“Can I get you anything, Mama?”
“No, thank you, honey. All I need is sleep. This stomachache will pass.”
Dimitra got up from the bed. “I’ll check on Papoú now.”
“He’ll like that if he’s not already asleep.”
Her daughter lingered for a moment longer. “Will you tell me one more thing?”
Alexa moaned inwardly. “I like Kristos and his mother very much.” She knew it wasn’t the full answer Dimitra wanted, but she didn’t dare discuss things now. Tomorrow she would contact Nico. Very soon the world Dimitra had known was going to change.
Once her daughter learned that he was her father, there was no way to predict the outcome of anything, let alone a possible marriage.
“I’m sorry, but I’m tired, honey.”
“I know.”
“Can we talk tomorrow?”
“Of course. Good night, Mama.” Her resigned daughter gave Alexa a kiss before leaving the bedroom.
Alexa turned out the light on the bedside table and lay there in the dark, dying inside over so many things, not the least of which was her visceral reaction to Nico.
When she’d seen him on the patio, she’d found herself as out of breath as that moment in the sea when they’d run into each other years ago. He still had the power to transform her world until nothing existed but him. Though she knew he was a married man, it made no difference. She was still attracted to him.
Right now she was terrified over what was to come once she’d phoned Irena Papadakis for Nico’s phone number. Since Irena would learn the truth, if she hadn’t already, Alexa would have to take the risk to ask for her help in getting in touch with Nico. She’d phone her first thing in the morning.
After five minutes her anxiety drove her out of bed and she got up to get a drink of water. While she was coming out of the bathroom she heard the ding on her phone. Someone had sent her a text, probably Michalis Androu, the divorced Cypriot also on the faculty.
Two months ago he’d invited her for drinks. A month later he’d asked her to go to the opera with him. She liked him, but shouldn’t have accepted a dinner date for this coming Friday. It would be the last time.
She walked over to the bedside table to look at her phone and almost collapsed when she saw who’d sent it. How had he found her phone number? Her body trembled as she sank down on the side of the bed to read it.
This text shouldn’t come as a surprise. We have to talk. I’ll meet you at Ravaisi’s on the beach at seven tomorrow evening. If you don’t come, I’ll drive to your house and wait for you for as long as it takes. Nico.
Alexa’s eyes closed tightly. She fell back.
Ravaisi’s.
They’d eaten fresh seafood on its veranda on Perea Beach their last evening before he’d left for the military. It had been a night like tonight. The moon had looked like a pale yellow globe, lighting the calm water of the Aegean. Later they’d swum to his cruiser anchored a little way offshore.
She’d clung to Nico’s hand as he helped her up the ladder. Once on board, he’d led her down the stairs to the lower deck. He’d planned a surprise for her on their last night together. All Alexa had to do was follow. She loved him with every fiber of her heart and soul and would follow him to the ends of the earth.
Nico had pulled her inside the bedroom and locked the door.
A cry of sheer delight escaped her lips at the sight that greeted her. The room had been filled with lighted candles, dispersing a fragrant scent of orange blossoms. Her gaze gravitated to an urn full of glorious blue hydrangeas placed on the bedside table. A few days earlier she’d happened to mention they were her favorite flower. He’d remembered everything.
Nico, she whispered in awe. I feel like I’m in a dream.
You look like one. When I first saw you in the water three weeks ago, I thought you were a mermaid coming out of the foam.
She clung to his hard body. His words would always have the power to make her blush. Would you believe me if I told you I thought you looked like the statue of the young Emperor Augustus in the Salonica Archaeological Museum?
Agape mou.
After calling her his love, he’d picked her up like a bride and carried her to the bed. Let me love you, he’d said urgently. The thought of not seeing you for another year is more than I can bear. Nico pulled her on the bed and began to devour her. That was the first time they’d made love, the magical night Dimitra had been conceived.
Breathtaking memories of that night so long ago brought the tears gushing. There’d be no sleep for her tonight. Alexa got off the bed to wash her face. Somehow she had to get through tomorrow knowing what awaited her on that beach.
* * *
“You’re still here, Kýrie Angelis?”
Nico looked up at the night watchman who’d worked for his father. It was ten after six in the evening. “Sunday’s the best time to get things done. No one else is around.”
“I never saw anyone work so hard.”
“How else to try and fill my father’s shoes?”
“You already do that, kýrie.”
“Don’t I wish, but thank you, Gus. I’ll be gone from here shortly. Have a good evening.”
As soon as the older man left, Nico took his private elevator to the apartment above the office. After Raisa’s death, he’d sold their villa in Salonica and had bought the one on Sarti, near the town of Sithonia that he now called home.
When he had to be in town, however, he stayed here for convenience since his father hadn’t used it for several years. Last night after seeing Mara at dinner he’d flown to Sithonia to get some needed items, then he’d returned to the office apartment. Work was always waiting for him. Today he’d settled down to stay busy. It was the only panacea to keep him from climbing the walls while he waited for tonight to come.
Mara hadn’t sent a message to let him know she’d received his text, let alone confirmed that she planned to meet him. He didn’t have any expectations where she was concerned, but it didn’t matter.
