Chapter 7: The last day in Greece
The silence in their London flat was a different beast than the one in the villa. In Greece, it had been heavy with sun-drenched shock and the fumes of upended desire. Here, it was thin, administrative, a cold void filled with the distant hum of traffic and the careful clatter of cutlery. For a week, they moved around each other like museum curators handling a fragile, cracked artifact.
Tom went back to his investment analyses, the numbers offering a clean, binary sanctuary. Anna buried herself in quarterly reports and staffing schedules, the corporate jargon a welcome anesthetic. They shared a bed without touching, the memory of his final, tear-streaked release in the villa hanging between them like a ghost.
It was on a Thursday, during a departmental strategy meeting, that the equilibrium fissured.
Anna was at the head of the conference table, pointer clicking against a projected graph. “The Q3 projections from the Bristol office are lackluster. We need the new intake to bring fresh energy, not just replicate old patterns.”
The door to the conference room opened, and Sarah from HR slipped in, followed by a young man.
“Apologies for the interruption, Anna,” Sarah said brightly. “This is Mark. He’s the new intern for the Strategy pod. I thought it best to introduce him straight into the deep end.”
All eyes turned to him. He was tall, with the easy posture of someone accustomed to occupying space. Sun-bleached, tousled hair, a sharp jawline dusted with stubble that looked intentional, not lazy. He wore a suit, but it couldn’t quite tame the vitality beneath it. His gaze swept the room and landed on Anna, holding for a beat too long. A smile touched his lips, not quite deferential, tinged with a curiosity that felt like assessment.
“Mark,” Anna said, her manager’s mask slipping perfectly into place. “Welcome. Grab a seat. We’re just dissecting Q3 failures.”
He took a chair near the back, his eyes never leaving her. Throughout the meeting, she felt the weight of his attention like a mild, consistent heat on her skin. When she spoke, he listened with an intensity that was flattering and unnerving. When a senior analyst droned on, she caught Mark’s eyes drifting to the line of her neck, the shift of her shoulders under her silk blouse.
After the meeting, as people filtered out, he approached her.
“Ms. Everson? Anna?” he said, his voice lower than she expected, with a faint, pleasant roughness. “Just wanted to say I’ve heard a lot about your work on the Mercer merger. Brutally efficient, from what I read.”
“Thank you, Mark,” she said, stacking her papers. “The key is anticipating roadblocks before they become walls.”
“I’ll remember that,” he said, not moving. His eyes were a clear, unsettling green. “Looking forward to learning from you.”
The way he said ‘learning’ felt layered. She dismissed it as paranoia, a symptom of her own fractured state.
But it persisted. He was always there, fetching coffee with a smile that seemed just for her, leaning over her desk to ask a question, his crisp white shirt stretching across his shoulders. He was clever, picking up systems quickly, his confidence bordering on arrogance. He was also nineteen. A child. Yet, his presence scraped against the raw part of her that had been exposed in the Grecian sun.
One evening, working late, she found him at the printer, staring at a jam with a look of comic frustration.
“It’s a lever on the side,” she said, reaching past him. Her arm brushed his. A static charge, or something else, jumped between them. She pulled back.
“Thanks,” he said, his eyes dropping to her mouth for a fleeting second. “I’m more of a software guy.”
“Noted.” She turned to leave.
“Heading to the Greece trip next week?” he asked casually.
She froze. The company had a vague, open-ended policy about remote work from certain European hubs. It was how she and Tom had framed their vacation. It wasn’t common knowledge.
“How did you know about that?”
He shrugged, a fluid, unapologetic motion. “Heard Sarah mention it. Coordinating your out-of-office. Sounds amazing. Naxos, right? The beaches are supposed to be unreal.”
The way he said ‘unreal’ felt like an intrusion. She gave a tight nod and left.
That night, over a dinner of delivered sushi, Tom broke the silence. “I booked the flights. Same villa. For two weeks.”
Anna looked up from her tuna roll. “What?”
“We need to finish it,” he said, his voice low and intense. “We can’t leave it… like that. We need to go back. On our terms.”
She saw the determination in his eyes, a mirror of the desperation she’d seen on the sofa. He wasn’t trying to forget. He was trying to conquer. To master the thing that had mastered him.
“Our terms,” she repeated flatly.
“Yes.” He reached across the table, his hand covering hers. It was the first time he’d initiated touch since the villa. His palm was damp. “We go back. We find them. And we do it again. But this time, I’m not just watching.”
The sun on the nudist beach was a familiar brand, searing and forgiving. The sand was the same blinding white, the water the same impossible blue. But Anna felt like a stranger in her own skin. She lay on the rented lounger, completely naked, Tom rigid beside her, both of them wearing sunglasses like armor.
She had spotted Nikos and Elena an hour earlier, playing backgammon under a straw umbrella. They had waved, friendly and uncomplicated, as if the last memory was of sharing a pleasant drink, not of wrecking a couple’s foundation.
Tom had been watching them like a hawk. Now, as the afternoon wine kicked in, he sat up.
“I’m going over,” he said, his voice taut.
“Tom…”
“Our terms,” he reminded her, and stood. He walked, naked and visibly tense, across the hot sand. She watched him speak to them, saw Nikos look over at her, a slow smile spreading. He nodded. Tom walked back, his face a mask of grim resolve.
“They’re coming for a drink,” he said.
