“I’m going to ask you something,” I said. That got his attention and he looked at me. “Normally, I would ask if I could ask a question, but I’ve already decided I’m going to ask this, so here it goes.”

The smile was back, this one clearly at my expense. Still, I was not going to be deterred.

“Why me?”

Confusion flashed quickly across his face, but in less than a moment, his face settled; he knew what I meant. I could see him considering his response and I resisted the urge to speak, to follow up with more questions and a litany of reasons why I was such an odd choice for him.

“Because of what I said when I toasted you earlier. You’re a breath of fresh air. You are honest, you’re open, you have no agenda. You, Sarah, are genuinely interested in people and willing to know them without guile. I get the sense you’ve been hurt in the past, but you’re still willing to give of yourself. You haven’t become cynical or jaded.”

I haven’t?

Until that moment—seeing myself through James’s eyes—I thought I had. Wasn’t that why I got annoyed with Cat for hoping I’d meet someone in Greece? Or why I wanted my ex, the cheating bastard, to fuck off and die? Because I’d been screwed over. Because I was cynical about love?

Lying there with James, however, I realised he was right, that despite everything, I had met someone. I’d met two someones. And in different ways, I had let them both in. Maybe the hopeful romantic in me hadn’t been obliterated.

Maybe I wasn’t broken.

“You’re frowning,” James said, shaking me from my poorly timed self-exploration.

He reached over, smoothing the frown lines between my brows with his thumb. I let him. Then he cupped my face and pulled me towards him for a soft, sweet kiss.

“And of course, there’s that ridiculously sexy body of yours,” he said between kisses. I laughed, relieved to be out of my head and back with James, back with a man who made me feel attractive and appreciated, who was far kinder to me than I was to myself.

“Well, there is that, yes,” I said, pretending to be serious. “It is rather sexy, if I do say so myself.” We shared a smile.

“Hey,” I said, suddenly flashing on a memory of the first time we met. “You were smoking a cigar when I first saw you in Santorini—a slim one.”

He nodded. “That’s right, I was.”

“Do you smoke? Cigarettes, I mean?”

“No, not anymore. I did for a long time, but I quit about twenty years ago. Cigars, though, yes, from time to time. My friend in Santorini always gifts me a box whenever I see him.”

“I like cigars,” I said. “I mean, I love the smell of the smoke.”

“Have you ever smoked one?”

“Nope.”

“Do you want to?” he asked, raising his eyebrows.

I grinned. “I’d love to.” And that’s how we ended up sitting side by side on one of the window seats as James taught me the finer points of enjoying a cigar. I didn’t know you weren’t supposed to inhale them like you did a cigarette, that it was about the taste of the smoke. I quite liked it.