Nico couldn’t get used to the idea that her real name was Alexa Remis, that she’d lived with her daughter and grandparents in Canada after leaving Salonica for good.
No wonder Nico had never been able to find her! To think of the hours, weeks and months he’d spent trying to track her down in Greece, then in France. Tio had helped him after his marriage to Irena, but there’d been no trace of Leia or the Vasilakis family either. Like Mara, they’d disappeared off the face of the earth.
For a long time he feared the worst—that she’d been kidnapped or killed—even though there’d been no news of any kind to support that theory. His parents, who’d tried to help him, tended to think the same thing. It haunted him until one day when Giannina said, Have you ever thought she just doesn’t want to be found? Maybe she met another guy after you left and didn’t want to tell you. Maybe she felt trapped.
He’d stared at his practical sister, so wise even though she was two years younger. You really think that’s the answer?
I don’t know. I like guys, but can’t imagine being tied down to one until I’m at least twenty-five or twenty-six. Maybe not even then. But for you to spend your life looking for her when you could have any woman you wanted makes no sense.
If that’s true, then she was a coward not to tell me goodbye.
Maybe not a coward, but a flirt who got in too deep and was too young and frightened to tell you the truth. I know it’s easy for me to say, but I wouldn’t waste another minute thinking about her.
After all these years, their conversation rang true as he headed for Perea Beach. Last night he’d learned for himself that his sister had been right. Mara had met another guy and had had his baby. She’d also given Nico a false name and background.
Had she operated that way with every guy she’d met back then? Maybe she’d been young like himself, but he st
ill had a hard time imagining most girls that age were so deceitful.
He made his way to the beach. A white BMW sat in one of the parking spaces at the side of the restaurant. He recognized it from the night before and was glad to see she had the guts to face him and he wouldn’t have to track her down.
Grabbing his knapsack, he got out of the car and walked inside. The hostess greeted him warmly. “Kalispéra, kýrie.” She smiled at him. “I’ve seen you on television. Welcome to our restaurant.”
“Efharisto.”
“Where would you like to sit?”
“I’m meeting someone whom I think is already here, but I don’t see her.”
“Then she might be on the veranda. Feel free to go out and look for her.”
He took a deep breath and walked through the restaurant to the door leading to the veranda. Nico and Mara had eaten outside that last night he’d been in Salonica. When he saw her seated now at the same table as all those years before, his heart dropped to his feet. The possibility that she’d suffered amnesia could be stricken off his list.
He sat opposite her and put his knapsack on the chair next to him. The sun wouldn’t set for another hour and a half. The rays brought out the fabulous coloring of her hair. “Kalispéra, Mara.”
“Kalispéra,” she half whispered. Tears glazed her eyes, making them a deeper green, like the sea in front of them. In a simple pink top and white skirt, she looked so damn beautiful it destroyed any peace of mind he’d tried to achieve since last evening.
“I wondered if a day might come when we’d meet again by chance,” Nico said.
“You’re not the only one,” she confessed.
Nico’s brows furrowed. “The difference is, the Mara I fell in love with always knew where my parents lived and could have found me anytime to tell me she’d had a change of heart.”
A distressed expression crossed over her features. “That’s true, and no one deserves the truth more than you.” But before she could say anything else, a waiter approached.
“I couldn’t eat anything, Nico. Just coffee.”
Food was the last thing on Nico’s mind. “Two coffees,” he told the waiter who came right back with them.
Once they’d been served, Nico reached inside his knapsack and handed her the bag he pulled out of it. “These belong to you. They’ve stayed in a storage closet for nineteen years. Once I had a dream that I’d find you and learn what terrible thing must have happened, like kidnapping or worse, that prevented you from answering them.”
She sat motionless.
“I’d hoped to find you so we could read them together. But that day never came and I forgot about them until last night when I saw you walk out on the patio.”
Her hand shook as she lowered her coffee mug and looked inside the bag. An audible gasp escaped her lips and she pulled out one of the unopened letters. She studied the address on the front of the envelope, then pulled out another one.
“There are dozens of letters here!” she cried, sounding incredulous.
Her acting was phenomenal. There’d been no kidnapping or worse. He knew she’d received them and had sent them back unopened. “That’s right. All of them addressed to Mara Tito at the Vasilakis residence in Salonica.” He drank more coffee. “You’ll notice the Return to Sender handwritten on the side.” She couldn’t deny what she’d done. The proof was in her hands.
Alexa’s head reared, causing her shimmery chestnut hair to settle against her shoulders. Tears poured down her white cheeks. Her breakdown of emotion surprised him.
He broke the silence. “For a long time I wanted an answer to the question why, but I don’t need it now. Last night I met your daughter. Clearly you got involved with another man while you were in Greece and had his baby. For what it’s worth, I would say you’ve done a wonderful job of raising her.”
He put some euros on the table and stood. “Thank you for meeting me. Andio, Kyría Remis.”
“No—wait, Nico!”
He ignored her cry and walked away. Never again.
