by Jane Porter
“I will love him.”
“Love is being present and accessible. But when confronted by something difficult you retreat...withdrawing for days. The child will suffer.”
“You can’t project what is between you and me onto him.”
“Why not?”
“Because it will be different.”
“Maybe. But maybe not. And because I know what I’ve seen here, and felt personally, I worry that when you need time alone, the child won’t have enough love. I worry that he’ll be...lonely. He should have others, Nikos, others in his world, others who will love him, too.”
“I wasn’t raised in a big, traditional family. My son will not miss anything.”
She didn’t say anything. What could she say?
His black eyebrows flattened. “You don’t believe me.”
She shrugged, trying to contain her frustration. “Children need community. They need to feel secure and loved—”
“I will do that.”
“But what if something happens to you? Who will be there for him?”
“Nothing will happen to me.”
“You don’t know that! You’re not God. You’re mortal—”
“I think it’s time you took a step back, Georgia. I am not sure why you are making my business yours. The child is mine, not yours.” He stared at her, expression brooding. “Are you having second thoughts?”
She almost laughed. Second thoughts? Oh, yes, second and third and fourth...
She was consumed with regret. The guilt ached inside her. How could she have imagined she would be able to do this...conceive and carry a child and then just give him away?
“I carry your son,” she said icily, “and I protect him with every breath I take.”
“But he is my son,” he repeated, “not yours, and therefore, not your concern. You waived your rights when you accepted payment. You waived those rights when you signed the fifty-some-page agreement. You waived those rights months ago, and you will never get them back.”
Her fingers itched to slap him. He was hard and hateful, and his arrogant tone matched his arrogant expression.
It was all she could do to stand there and hold his gaze without crying or yelling. She stared up at him, staring hard to show she wasn’t afraid and wouldn’t be cowed. He needed to know that he wasn’t a god. He wasn’t the sun and the moon, the stars and the universe. He was just a man. A flawed man that had been broken and scarred along the way and survived by throwing his weight at the universe, thinking that he could control everything by being tough, cold, mean.
And she wouldn’t shed one tear for someone who was determined to be tough and cold and mean.
She wouldn’t feel anything for a man who was more beast than man. But at the same time, how could she hand a helpless newborn—so tender, so innocent—over to such a man?
“You’re angry,” he said shortly.
“Furious,” she agreed, voice pitched low, vibrating with emotion. “And offended.”
“Because I remind you of the facts? I force you to recognize the truth?”
“Because that kiss in my room, it changed you, and you in turn took something that was lovely and wonderful and made it ugly and sordid. You made me feel so good when you kissed me, and touched me, and then you pulled away and you’ve become hateful. You’ve become a monster...like the Minotaur in the labyrinth. You want to crush me now, but I won’t let you. I might be a woman, and I might not have your size or muscles, but I am stronger than you. I will not break. And I will not let you break our son.”
She turned around and started walking back the way she’d come, moving quickly, almost jogging back to the road, and then once on the road, she kept jogging, running, as if she could escape him, her and the truth.
She loved the baby.
The baby was hers...
* * *
She was grateful Nikos didn’t chase after her. She would have had to run faster, and she didn’t want to fall. She just wanted to get back to her room, to lock her door and hide.
But the moment she reached her room, she felt ill, cold and shaky and nauseous. She dashed into the bathroom, leaning over the toilet, stomach rolling, churning.
Her heart would break if she gave the baby up. Her heart would never be the same. How could she do this?
How could she hand him over and never look back?
It wasn’t just because Nikos was detached and cold and hard. It actually had nothing to do with him, and everything to do with her. She loved the baby. She loved him and talked to him at night, and in her heart she talked to him throughout the day...
Tears streamed as she emptied her stomach.
Afterward, she clung weakly to the toilet, trying to catch her breath, trying to get her stomach to settle.
But her stomach wouldn’t settle. The tears wouldn’t stop. She’d made a pact with the devil. She’d sold her soul to make sure her sister would be financially taken care of, but the cost was too high.
The cost was unbearable.
She’d spent all this time telling herself it wasn’t her baby, wasn’t her son, but it was a lie.
He was hers.
And she loved him.
And it would break what was left of her heart if she left this island without him.
“This isn’t good,” Nikos said from the bathroom doorway, his deep, rough voice echoing in the small space.
She used her sleeve to dry her damp eyes. “Did you break the door down?” she asked hoarsely.
“I used the key.”
“Thank you.”
He disappeared from the bathroom and returned a minute later with a glass of water. He handed her the glass. “Rinse, spit and come talk to me in the living room.”
She did as he suggested, and when she emerged he pointed to the couch.
“Sit,” he said.
She wanted to tell him not to be bossy, but she didn’t have the energy. Instead she sank onto the cushion and curled her legs up under her.
Nikos faced her, hands on his hips. “I don’t like to see you this way. It’s not good for—”
“The baby. I know.” Her chin lifted. “I’m aware of that, and I don’t want to stress him in any way.”
Nikos’s jaw tightened. “I was going to say you. It’s not good for you.”
