The Greek Bachelors Collection. Rebecca Winters
one down the hallway, on the left. I’ll show you. You can freshen up in your own bathroom.”
He picked up her suitcase and took it to the guest bedroom she’d looked in before. “Get a good night’s sleep. It appears you need it,” he muttered. The unflattering observation shook her to the foundations.
* * *
Nikos had told Yannis to drop anchor off Oinoussa Island for the night. Afraid to go below and fall asleep, where he might have one of his flashbacks and Stephanie would hear him, he opted for a lounger beneath the stars, and covered himself with a light blanket.
All was quiet except for the frantic pounding of his heart at every pulse point of his body.
For the rest of the hours before dawn he lay there in torment, going over their conversation in his mind.
Even if he’d used her while on vacation, Stephanie had claimed she wanted him to know in person that he was going to be a father. At the heartbreaking story of having all knowledge of her own father kept from her, Nikos had been moved beyond words.
To go to so much trouble and expense to find Dev Harris—to risk her health in the process—led him to believe she must be telling him the truth. Otherwise she would have sought out the other man she’d been with, if there was another man.
But if she’d been with another man before Nikos, no one had proof of paternity. Only a blood test after the baby was born would prove it. Any earlier attempt would be a risk to the unborn baby and possibly cause a miscarriage. He didn’t dare insist on it. Much as he wanted to believe he was the father, and that her true reason for coming to Greece was to inform him of the fact, he was still riddled with doubts.
Nikos closed his eyes tightly. When Kon had been confronted with a similar situation, before they’d gone into the military, he’d believed the nineteen-year-old girl who’d told him she was pregnant. Kon had gotten in over his head with an attractive French girl he’d met on vacation in Corsica, but before returning home, he realized he wasn’t in love, and had ended it with her while they were still together.
To his chagrin, she’d showed up a month later with a positive result on a home pregnancy test, claiming he was the father. She was terrified of having her parents find out. What should she do?
Kon was an honorable man and had been willing to take responsibility, so they got married privately at the local church, where Nikos stood as one of the witnesses. His parents accepted her into the family and they’d lived with them until Kon could afford to find a place for them to live on their own.
But two months later his friend realized she’d lied to him and there was no baby. He got medical proof from the doctor at the hospital. She was forced to admit she’d made up the fabrication because she loved him and didn’t want to lose him. If he thought they were going to have a baby, then they could get married. As it turned out her plan had worked...for a while.
Betrayed to the point he couldn’t look at her anymore, he divorced her and put the whole ghastly affair behind him. But there’d been a heavy emotional price to pay, and the divorce had cost him a great deal of money, which Nikos insisted on funding from his own savings account. It was the least he could do for his friend.
After the agony Nikos had seen Kon go through when he’d realized he’d been deceived, the possibility that Stephanie was lying, too, gutted him. He didn’t honestly know what to believe.
Short of making love to Stephanie to learn if she was truly pregnant, which wasn’t a viable option for too many reasons to consider right now, he could phone her doctor. Yet somehow that idea was repugnant to him.
The only sure thing to do was wait for physical signs of her pregnancy. In order to do that, he would have to keep her close for the time being.
When Nikos thought back to their first meeting, he recalled he’d been the aggressor. Unlike her friends, who worked at a local hotel in Crystal River, Stephanie had done nothing to come on to him. While they’d flirted with him, she’d kept her distance and been totally serious about diving.
It turned out they didn’t have her skills and snorkeled only part of each day. Oftentimes they preferred to laze on the beach and go shopping in town. Not Stephanie. Quite the opposite, in fact, which was why he’d asked her if she’d be willing to be his diving partner for the duration. He’d felt her reluctance when she’d said yes, but it was obvious she loved the sport and couldn’t go diving without a partner.
Scuba diving wasn’t for everyone, but she was a natural. Together they’d experienced the euphoria of discovering the underwater world. Besides her beauty, there was an instant connection between them as they’d signaled each other to look at the wonders exploding with color and life around each gully and crevice.
When they’d had to surface, he hadn’t wanted it to end, and had asked her to eat dinner with him. She’d turned down his first invitation, but the second time she’d agreed. That’s when he’d learned she’d grown up along Florida’s Nature Coast. She’d learned to scuba dive early with her mother. After college she’d gone to work for a water tour company that took tourists scalloping and swimming with the manatees. It explained her prowess beneath the waves.
If he was truly the only man she’d been with, then her news represented a miracle. Nikos was sterile now, the hope of ever having a child from his own body having gone up in flames during the explosion.
Yet he could feel no joy if she’d set him up—no elation that a deceitful woman would be the mother of his child. If indeed he was the father...
But what if you are, Vassalos?
Think about it.
Your own flesh and blood could be growing inside Stephanie. The only son or daughter you’ll ever have.
More thoughts bombarded him.
After his last mission he’d hoped to resign his commission and go after her, marry her. What if she truly was innocent of every charge, and he’d totally misread the situation? If that was the case, then one misstep on his part could hurt her emotionally and damage any chance at real happiness, with their baby on the way.
He got up from the lounger and walked over to the railing, watching the moonlight on the water. His training as a SEAL had taught him that you had to set up your perimeter and have everything in place before you mounted an assault. This time Stephanie was the target. Unfortunately, after leaving her behind, he’d unwittingly planted an almost impenetrable field of land mines and booby traps that would destroy him if he wasn’t careful.
If his suspicions about her were correct—that she’d calculated every move since meeting him at the resort, in order to trap him—it meant maneuvering through them with surgical precision while he waited to see if she was pregnant, then awaited the DNA results.
How would he begin making it up to her if he was wrong?
In retrospect, Nikos realized he’d accused her of duplicity, when he’d been the one who’d committed a multiple number of sins. Not only had he forsaken her on the island without giving her an honest explanation, he hadn’t tried to reach her during his stay in the hospital.
The moment his father had handed him those snapshots, Nikos had been carried away by his own suspicions that she was after his money and the lifestyle he could provide her. His anger had quickly turned to white-hot pain at the thought she’d been only using him during that time on vacation. In retaliation, he’d treated her abominably.
Nikos let out a groan. Was he turning into his father? A man who’d believed the worst about the wife who loved him, because of a rumor? Whose doubts and suspicions had turned him into an impossible man to live with, catching Nikos in the crossfire?
Stephanie’s words still rang in his ears. What we had together wasn’t love.
But what if it had been love on her part, and it was only her anger talking now? Otherwise why would she have gone through all she’d done to find him?
He owed it to both of them to discover the