They came, bringing their bottle of ouzo and a cloud of easy, amoral energy. The conversation was trivial—the heat, a taverna in Chora, the absurd price of suncream. The subtext screamed beneath it.
Finally, Nikos leaned back, his eyes hidden behind mirrored lenses. He looked at Anna, then at Tom. “So. You came back for more.”
Tom swallowed. “We came back to have a good time.”
Nikos laughed. “Good.” His gaze slid to Anna. “You look tense, glykó mou. The water is nice. Come.”
It wasn’t a question. Anna stood, feeling both men’s eyes on her body. She walked into the sea, the cool water a relief. Nikos followed. When they were waist-deep, he closed the distance. His hands found her hips under the water, pulling her against him. She felt his erection, thick and urgent, press against her belly.
“He wants to play the man,” Nikos murmured into her ear, his breath hot. “So let him watch the pro.”
He turned her around, her back to his chest. On the shore, Tom and Elena were sitting close, Elena’s hand resting on his thigh. Nikos’s hands cupped Anna’s breasts, his thumbs circling her nipples until they peaked into hard, sensitive points. One hand slid down her stomach, through the coarse hair below, and found her clit.
“You are already wet for me,” he grunted, his fingers working her with a brutal efficiency learned on a thousand sun-baked afternoons. “You remembered.”
She had. Her head fell back against his shoulder as he rubbed her, the water lapping around them, the public spectacle of it sending a dangerous thrill straight to her core. On the beach, Tom was watching, frozen. Elena was whispering in his ear.
Nikos spun her again, kissing her hard, his tongue claiming her mouth. He bit her lower lip, making her gasp. Then he guided her down. The salt water stung her eyes as she submerged for a second, finding him with her mouth. She took him in, the taste of salt and clean skin and pure male arousal flooding her senses. She bobbed her head, the waves making the motion surreal, a secret performed in broad daylight.
When she surfaced for air, gasping, he pulled her up. “Enough. I want to be inside you.”
He half-led, half-dragged her back to the shallows, where the water was only knee-deep. He sat down in the wet sand, pulling her atop him, guiding her onto his cock. She sank down with a cry, the fullness a stunning, familiar shock. The water provided a strange buoyancy, a slippery resistance that made every movement intense.
“Ride me,” he commanded, his hands on her ass, digging in. “Show him how a real cock feels.”
She moved, grinding down on him, the sound of their coupling muffled by the lapping waves. Her eyes locked with Tom’s from twenty feet away. His face was pale, his expression unreadable. Elena had her hand around him now, stroking him slowly, as if calming a nervous animal.
Nikos’s pace grew frantic. He was grunting, a primal, rhythmic sound. “Yes. Take it. You love this, don’t you? You came back for this big, fat cock.”
She did. The degradation was part of the fuel. “Yes,” she hissed, driving down onto him.
He came with a shout, his body arching under the water, pumping into her with deep, pulsing waves. She clenched around him, her own orgasm ripping through her, silent and sharp, a white-hot wire of pleasure in the sparkling blue.
As she shuddered atop him, spent, she saw movement on the beach.
Tom had stood up. He shook off Elena’s hand and started walking, not towards the villa, but down the beach, away, his stride quick and angry.
Nikos nudged her off him with a satisfied sigh. He stood, waded out, and without a glance back, rejoined Elena, who was now applying more sunscreen as if nothing had happened.
Anna sat in the shallow water, Nikos’s spend leaking out of her, diluted by the sea. The glorious, brutal high was already receding, leaving a cold, hollow clarity. She had given Tom what he thought he wanted—a re-enactment, a chance to ‘own’ it—and he had walked away from the sight.
She stood, water streaming from her body, and walked back to the loungers. She dried off mechanically, wrapped her sarong, and collected their things.
She found him at the beachfront taverna, three empty shot glasses of ouzo lined up in front of him. He didn’t look at her.
“I’m going back to the villa,” she said.
He just nodded, staring at the empty sea.
The walk back was long and quiet. The villa was cool, silent. She showered, the water hotter than the sun, scrubbing until her skin was raw. She put on a simple cotton dress and sat on the terrace, watching the sun begin to bleed into the horizon.
The lock on the villa door clicked open hours later. Heavy, uneven footsteps. Tom, drunk and reeking of anise. He stood in the doorway to the terrace, silhouetted by the indoor light.
“I saw him,” Tom slurred.
“Who?”
“That kid. From your office. Mark.”
A cold finger traced Anna’s spine. “What?”
“At the taverna. He’s here. In Naxos. Said he’s ‘working remotely’.” Tom’s laugh was a bitter, broken thing. “He asked about you. Said he’d heard the beaches were unreal.”
Anna’s heart hammered against her ribs. It was impossible. A horrific coincidence.
“He’s staying at the Porto Naxos. Down the coast.” Tom took a stumbling step forward, his eyes gleaming with a toxic mix of liquor and desperation. “You want a big cock, Anna? You want to be used? Fine. Let’s finish this. You go to him. You go to that fucking kid, and you do what you do. And I’ll be there. I’ll watch every second. And then we’ll be done.”
He turned and lurched into the bedroom, collapsing onto the bed.
Anna sat frozen as the last light of day vanished, swallowed by a violet twilight. The cicadas started their deafening chorus. The choice hung in the dense air, not a choice at all, but a grotesque, inevitable culmination. Tom was right. They had to finish it. And the boy, Mark, with his knowing green eyes and arrogant smile, was the perfect, terrible finale.