She didn’t know how to answer. She just looked at him, her heart so raw, her emotions wild.
“What is happening here?” he ground out. “I don’t understand it.”
“Understand what? That you kiss me and then run away...or that I tell you I’m scared and then you tell me it’s none of my business?”
He muttered something beneath his breath. She couldn’t make out the words, wasn’t even sure if he was speaking English.
“What did you say?” she demanded.
“It’s not important.”
“I think it is. I think it’s time you talked to me, Nikos. Not yell, not shame, not intimidate, not berate. Talk to me. Have a conversation.”
“I’m not good at this.”
“You’ll get better with practice, and even if you don’t want to do it for me, do it for your son’s sake. He will need you to talk and listen. He will need you to not close down the moment you feel threatened—”
“I don’t feel threatened!”
“You’re terrified of emotion.”
“That’s not true.”
“You run from intimacy like a little, scared schoolboy.”
“What?”
“It’s true. Conflict isn’t going to kill you, Nikos. Having an uncomfortable conversation is just that—uncomfortable—but it’s not the end. It doesn’t mean we hate each other or won’t still be friends—”
“Are we friends?” he interrupted, standing over her, black eyebrows flattened over dark, piercing eyes.
She had to think about the definition of the word for a moment. “Yes. At least, I think we should be. It’s the only way to get through this. It’s the only way I can possibly manage this
last part...getting through to the end.”
“So you do have misgivings now?”
“I don’t know what kind of woman I would be not to feel conflicted. I feel him moving. He’ll give a kick when I talk. When I go to bed, he gets active. It’s like a game we play.” Her throat ached, and the lump she’d been fighting grew. She couldn’t say more. It would be impossible to say more, especially when the emotion was right there on the surface.
He dropped into a chair next to the couch and leaned forward, looking at her intently. “I have been making it harder for you, haven’t I?”
“The whole thing is hard.” She struggled to smile. “I don’t know how we’re going to get out of this in one piece.”
“You make me nervous when you say that.”
“And you make me nervous when I imagine you isolating a child from the world. Promise me you’ll take him on trips and adventures...promise me you’ll expose him to a life outside Kamari.”
He searched her eyes. “I promise.”
She blinked back tears. “Good.”
“I will be a good father to him, too, Georgia. I will love him, and I will protect him—”
“Protect him from what, Nikos? From the world, or from you?”
He shifted, uneasy.
“You are only really, truly dangerous when you detach and disappear,” she said. “I don’t like your rough edges or your coldness when you’re angry, but the distance...that feels like rejection. Abandonment. No one wants that.”
“I pull away to keep from hurting you.”
“You only hurt me when you pull away.”
“I hurt you on the tarmac. I made you run away in tears.”
“Because you’d pulled away! You and I had this incredible moment in my room and then you disappeared completely for days. It hurt. So tell me now, why do you do that after we’re close? Why do you punish me?”
“I’m not punishing you. I’m punishing me.” There was an edge in his voice, and tension washed off him in waves. “I should have had more control. I should have not taken advantage of you.”
“You didn’t take advantage of me. I took advantage of you. I wanted everything you did, and more.”
Heat flared in his eyes, and she nodded. “I loved being close to you. You are so good at what you do...you’re wow. Seriously, wow. You make me feel so good, but then you leave and I feel ashamed because I think my pleasure disgusts you—”
“No.”
She lifted a brow. “Then why do you leave so quickly...and why did you avoid me after?”
“I wanted you. I wanted to carry you to the bed and strip your clothes off and—”
He broke off and dragged a hand over the bristles on his jaw.
She waited, but he wasn’t going to say more. “Forgive me for being bold, but, Nikos, that sounds really good to me.”
“What if I hurt you?”
“You mean, when you make love? Do you choke your partner...hit your partner...throw her around?”
“No!”
“Then what?”
“I am carnal.”
“Is that a bad thing?” She didn’t have that much experience. Sex was pretty much sex. She enjoyed it but hadn’t had unusual experiences or anything particularly erotic. “Is that supposed to shock me?”
“I want you, gynaika mou. I want to be with you. I want to take you to my bed and keep you there for hours, touching you, tasting you, making you shatter with pleasure. But if we do these things, it will complicate us, and we are already very complicated—don’t you think?”
Her pulse leaped in her veins. Her mouth had gone dry. “Yes.”
“And so I try to stay away from you so that I don’t kiss you again and put my hands under your clothes and touch you where I want to touch you, and feel you cry against my mouth as you come.”
Her eyes widened. She swallowed hard. Her heart raced now. She felt treacherously warm and wet between her thighs. “You like sex.”
“I do,” he said. “But I like you even more, and so I fight myself. I try to stay away, do the right thing.”
“So that’s why there is all this tension between us. You’re avoiding me because you want me. And I’m lonely because I want to be with you—”
“You are not lonely for me.”
“Oh, I am. I like you, Nikos. Even when you’re awful.”
“You can’t like me. You barely know me.”
