Page 24 of Scorched Veil
We eat lunch at a tiny restaurant on the water, four tables on a wooden deck that hangs out over the harbor. A woman with sun-weathered hands brings us fish still sizzling from the grill, a basket of bread, and two cold beers sweating in the heat. Kairo orders in the local language without looking at the menu, obviously he's been here before, a lot.
I squeeze lime over everything and eat with my fingers because he does. The fish is perfect, flaky and charred, and the beer is so cold it makes my teeth ache. For a few minutes neither of us talks. It’s just the boats creaking in the harbor, the low hum of a radio from inside, and a dog sleeping in the shade under the next table.
"How long have you had the island?" I ask, pulling apart a piece of bread.
"Five years." He leans back in his chair, beer resting on his thigh. "It was nothing when I bought it. Just the dock and a generator shed. I built the villa from the ground up. It took two years, and I flew in every crew, every material. Drove the architects insane because I kept changing things."
I try to picture him standing in a construction site, arguing over floor plans. It doesn't fit, and yet it does, the same obsessive control he applies to everything, poured into concrete and glass.
"Where's your family from?" I know the answer already, bits of it, overheard fragments from my father's dealings. But I want to hear him say it.
"Greece, a small town in Crete. My mother's still there." He peels the label off his beer with his thumbnail. "She makes this lamb dish, it takes her two days. The whole house smells like oregano and garlic. When I was a kid, I used to sit on the kitchen floor and watch her cook. She'd give me pieces of bread dipped in the sauce to keep me quiet."
It's the most human thing he's ever said to me as I watch his hands on the bottle and wait.
"My father was a hard man." The label comes off in one clean strip. He folds it in half. "He built everything we have from nothing, and he made sure we knew the cost of it, every day."
He doesn't elaborate. He doesn't need to. I grew up in a house where a father's temper was the weather, you learned to read it before you learned to read books.
"Is he still alive?"
"No."
The way he says it, flat, final, with no grief in it, tells me everything about how that story ended. He takes a long drink of his beer and looks out at the water. The silence isn't uncomfortable.
"I want to show you something," he says, and I'm excited to know what it is.
He drives us deeper into the island, off the main road and down a narrow dirt track that winds through thick jungle. The air grows cooler as we climb, and I hear the waterfall before I see it, a low, constant roar. When the track ends at a small clearing, my breath catches. The waterfall drops thirty feet into a perfect turquoise pool surrounded by black volcanic rock and lush ferns. It’s stunning, it doesn’t look real.
“Nobody comes here,” Kairo says quietly, watching my reaction. “I had the path blocked off years ago.”
“You own it?” I ask, raising an eyebrow.
He gives me a small, almost shy smile. “Yes.”
He leads me along a short path, and at the end, on a flat rock beside the pool, there’s a thick blanket laid out with a cooler, two glasses, champagne, and a plate of fresh fruit. Everything is arranged beautifully.
I stop and stare.
“When did you set this up?” I ask, genuinely surprised.
“This morning,” he admits. “While you were in the shower.”
I look at the waterfall, the blanket, the champagne, then back at him. A slow, teasing smile tugs at my lips.
“Are you trying to romance me, Kairo Saint?”
He doesn’t deny it, instead, he steps closer, his voice low and warm.
“Is it working?”
I bite my bottom lip, fighting a smile. “Maybe, a little.”
He chuckles softly, the sound rich and pleased as he pops the champagne. The cork flies off with a pop into the jungle, making me laugh. He pours two glasses and hands me one, and then takes his and sits on the rocks by the edge of the water. I follow as we both dangle our feet in the cool, crystal-clear water.
The mist from the waterfall drifts across our skin, cool and refreshing. For a few minutes we just sit there, sipping champagne, the roar of the water filling the comfortable silence.
“You planned all this,” I say, glancing sideways at him. “The picnic, the secret waterfall. You’re really pulling out all the stops.”