* * *
It shouldn’t have surprised Alexa that he’d said goodbye and left with an abruptness that took her breath away. His fear that something terrible had happened to her years ago crushed her with fresh guilt. Tonight he’d thought he’d learned the whole truth and was anxious to get home to his wife.
When she could get a grip on her emotions, she put the letters back in the bag he’d given her and left the restaurant on legs that barely supported her. During the drive home she trembled like a leaf. To her relief, Phyllis told her Dimitra had gone out with Kristos. Alexa’s grandfather had fallen asleep watching a soccer match on TV.
Thankful to be alone, she grabbed a letter opener from his desk and hurried to the bedroom. She undressed and got ready for bed. Before her daughter came home, she wanted to read the letters Nico had written and kept all these years. How amazing that he hadn’t thrown them away a long time ago.
Once under the covers, she emptied the contents of the bag. After a search she found the first letter he’d written to her in his unique penmanship. It was dated on the day he’d left Salonica.
Oh, Nico, darling... She drowned in tears. You really did send them.
The Return to Sender bore Monika’s distinct hand. Even though Monika had confessed what she’d done fifteen years ago Alexa was hit with a wave of fresh hurt. How could she have done something so treacherous?
Using the opener, Alexa pulled out the one-page letter. A gold ring fell on the bedspread. Her heart pounded so hard, she thought she was going to be sick.
Mara—beloved
I have to write this fast. We’re on a bus headed for the airport. I’ll post this before I get on the plane.
Do you have any idea how I’m feeling right now? After spending last night in your arms, I’ll never be the same. Saying goodbye to you felt like a part of me was being torn away.
Please wear this ring. I had it engraved for you. It’s our engaged-to-be-engaged ring.
The sobs kept coming. Alexa could hardly read what had been engraved on the inside: Gia Pánta. It meant forever. She slid it on her ring finger.
You should get this tomorrow. I’ll write you every night.
In three days you’ll be going back to your mom in France. I look forward to meeting her after I get home.
We’re going to have one wonderful wedding because you’re going to become my wife. I can’t wait.
Be sure that Leia forwards my letters the second she gets them. I won’t be able to live until I start getting your letters and you send me your address in France. You can write to the address on the envelope and I’ll get it no matter where I am.
S’agapo, Mara. I love you. You complete my life. Don’t let anything happen to you. I couldn’t live without you now.
Yours forever,
Nico
Convulsing, Alexa took a long time before her tears ebbed and she was able to search for the second letter he’d written. She tried to read it, but she began crying anew and it was almost impossible.
Agapiménos—my beloved
Boot camp is everything you’ve ever heard about, but I can handle it because I know I’ll get a letter from you at the end of every day, telling me everything you’ve been doing.
When you’re back in France, you better not fall for one of those French guys.
Good news. I’m bunking with a guy named Tio Papadakis. Would you believe his family owns the Papadakis Shipping Lines in Salonica? We have so much in common, it’s crazy.
He’s writing a redheaded girl in Salonica. Her name is Irena and he’s planning to marry her before our tour of duty is finished. They’ll be going to the University of Salonica too. We’ll all be in school together.
Having just met Irena, and being in Tio’s home with his children, Alexa could hardly go on reading. It was too pi
ercingly wonderful and painful at the same time. Her tears made the ink run. Nico’s love of life, his love for her, all of it had been ripped away, depriving them of the joy of marriage, of being parents and raising their precious Dimitra together.
Suddenly she heard noise and realized her daughter had come home. Alexa hurriedly put all the letters back in the bag, and hid it on the floor at the side of the bed. Then she turned off the lamp and drew the covers over her. Tomorrow would come soon enough, changing their lives forever.
* * *
In the middle of the night she couldn’t stand it any longer. After turning on the lamp, she spent the next five hours reading one love letter after the other. Finally she read the last one he’d sent at the end of December, four months after he’d left Salonica. It was so short, it devastated her.
Mara darling
After all this time I believe in my heart something unspeakable has happened to you. Something beyond your control. The woman I love and who loves me wouldn’t do this to us without a reason.
I live for word from you or about you. My prayer is that somehow, some way, you’ll read this letter and be able to get in touch with me by any means available.
I’ll never give up. If this letter is returned to me and I’m still in the dark after my service is over, I’ll come looking for you and never stop.
Love forever,
Nico
Alexa finally recovered enough to put all the letters back in the bag except the last one, then got out of bed. After a shower, she dressed for the day in jeans and a T-shirt. With his last letter tucked in her back pocket, she left the bedroom. Her watch said eight thirty. Her grandfather would be up. She’d talk to him until Dimitra awakened.
Carrying the bag, she found him in the kitchen eating the breakfast Phyllis had prepared. He looked up. “There you are! I thought you’d be up before now. You don’t look well.”
Alexa kissed his forehead. “I’ve been awake since three o’clock. These are the reason why.” She showed him the bag with the letters.
He studied several, then squinted at her. “There’s only one way you’re in possession of them. You’ve seen Nico. So...the long silence has been broken.”
The Greek's Secret Heir Page 4