she made it to the Ladies’ room, Anna leaned over the sink and splashed cold water on her face. What would she say to Marcus? She was notoriously bad at lying; Lizzy used to clean her out of her Halloween candy when they played poker as kids. Her blushing usually gave her away. Could she manage to get through a work day with Marcus without bringing up what she had seen the night before?
But she didn’t have time to figure that out, because the door to the bathroom creaked open, and Marcus poked his head through, stepping in once he saw that Anna was alone.
Standing in front of him, it was easy for Anna to understand how she had fallen under Marcus’s spell. He had a universal appeal, looking rugged yet refined at the same time. On the rare occasions he had taken Anna somewhere public, women and men alike would stare at him and shoot daggers at her.
But now, Anna was the one shooting daggers, hard as she tried not to give too much away.
“You want to tell me what’s going on?” Marcus said, the slight southern draw that Anna was pretty sure was an affectation coming out strong.
“What are you talking about?”
Marcus smiled and looked at his feet. “I’m talking about you coming into work nearly two hours late looking like you got hit by a bus. I know you’re sleeping with the boss, but you wouldn’t want to appear to be taking advantage.”
Anna felt her stomach churn. Normally, she would have laughed it off, but she had too much on her mind to make the effort. “Are you kidding me?” she asked. “I’ve never asked you for a thing, especially not since our little arrangement began. Excuse me for having a bad day.”
Marcus’s smile dropped, and he stepped toward Anna, rubbing his hands up and down her arms. “Hey, hey, what’s going on? I didn’t mean to offend you.”
“I’m fine,” she said. She opened her mouth to say more, but she felt the truth of last night bubbling inside her, so she shut it tight.
“You know you can tell me anything, right, Anna?” he asked, condescension dripping from his words, as if she were a little girl trying to hide that she had eaten the last cookie.
“Is that what you said to the girl you fucked last night?” She felt the words tumble out of her mouth, trying and failing to catch them and shove them back in. So much for not confronting him. Marcus gave very little away, but she could tell from the twitch in his eye that she had surprised him.
“You were at the theater?”
“No, I was at your apartment. Or, I was on my way there when I saw you through the window.” Though nice to know you were flaunting her around at the theatre, too.
Marcus was quiet for a moment, then his eyes widened as he realized what she must have seen. Then, just as quickly, he was back on his game. “Anna, I’m sorry that you saw that, but surely you didn’t think you were the only person I was dating?” He was digging in his heels; asserting his dominance. He must have thought so little of her.
She realized in that moment just how disposable she was to him. And as long as she was disposable, she was never going to get anywhere working for him. If she had felt discarded last night, she felt absolutely disintegrated now. She needed to figure something else out.
“Marcus, I need to take some time off,” she said.
“Great,” he said. “Submit your vacation request to HR for approval.”
“No,” she said, “I have to go now. I have nearly three weeks of paid vacation accrued. I’ll be taking it now. When there are two weeks left, I’ll send in my notice.”
He frowned at her. “So much for not taking advantage of the situation.”
She glared at him. “I’m not taking advantage. My dad died a few months ago, and he left me a property in Greece. I have to go there to claim it. I only have a small window before it goes to someone else, so I have to go now.”
“You have to go on vacation urgently enough that you’re willing to quit this job?” He laughed. “Are you kidding?”
“Nope. Not kidding,” she said, shaking her head. “And it’s not a vacation. I’ve just explained the situation.”
He nodded slowly. “I hope you know that you’ve just ruined your future,” he said, but Anna saw a flicker of hurt cross his face, and she felt a tiny spark of pride that she had taken back control – she’d hurt him before he could hurt her again.
Without saying another word, he slipped through the door and was gone, leaving Anna standing there alone, her hands still dripping with water.
She kept staring at the door for a good minute after he left. How had her frustration with Marcus turned into a decision to go to Greece? But she had said it, and she couldn’t take it back. She wouldn’t grovel for her job back. She wasn’t about to let Marcus think she was taking advantage of their arrangement. Not after this.
She dried her hands, pulled her phone out of her pocket and texted Lizzy:
You win. I’ll leave in a couple of days
It looked like Anna was going to Santorini, whether she liked it or not.
Santorini
The front of the house was positively quaint, Anna thought. It was nestled between two hills in a sort of mini valley. Three white stone arches covered in vines framed a door in the center and two windows, one on each side. A stone wall extended from each side of the front, with a gate several meters to the left and another beyond that. Anna walked through the center archway, looking around as she went. The front of the house was covered in climbing vines, crowded at the bottom by weeds. The wooden front door was beautiful and weathered; it looked like it had been there for hundreds of years, but it was still strong and sturdy.
Eirini called for Anna to follow her through the first gate, bringing her into a square courtyard, about fifteen feet on each side with a table in the middle. The walls were covered in the same climbing vines as the front of the house, nearly obscuring the white paint underneath.
As she followed Eirini through the next gate to the back garden, Anna found herself looking at the most beautiful little cottage she could imagine. It was made of the same whitewashed stone, but it was covered in gorgeous pink flowers. It was small -- Anna imagined it couldn’t have been more than one or two rooms -- but it was the kind of place that Anna would have booked immediately if she’d found it online.
“Is that…?” Anna pointed at the cottage and looked at Eirini, not wanting to make another mistake but hoping dearly that this was the summer house.
“This is your father’s cottage,” she said, “so, yes, I guess it is legally yours now. For some reason.”
Anna ignored the last part and walked up to the cottage, peeking through the window next to the door. It was dirty, but she could see a bed, and another door further on. She turned around to look at the garden, but she couldn’t see where the entrance was. “How do you get back here?”
Eirini
