“Which is why you are here,” he added flatly. “To allow my son to know me, to become familiar with my voice, to establish a bond so that when you leave the hospital after delivery, he won’t be in distress as he will have me...his father.”
Nikos wasn’t making things better. He was making it worse. And his words
felt like he’d poured salt all over an open wound.
So the baby won’t be in distress...
So that when you leave, he won’t suffer...
For a second she couldn’t catch her breath. Pain splintered in her heart, radiating in every direction.
She’d never gone here...to this place...
She’d never really let herself think of him, though, cognizant of the fact that the child wasn’t hers. It had been almost too easy these past six months to remind herself of that as she wasn’t the maternal type, that she’d never played house or cuddled dolls as a little girl, not like Savannah or Charlie, her youngest sister, who wouldn’t go anywhere without a doll in the crook of her arm.
She’d constantly reminded herself that she was the tomboy. That she didn’t need touch, didn’t need cuddles, didn’t need tenderness. No, she was tough. A tomboy. She’d always preferred to run and jump and swim. Growing up, she’d been happiest challenging others to races. She loved competition. She was good at all subjects and brilliant at math. She loved doing complicated problems in her head, loved solving equations, and once she began studying chemistry, she found another favorite subject.
Life made sense in a lab. Math made sense.
Emotions and the heart...those didn’t make sense. Those couldn’t be managed and controlled.
So no, she’d told herself she didn’t want children. She told herself throughout the hormone treatments and egg retrieval that she hadn’t inherited a maternal gene. She’d repeated this during the IVF transfer, focusing on her lack of patience and her inability to compromise and yield as reasons why she shouldn’t be a mother.
And then when she got the call that she was pregnant, that the embryo transfer had taken hold, her fierce, tough heart missed a beat.
She’d felt shock and joy, and then she’d suppressed the joy and focused on the future. Her future in medicine.
Conceiving the baby had been a scientific act, one with predictable steps and measurable progress. Of course there were uncertainties, just as there were with every pregnancy, but so far the pregnancy had been smooth.
At least, she’d been able to pretend it was smooth. But now Nikos had lifted the lid on Pandora’s box. The baby had become real. And she could say she wasn’t maternal, but she suddenly feared for the baby, feared for the life he might have to live...
Without her.
Georgia drew a panicked breath. Her fingers lightly grazed her bump, as if reassuring the baby that all would be well. But truthfully, now that she was here, now that she saw where the child would grow up, and how he’d grow up, and who would raise him, she wasn’t at all sure he would be okay.
This wasn’t the life she’d imagined for him...not that she’d spent that much time imagining a future she wouldn’t be part of, but she’d smashed her worries with a blind confidence that the child was part of an immensely wealthy family and he’d lead a privileged life.
She’d told herself he’d have the best of everything: education, opportunity, protection.
Now she wondered if that would be enough.
Stop. Stop, Georgia, stop. She couldn’t think like this, couldn’t go there in her head, either. She’d known from the beginning she wouldn’t keep the baby; she’d known she had no say in his future. She was a vessel. She was nothing more than a womb. She’d signed away every right to him.
Not her child.
His.
“Are you crying?” he asked, sitting next to her on the couch.
“No.” She was not a crier. She couldn’t remember when she’d last wept in public over anything.
“You are,” he contradicted, taking her chin and lifting her face to his inspection, his dark gaze scrutinizing every inch of her face, making her cheeks flush and her eyes sting and burn. “What is happening? One moment you are laughing—the next you are crying. I don’t understand.”
That made two of them. She didn’t understand, either. “Maybe it’s the jet lag.”
He gazed at her intently, staring into her eyes, as if able to see all the way through her. “Or pregnancy hormones?”
She could feel the heat of his fingers on her jaw, and a sensitive prickling in her skin. She couldn’t remember the last time a man touched her. She’d dated plenty but medical school had been so consuming for the past few years that there was no time for serious relationships, and even if Georgia had time, she wasn’t one to jump in and out of bed. It wasn’t her upbringing—she wasn’t pious in the least—but trust. Or lack of trust. She wasn’t comfortable stripping bare, becoming vulnerable. She wasn’t comfortable exposing her body or her heart.
“Emotions are definitely more volatile when pregnant,” she conceded, trying to ignore the crazy pulse leaping in response, wondering if he could feel the rapid staccato in her jaw, hoping he couldn’t, as the mad beating of her heart wasn’t due to fear, but something else...something worse.
She was reacting to him. Responding to him.
“I am not usually emotional,” she added.
“So you said on the application.”
