coils of fragrance into her lungs. Exotic, perfumed...sensuous.
As sensuous as his gaze had been.
That betraying heat started to flush up inside her again, and with a growl of anger at her own imbecility she wheeled about. She had no idea where she was going to put the ridiculously over-the-top bouquet, but right now she had work to do.
She was manning the sandwich bar on her own because Sarrie himself was on holiday. She didn’t mind because he was paying her extra, and every penny was bankable.
As she returned to her post behind the counter, checking what was left of the day’s ingredients and lifting out a tub of sliced tomatoes from the fridge, she deliberately busied herself running over her mental accounts. It stopped her thinking about that ridiculous bouquet—and the infuriating man who’d sent it to her.
OK, so where was she in her savings? She ran the figures through her head, feeling a familiar sense of satisfaction and reassurance as she did so. She’d worked flat-out these last twelve months, and now she was almost, almost at the point of setting off on her dream.
To travel. To leave the UK and see the world! To make a reality of all the places she’d only ever read about. Europe, the Med, even the USA—and maybe even further...South America, the Far East and Australia.
She’d never been abroad in her life.
A sigh escaped her. She shouldn’t feel deprived because she hadn’t travelled abroad. Gramps hadn’t liked ‘abroad.’ He hadn’t liked foreign travel. The south coast had been about as far as he’d been prepared to go.
‘Nothing wrong with Bognor,’ he’d used to tell her. ‘Or Brighton. Or Bournemouth.’
So that was where they’d gone for their annual summer holiday every year until she was a teenager. And for many years it had been fine—she’d loved the beach, even on her own with no brothers or sisters to play with. She’d had her grandfather, who’d raised her ever since his daughter and son-in-law had been killed in the same motorway pile-up that had killed his wife.
Looking back with adult eyes, she knew that having his five-year-old granddaughter to care for after the wholesale slaughter of the rest of his family had been her grandfather’s salvation. And he, in return, had become her rock—the centre of her world, the only person in the entire universe who loved her.
When she’d finished with school and started a Business Studies degree course at a nearby college, she’d opted to continue to live at home, in the familiar semi-detached house in the north London suburb she’d grown up in.
‘I’d be daft to move out, Gramps. Student accommodation costs a fortune, and most of the flats are complete dumps.’
Though she’d meant it, she’d also known that her grandfather had been relieved that she’d stayed at home with him.
It hadn’t cramped her social life to be living at home still, and she’d revelled in student life like any eighteen-year-old, enjoying her fair share of dating. It hadn’t been until she’d met Jak in her second year that things had become serious. He’d taken her seriously, too, seeing past her dazzling looks to the person within, and soon they’d become an item.
Had she been in love with him? She’d discovered the answer to that at the end of their studies. Not enough to dedicate her life to him the way he’d wanted her to.
‘I’ve got a job with the charity I applied for—out in Africa. I’m going to be teaching English, building schools, digging wells. It’s what I’ve always dreamed of.’ He’d paused, looking at Mel straight on. ‘Will you come with me? Support me in my work? Make your life with me?’
It had been the question she’d known was coming—the question she’d only been able to answer one way. Whether or not she’d wanted to join Jak in his life’s work, it had been impossible anyway.
‘I can’t,’ she’d said. ‘I can’t leave Gramps.’
Because by then that was what it had come down to. In the three years of her being a student her grandfather had aged—had crossed that invisible but irreversible boundary from being the person who had raised her and looked after her to being someone who now looked to her to look after him. The years had brought heart problems—angina and mini-strokes—but far worse than his growing physical frailty had been the mental frailty that had come with it. Mel had known with sadness and a sinking heart that he had become more and more dependent on her.
She hadn’t been able to leave him. How could she have deserted him, the grandfather she loved so much? How could she have abandoned him when he’d needed her? She had only been able to wait, putting her own life on hold and devoting herself to the one relative she’d possessed: the grandfather who loved her.
The months had turned into years—three whole years—until finally he’d left her in the only way that a frail, ill old man could leave his granddaughter.
She’d wept—but not only from grief. There had been relief, too—she knew that. Relief for him, that at last he was freed from his failing body, his faltering mind. And relief, too, for herself.
She hadn’t been able to deny, though it had hurt to think it, that now, after his death, she was freed of all responsibility. Her grandfather had escaped the travails of life and by doing so had given Mel her own life back—given back to her what she wanted most of all to claim.
Her freedom.
Freedom to do what she had long dreamt of doing. To travel! To travel as she’d never had the opportunity to do—to travel wherever the wind blew her, wherever took her fancy. See the world.
But to do that she needed money. Money she’d been unable to earn for herself when she’d become her grandfather’s carer. Yes, she had some money, because her grandfather had left her his savings—but that would be needed, as a safe nest egg, for when she finally returned to the UK to settle down and build a career for herself. So to fund her longed-for travels she was working all the hours she could—Sarrie’s Sarnies by day, and waitressing in a nearby restaurant by night.
And soon—oh, very soon—she’d be off and away. Picking up a cheap last-minute flight and heading wherever the spirit took her until the money ran out, when she’d come back home to settle down.
If she ever did come back...
Maybe I’ll never come back. Maybe I’ll stay footloose all my life. Never be tied down again by anything or anyone! Free as a bird!
Devoted as she had been to her grandfather, after years of caring for him such freedom was a heady prospect.
So, too, was the looking forward to another element of youth that she had set aside till now.
Romance.
Since Jak had gone to Africa and she’d stayed behind to look after her grandfather romance had been impossible. In the early days she’d managed to go on a couple of dates, but as her grandfather’s health had worsened those moments had become less and less. But now... Oh, now romance could blossom again—and she’d welcome it with open arms.
She knew exactly what she wanted at this juncture of her life. Nothing intense or serious, as her relationship with Jak had been. Nothing long-term, as he had hoped things would be between them. No, for now all she craved was the heady buzz of eyes meeting across a crowded room, mutual desire acknowledged and fulfilled—frothy, carefree, self-indulgent fun. That was what she longed for now.
Her mouth curved in a cynical smile and her eyes sparked. Well, that attitude should make her popular. Men were habitually wary of women who wanted more from them—they were the ones who didn’t like clingy women, who didn’t want to be tied down. Who liked to enjoy their pick of women as and when they fancied.
The cynical smile deepened. She’d bet money that Nikos Parakis was a man like that. Looking her over the way he had...
As she started to serve a new customer who’d