One

CARLA stared at the airport’s electronic board of arrivals for the second time in the last ten minutes and nothing changed.

The flight from Taipei was delayed a half hour. Actually, the delay happened on their second stop in Frankfurt, France, and she should be hugging Thera, one of her closest childhood friends, twenty minutes earlier.

Carla hadn’t seen her for years. Her family left Greece for Australia ten years ago after her father was widowed and they had not visited since then.

They didn’t lose connection, though. They chat through their social media messaging apps and send emails to each other as regularly as they could manage.

There were two other friends, but Gia and Adelpha were both busy at the moment and would get together with them later in the day at her house where the visitors would stay for the duration of the visit. Of course, they would be visiting other parts of Greece.

They were going to have Thera for a whole month! She knew this. But she was impatient to hug her friend now.

Thera was two years younger than Carla at twenty-five, so the latter was twenty-seven, but they were inseparable when they were kids. It was the older Carla who could be compulsive and shy, and petite Thera the ever-patient guru and go-getter cheerleader.

Their parents had been friends and it was the reason why her parents bought the house beside Carla’s so that they could become next-door neighbors. But even before then, on weekends and get-togethers, they had been quite the playmates.

It was Thera’s mother who was Greek, and her father the Australian. When her mother died, her father decided to move to Melbourne with his three kids so they could be near his relatives.

That was the only time ever that Carla and Thera were separated. They had been friends since she was adopted by her parents when she was three. Carla was her first playmate and childhood friend outside of the orphanage.

Then five years ago, Carla’s parents died in a tragic car accident.

Thera would have been here, but her father had died a month earlier due to cancer. Meanwhile, she had been planning to visit Thera, as she was on a traveling spree gifted to her by her parents after graduation, but she went to Troulos first since it was a booked vacation, and she was gathering items for her portfolio.

She was getting around to doing so after Mykonos, but her parents’ accident happened. And Thera would have been with her if she wasn’t going through the same tragedy of losing her father.

They missed the chance of getting together then.

Carla sighed long and deep, lamenting about what she and her friend went through apart.

But then, a smile stretched her soft, full lips.

Thera was coming with company—a secret lover.

The supposedly notorious Jake Winters of thirty years owned a bunch of companies that sold various applications for smartphones and made billions out of it. In fact, they were in Taiwan for two weeks before coming here for a business trip there, that’s why they hadn’t flown straight from Melbourne.

Jake was Thera’s boss and her friend’s kind of Mr. Perfect—good-looking, charming, kind, and thoughtful... her friend unwittingly made him sound like a living romantic hero from one of those billionaire romance novels.

Honestly? Carla felt a little put off by the guy when they hid their relationship from others, but she supposed it would have been tricky at work. It kind of just sucked that they couldn’t be honest in public, she felt.

If Carla would fall in love with someone, she wanted the world to know. She wanted her guy to feel good about being with her, as she would be with him.

But she wasn’t Thera.

And as if she had been that in love.

She worried her lower lip with her teeth. Well, her own experience about it wasn’t the issue, anyway. So she just would shut up about it.

Instead, she planned to tease Thera about him nonstop when she arrives, and she couldn’t wait.

They both used to bury their heads in books. Thera hadn’t really changed, since she worked as a technical researcher and Personal Assistant to her boss-turned-boyfriend.

In this case, the reason for the relationship was a long time of familiarity and opportunity behind closed doors every single working day.

That’s what Thera had implied, and that it started quite recently, like about three emails down before she booked the flight with him to Greece.

She thought it was all naughty and romantic but had not had time to ask her for pictures of him specifically, because the few her friend did send to her in the past were of her in groups.

She hadn’t checked those much as the man supposedly was very private and most of the time worked remotely.

As long as the guy wasn’t seeing anyone else, and Thera insisted he hadn’t been dating anyone for months and was quite married to his work, then everything should be fine.

Carla shouldn’t be worrying about her friend.

That the relationship had to formulate after a few years was just Thera’s style, Carla thought, trying not to smile silly. Her friend always had the highest expectations of the men she dated. As far as Carla could tell from their messages, she had been in love with her boss for a long while and was very excited about this development, and that he seek to have time away from Thera here in Greece.

She was going to nag her friend about her dirty closet secrets. There must be many she could tell. She missed being silly and acting like kids together.

Where the hell are they?

The airport speakers announced that the 1427 flight from Taipei just arrived.

Finally!

Carla got up from the seat she had been sitting on and stretched the hem of the short blue dress down her thighs. She came straight out of a shoot that had taken longer than expected and had no time to change before driving over. If she knew the flight would be late she would have made time to change first.

