She felt his gaze on her while he slowly navigated the empty, winding residential streets of Grosse Point.
"Or do I?" he asked.
Her heart gave a hiccup. If even Nick was questioning his belief in her, then they were in more trouble than she feared.
He ran his right hand through his hair in a way she'd never seen him do before. It was an anxious move, one that spoke of uncertainty and doubt. And made her feel all the more confused.
"Where are we going?" she asked, noticing the way he sped up, leaving the neighborhood and heading for I-94.
"Somewhere we can talk."
That somewhere ended up being a downtown hotel.
Efi's throat tightened and she felt terribly near tears when Nick got out, registered them, then came back out to help her from the car.
"I don't think I'm in the mood for sex right now, Nick."
He eyed her. "Funny, neither am I."
She searched his sober features, wondering just how everything had gone so wrong in such a short period of time. Had it really been earlier that day outside the police station that she couldn't get enough of kissing him, of touching him, of wanting him, restless for him to be her husband?
"Come on. I think it's a good idea if we have a talk."
She didn't move.
He sighed. "Look, I'm not about to go home just yet, and I don't think you are, either. So this is as good an idea as any others I've had." He hiked a brow. "Unless you have one?"
She didn't.
She put her hand in his, feeling the instant jolt she always felt whenever they touched. The realization was both comforting and bewildering. If she doubted everything with her mind, shouldn't her body and its messages follow suit?
Within minutes they were in the nicely appointed hotel room. It boggled the mind to think that she was in the same room with Nick with a bed in it and she wasn't trying to tackle him to it.
She looked down to realize she was still wearing her wedding dress.
"Where are you going?" Nick asked.
"To change out of this thing."
He, too, seemed to realize what she was wearing and it looked as if he'd just swallowed a goose egg whole.
Efi carefully climbed out of the dress in the bathroom and pulled on one of the white Turkish terry-cloth robes from the back of the door. She thought about draping the dress over the bed, but thought the term "big white elephant in the room" all too appropriate and instead managed to hang it on two hangers in the closet.
All too soon she stood facing Nick again. He stared at her as if he didn't know her. And, she suspected, for all intents and purposes that was probably the same way she was staring back at him.
"Well…"
"So…"
They both spoke at the same time, then awkwardly looked away.
Neither said anything for a long stretch. How long, Efi couldn't be sure, but as they stood across the room from each other she felt the gap between them grow larger and larger.
She forced herself to sit on the end of the bed and cleared her throat. "Are you thinking about not going through with this tomorrow?" she asked.
Nick looked shocked by her question. "No, no." His brows drew together. "Are you?"
"No, no," she said equally quickly.
Although given the swiftness of their answers, she doubted the honesty of them.
Both of them were clearly having second thoughts about tomorrow. They just hadn't reached the point where they were willing to admit it.
The mattress dipped low when Nick sat down next to her. Close enough to touch, but far enough apart that they wouldn't.
"This isn't as easy as we thought it was going to be, is it?" he asked, staring at their reflection in the dark television screen.
Efi shook her head. "No, it isn't."
He rubbed his face with his hands. "Do you think this is a matter of cold feet?"
Efi stared down at her stocking feet much as she had earlier when she'd wondered the same thing. "I don't know."
"Me either."
She smiled softly. "Well, that clears things up, doesn't it?"
She felt his gaze on her profile and turned her head to find him studying her.
"You know you always were a smart ass."
"And you always were a mule," she said back.
They'd said the words to each other countless times over the years, but it was usually while they were rolling around on the closest available object, whether it be the back seat of his car or the couch at his parents'—the sentiments were exchanged while in the throes of passion and with affection.
While that affection still existed, it was more serious now somehow. As if they were both realizing the weightiness of the words.
Nick cleared his throat. "About Aphrodite…"
Efi threw her head back and groaned. "No, I don't want to hear it. What's happening now … what's going on…" She held his gaze. "This isn't about Aphrodite, Nick. Sure, I may have been jealous. But deep down I'd like to think I'd known you would never do anything with her."
"I kissed her."
Efi's heart pitched down to rest next to her bare feet.
Nick sighed. "No, actually that's wrong. I didn't kiss her. She kissed me."
"Did you kiss her back?"
"No. But I didn't push her away immediately either."
"Because you thought you might like to kiss her?" He didn't say anything for a long time. "Nick?"
"What?" he blinked at her. "Oh. No. When she cornered me at my parents' house inside the bathroom and kissed me I was thinking that I should probably want to kiss her. But I was surprised that I didn't."
Efi swallowed hard, trying to portray a measure of dignity. "Oh?"
"All week long, the guys have been talking about how hot she is. About how I could have her at the drop of a hat. And how you would never have to know anything about it."
Efi really didn't want to hear this. She'd known her cousin had had designs on Nick, but she hadn't known about the rest. And she didn't want to know either.
"Look, Nick, you don't have to explain anything…"
"Yes, yes, I do. Because it was in that bathroom, facing a very attractive woman who apparently wanted me badly, and having her kiss me, that I realized that you're the only one I want."
