Saved By The Greek Doctor (Greek Gods #3) - Holly Rayner Page 0,45
the remainder of my trip. Though I’d had a great overview of Athens, I’d also seen plenty of places where we hadn’t spent as much time as I would have liked.
There was also the small matter of the laundry that I needed to do—starting with the outfit I was currently wearing, which was made up of the clothes I’d been wearing when I’d fainted and fallen off my last sailboat. I’d left all of the clothes Nikos had lent to me on the island, and though this outfit had been washed since I fell in the water, it felt like it was fitting weird.
Like it had come from a different version of myself. One that no longer existed.
Still, taking anything from the island would have given me something to hold onto. And I didn’t want that. I would never get over Nikos if I had something to constantly clutch to my chest in a dramatic fashion.
Or worse yet, smell.
So I’d worn it anyhow, telling myself that I was crazy and that it wasn’t like I had a choice.
I wanted to find a nice camera, since I hadn’t brought one and now wanted to catalog all of the things I’d seen—and all the things I was going to see. I wanted to try the moussaka in every restaurant in town. I wanted to visit an olive grove and test its olives. Maybe buy a dozen jars of them to take home with me. Because I suddenly had a taste for them.
And I would absolutely, positively, most definitely not be thinking of a certain doctor with wavy black hair and electric turquoise eyes that matched the sea. Because that episode was behind me. Just a vacation fling, as it turned out—and a good thing, actually, since it showed me that I could care for someone again, even after what Bryan had done to me.
Also, Nikos had taught me about good Greek food. And he’d taught me how to snorkel, tell a good olive from a bad one (and refuse to eat ones that hadn’t been cured yet), and even differentiate between grapes that were ripe and grapes that were actually old. He’d taught me how to cook a few gorgeous dishes. He’d showed me a side of Greece that I never would have seen if I hadn’t met him.
All in all, I thought, it hadn’t been a complete waste of time.
That was my story, and I was sticking to it. Even when it came to that nasty voice in the back of my head that was already trying to pick it apart. Find the seams and stick its pointy fingers through them.
Remind me that this particular story was one that was actually full of holes.
I threw open the door to the hotel and marched in, my determination not to let the thing with Nikos bother me filtering right into my steps, and by the time I got to the front desk, I was marching with such authority that the poor hostess looked at me like I was about to yell at her.
She smiled and laughed when she found out that I was actually just there for another key, having lost mine in that stupid accident, and after a bit of shuffling over identification (again, I sent a thank you to the heavens that my phone and passport had managed to be saved by my handy dandy waterproof fanny pack) sent me off to my room with a new key and a recommendation that I try the tuna at the restaurant today.
She also gave me a weird sidelong glance as I turned away. A glance that was so odd, in fact, that I turned back and asked her if there was anything else. Had there been a problem with the room? Something I’d forgotten?
“No, no,” she assured me. “Everything is fine, madam. I hope you enjoy your day.” Then another secretive smile.
I cocked my head at her, still confused, then turned and walked away. Maybe she was just having an off day.
I climbed the stairs, my mind going back to her recommendation about the tuna, and smiled to myself. I already had plans for lunch—the breakfast place I’d been to with Nikos, which had sported a great lunch menu that I hadn’t gotten to try—and by the time I got to the fifth floor, I was figuring out what I was going to do between now and lunch, and whether I could incorporate that café into a tour of the city.