The Greek Bachelors Collection. Rebecca Winters
day. That sounded so lonely.
“Nikos...about the baby—”
The mere mention of it brought a look of anxiety to his dark eyes. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine!” she assured him, not wanting to add to his worries. “I was just surprised you told your father.”
Nikos’s hard body tautened. “Hearing the truth from my lips has put an end to his dream of my marrying Natasa in order to consolidate our families. He’s been stuck in that groove for a decade. Since I’ve refused to work in the company, he has lost his hold on me.”
Stephanie drew closer to him. “What’s he afraid of?”
Nikos studied her for a long moment. “At one time he thought I was Costor Gregerov’s son.”
It took a second for Stephanie’s brain to compute. When it did, she let out a gasp. “Your mother and Kon’s father?” Surely she’d misunderstood.
“It’s complicated. My mother and Kon’s mother were best friends growing up on Oinoussa. My parents married first and had two children before I came along. But Tiana’s eventual marriage to Costor brought a lot of grief to her family, because he’s part Turkish.
“In some corners of society, the Greeks and Turks refuse to mix. The built-in prejudice against him caused a painful division. For Tiana, it was she against the world once she’d married Costor. They had four children before Kon came along.”
As Nikos peeled back the layers, Stephanie’s anguish for his pain grew.
“My mother defended Tiana’s decision and was always sympathetic to Costor. At one point someone started a rumor that she got too close to him. It wasn’t true, and both my mother and Costor always denied it, but my father was a bigoted man. He believed it and there was an ugly falling out that never healed.”
Stephanie bit her lip. “DNA testing wasn’t available when you were born.”
“No, but it wasn’t needed. As Tiana once told me, the stamp of a Vassalos was unmistakable. Unfortunately, my parents’ marriage suffered. It’s a miracle my mother didn’t leave him, but she loves him. She remained close friends with Tiana, which threw me and Kon together, but the damage done to both families during those early years was incalculable.”
Stephanie clutched the railing. “What a tragedy.”
Nikos nodded. “My father became controlling and possessive. He tried to rule my life and choose my associates, making sure I didn’t mix with people like Kon’s family. By my teens he’d cultivated a friendship with the Lander family, laying the groundwork for the future he envisioned for me. But he went too far when I was forbidden to spend any more time with Kon, who’d become like a brother to me. Naturally, I defied my father, because Kon had done nothing wrong.”
Stephanie darted him a glance. “Except to be a constant reminder of the past.”
Nikos breathed deeply. “Everything reached a boiling point when Kon needed money for his divorce. I gave him what I’d saved from working. My father found out and threatened to disown me. I told him it wouldn’t be necessary, because Kon and I had already joined the navy and would be shipping out.”
The night breeze had sprung up, lifting the hair off Stephanie’s cheek. “You and Kon shouldn’t have had to suffer for your father’s paranoia. How long did it take him to beg your forgiveness?”
“His pride won’t allow him to beg. For my mother’s sake I visited them on leave, but things have never been the same. Underneath he’s still a bigot and distrustful.”
“Evidently he doesn’t like Americans, either,” she whispered.
“He’s predisposed to dislike anyone whom he imagines might have control over me. I invested my military pay and bought the Diomedes so I would never have to be beholden to him.”
Heartsick for Nikos, Stephanie looked at her husband through new eyes. Here she’d suffered all her life, wishing she knew anything about her father, while Nikos... Her ache for him grew worse. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am.”
“You’ve married into a complicated family. Don’t try to sort it all out tonight. You look tired, which comes as no surprise after your wrestling match with me last night.”
Stephanie would do it again and again if he’d let her, but after this incident with his father, she sensed he was unreachable. True enough, his next words left her in no doubt.
“You go below. I’ll stay up here and wait for Yannis. As soon as he comes, we’ll leave port and head back to Oinoussa.”
September 1
NIKOS HAD SEEN his wife in a bikini when they swam on one of the isolated beaches. Oftentimes Elianna came with them. With the growing evidence of her pregnancy, there’d been a decided change in her since April, when they’d met. But he broke out in a cold sweat as he watched the doctor spread the gel on Stephanie’s tummy to do a Doppler ultrasound.
“Ooh, that’s cold.”
“All my patients say that.”
“Are you all right?”
“Of course she is.” Dr. Panos smiled at Nikos. “Sit down, Kyrie Vassalos, and watch the screen. We’ll take a peek inside to see how your baby is progressing. This will take about ten minutes.”
Nikos couldn’t sit. More than his concern about the gender of the baby was the fear that something might show up to indicate a problem. The doctor moved the probe over her belly. Pretty soon the sound of a heartbeat filled the examination room.
“Can you hear that?” Stephanie cried in excitement.
“Your baby has a good, strong heartbeat. Keep watching the screen.”
Whether it was his baby or not, Nikos stood there mesmerized by the sight of pictures that gave evidence of the living miracle growing inside her.
The doctor nodded. “I like what I see.”
“Then it’s healthy?” Stephanie’s anxious question echoed that of Nikos.
“At this stage everything looks fine and normal. The baby could fit in the palm of your hand.”
Yet you could see it was a perfect baby. Nikos could only shake his head in awe.
“But it needs to turn for me if we’re going to find out its gender.” Dr. Panos pressed in various spots. “I know you’re uncomfortable after drinking all that water, Stephanie. Just a few more minutes, then you can use the bathroom.”
She let out a big sigh. “As long as there’s nothing wrong, I don’t care if it’s a boy or a girl.”
Since the night she’d held him during a flashback, Nikos had secretly worried he might have damaged the baby in some way. At the good news, exquisite relief swamped him.
Though she’d promised not to come near him at night, that fear had caused him to lock his bedroom door when he went to bed so she wouldn’t try to help him during an episode. Much as he desired sleeping with her, even if it would only be in the cabin with twin beds, he didn’t dare.
“From the positioning, I don’t know if we’re going to be successful. I need a better angle. Otherwise we could try another one in eight more weeks, at the end of your second trimester.” He continued to move the probe. “This one is active and kicking.”
“That sounds good to me,” Stephanie told the doctor. “I want to teach it to scuba dive.”
“So you’re a diver.”
“We both are,” Nikos volunteered.
After