“I’m not,” she insisted. “It’s you. Your effect on me.”
His brow furrowed. “Are you afraid of me?”
“No. Not afraid. But you are intense. I’m sure I’d be calm...or calmer...if you gave me a little bit more space.” She’d tried to sound matter-of-fact, but the words came out breathless, her voice suddenly pitched low and husky.
He heard the husky note, and a light entered his dark eyes. His hand slipped from her jaw, sliding down over her neck, and her lips parted in a silent gasp.
She didn’t like him, but clearly some part of her liked his touch. Pleasure rippled through her.
She didn’t know if he’d heard her gasp, or felt her shiver, but his gaze focused on her mouth, and his fingertips lightly stroked her neck, as if intent on discovering just how she’d been wired.
The problem was, she’d been wired very well. She’d always been a little too physically sensitive. A little too aware of pleasure. And pleasure coursed through her. She gasped again, no longer connected by muscle and bone, but by nerves and sensation. Shocking to think that some twisted part of her enjoyed his touch.
“You are not the surrogate I believed I was getting,” he said, drawing his hand back, but not before his fingertips grazed her collarbone, sending another little flurry of sparks shooting through her.
She longed to fall back, needing air and space and oxygen, but her feet felt leaden and her brain was fuzzy. “I will change those shoes,” she said faintly. “Shall I meet you outside?”
“I’ll wait by the door.”
“Nikos, I’m not going to fall as I change my shoes.”
“And I’m not taking chances.”
* * *
The villa was a large, broad three-story square building that appeared to be attached to the mountain, as if it had grown from the volcanic rock jutting from the sea. The foundation of the villa went all the way down into the water, and each of the three floors above the foundation had access to a different outdoor terrace.
Georgia could tell that someone, at some point, had attempted to turn the collection of rooms into habitable space with a slap of plaster and a wash of white paint. The worn plaster might have had more charm if so many of the rooms weren’t cold. There were moments during the tour that Georgia was certain that it was warmer outside than inside. Clearly, this was not the Greece of travel brochures. Or at least, not modern Greece.
“Originally this was a fortress and then a medieval merchant’s warehouse and then, during the Renaissance, a monastery. Now it is just my home,” Nikos told her as they left the formal dining room and entered what had to have been a chapel and was now a room lined with bookshelves. The soaring vaulted ceiling gave the room a spaciousness that was lacking elsewhere. “My library,” he said. Then adding, “You’re welcome to study here.”
She appreciated the offer, thinking she would enjoy studying here, and not just for the room’s beauty but fo
r its comfort. The large ceramic-glazed heater in the corner was making the library toasty warm.
After leaving the house, Nikos showed her the gardens. There weren’t many shrubs and plants in the ground, as there was little rainfall in this part of the Cyclades, just a half-dozen potted bougainvillea close to the house and a scattering of gnarled cypress trees farther away, dotting the numerous walking paths.
Nikos escorted her on the various paths, wanting her to be comfortable with each. Some of the paths were laid with stones, others were packed with crushed gravel. Nearly all had a bench somewhere, providing a place to sit and enjoy the stunning views of the sea, dotted with distant islands.
Georgia would never tell Nikos, but she was glad he’d had her change into proper walking shoes, and it felt good to walk and stretch her muscles and breathe in the fresh, brisk air.
Twenty minutes after setting off, they returned to the villa, passing through a different walled garden on the third level to reach the house. She’d expected more benches, or perhaps a table and chairs, but instead there was an enormous outdoor pool, the water a sparkling aquamarine, glinting beneath the sun. The pool had lane lines for lap swimming as well as broad steps in a corner of the shallow end. Padded lounge chairs flanked both ends and pots of lemon trees dotted the courtyard, while a burst of red bougainvillea clung to one dazzling white wall.
It was lovely and so inviting. It was the kind of pool one would see at a very exclusive resort and yet Nikos had it all to himself. “You said last night that you keep it heated,” she said.
He nodded. “I love the water and like to swim year-round.” He walked her to the little whitewashed, tiled-roof pool house at the far end. “Towels, robes, shower and a sauna,” he said. “Although the sauna is off-limits for you.”
She shot him a reproving glance. “You don’t need to do that. I am very much aware of what I should and shouldn’t do during a pregnancy.”
“Because you’re a med student?”
“Because I’ve been reading all the books and researching what I don’t know, and listening to what my doctor tells me. Most of it is common sense anyway.” She dug her hands into the back pocket of her jeans. “But speaking of medical school, I do need to get some studying done. I tried during the flight but wasn’t very successful.”