She loved the way he looked at her, focused on her. Loved the blistering heat in his eyes. Loved that he made her feel like she was a woman who could do anything.
“Okay,” she said, nestling in and closing her eyes again. “You just do that.”
* * *
Nikos watched her eyes close, and he knew by her breathing when she’d fallen back asleep.
He placed a careful kiss on the top of her head, overwhelmed by her in the best sort of way.
When he’d married Elsa he’d thought he knew what love was and how marriage would be. He’d imagined a relationship like his parents’, traditional, practical.
Marriage to Elsa had instead been a constant source of conflict.
Her death had been a shock but not a total surprise. She’d threatened him so many times...threatened to hurt herself, hurt him, do something awful...
He’d been an only child. He hadn’t been raised with sisters. He didn’t have lots of cousins, never mind girl cousins. As he began dating, women were a bit of a mystery. Their emotions sometimes baffled him, but they also added a level of intrigue. He had girlfriends and lovers in his early twenties, but nothing in his experience had prepared him for Elsa.
He still wondered why Elsa married him. Was it his wealth? The family name? Did she think that one good-looking Greek could be interchangeable with another?
He would never know. He didn’t want to know. He didn’t even want to think of her anymore.
Her death, and the manner of that death, had nearly destroyed him. He was ready to put the ghosts of that past behind him, and he could with Georgia.
Georgia was strong where Elsa had been weak.
Georgia had fire and passion, courage and conviction.
Georgia’s strength freed him. Her confidence and clear sense of self allowed him to be who he really was—a man, not a monster.
Her acceptance changed everything. Her acceptance made him hope for the life he didn’t think he’d ever have.
A wife, children, a family.
* * *
He proposed at dinner the next night. He’d planned on making it special, wanting champagne and flowers, but it was still stormy and there weren’t fresh flowers to bring in or champagne she could drink, so he just blurted the words.
“Marry me, agapi mou,” he said, at the end of dinner, when it was just them at the table, with the flicker of candlelight.
She blinked at him, stunned.
He probably could have introduced the subject better, eased into it. He smiled at her bewildered expression. “Let’s make this permanent,” he said. “Stay here with me. Marry me—”
“What?”
“We are good together. We complement each other. I think we could be happy together.”
She just stared at him, confusion in her eyes.
“I think this is a good solution,” he added carefully, wishing he wasn’t so pragmatic, wishing he was a man of romance. “We would be a family. You, me, our son.”
She rose but didn’t get far. Her eyes were wide. She looked almost afraid. “That wouldn’t work, and you know it.”
“Why wouldn’t it work? You like me. I like you. We made a baby together. We should be a family.”
Her eyes filled with tears. “It’s not that simple.”
“Of course it is.”
“Nikos, I have school...exams...my residency. It will be years until I’m a doctor—”
“So wait until the baby is older and then go back to school.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
She shook her head and walked from the table, across the dining room floor. “I need some air,” she said, heading for the terrace.
“It’s raining, Georgia.”
“Then I’ll go to my room.” She was hurrying to the hall, almost running to the stairs.
“Don’t run,” he commanded, cornering her in the stairwell. “Why are you so upset? You can say no. Just say no. There is no need for this. I would never force you, Georgia, to do anything.”
Georgia shook her head, feeling cornered and confused.
She had been happy these past few days, happier than she could have imagined. And she didn’t want to leave Nikos or the baby, but that didn’t mean marriage was the answer.
“Georgia,” Nikos said quietly, trying to get her to look at him.
She put a hand to his chest, torn between wanting to pull him close and push him away. “I have to finish school, Nikos. I have to finish what I started.”
“But you won’t have to work if you marry me. You can focus on our son. You can be a mother—”
“Nikos!” Her hand balled into a fist, and she pounded once on his chest. “I never wanted to be a mother! I wanted to be a doctor. And I still want to be a doctor. I want the life I planned.”
He let her go.
In her room she curled up on her bed and grabbed a pillow, holding it tight to her chest.
That wasn’t entirely true, what she’d just told him.
She did want to be a mother. She very much wanted to be part of her baby’s life. But to give up her entire world back home? To give up her plans...her dreams?
To give up Savannah?
But, on the other hand, how could she give up Nikos and the baby?
There weren’t tears for something like this. The questions and decisions were too huge and overwhelming.
And now Nikos thought she didn’t want him, and didn’t love their son...
How to fix this? What to do?
And then he was there, at the foot of her bed. She hadn’t even heard him enter her room.
“Georgia.”
“I’m not ready to talk.”
“Okay. Don’t talk. Just listen. I support you wanting to be a doctor. I think you should finish medical school.”
“What?” She sat up.
“I think we can find a way to make this work. You, me, baby, medical school.”
“How?”
“There are things called planes and hotels, houses and internet—”
“No internet on Kamari.”
“Maybe it’s worth the billion to put it in.”
She laughed. “There has to be another answer. That’s too much money.”
“I am sure we can figure it out. If we’re together.”
“Yes.” She left the bed, wrapped her arms around his waist and kissed him. “Maybe we should go back to bed and talk about our options there.”
“You have a most voracious appetite, gynaika mou.”
Her lips curved up. “Complaining about carnal activities, Nikos?”
He laughed, a deep, soft laugh that she could feel
all the way through her. “Never.” And then he was locking her bedroom door and taking her to bed with him.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE NEXT MONTH was without a doubt the happiest month Georgia had ever known. As the weeks slipped by with March turning into April, the rain disappeared and the sun shone longer, with the days warmer. It was by no means beach weather, but Georgia enjoyed changing from heavy sweaters to light wraps and sometimes no wrap at all if it was a particularly nice day.
The bougainvillea was bursting into bloom, too, and everywhere she looked there were huge clusters of hot pink and purple draped across doorways, over gates, up pristine white walls.
Georgia’s heart felt lighter, and she didn’t know if it was the fact that the sun always seemed to be shining and she was waking up to a blue sky over dazzling blue water, or if it just seemed brighter and sunnier because she was madly in love.
And she was madly in love.
She now also knew that she’d never been in love before. Nikos was her first true love, and after six weeks in Greece, she thought she could one day be happy here and maybe live here, but first she needed to finish school.
Nikos said they’d find a way to make it work. He said they just needed to take it a step at a time. One day at a time. It was good advice. The doctor had been there earlier in the week, and he’d said all was progressing well with the pregnancy. She was now in her thirty-second week. They discussed a birthing plan. Georgia said she’d be comfortable having the baby on Kamari as long as the doctor and the midwife were comfortable delivering there.
They discussed having a contingency plan, should there be an emergency, and Georgia was relieved to know that a helicopter could get her to Athens quickly if needed.
All was good.
The baby was good. She gave him a little pat now.
To think he’d brought her and Nikos together. The baby had created love...a family...
Her little matchmaker.
She smiled and gave her bump another pat before leaving her couch where she’d been studying to walk across the room to put away the basket of clean clothes the housekeeper had brought up earlier.
On top of the folded clothes was a jeweled picture frame. It was a picture of her and Nikos, his arms around her, and they were smiling at the camera.