She’d been happy with Nikos...blissfully happy during that month after they’d been to Amorgós, and before she’d found the photo on her laundry.
She’d wondered about the photo appearing on her folded laundry, and she’d wondered if someone had put it there to hurt her, and then she’d dismissed the thought as irrational.
The door to her room opened, and a head appeared. “Is this Georgia Nielsen’s room?”
Georgia’s eyes widened, and she struggled to sit up again. “Savannah!”
Savannah grinned and closed the door behind her. “Up to having a visitor?”
“Oh, my God, yes. What are you doing here?”
Savannah rushed to her sister’s side and hugged her fiercely. “I missed you!”
“I missed you, too.” Georgia hugged her sister back, shocked and yet delighted. “When did you get here? How did you get here?”
Savannah sat down on the edge of the bed. “Nikos flew me over with Mr. Laurent. That Mr. Laurent is a cold fish, but Nikos is lovely.” She took Georgia’s hand, gave it a squeeze. “How are you feeling? Better?”
“I feel fine. A bit sore. But that will pass.” She squeezed Savannah’s fingers. “So you’ve met Nikos?”
“And the baby. He’s delicious.” She grinned. “Well, they’re both delicious. I hope you’re keeping him.”
“The baby?”
“No. Nikos. I know you’ll keep the baby. I didn’t know how you were ever going to give him up. But Nikos. He strikes me as a little complicated, but you’ve always liked a good challenge.”
“He’s more than complicated. He’s a disaster. He picked me to be the donor because I look like his dead wife.”
“Yes, I’ve heard all that, and seen the photos. Mr. Laurent had some copies of the newspaper articles reporting her death—so tragic—but she didn’t help herself any, getting pregnant with another man’s baby and then trying to blackmail Nikos.”
“Wait. What?” Georgia dragged herself into a more comfortable sitting position. “Slow down. Say that again.”
“From what I gather, she never loved Nikos. She only married him for his money. She and her Greek boyfriend—he’s a fisherman on a neighboring island—planned it from the beginning. She’d marry Nikos, accuse him of abuse or neglect and then divorce him and get a fat settlement that they could live on. But Nikos wouldn’t divorce her, and then she revealed she was pregnant, and Nikos vowed to take care of her and the baby, but she didn’t want to be with Nikos. She didn’t want to raise a baby with Nikos. She didn’t even want her Greek fisherman boyfriend. She just wanted to go home, back to Oslo.” Savannah’s shoulders lifted and fell. “It’s crazy and sad and awful, and I can see why Nikos wanted to have a baby via a surrogate. I wouldn’t want a relationship after that. Would you?”
“But I fell for him, and I thought he cared for me.”
“I think he does. I am sure he does.”
“What makes you think so?”
“He brought me here to see you.” Savannah smiled at her. “And he gave you custody of the baby, too, which has to mean that he trusts you, and respects you...and believes in you.”
Georgia exhaled slowly. “I have such a headache. I hurt. I’m not sure how I feel.”
“About him?”
“I love him. I’m just not sure how this would work...or if we can even make it work.”
“You don’t have to know everything today, do you? Maybe you both just need to take it a day at a time until you know what you want to do. Personally I find snap decisions to be bad decisions.” Savannah gave her hand another squeeze and then slid off the bed. “I’m going to go check on my nephew again, and see when they’re going to be bringing him back to you. In the meantime, you’ve a big guy out in the hall, pacing like a caged tiger. Should I send him in, or let him keep pacing and scaring all the nurses and doctors?”
Georgia laughed. “Send him in. We don’t need him frightening the hospital staff.”
And then he was there in the doorway, watching her from across the room, a look in his dark eyes that she couldn’t read and that made her chest squeeze tight.
“Why do you look at me like that?” she whispered, her mouth suddenly dry. She had to lick her bottom lip to keep it from sticking to her teeth.
“How am I looking at you?”
There was so much emotion in his eyes, so much worry, too. His worry made her heart ache and turn over.
“You look at me as if I’m something wonderful,” she whispered.
He made a rough sound in the back of his throat. “Because you are.”
He crossed the room, approached the bed. Leaning over her, he gently untangled a long golden strand of hair from her cheek, smoothing the silken strand back to lie with the others. “And I look at you with wonder because when you left me last week, I thought I’d lost you forever, and yet here you are, and here our son is, and all I know is that I cannot bear to lose either of you, but at the same time, I refuse to trap you with me. I refuse to use our son to keep you at my side.”
