in the middle of the night while he watched in confusion from the elegant curve of the stairs.

Where are you going, Mama? Are you taking us with you? Can we come, too?

‘Niklaus?’ His father was still talking. ‘Will you come?’

Nik dragged his hand over the back of his neck. ‘Yes, if that’s what you want.’

‘How can you doubt it?’ There was joy in his father’s voice. ‘The wedding is Tuesday but many of our friends are arriving at the weekend so that we can celebrate in style. Come on Saturday then you can join in the pre-wedding celebrations.’

‘Saturday?’ His father expected him to stay for four days? ‘I’ll have to see if I can clear my diary.’

‘Of course you can. What’s the point of being in charge of the company if you can’t decide your own schedule? Now tell me about Lily. I like her very much. How long have the two of you been together?’

Ten memorable hours. ‘How do you know her name?’

‘We’ve been talking, Niklaus! Which is more than you and I ever do. She sounds nice. Why don’t you bring her to the wedding?’

‘We don’t have that sort of relationship.’ He felt a flicker of irritation. Was that why she’d spent so much time on the phone talking to his father? Had she decided that sympathy might earn her an invite to the biggest wedding of the year in Greece?

Exchanging a final few words with his father, he hung up. ‘Don’t ever,’ he said with silky emphasis as he turned to face her, ‘answer my phone again.’ But he was talking to an empty room because Lily was nowhere to be seen.

Taken aback, Nik glanced towards the bathroom and then noticed the note scrawled on a piece of paper by his pillow.

Thanks for the best rebound sex ever. Lily.

The best rebound sex?

She’d left?

Nik picked up the note and scrunched it in his palm. He’d been so absorbed in the conversation with his father he hadn’t heard her leaving.

The dress from the night before lay neatly folded on the chair but there was no sign of the shoes or his shirt. He had no need to formulate a plan to eject her from his life because she’d removed herself.

She’d gone.

And she hadn’t even bothered saying goodbye.

* * *