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“You’ll feel better if you stay hydrated, and this one is really good.” He filled a tall glass and carried it to her. “Pomegranate juice and something else.”
She took the glass from him and set it on the table next to her without drinking. “And you really never leave here?”
“Haven’t in a year.”
“What about when you...did your part...to make the baby?”
“The medical team came here.”
“And what about when I need a checkup? In Atlanta, I saw the obstetrician once a month, just to make sure the baby was doing well. Will I really have that here, or are you just placating me?”
“Not placating you. The doctor will come here every four weeks to check on you, and the baby.”
“You can afford to fly your doctor in, but you can’t afford internet?”
“Laying fiber optics can cost millions to billions of dollars. Having a doctor make a house call is a lot less.” He studied her a long minute. “Is it really so tragic not having access to the internet? Does it feel like a punishment to be so far removed from society?”
She was silent even longer, and then she reached for her juice glass and took a sip, and then another. “This is good,” she said. “And unlike most American girls, I grew up without internet and TV and radio. We were lucky just to have electricity sometimes. There aren’t many bells and whistles when you’re the daughter of missionaries.”
“So you can survive here without.”
“Of course I can. The lack of internet will not break me. It’s more of an issue of do I want to be without the internet? And the answer is no.”
“You’ll get used to it.”
“Just like people get used to jail.”
It was his turn to look at her hard. She blinked at him, wide-eyed innocence, and then smiled.
And her smile was not at all innocent.
* * *
It had been quite the day. Georgia practically drooped as she ate dinner. She wasn’t hungry. She was too exhausted and numb to be hungry. But she couldn’t call it a night until she’d exacted a promise from Nikos.
She wanted the lock put back on her door.
Was she afraid that Nikos would attack her in the night?
No.
But she wasn’t yet comfortable in the old villa and she would feel better with a door that locked. It’d give her a sense of security here, as well as a feeling of control.
She’d given up her world to come to Greece. How could he not make this concession for her? And Georgia didn’t know if it was a birth-order thing, or just a survivor thing, but control was important to her. It was why she’d agreed to be a donor... She felt as if she was the one with control.
The surrogacy was another matter.
In hindsight it was a terrible mistake, but she was too tired tonight to go there and think about that. The only way she’d get through this last trimester was by just living one day at a time.
* * *
Nikos watched Georgia from across the dinner table, taking in the way the flickering candlelight illuminated her face, creating arcs of gold light as well as mysterious shadows and hollows.
It had been a tense cocktail hour, but dinner ended up being surprisingly relaxed. There wasn’t a great deal of conversation during the meal, but Nikos didn’t think Georgia minded the quiet. She didn’t strike him as a woman who needed to constantly be chattering. He wasn’t sure if that was because of the way she was raised or her own personality, but either way, he was grateful. He wasn’t one who needed endless talk and conversation.
Early in his marriage, Elsa had somehow interpreted his silence to mean he was angry or upset. It created tremendous friction between them, and he’d tried to explain that he’d been a loner since he was a young boy, an only child in a small, strict family.
Unlike traditional Greek families, with lots of cousins and aunts and uncles, it was just his parents and him, and a grandfather even less inclined to talk than his father, forcing him to learn how to entertain himself, teaching him how to be his own friend. By the time he was a teenager, he was comfortable with his thoughts. The quiet gave him a chance to sort out problems—like how to help save the family business. His father wasn’t a born leader, nor a savvy businessman, and when Nikos was still young, his father took bad advice from the wrong people and made a series of horrible decisions.
Those horrible decisions resulted in Nikos’s father overextending the company, investing in the wrong things and threatening to bankrupt them all when the entire country’s economy crumbled.
If it hadn’t been for Nikos’s aggressive plan, Panos Enterprise would have been carved up and sold off to the highest bidder, leaving the family embarrassed and broke.
Nikos was twenty-four when he took over at Panos. Twenty-six when he married Elsa, and a widower at twenty-eight.
After Elsa’s death he’d retreated here to Kamari, and he’d been living in virtual isolation for the past five years. He hadn’t attended a wedding or a social occasion since Elsa’s death.
