“I did. I picked you.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Georgia, you’re nothing like her. Yes, you’re blonde and have blue eyes, but that isn’t the reason I selected you to be the donor. I picked you for you...your mind, your spirit, your inner strength, your desire to support your sister. In your application you wrote about growing up in Africa as a daughter of missionaries. You had goals. Ambition. Courage. And that was who I wanted to be my child’s mother. I wanted a mother who had strength...who was a warrior. I wanted him to inherit your heart.”
I wanted him to inherit your heart.
Her father used to say that to her mother. I hope the girls inherit your heart.
Georgia closed her eyes and held her breath, tears forming behind her tightly closed eyelids. It was too much, all of this. Too much emotion and too much pressure and too much shock and disappointment.
“Say something, Georgia,” Nikos said quietly. “Talk to me, agapi mou.”
She gave her head a shake. She couldn’t talk. She didn’t want to cry.
“You are my light in the dark—” His deep voice cracked, and he dropped his head, his fist to his mouth. “Please,” he said roughly. “Please don’t shut me out.”
“I need to think. I need time.” She couldn’t look at him. Couldn’t think much less feel when so close to him.
And then she was gone, heading back to her room.
Georgia left him in the library, escaping back to her room. She locked the door and then dragged a heavy chair in front of it for good measure. She didn’t want Nikos to come in. She couldn’t bear the thought of Nikos coming near her, not because she hated him—she could never hate him—but she needed to sort all this out and she wouldn’t be clear, wouldn’t be able to focus if he was near her.
This was important, too. This wasn’t just about her feelings and her life, but this was Nikos’s and the baby they’d conceived...not necessarily together, but still together.
Of all of it, the child was the most important.
He was innocent in all of this. He needed to be protected. Nikos was right. Georgia was tough. She was a warrior. She’d survive whatever happened next. But the baby would be helpless and vulnerable for years. The baby needed her to think and be smart. Logic was required right now, not emotion.
And logic told her that everything about her current situation was illogical. Irrational. She didn’t belong here. She needed to go.
But the idea of leaving Nikos now took her breath away because she knew that if she left, she would never be back.
She didn’t belong here. And the child?
She couldn’t answer that one yet. Couldn’t see that far ahead. The only thing she knew with certainty was that she had to go.
And that knowledge devastated her.
For a moment she leaned against the door, her legs weak, her body trembling. Her heart felt as if it was cracking, shattering.
She closed her eyes, fighting for control. She drew a breath, and then another, cold...chilled to the bone.
Suddenly her stomach rose, heaved. She scrambled to the bathroom, fighting nausea the entire way. She prayed she wouldn’t get sick. For long minutes she clung to the toilet, but eventually her stomach settled.
And then the tears fell.
She’d always prided herself on being smart, analytical, grounded, but she’d been played...duped. Completely duped.
Her heart squeezed hard, her chest so tight that she couldn’t breathe. Pain filled her, pain and confusion, and yet one thing was brutally clear: she couldn’t stay.
She had to leave. And she had to leave now.
Still shaking, she changed her clothes and then packed everything into her suitcases, jamming clothing swiftly into the suitcase and her books, laptop and loose ends into the smaller bag. And then she was done.
Nikos was no longer in the library. She found him outside on the terrace, the place they always met for drinks at sunset.
She steeled herself against all feeling as he turned to look at her. She willed herself to think of nothing, to be nothing, to want nothing. She was as she’d been before she arrived here—a single woman with a single purpose. The future. Providing for Savannah. Getting through the rest of medical school and her training.
She’d survive this.
She’d survived so much worse.
“Sit, gynaika mou. We need to talk,” he said, his deep voice a hoarse rumble.
She ground her back molars, clamping down on all emotion, steeling herself against him. Everything in her still wanted him. He had such power over her. She’d found him nearly irresistible from the start. “No, Nikos. I’m not sitting or talking. I’m leaving.” Her heart beat so hard it felt wild in her chest. “Goodbye.”