She started for the exit her friend would eventually come out of. Her fingers brushed back her long, black hair, hardly noticing the admiring looks of men around her. She always attracted attention from both spectrums, and she was used to it by now.

Then she walked fast in her athletic shoes, heading to exit number 7 with a typical grace she acquired through many years of dance lessons her mother made her take, as she was extremely shy, and it was a chance for her to mingle with other kids and enjoy it at the same time.

She loved to dance. It gave her freedom to be herself and she was quite good at it.

It did not matter that she was shy because when she was dancing, she forgot everything...

She fanned her face with a hand. It was only 9 AM but the August heat was intolerable even with the airport’s aircon. She planned to squeeze a swim in the sea right behind her house if she could, after this. Or the swimming pool beside the house, though she always preferred the sea.

Passengers started to file out and she checked faces as she craned her neck. But she saw Thera when she was just a few yards from her.

The sea of passengers parted and, suddenly, a small hurricane of blond hair rushed onto her, laughing and shrieking.

“Carlaaa!”

“Oh, my God!” And she laughed and opened her arms and then she was hugging her friend tightly. “Thera!”

They hugged for she didn’t know how long, both giggling and jumping around like idiots. Then she pushed her friend a little further so she could look at her better.

“Let me see you, you little gecko!” she said tenderly, using the nickname she had given Thera when they were children.

Thera was the absolute opposite of Carla in so many aspects.

She was short and looked like a teenager beside Carla’s tall frame, but she was a joy to the eye being so lovely in her cuteness. She had long blond hair with soft curls, baby-blue eyes that often sparkled, and such light skin it gave the impression of a wispy window doll.

In fact, she looked like a doll right now in a strapless red blouse and tight dress pants that flattered her trim body. But a grown-up doll, beautiful and sophisticated.

Her friend looked hot!

“Oh, Thera... you look great!”

Thera was going through the same first few moments of wonderment as she scrutinized Carla with wide eyes and an open mouth. “Oh god, you’ve turned into a goddess, love! You look like the models you shoot for the magazine!” she gushed. Then she shook her head. “Remember when you turned down that modeling contract for that agency? I still can’t forgive you for that. You would have been famous!”

She laughed aloud. She had a stint as a model when she was in college and was totally broke, but she was able to handle her finances with other jobs and quit the modeling gig because of too many jerks in the industry.

That was what Thera was talking about that she hadn’t forgiven, especially after she turned down a great offer from a clothesline company her friend adored right after that.

She hadn’t told the girls about an indecent proposal from an executive because she was too embarrassed about it, even if they were friends. It made them happy to gush about it and there was no need to take that away from them. She just stopped modeling and hadn’t looked back ever since.

She never liked lights turned toward her, anyway, or posturing for the cameras.

She had a knack for what best to do if she was behind the camera directing a shoot, not in front of it.

Carla loved capturing the beauty around her, and photography let her express this beauty in still art.

She found a way to make a living out of it, and after years of practice and learning more, and working hard, she had become one of the top emerging photographers in the country.

Her website, Put On the Spot, showed her portfolio and had thousands of followers. She used important lights to amplify drama out of a subject. Her I* was teaming up with followers and enthusiasts.

The few times she uploaded a picture of herself, her inbox got diluted with spam from pricks and proposals that should have been professional but made her uncomfortable.

So she took those out and she stopped uploading personal stuff. She was never in her photographs unless it was a silhouette, or she had her back turned to emphasize a main subject on the frame.

“So, where’s your significant other?” she whispered to Thera now.

“Oh, he’s coming... just collecting our baggage. I just can’t wait to see you so I came ahead!”

“I have been pulling at my hair because of how late you came in, I swear!”

“I was doing the same thing! I hated being late!”

They were still giggly and hugging when Thera suddenly exclaimed. “There he is! Jake! Over here!”

They parted, and Carla turned in the direction Thera was pointing at.

She frowned.

Something familiar about him.

She took the black glasses off her eyes so she could have a better look at the approaching man who pushed a stroller that contained two enormous suitcases and other smaller ones.

He was the most gorgeous man she had ever seen.

And she had seen and met devastatingly handsome men.

But this wasn’t the first time she has met this guy.

Carla felt her face grow cold, and her eyeballs felt like they were about to pop out of their sockets.

She was frozen, and the next three seconds of her life felt like a decade.

Then, her glasses were shoved back into place as she tried to hide behind them while Jake What-that-fuck’s eyes finally located them due to her tiny, shrieking friend.

After all these years...

Thera’s secret lover...

None other than Tom Sawyer!

What. The. Fuck.