“Is that why you gave me custody? You didn’t want me to feel pressured into staying with you?”
“I want nothing more than to live together and raise him together, but it must be right for you. I want what is best for you and our child. I give you control so that you know you are not a vessel or a surrogate. You are not my captive, either.” His lips twisted. “You are a beautiful, strong, intelligent woman, and I love you with all my heart.”
She searched his eyes. “This could backfire on you, Nikos. You could lose everything.”
“My attorney said the same thing. But I will never be happy if you aren’t happy, and you have much to achieve in this world, big things ahead of you. I will not stand in your way. If anything, I’d like to support you and help you reach those dreams.”
“Even if it means we live in Atlanta?”
“I am planning on living in Atlanta. I’ve even been looking at real estate. A big house, lots of land around us, plenty of space.”
“That will be very expensive in Atlanta.”
He shrugged. “I am sure I can afford it.”
“You really mean this? You’d go to Atlanta...you’d help me raise the baby there while I finish school?”
“Of course. You are my woman, my love, and hopefully one day, yineka mou, my wife.”
Her head was spinning. She couldn’t quite grasp everything he was saying. “You really have looked at real estate in Atlanta?”
“Yes. I found a couple places that look interesting. I thought we could go have a look when the baby is cleared for travel. Might be a couple weeks.”
He was serious. This was crazy but wonderful. It hadn’t ever crossed her mind that he’d really be willing to go with her to Georgia. It would help things immensely if they were all together. The baby could have them both...
“I think this is a very interesting plan,” she said carefully. “But it’s also a lot to take in. You, me, the baby—” She broke off, frowned. “And do we even want to talk about a name for him? I think at some point he might object to just being called the baby.”
Nikos laughed, a deep, rumbling laugh that filled the room and made Georgia smile. She’d never heard him laugh, not like that, and she thought it had to be the very best sound in the world.
Tears started to fill her eyes, and then she wasn’t smiling but crying, and Nikos was holding her.
“What’s wrong, agapi mou—what’s happened?” He soothed her, stroking the back of her head, trying his best to comfort her.
“Everything is happening, and these hormones don’t help,” she choked out.
“It’s okay. Cry. It might help make you feel better.”
“I doubt it.” She sniffed, wiping her cheeks dry, struggling to get control. “So what happens to us, Nikos, if we go to Atlanta together? How will this work?”
“What are you asking?”
“I care fo
r you, Nikos, so very much, but there are things we don’t know about each other, and things we need to discover. Can we slow things down a little? Back up a bit so that we are just dating and we can use the time in Atlanta to figure out if we are good together...happy together?”
“You’re breaking off the engagement?”
“Well, I never had a ring...”
He smiled. “This is true. We couldn’t possibly have been engaged then. So we’re back to square one. Starting over.”
“Not totally starting over. We do have a son.”
He leaned over the bed, kissed her, then kissed her again. “Speaking of our son, I agree with you that it’s time to consider names.”
“Can you go get him, see if he can join us? I have a feeling he’d like to be present for something this significant.”
EPILOGUE
GEORGIA SHOULD HAVE been stressed. She had a four-month-old baby who was still nursing around the clock and she was waiting on the results from the grueling exams she’d taken three weeks ago. She should be getting the results next Wednesday, but she wasn’t worried.
If anything, she was calm, and incredibly, ridiculously happy.
She loved Alek Panos so much that it made her heart ache, but what gave her even greater joy was seeing Nikos and Alek together. No one could soothe Alek like his father. Nikos had spent many a night pacing the nursery or rocking him in the big chair in the corner of their master bedroom.
Alek had been so small, being born early, but he was quickly putting on weight and was catching up with the crucial milestones.
Tomorrow they were baptizing him and they were hosting a small dinner at their house to celebrate afterward. Savannah would be there, of course, as she was Alek’s godmother, and they’d invited a few other people to join them, mostly Georgia’s friends from medical school, along with Mr. Laurent and his wife.
Who would have ever imagined that Mr. Laurent would become their friend, and even a surrogate grandfather to Alek?
Life was good, Georgia thought, lightly patting Alek’s back. He’d been nursing and had fallen asleep on the job. She smiled faintly, savoring the feel of him on her chest. He was so warm and sweet. She loved him to pieces...loved him so much she wondered now why she’d thought she wouldn’t be a good mother.