Efi's throat tightened with emotion. "And that's why you're having second thoughts about the wedding? Because you want me?"
"Yes."
He wasn't making much sense to her. Then again, her own feelings weren't making much sense to her either, so she figured they were pretty much equal.
Except for the Aphrodite kiss. He was way in the hole when it came to that one.
"So I've explained some of what's been going through my mind. How about you?" he asked.
"Your parents."
He stiffened.
Efi's shoulders slumped.
She knew how she would react if he said anything negative about her parents. They were her family, her rock. They were the two most important people in her life up until now. If he so much as said one negative word about either of them she'd probably freak.
But she needed to say this about his parents.
"What happened tonight … what they said … asked for… Well, it came way out of left field for me."
Nick remained silent.
"Did you know they were going to ask for what they did from my father?"
"No."
"But you were okay with it?"
"Yes." He blew out a long breath. "No."
"Then why did you tell me to butt out?"
"I told you to butt out? I didn't tell you to butt out."
"Yes, you did. You told me that perhaps it would be better if we let the four of them work things out."
"Yes. That I did say."
"That's telling me to butt out."
He looked at her for a long moment. "Yes, maybe you're right." He rested his forearms on his knees and clasped his hands together between his legs. "Look, the truth is I didn't know
what to say. I don't know. Maybe it's different with your family, but I grew up an only kid. I didn't have any siblings to throw in with. To distract them away from me. It was only just … me. And somewhere down the line I learned that it was easier to go their way than to face a disagreement with them."
Efi smiled softly, longing to push a stray lock of his thick dark hair back from where it rested against his brow. "Until it came to me, that is."
He quickly looked at her. "How do you mean?"
"They didn't want you to marry me."
His spine snapped straight. "I never told you that."
"You didn't have to. I figured it out all by my lonesome."
Nick looked hurt.
"Listen, what your parents thought about me way back then is neither here nor there now," she said quietly. "What's important is that when I needed you to back me up, or at least give me the room to speak my piece, you told me to stick a sock in it."
"I did not."
"Essentially, yes, you did."
He deflated again. "Okay, maybe I did."
Efi pulled the robe more tightly around her, feeling suddenly cold. "All this is more complicated than we thought it would be, isn't it?"
He nodded but didn't answer.
"Can I ask you a question, Nick?"
He indicated with his gaze that he was waiting.
"Do you want me to stop working after tomorrow?"
One of those wary expressions kids wore when they'd been asked if they'd washed their hands before dinner crossed his handsome face. "I don't know. Do you want to stop working?"
Efi fought the urge to roll her eyes. "I'm not one of your parents, Nick. There's no wrong way to answer the question."
"Oh, yeah? Then why do I feel like there is?"
"You want me to stop working, don't you?" she asked, surprised.
He turned his head to stare at his hands. "Okay, I admit it—I want to support you. You're going to be my wife and I want to provide for you. For our family."
Efi absorbed his honest answer, a part of her touched by his proclamation. "You know earlier, when I put my wedding dress on, I realized how much I've been looking at this, our marriage, through rose-colored glasses."
He shifted to face her more fully as if something she'd said struck a chord with him. "How so?"
She shrugged and faced him more fully as well. "I don't know. So much energy has gone into planning the wedding, into shopping for dresses, juggling relatives and guests, wrapping boubounieras, going to parties … well, I don't think either of us have much talked about what comes after. I mean beyond the obvious. Yes, we'll have our apartment. But aside from that?"
She'd warmed to her subject, finding a string she thought she could follow until it led to the answers she so desperately needed to find.
"I didn't understand until right this minute that you'd wanted me to stay home."
"Do you want to work?"
She stared at him. "Yes, I want to work. What in the world am I going to do all day at home by myself?"
"Raise our children?"
"Children? What children, Nick? It's not like we're going to start popping them out one after another the day after tomorrow."
"Why not?"
She gasped. "Are you serious? You really want my full-time job to be looking after our kids?" She held a hand up. "And where's the plural coming from? Let's start with one—a few years down the road—and see what develops from there."
He looked confused. "But I thought that's what happened. You get married, you have children and…"
Efi waited.
When it appeared he wasn't going to continue, she asked, "And what, Nick?"
He looked at a loss for words. "What what? I don't know. We go on family vacations to Greece. Buy a house in the suburbs. Go to soccer games…"
"And you have a career."
"No, I work."
Efi squinted at him. "Is that really how you view your job?"
"What, you think I enjoy crunching numbers all day, every day?"
"What, you don't think there's something wrong with spending your life doing something you don't like?"
"I didn't say I didn't like it. I said I don't enjoy it."
Efi shook her head and turned her hands palms up. "I love my job at the shop."
He blinked at her. "Really?"
His genuine shock surprised her. "Really."
His expression was so dumbfounded she almost laughed. Almost.
She nudged him in the arm. "Hey, I have an idea. I'll work and you stay home and take care of the kids."
