“Four minutes to spare. Are we going to make it?”
“Yep. The restaurant isn’t far. Nothing is really far on Santorini, as a matter of fact.”
We left the house without incident, Blair locking the door and replacing the key under the pot. The walk to the restaurant, with Blair’s hand in mine, made me forget again that we were merely pretending to be a couple on vacation. Which worked in our favor, given that we were about to try to convince a man who knew her as well as anyone of that very same lie.
The place was called Fanari, part of another resort hotel type place. A young, bored-looking host led us out onto a stone patio. White-clothed tables with flickering candle centerpieces overlooked the ocean, which had turned a deepening blue in the twilight.
The sun set early here this time of year, before six, which had come and gone. It had dipped below the horizon a good fifteen minutes ago, spraying a golden halo above the waves and giving the evening a surreal glow that artists of every kind had been attempting to capture for thousands of years.
I stopped for a moment and took it all in. There were so many things that I loved about technology, but one of the things I hated was that no one ever stood and stared. Off into the distance. At the beauty in front of them. If we were lucky enough to see something amazing, we were reaching for a phone or a camera to photograph it, not just seeing it.
It occurred to me that neither Blair nor I had reached for our phones for anything other than navigation in days. I should be more vigilant, since Leo wasn’t above sending out an international search party, but life felt good this way. Right. As though it really could be simple.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Blair stood at my side, as still and silent as I had been, her bottomless dark eyes chasing the spot where the ocean met the sky.
“Yes.”
She caught me looking at her and whacked my arm. “I meant the view.”
“So did I.”
As hard as she tried to keep the smile from twitching up the corners of her mouth, they wouldn’t obey. I slipped an arm around her waist at the same moment a huge, burly man of indeterminate race swaggered up to us with the kind of confidence that only came from being sure you could kick a man’s ass—any man’s.
“Well, if it isn’t little Blair Paddington.” He gave me a hard look. “How about you take your hands off her.”
Blair grabbed my hand, trapping it against her waist before I could snatch it away like a little boy caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “Sam, don’t move. Uncle Xander, it’s good to see you.”
After she’d held on to me long enough to make her point, Blair stepped forward and into the giant oaf’s arms, giving him a squeeze. He lifted her off the ground, making her squeal like a child as I tried to figure out what kind of caretaking he specialized in.
He set her down and turned his black, beady gaze on me. “And who in the hell are you, other than handsy?”
“I’m Sam Bradford.”
“The boyfriend?” He cocked his ear toward Blair, refusing to peel his hard look away from me.
“Yes. Now stop acting like you’re a father. Not mine, because obviously he doesn’t concern himself with who I date, but someone’s. Is the table ready?”
The man harrumphed, then stuck out his hand my direction. “Xander.”
“It’s nice to meet you. For what it’s worth, I promise I’m treating her with as much respect as she’ll allow.”
He bellowed, laughing until he bent over and put his hands on his knees to catch his breath. Half of the people on the patio were staring without trying to hide it by the time he recovered. The wide set of his shoulders and the thickness of his gut suggested it didn’t take much to wind him.
Good to know. In case I needed to run.
The three of us sat at one of the tables closest to the short stone-and-mortar wall that separated the restaurant from the steep drop down to the sea. Single-sheet menus waited on our plates, glasses full of water and ice. Xander ordered what turned out to be a bottle of white wine. He poured for all of us and then drank his glass down in one gulp, refilling it while I tried not to stare.
Blair paid him no attention, studying her menu even though it was in Greek. I followed her lead, peeking at him while he drank the second glass in two gulps, then refilled and stared at his own menu. Some of the words were familiar enough, and when I looked closer I saw that there were English and Italian translations in lighter print along the sides.
A waiter appeared, and Xander ordered another bottle of wine along with his dinner. Blair ordered next and I requested what I hoped was fish with a mushroom risotto, or something similar. The waiter wrote everything down on his pad with quick strokes, then left the three of us alone.