She reached out, tugged on his sleeve. “Then let me get to know you.”
“And how will that help either of us? We know how this will end—”
“Exactly. We know how this will end. There can be no confusion about the end, either. I’m not staying here in Greece. My world and life is in Atlanta. Yours is here. Neither of us is looking for a relationship. We’re just trying to stay sane. Trying to make the best of an incredibly stressful situation.”
“It doesn’t have to be stressful, not if we stay on different sides of the villa.”
She laughed low, but there was little humor in the sound. “Am I the only realist here?”
He looked at her for a moment, his gaze fixed on her mouth. She could feel his desire. Her own body hummed with need. She slipped her hand from his sleeve to the back of his wrist. His skin was firm and warm. She stroked the back of his hand, to his fingers, lacing her fingers with his. “I can’t do this for three more months, Nikos,” she whispered.
His jaw flexed. “We have to.”
Her eyes burned, and her pulse raced. Everything in her felt stirred up. Her emotions were all over the place. She was physically attracted to him—dangerously attracted—and yet he was right. He was everything she couldn’t want. And perhaps he did know best. But at the same time she craved him, and his touch, and the pleasure he could give her. “I’m going crazy.”
He pulled away, stood up and walked across the room. “We’ll just try harder to stay out of each other’s way.”
The lump in her throat grew. “No! I’ll lose my mind, Nikos. I’m already lonely. I already feel trapped. I’m not used to being cooped up. We need a break... A little stress relief would go a long way. Can we please go somewhere tomorrow? And if not tomorrow, then later this week?”
“Have you swum today yet? You didn’t swim yesterday. Get in the pool. You’ll feel better.”
“I don’t want to swim.”
He shoved a hand through inky-black hair, pushing it back from his face. “Then go for a good walk—”
“Like I did today? Climb up the mountain to get a good hike in?” she interrupted fiercely. “Or perhaps I should try running. I only jogged today, but maybe tomorrow I could try a couple hundred wind sprints like you—”
“You don’t need to run.”
“Running won’t hurt the baby.”
“Walking is better, and you know it. Tomorrow it should be mild. Good weather—”
“No!” She jumped to her feet, hands clenched. “I’ve walked miles on your paths and they just go in circles. I’ve climbed this mountain. I’ve done everything I can do here on Kamari, and I need a change now. Please get me off this rock. Please let me see something new.”
“You will be free to explore after the delivery—”
“That’s three months away.”
“I thought you had to study.”
“I do study. For hours and hours every day, but I’m going stir-crazy. I need to get out...go see something, or go do something.”
“There is nothing good happening in the outside world. You are safe here, so I prefer you to be here.”
“If I am truly your guest, treat me like a guest and not a prisoner.” She drew a short, raw breath as the possibility hit her. “Or am I prisoner?”
“What a silly question.”
Her chest suddenly hurt, the air bottled in her lungs. He’d brought her to this island far from everything...
He said he didn’t leave Kamari... He said there was no reason to leave Kamari. Her eyes widened. Was it possible she was his hostage? “Are you
afraid I’ll try to escape? Run away?”
“That’s ridiculous. You’re getting yourself worked up over nothing.”
“Then why can’t we go out for part of the day? You said you had a boat. Let’s head to Amorgós, or even better, Santorini.”
“No.”
“Because I need to see people. I need to talk to someone. You’ve shut me out, and I understand why now. We have this—thing—between us and you’re trying to resist it, and I understand that now. But I am lonely. I’m overwhelmed.” Tears began to spill.
She struggled to wipe them away.
He swore in Greek and crossed to her side. “Don’t cry,” he said roughly. “Do not cry.” He wiped her cheeks dry with the pads of his thumbs. “Don’t cry,” he said more softly, his lips near her ear. “Because you make me want to comfort you, and kiss you, but when I kiss you, agapi mou, I want you, and I’m afraid if I claim you, I’ll never let you go.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
THEY TOOK A motorboat to Amorgós two days later.
On the way, Nikos told her that there was a devastating earthquake on July 9, 1956, just north of Amorgós, between Amorgós and Santorini. The earthquake registered 7.8 on the Richter scale, and a second 7.2 earthquake followed thirteen minutes later. Intense aftershocks occurred for weeks, lasting through the summer.
Fifty-three people died on Santorini alone, and villages were destroyed on many islands. Quite a few people left the islands.
“I would think the earthquakes would have created a tsunami,” she said.
He nodded. “Thirty-foot waves were reported all along the coast. And as difficult as this was, it’s always been part of our history. The volcanic arc stretches from Methana—” He broke off, seeing she didn’t know where that was. “Methana is a town on the eastern coast of the Peloponnese, built on a volcanic peninsula. And that volcanic arc extends from Nisyros Island in the west, to the coast of Turkey in the east. The arc is filled with dormant and active volcanic islands.”
“There are some still active?”
“Absolutely. Milos, Santorini, Nisyros.”
She of course had heard of Santorini but wasn’t familiar with the other two. “Fascinating, as well as a little bit scary.”