‘I am totally underdressed,’ Jo hissed the moment the fawning concierge had left them alone. ‘All those women look as if they’ve just come off a catwalk.’
‘You look beautiful,’ he said simply, his eyes taking in every inch of her. Again.
There was nothing wrong with looking. Nothing at all.
‘And don’t forget I’m a prince of this island. I could wear a sack and my guest a binliner and I’d still be treated like royalty.’
‘You are royalty,’ she said with a mock scowl, although her cheeks heightened with colour at his compliment.
‘Exactly. My presence gives the place a certain cache. It’s a secret club for the filthy rich—playboys and billionaires who moor their yachts in our harbour and like to dine and play somewhere elusive and exclusive.’
‘You like to come here?’ she asked doubtfully, as if she knew of his disdain for these people whose lives were consumed with money: how to make it and how to spend it.
‘If I were to take you anywhere else our picture would be all over the press by morning.’ He gave a rueful shrug. ‘I can always take you to Talos’s boxing gym, if you would prefer?’
She raised her pretty red-brown eyebrows.
‘And here you get to see my island.’
‘Do I?’
‘If you look, you’ll see this is the best view in the whole of Agon.’
He’d ensured she had the best seat at the table—one that looked out from the mountain over the villages and towns dotted in the distance, towards the palace in the thickets of trees on the adjacent mountain and the dark blue of the Mediterranean, where the sun blinked its last goodnight. In a couple of hours the moon would be high enough to illuminate the whole island. It was a sight he wanted her to see.
It gave him enormous satisfaction to see she hadn’t paid the blindest bit of attention to the view. Since they’d been seated she’d only had eyes for him.
He pointed. ‘Do you see that high, rocky mountain in the distance?’
She nodded.
‘When we were teenagers, my brothers and I would have races to the top.’
‘You were allowed?’
‘Of course. Within the palace walls we were expected to behave like princes, but outside we were expected to be fighting fit.’
‘And who would win?’
‘Normally Talos. Helios and I were so intent on beating each other we always forgot what a mountain Talos was himself. We’d get to the top and find him already there.’ He smiled at the memories.
Jo squinted as she took it all in, her features softening. She nodded in the direction of the palace. ‘Is that the maze all lit up?’
‘It is,’ he confirmed. ‘There must be a group doing an evening tour—there are night lights embedded in the hedges to light the way for them.’
She gave a sigh of wonder. ‘I bet that’s a fabulous experience. Your maze is huge—much bigger than the one at Hampton Court Palace. I got lost in that on a school trip when I was twelve.’
Her delight at the recollection of being lost in a maze made her whole face light up, whilst the mention of the British palace sparked a memory of his own. ‘Aren’t you distantly related to your royal family?’
Surprise ringed her blue-grey eyes. ‘How can you remember that?’
‘I have an excellent memory.’
The truth was his memories of those last few days on Illya were becoming clearer. The hazy details were crystallising.
The night after he’d evicted those Americans from Marin’s Bar for their ill-treatment of her, he’d gone back there with his Scandinavian friends and invited Jo and her friends to join them again. Conversation had turned to everyone having to say one interesting fact about themselves. Jo’s had been that she was distantly related to the British royal family. She’d found it so amusing that she’d burst into laughter.
It had been the first time he’d heard or seen her laugh—usually she was so shy. Her whole face had lit up, just as it was doing now. It had been the first time he’d noticed what a pretty face she had. It had been such a transformation that his interest had been well and truly piqued. He’d spent the rest of the evening talking to her, enchanted by this shy young woman who, once she got going, became witty and talkative.
Talking to her had been like bathing in a clear, sun-drenched lake after months of soaking in the salty sea. He remembered how torn she’d looked when her friends had said they wanted to return to their chalet. How disappointed he’d been when she’d got up from the table and wished him goodnight.