Those Summer Nights (Corfu, Greek Island Romance) by Mandy Baggot Read Free Book Online Page A

the key kept under a pot right outside.
    Imogen took a deep breath and batted a flying beetle away from her face. She had to think positive. The inside couldn’t possibly be as bleak as the outside, could it?

10
Elpida Dimitriou’s home, Agios Martinos, Corfu
    P anos had hired the most expensive car the company at the airport had at its disposal. The sleek, black Mercedes circled around the familiar twists and turns of his island like it was following a path ingrained in its make-up. From its secret coves and beaches to the rugged terrain en route to the highest peak of Pantokrator and all the remote tracks, farmland, olive groves and fruit orchards in between – Corfu was a jewel. He sighed, turning the vehicle around another bend towards Agios Martinos. He remembered every stretch of this particular road. The dense trees either side of the highway – pines, bush scrub, twisted and warped olives – the purple geraniums and lupins, the tiny yellow flowered crosswort.
    He slowed the car down as it rounded the final loop then pulled it to a stop. He let his breath fill up his lungs as he gazed into the thicket just in front of him. It was still there. The same fraying blue rope, haphazardly tied around a branch of what his grandmother had always said was the oldest olive tree in Agios Martinos. Below the rope was a splintered plank of wood, a swing, shifting gently with the heat. How many hours had he spent here? His legs shooting up into the air, touching the higher boughs of the tree, body prostrate, back arching, working to send the swing as high into orbit as possible. He could almost feel the wind through his hair now as he pictured the scene, the warmth of the sun on his face and laughter. Him, his cousin Risto, and children from the village. His eyes went further up the tree, midway on the trunk, and he smiled. Their treehouse, the rough wooden shelter that had kept them from the heat, sheltered them from thunder and provided the perfect hiding place when chores needed to be done. They’d played cards for drachma and sent toy cars speeding off the platform into the wood below. His father had built the treehouse . Visions of the lithe man, hanging from the tree, nailing planks of wood together, planing rough sections with his hands, asking Panos to pass him screwdrivers, rope, a spirit level. Simple pleasures. Time and love spent creating the hideout.
    Instantly the happiness fell away. Panos swallowed. He knew he wasn’t the only teenager in the world to have had to cope with a marriage breakdown. But when it had ended in his father’s death rather than a divorce it was like God had run in and grabbed everything all at once. His mother’s happiness. Their money to get by. Their home. His father. Again, his mother came to mind. Her endless nights of tears, his inability to provide consolation, his father’s harsh words to everyone. He shook himself. He hadn’t come here to rake over old ground but to show the island that the Dimitriou name meant success again. His father may have failed to adapt to modern business but he had learned to thrive on the pace, the invigorating ruthlessness of it all. He restarted the engine and continued up the steep hill until the house came into view.
    Like the play area of his youth the house was unchanged. The biscuit-coloured brick of the two-storey villa was just the same as it had been when he’d left at seventeen. His heart thumping against his ribs told him exactly how it felt to be back. He was anxious, feeling none of the usual business bravado he was so used to practising. Like it or not, this was affecting him deeply. Which was probably why, up until now, his trips back to Corfu had always taken place on neutral ground. He’d stay at a soulless hotel and his grandmother and relatives would come to a restaurant of his choosing. A couple of hours, the bill on his credit card and he would leave for the next big deal away from this island.
    He parked the car and looked up