Saved By The Greek Doctor (Greek Gods #3) - Holly Rayner Page 0,37

place didn’t disappoint. We sat at a table by the window with a terrific view of the ocean right below us, and ate a traditional Greek breakfast—pies, cold cuts of meat and cheese, cucumber, the works—until we realized we should probably stop. We were, after all, planning to ride the bikes rather than hire a car to get around.

From there we went to several of the local museums, and on to some of the more famous—and more impressive ruins. The Parthenon. The Acropolis. The Temple of Artemis.

Because I couldn’t not go to a temple that honored a warrior goddess when Trish was with me, my own tiny, pixie-shaped heroine.

And at each spot, Trish stopped and stared, her eyes going all misty and dreamy the way they had on the island when we’d looked at the remains of that small fishing village.

At one point, she just looked at me and murmured, “Can you even imagine all the important things that happened right where we’re standing?”

And that right there, I realized, was what it was. That dreamer inside of her. Yes, she was incredibly practical in many ways, and a quick learner when it came to things like snorkeling.

But that dreamy part of her, the part that looked at something and saw a thing that no one else could see? That part that caused her to close her eyes and turn her face up to the sky when she supposed to be piloting a boat?

That was what kept grabbing me. That was what I couldn’t get past. There was something so innocent and childlike about it… and yet the world had tried hard to cut it out of her, I thought. It had shown her the darker sides of life. Tried to push her right into the abyss of disillusionment.

But she’d kept those dreams. I wanted to know how. I wanted to make her dreams my own. I never wanted to have to stop being there with her when she dreamt them.

And, I realized, we were going to be staying on the mainland for longer than I’d planned. Because I wanted to take her to my favorite restaurant for dinner. The restaurant that I had never taken anyone else to, because it was so special that I’d always wanted to keep it to myself.

To my absolute surprise, the thought of keeping it to myself suddenly felt wrong. It suddenly felt like a complete and utter waste.

Besides, I wanted to hear what Trish thought of their moussaka compared to mine.

Chapter 18

Trish

“Dinner?” I responded thankfully when Nikos asked me if I was hungry. “I thought you’d never ask.”

Look, it wasn’t that I wasn’t having the time of my freaking life. I was seeing the most haunting ruins ever—and all the hidden, non-tourist attractions in Athens—and I was doing it with the most gorgeous and charming man I’d ever met. Who also happened to be an insider and knew all the best things to do, and all the stories behind the legends.

I would have been lying if I’d said I wasn’t eating it up. Every second of it. I would have been able to see the ruins on my own, but I’d never have heard the stories. I’d never have learned the background of different sites or found the charming café where we had breakfast or even known to rent a bicycle so I could get the full feel of the city. So yes, there was a part of me that remembered that I had a hotel room in this very city—full of my own clothes and makeup, plus the books I’d brought along—but it had never even occurred to me to suggest stopping by there.

I didn’t want to remember that I might have been seeing this city by myself. I wanted to focus only on Nikos.

Speaking of whom, believe me when I say that I was taking every opportunity I could to brush up against that particularly gorgeous and charming man, or take his hand when the opportunity presented itself. And I could have gone on doing just that all night, if he’d given me the opportunity.

But—and this is a very big but—I was also starving. We’d been doing so many physical things over the past week—not that, stop making that face—that my metabolism had kicked up a notch and my body wanted more calories. Add biking through much of Athens to that, and a very light lunch, since we hadn’t wanted to bog ourselves down with too much food, and you came up