Miss Prim's Greek Island Fling

He glanced at his watch. ‘Six thirty is a bit early for dinner, isn’t it?’

She still didn’t answer him. She simply peered at her reflection in the foyer mirror, and slicked on another coat of ruby-red lipstick. Utter perfection. She wore a sundress that made his mouth water too—the bodice hugged her curves, showing off a delectable expanse of golden skin at her shoulders and throat while the skirt fell in a floaty swirl of aqua and scarlet to swish about her calves. His heart pounded.

Don’t think about messing up that lipstick.

He shoved his hands into his pockets. ‘Why aren’t you taking the car?’

She finally turned. ‘Because I plan to have a couple of drinks. And I don’t drink and drive.’

‘But how will you get home?’

She raised an eyebrow.

He raised one back at her. ‘You’ve almost got that down pat.’

She waved a hand in front of her face. ‘Stop it, Finn.’

‘What? It was a compliment and—’

‘Stop it with the twenty questions. I know what time I want to eat. I know how to get home at the end of an evening out. Or—’ she smiled, but it didn’t reach eyes that flashed and sparked ‘—how to get home the morning after an evening out if that’s the way the evening rocks.’

She...she might not be coming home? But—

And then she was gone in a swirl of perfume and red and aqua skirt as the village taxi pulled up in the driveway and tooted its horn.

Finn spent the evening pacing. Audra might be a grown woman, but she’d had fire in her eyes as she’d left. He knew she was angry with him and Rupert, but what if that anger led her to do something stupid...something she’d later regret? What the hell would he tell Rupert if something happened to her?

He lasted until nine p.m. Jumping in the car, it felt like a relief to finally be doing something, to be setting off after her. Not that he knew what he was going to do once he did find her.

She was in the first place he looked—Petra’s Taverna. The music pouring from its open windows and doors was lively and cheerful. Tables spilled onto the courtyard outside and down to a tiny beach. Finn chose a table on the edge of the scene in the shadows of a cypress with an excellent view, via two enormous windows, inside the taverna.

Audra drew his eyes like a magnet. She sat on a stool framed in one of the windows and threw her head back at something her companion said, though Finn’s view of her companion was blocked. She nodded and her companion came into view—a handsome young local—as they moved to the dance floor.

Beneath the table, Finn’s hands clenched. When a waiter came he ordered a lemon squash. Someone had to keep their wits about them this evening! As the night wore on, Finn’s scowl only grew and it deterred anyone who might’ve been tempted from coming across and trying to engage him in conversation.

And the more morose he grew, the merrier the tabloid inside became. As if those two things were related.

Audra was the life of the party. He lost track of the number of dance partners she had. She laughed and talked with just about every person in the taverna. She alternated glasses of white wine with big glasses of soda water. She snacked on olives and crisps and even played a hand of cards. She charmed everyone. And everything charmed her. He frowned. He’d not realised before how popular she was here in Kyanós. His frown deepened. It struck him that she was more alive here than he could ever remember seeing her.

And at a little after midnight, and after many pecks on cheeks were exchanged, she caught the taxi—presumably back to the villa—on her own.

He sat there feeling like an idiot. She’d had an evening out—had let her hair down and had some fun. She hadn’t drunk too much. She hadn’t flirted outrageously and hadn’t needed to fight off inappropriate advances. She hadn’t done anything foolish or reckless or ill-considered. She hadn’t needed him to come to her rescue.

I’m a grown-up who has the right to make her own choices.

And what was he? Not just a fool, but some kind of creep—a sneak spying on a woman because he’d been feeling left out and unnecessary. And as far as Audra was concerned, he was unnecessary. Completely unnecessary. She didn’t need him.

He could try to dress it up any way he liked—that he’d been worried about her, that he wanted to make sure she stayed safe—but what he’d done was spy on her and invade her privacy.

Why the hell had he done that? What right did he think he had?

Earlier she’d accused him and Rupert of being patronising and controlling, and she was right.

She deserved better from him. Much better.