He’d stopped traveling, too, as his burns drew attention and he didn’t want to be stared at, didn’t want to hear the whispers that would accompany his appearance somewhere. Once a year he forced himself to show up at the Panos headquarters in Athens, but the rest of the time, he flew his management in for meetings on Kamari.
There were no women in the upper management of his company, and that was deliberate, too, as he never wanted to be accused of forcing himself on women, nor did he want women whispering about his face.
He knew he was scarred.
He knew what people said about him.
Beast. Monster. Animal.
Werewolf. Lykánthropos.
Georgia’s words came back to haunt him. He swallowed quickly and glanced past her, looking to the dining room window with the view of the moonlight reflecting off the sea.
Lykánthropos. That was a new one. He’d have to remember it and one day share a good laugh with his son.
“Nikos.”
Hearing his name, he turned his attention back to Georgia. She was leaning toward him, her silken hair spilling over her shoulders, gleaming in the candlelight.
“Yes?” he said, sensing that all the calm was about to change.
“I want a lock for my door, Nikos.” Her voice was quiet and steady but at the same time determined. She wasn’t asking a question. She wasn’t pleading. She was making a statement. A demand.
He tensed, his ease vanishing. So there was going to be drama after all.
He groaned inwardly, wishing Mr. Laurent had been more honest with him. The Atlanta attorney had made Georgia out to be a paragon of female intelligence and beauty, a combination of Athena and Aphrodite. Mr. Laurent had it wrong. Maybe he didn’t know his goddesses, because Georgia was more like Artemis than Athena or Aphrodite. Artemis was the most independent spirit, and was known as the goddess of the hunt, nature and birth.
“We discussed this yesterday,” he said, rolling the heavy silver napkin ring between his palm and the table. “You know why I don’t want you to have a locked door.”
“And I need you to understand why I want a lock on my door. I know it doesn’t make sense to you—most men don’t understand—but I won’t sleep if I don’t feel safe. And I don’t feel safe—”
“Even though there is nothing here that can hurt you?”
“Surely you have irrational fears. Surely you understand that it’s not about reality but about perception. Having a lock on my door gives me a sense of control, and that sense of control allows me to feel safer.”
“I am not belittling your fears. You know why I removed the lock. I must be able to reach you if there’s an emergency.”
“You managed to kick the door down last time.” Her lips curved, but the smile didn’t reach her eyes. “And I’m sure if there was a real emergency, you could do it again.”
“I was lucky that first day.”
She reached across the table and touched his hand. “Please.”
He flinched at the shock of her skin against his. Sparks shot through him, and his groin tightened. His gaze dropped to her hand resting on his. Her hand was pale against his skin, her fingers slender and narrow. He pictured stripping her tunic off, pictured the pale honey of her skin as she lay stretched naked in his bed.
He ground his teeth together, his molars clamped tight.
Georgia made him want things...made him want to do things...fierce, hard, hot. All the things that Elsa hadn’t wanted. All the things sweet, gentle Elsa had been afraid of. Sex. Passion. Skin.
Carefully he disengaged, drawing his hand free of Georgia’s. He struggled to organize his thoughts. She’d caught him completely off guard. And it wasn’t just the touch, but her fearlessness.
Artemis.
He ached from head to foot, throbbing with sensation, his body hot with desire, the desire so new after so many years of feeling nothing, feeling dead.
Maybe a locked door would be a good thing.
“You could have a key,” she added quietly. “In case of an emergency.”
He looked up at her, and she was watching him intently, her blue gaze unblinking. “But only you,” she added. “No one else. I trust no one else.”
He almost laughed. “You trust me?”
“You’re the father of my b—” She broke off, swallowed. “This baby. I have to trust you. Don’t I?”
* * *
The lock was installed that very night.
It was past midnight when Georgia finally went to bed, but she slept well. There were no bad dreams. There were no dreams at all, thank God.
But Nikos couldn’t sleep.
He spent hours castigating himself. He shouldn’t have brought her here. He should have waited until the very end of the pregnancy, and then arranged for Georgia to give birth in Athens. That would have been the way to go. That might still be the way to go. Have his plane come pick her up and send her to live at his house in Athens. His staff would care for her, and she’d be comfortable there—probably far more comfortable than here. She could shop and relax, attend the theater and eat good meals out.
