Chasing Daisy

terrace, clad in the black bikini that I bought for my recent holiday in Italy with Bess. The sun is still baking hot so I stand on the steps in the shallow end and tilt my head back up to catch the rays. The glittering blue water is cool, but not cold, and I don’t flinch as I immerse myself fully. I swim a few laps and decide then and there to swim fifty every morning. I did so much walking in London that keeping fit was effortless, but everybody drives cars here so I might need to work at it.
    After a while I climb out and spread my towel on the hot paving stones beside the pool, forgoing the sunloungers so I can trail my fingers in the water. My hangover is long gone, and I lie there feeling blissfully happy, listening to the sound of the water filtering through the swimming pool and the cicadas chirping in the undergrowth. High overhead a distant aeroplane leaves a long white streak in the cloudless sky and out of the corner of my eye I can see little black birds swoop down to drink from the pool. I begin to feel dozy.
    ‘Is this what I pay you for?’
    I jolt awake to find a dark figure hovering above me, cutting out my sun. I’m so shocked I almost fall in the pool.
    ‘Whoa, shit!’
    I rummage around to try to pull my towel out from under my bum so I can cover myself up, but it drops in the water.
    ‘Bollocks!’
    I hastily scramble to my feet, realising all I’ve done in the last few seconds is curse at my new boss.
    ‘Sorry,’ I blurt. His eyes graze over my body and I feel like he’s undressing me. Which isn’t that difficult, because I’ve barely got anything on as it is. I cross my arms in front of my chest, desperately wanting to retrieve my soaking towel from the pool. Unfortunately, though, that would involve bending over, which is not something I feel comfortable doing right now. I look up.
    He’s actually quite tall – about six foot two, I estimate, compared to my five-foot-seven-inch frame – and is wearing skinny black jeans and a black T-shirt with a silver metal-studded belt. His dirty blond hair falls messily around his chin and his green eyes, with the light of the swimming pool reflected in them, look almost luminous.
    Christ, he is gorgeous. Even more so in real life than in pictures.
    ‘Sorry,’ I say again, and his mouth curls up slightly as he reaches down behind me to drag my sopping-wet towel out of the pool. I instinctively want to step away from him, but the only way is backwards and into the water, and I think I’ve made enough of a tit of myself as it is. He straightens himself back up and wrings the towel out, muscles on his bare arms flexing with the movement. I notice his famous tattoos and can’t help but feel on edge.
    I remember my sarong is hanging on one of the sunloungers behind him, but he makes no attempt to move for me as I awkwardly sidestep him before hurrying over to grab it. I quickly tie the still-way-too-small green piece of material around my waist.
    ‘Meg, right?’ he says.
    ‘Yes, hi,’ I reply, watching him while shading my eyes from the sun as he rolls the wet towel up into a ball and aims it at a basket six metres away. It goes straight in. ‘And you, er, obviously, are Johnny Jefferson.’
    He turns back to me. ‘Johnny will do.’ I note that he has a few freckles across his nose that I’ve never noticed in photographs.
    ‘I was just, um, taking a break,’ I stutter.
    ‘So I figured,’ he replies.
    ‘I didn’t think you’d be back until tomorrow.’
    ‘I figured that also.’ He raises an eyebrow and delves into his jeans pocket, pulling out a crumpled cigarette packet. Sitting down on one of the sunloungers, he lights up and casually pats the space next to him, but with the way my heart is beating, I figure I’d be safer on the sunlounger opposite instead.
    ‘So, Meg . . .’ he says, taking a long drag and looking across at me.
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘Do you smoke?’ he asks, not offering me a cigarette.
    ‘No.’
    ‘Good.’
    Hypocrite. I think it, but I don’t have the guts to say it.
    ‘How old are you?’ he asks.
    ‘Twenty-four,’ I reply.
    ‘You look older.’
    ‘Do I?’
    He flicks his ash into a two-foot-high stainless-steel ashtray and narrows his eyes at me. ‘There’s a lot of pressure with this job, you know.’
    Oh, okay, not really a compliment, more a concern.
    ‘I can handle it.’ I try to inject some confidence into my voice.
    ‘Bill and Wendel seem to think so.’ He sounds quite American, which