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dishes were done and bits and pieces had been put away. Now Helene was cooking.
    After evaluating the ingredients, he nodded at the cake pan. “ Karidopitda ?”
    “Gia, Alexio’s wife, taught me.” She added sugar, milk, and oil to the bowl of beaten
     eggs.
    “You’re a good cook?”
    “I try.”
    Earlier, Darius had learned that her story regarding college also checked out. After
     finishing high school, she’d worked as a junior assistant in a travel agency. Two
     years on, she’d enrolled and completed a four-year degree. Helene Masters wasn’t a
     reporter. She was an ordinary woman caught up in his change of plans. He’d thought
     about their situation all morning. Now he wondered if he ought to make another change.
    He came to stand beside her. Her hair, freshly washed, was fragrant with a lavender
     scent. Lower down, her bare feet were clean of yesterday’s grime. Each toenail was
     painted iridescent pink.
    “You mentioned that you work for your friend Alexio at his tarverna,” he said.
    “I serve meals and drinks, wipe down tables, sometimes mop floors.”
    “You like that kind of work?”
    “More than painting gutters.” Holding the sifter, she squeezed repeatedly, and a mist
     of flour drifted into the bowl. “I love being with people, hearing them talk and laugh
     while they enjoy good food.”
    “Would you like to work for me?”
    She stopped sifting. “Work for you how?”
    “This week. Preparing meals. Tidying up.”
    She stared at him before a wry grin kicked up one side of her mouth. “You said yourself—no
     one is supposed to be here now but you.”
    “Nevertheless, you are here. And after some consideration, I’ve decided I could use the help.” He eyed the
     bowl and pretended to frown. “Or perhaps I should wait to taste your cake.”
    Dazed, she leaned a hip against the counter. “You want me to stay after all the trouble
     I caused?”
    “The paint on the path will clean off. That cave-in would have happened anyhow.”
    “But not with you right there, dodging rocks.”
    “Perhaps it was a good thing I was there. More rock could fall before I can organize to have it reinforced. If I hadn’t
     gotten her out then, she may have been smashed, lost forever.”
    Absently, she touched first her chin then her cheek. She looked so funny, mulling
     over his offer, her face patted with white dust. He supposed he should let her know.
    He indicated his own chin and cheek. “Flour,” he explained.
    She smeared away the patch on her cheek but kept missing the dab on her chin.
    “A little higher,” he said.
    Looking at his face as if it were a mirror, she tried again.
    Lifting her jaw with a finger, he stroked the spot with the pad of his thumb. As he
     brushed, he felt her gaze roaming his face—his chin, his mouth. Then he recognized
     a telltale stirring in his blood, the kind of pleasant steady pull that left him wanting
     to lift her chin higher and graze that spot with his lips.
    After taking longer than was strictly necessary, his hand fell away. Her eyes were
     wide and her voice husky when she thanked him.
    “Guess I’m messy in the kitchen, too,” she joked.
    “We can deal with that. What’s your answer?”
    “Let’s see. Start on my journey back to California and reality, or stay on a beautiful
     isolated Mediterranean island doing light duties for a prince?” She laughed. “I think I’d have to pay you .”
    “Then we have a deal?”
    She hesitated only a moment before she stuck out her hand, and they shook on it. When
     his hand came away covered in flour, Helene’s eyes rounded again, and those same fingers
     covered her opened mouth.
    “It’s not too late to change your mind,” she said.
    He went to the sink, brushed off his palm, then headed straight out. He didn’t want
     to stand there contemplating the best way to brush the flour off her lips.

Chapter Five
    On the third day, Darius returned late to the villa to find the main room and kitchen