He looked shocked. “You haven’t even given us a chance—”
“Nikos, there isn’t an us.”
“Of course there is, and we’ve invested too much to just let this be the end. We need to talk. We can work through this. You know we can—”
“But I don’t want to talk, and this isn’t what I thought it was, either. You aren’t who I thought you were.”
For a long moment he said nothing. “How will you go? Where will you go?”
“Your boat will take me to Amorgós. I will sort out the rest from there.”
“It’s getting late—”
“It’s not late. We have hours until sunset.”
“An hour maybe.”
“Plenty of time to reach the island if I leave now.”
“You can’t go like this.”
“But I can, and I am.” She backed up a step as he approached her. “And don’t come any nearer. And definitely don’t touch me. You will never touch me again. And you will never see me again.”
“Georgia!”
She swallowed hard, chin lifting, eyes stinging, hot like acid, but there were no tears. She felt too cold and sick on the inside for tears. She was in shock. She would be in shock for a while. It was all too awful, all too much to take in.
“I’m going down to the dock. Have your man meet me there. He alone will take me—”
“I won’t have it. I won’t let you do this—”
“You don’t have a choice. I’m not staying. I will swim to Amorgós if I have to and I’m happy to start now.” Her gaze met his and held. “I’m not bluffing, either, Nikos.”
His narrowed gaze swept her face. “I’m not saying you are.”
“So call one of your staff—Eamon or Kappo or whomever is free—and have him drive me. But if your man isn’t at the boat, at the dock, in five minutes, I will strip off my clothes and start swimming.”
“You are being impulsive and dramatic.”
“If you say so.” She shrugged carelessly. “But I don’t really care what you think. Fortunately, I’m a good swimmer, a very strong swimmer, and I’ve spent the past month swimming a mile or more every day here.”
He made a deep, rough sound, and she didn’t know if it was contempt or exasperation. “Amorgós is sixteen miles from here, not one, gynaika mou.”
“Good. It will give me time to calm down.” She turned to walk away, then paused and glanced back at him
. “And for your information, I am not your woman. I am merely your surrogate. Nothing more, nothing less. I will alert you when I give birth, and that is all you need to know for now.”
And then she was gone, passing through the door, disappearing into the house, anxious to be gone, anxious to put distance between her and Nikos, the only man she’d ever truly loved.
CHAPTER TWELVE
GEORGIA ARRIVED ON Amorgós and found a little hotel in the harbor. It was a very small hotel, but it was open and had a room available and she was just happy to check in, put on her pajamas and go to bed.
Her plan was to just stay a night. In the morning she’d book a seat on the next ferry to Santorini. But as it turned out, in winter the ferry only traveled between Amorgós and Santorini twice a week and she’d missed it yesterday.
That meant she had two more nights until the next boat. Fortunately the owner of the hotel had no guests arriving and was happy for Georgia to stay the extra evenings.
During the day she sat in her room and studied. At night she would go to the tavern across the street and order something to go, and she’d eat her dinner in her room.
She didn’t have much of an appetite, but she forced herself to eat for the baby’s sake.
She tried not to let herself think of Nikos, which wasn’t easy, since everything about Amorgós reminded her of him.
On her last night in town, as she paid for her dinner at the tavern, a handsome man in his late twenties approached and spoke to her in English.
“Is that his?” he asked, nodding at her belly.
Georgia stiffened. “Are you speaking to me?” she asked, voice frosty.
He ignored her chilly tone. “You look like her,” he added. “Not exactly, but enough.”
Georgia told herself not to engage. She was tired and hungry, and tomorrow she was leaving here for Santorini. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Somebody should have warned you when you were here last month. He is a bad man. Teras. Be careful.”
Teras. She’d heard that word before. It was one of those derogatory terms the locals called Nikos. Monster, beast, something like that. “Who are you?”
“A friend of his late wife’s.” He paused a beat and then leaned forward to whisper. “He killed her, you know.”