Shock turned to insult. "What?"
She hadn't been serious, but his reaction insulted her. "What's so wild about that? People do it all the time nowadays."
"Not people I know."
She didn't know any that did it that way either unless the guy had been laid off or outsourced, but hey, if she loved her work and he didn't…
She leaned back on her hands. "What would you do for a living if you could do anything in the world you wanted to do?"
Back to shock.
"Come on, Nick, the question's not that difficult. Surely you've thought about doing something else."
"Never."
"Never?"
He averted his gaze. "Well, okay, maybe I thought about being an attorney at one point."
"Then why didn't you become one?"
"Because my grades weren't quite up to snuff for a scholarship and I didn't want to ask my father for the money."
"So?"
"So what? Do you know how much law school costs?"
"So? We'll get a student loan." Her use of the word "we" where moments before it had been her and him caught them both off guard.
Efi smiled at the same time Nick did. Just like that they had become a couple again. Not the same devil-may-care couple that looked only to where they might catch a few minutes alone to heat up the bed-sheets, but rather two individuals who wanted to share everything together.
"We're 'we' again," Nick said.
Efi smile widened. "Yes, I guess we are."
"Does this mean we're on again for tomorrow?"
Efi's heart skipped a beat. While neither of them had ever vocally said the wedding was off, they'd understood that if things hadn't changed between them, it wouldn't have been right for either one of them to go through with the ceremony.
"We need to get a few things straight first," she said, tracing patterns on the bedspread increasingly closer to his leg.
"Such as?"
"Such as I don't stop working at the pastry shop."
He slowly nodded. "Okay."
"That we need to talk further about the children issue."
"But we agree now to have at least two."
"Over a period of years. And not right away."
He considered her. "I can live with that."
Now came the tough one. Efi cleared her throat and pushed forward with it. "And that you put me above your parents."
A painful expression came over his face.
"Nick, it's not what you think. Right here, right now I promise you I will never try to come between you and your parents."
He searched her face. "Then why do I need to put you above my parents?"
"Aside from the fact that I'll be your wife and the mother of your children?"
He nodded.
"To guarantee you don't allow them to come between us."
He thought on that one.
"And I promise to do the same thing with my parents." Although her parents had never tried to come between them or made any outrageous requests of him or his family, she thought wryly. "I'm not saying it's going to be easy. Far from it. Your parents are used to getting what they want from you."
"And I'm used to giving it to them."
She leaned forward on her arms, putting their faces inches apart and allowing her to stare at his delectable mouth. "Yes, well, now I'm the one you should be giving all that to."
"Efi?" he asked after staring at her
mouth for a long time.
"Hmm?"
"I'm finding I want to give you much more."
She smiled and kissed him lingeringly. "Oh?"
He groaned. "Mmm. Much more."
"Then what are you waiting for?"
CHAPTER TEN
Day seven…
Efi sat in the back of the car that was to take her to the Assumption Greek Orthodox Church. Her father had hired the brand-new black Mercedes and the inside smelled of fine leather, newness … and of nerves.
She toyed with her white gloves, readjusting the sugar cube her mother had tucked inside her right one to guarantee a sweet marriage and life with Nick. Somewhere pinned to her slip where no one could see was one of the Greek eyes that were supposed to ward off evil. She'd never gotten through to the company that had sent the wrong package, but somehow Kiki had scared up a box and her mother had handed the eyes out to everyone on hand, then sent her sister to the church ahead of time to hand one out to everyone else entering the church.
"Marriage is hard enough without having to worry about outsiders interfering," she'd said.
Efi wasn't sure what had happened while she was locked inside her room last night, then at the hotel later with Nick, but this morning she'd discovered a disheveled and glum Aphrodite who, when she wasn't flanked by one of her parents, was flanked by both of them. And whenever she made a move, one or the other would yank her firmly back. Family gossip had it the family was going to arrange a marriage for her back home to an older widower who would know how to keep her in line.
Efi had almost felt sorry for the girl.
Almost.
"Miss, are you ready?"
Efi stared at the driver in the rearview mirror. "No." He gave her a brief nod.
She'd been sitting in the car for a good ten minutes. Her family had already left for the church, upon her insistence. All that was left to do was for her to get there herself.
Efi rested her hand against her stomach, trying to calm the butterflies there. But far from the strange restlessness she'd experienced last night, this was more nerves than anything. That case of cold feet she suspected most brides experienced before they were to be joined with the one they loved in front of God and everyone.
Or was it?
She heard the click of her swallow over the sound of the car's air conditioner. Last night…
Last night she and Nick had talked in a way they never had before. But everything was far from settled. While they'd made some very good headway, there were still so many things to discuss, so many things to work out. Like if her father refused to allow her to do what she wanted with the shop downtown, she wanted to open her own place nearer Grosse Point, or perhaps even farther north in Royal Oak. That's something she should have discussed with her husband-to-be, right? And what if she'd awakened something in him that made him second-guess his own choice of careers? What if he wanted to quit his job and go to law school?
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