Saved By The Greek Doctor (Greek Gods #3) - Holly Rayner Page 0,38

with one very hungry Trish.

Nikos must have been watching my face go through that entire thought process because when I looked up at him, I found him grinning at me like he knew exactly what I was thinking.

“I’m starving,” I added, in case my initial statement hadn’t been strong enough.

“Perfect,” he said. “Because there’s a restaurant I’ve been dying to get back to.”

We stood looking at what appeared to be a very old and very small cottage, perched right on the cliffs of Athens, and I couldn’t keep myself from sighing with pleasure.

The place was like something out of a freaking fairy tale. All old stones walls and red gabled roof, slightly crooked wooden door and even more crooked shutters on the windows. It was quite possibly the most charming place I’d ever seen.

“This looks like the place where Sleeping Beauty’s fairy godmothers lived,” I said, laughing. “They should be selling gingerbread and cake or something. Dealing in fairy dust and wishes.”

Nikos laughed along with me, looking at the place as if he was seeing it through my eyes instead of his own. “No gingerbread, I’m afraid. But the best moussaka around. I’ve never brought anyone else here. Kept it my little secret, I guess you could say. And I couldn’t think of any place I’d rather take you tonight than his one. I made a promise to myself, in fact, that we weren’t going to leave to go home until we’d eaten here.”

He moved forward and pulled open the door before I could properly unpack that surprising statement, and I jerked along behind him, trying to calm the buzzing in my veins that had started the moment he said he’d never brought anyone else here. And that he’d brought me because he couldn’t think of anywhere else he’d rather take me.

I definitely, definitely wasn’t thinking about him having just referred to ‘going home.’ Like we both lived in that enormous house on the island. Like I wasn’t just some interloper, squatting there for the week while I tried to get another boat.

I mean, it probably didn’t mean anything. But it sure felt like it could.

When I got inside the restaurant, I found that the inside was just as charming as the outside, all old stonework and wooden beams on the ceiling, a fireplace with an old mantel that looked like it had actually been made from driftwood, and the kitchen clearly visible in the back. The place only held about ten tables, and that, I thought, might explain why Nikos didn’t bring anyone here. It must have been a nightmare getting a reservation.

He was talking to the hostess like he’d known her for a very long time, though, and I wondered if a reservation would even have been a problem for someone who was throwing his arm around the woman who looked ancient enough to be the original owner of this building and telling her that he was sorry it had been so long since he’d visited.

“I didn’t have much reason to make the trip, when I kept dining alone,” he told her.

I saw her eyes turn curiously toward me at that point, and I blushed, turning away and pretending that I absolutely had not been listening to their conversation.

“Then who is this, who is keeping you from dining alone?” the woman asked, her meaning completely clear in her tone of voice.

To my amazement, I saw Nikos blush as well, the pink blooming across his cheeks obvious even in the dim lighting of the restaurant. “This is my new friend, Trish,” he said quietly, meeting my eyes and smiling at me with them. “She’s… well, I think she deserves to try your moussaka.”

The hostess gave him another very meaningful glance, and then pulled me in for a hug. “If you are here with Nikos, then you are a very special guest indeed,” she whispered. “Welcome.”

I thanked her, and before I knew it we were seated at a table near the fireplace—dormant right now, with the warm weather outside, though I thought it had to be wonderful during the winter—and Nikos was telling the woman that we’d both have the moussaka. Along with a bottle of red wine to share.

“My, my,” I teased him. “You know the owner, you order without asking me what I might want… One would almost think this place was owned by family.”

“Close enough,” he replied. “I’ve known the owners since I was a kid. Actually used to wash dishes here on the weekend to make