Читать книгу The Love Islands Collection - Jane Porter - Страница 16

CHAPTER SIX

IT HAD BECOME custom to meet at sunset for drinks on the terrace. Quite often it was their first time seeing each other each day. Today had been different. They’d met at the pool during her swim and now they were together again, outside on the terrace on the third floor, taking in the sunset, making pleasant but inane conversation. She hoped the meaningless words would keep her from thinking, or feeling, because she was scared.

It was too late to have regrets. Too late to wish she’d never agreed to be a surrogate. An egg donor was one thing, but to carry the child, and then fly halfway across the world to deliver him in a foreign country?

And then leave him behind with a billionaire father who was both reclusive and eccentric?

It was a lot to digest, even for her.

Disruptive little thoughts had needled her all afternoon.

Her parents would be heartbroken if they knew what she was doing. And then there was Savannah, who’d been convinced from the outset that this would end badly. Savannah hadn’t been as concerned about Georgia being an egg donor since a number of female medical students considered it an opportunity to do something good while improving their situation financially, but surrogacy was another matter.

And now Georgia was worried she’d completely lost sight of the big picture.

She’d agreed to this arrangement because it would provide a future for her and Savannah, but the future was becoming cloudy. Georgia felt emotional and confused. It wasn’t a good combination. She had to get hold of her thoughts now. She needed to exert some control. It would be foolish, not to mention dangerous, to let the pregnancy hormones do her in. She had to remember her goals, focus on the objectives. There was a lot to come: the exam this summer, the rest of medical school, the right residency at the right hospital.

“More juice?” Nikos asked, interrupting her circular thoughts.

She lifted the special juice cocktail the cook had prepared for her—blood orange juice and sparkling water—and saw it was nearly gone. Beyond her glass, the sky burned, glowing with fiery orange and burnished gold.

“I’m fine, thank you,” she said, gaze riveted now to the horizon, transfixed by the sun dropping into the sea. “What an incredible sunset. Every night it’s different, too.”

“That’s why I come up here every night. It’s why I live here. I’m surrounded by beauty without all the madness.”

She turned to look at him, seeing already such a different man than the one she’d met four days ago. “What is the madness?”

“Cities. Noise. People.” He hesitated. “Gossip.”

Her brows pulled. “I don’t understand.”

Nikos’s expression turned mocking. But she sensed he wasn’t mocking her as much as himself. “You’re better off not knowing,” he said. “And there is no reason to know. You’ll be leaving here in a couple months. It’s not your problem.”

Her frown deepened. Nikos was baffling. She was just beginning to realize he might be as scarred on the inside as he was on the outside, which raised the question—was he mentally and emotionally healthy enough to raise a child on his own?

Would he be a fit parent?

One more question she didn’t have an answer for, but a question she knew she couldn’t ignore. She did worry about him raising the child alone here. She worried that maybe he was a little too antisocial, worried that he was more isolated than was good for him.

She might not be able to change the terms of her agreement, but maybe she could change...him.

Or at the very least, help him prepare to become a father so that he’d be the best father possible. But to do that, it would mean spending more time with him, not less.

It would mean focusing on who he really was, and getting him to drop his guard...that rough mask...and seeing if he couldn’t open up...become more emotionally available.

She had a little over three months until the baby was born. Couldn’t she use this time to study and help him?

She just needed to formulate a treatment plan. She’d do the same thing here that she did in school: learn everything she could, soak up every bit of information, memorize every fact, every detail, and then review her case at the end of each day to monitor progress and make sure she hadn’t overlooked anything.

Perhaps helping Nikos prepare for the birth would comfort her in June when it was time for her to go. Perhaps she’d feel more at ease with her decision.

Perhaps this was the missing piece.

Perhaps.

* * *

Georgia didn’t sleep well. She woke when it was still dark, her room icy cold, but she was so hot she couldn’t breathe. She kicked the covers back from her legs, her nightgown sticking to her damp skin. She shivered, chilled and pulled the covers back.

She’d had the old dream, although dream was an inaccurate description. It was more of a nightmare. Losing her family. Chasing through the trees for Savannah, trying to save her sister from the rebels, certain any minute she’d be killed, too. She was crying as she ran and then someone was there with a huge machete and she was begging for her life because she was pregnant...

That was when she woke up.

She was having the old dreams again, but this time she was pregnant.

Maybe because she was pregnant.

Lying in bed, Georgia drew great gulps of air, feeling overwhelmed and suffocated by grief and despair.

This was not going how it was supposed to go. She was beginning to panic, and it was too late for that. She’d signed contracts and agreements and beyond the contracts and agreements, she was in med school, studying to become a doctor.

She didn’t want to become a mother. She couldn’t become a mother.

Georgia turned on her lamp and checked her watch. Four thirty in the morning. She wasn’t going to be able to sleep again. She wondered if she could maybe go to the kitchen and make a pot of tea. The activity would be good. It’d distract her, help push the vividness of the dream away.

She pulled a thin cashmere sweater over her nightgown and then added a thicker button-down cardigan over that. After stepping into slippers, she headed for the kitchen on the ground floor.

She’d never been all the way inside the kitchen, and there was no microwave, so it was a bit of a game trying to find everything she needed. But at least the kettle was on the stove and she had a box of loose tea, a teapot and a tea strainer.

Georgia hovered over the stove as she waited for the kettle to boil, and her thoughts returned to the bad dream. And it was such a bad dream. But at least it was only a dream. What happened to her family wasn’t.

For the past six months she’d told herself that the pregnancy wasn’t a bad thing, either, because she was bringing life and light into the world.

She’d convinced herself that she was doing something good; she was giving Nikos Panos a gift. And, no, her mother and father wouldn’t have approved, but they were gone. Her baby sister Charlie was gone. Her grandparents, who’d been visiting in Africa at the time of the assault, were gone, too. Georgia and Savannah were the only ones left, and in view of such darkness and tragedy, wasn’t creating life a good thing?

Wasn’t a new baby a miracle?

And since she was not going to ever be a mother, wasn’t this a chance to do something good while providing for Savannah?

“Everything all right?” A deep voice spoke from the kitchen doorway.

Georgia jumped and turned around just as the kettle whistled. She startled again. Swearing—or it sounded as if he swore, she didn’t know as it was a stream of muttered Greek—Nikos crossed the kitchen, pushed her away from the stove and turned off the burner.

“Sit down,” he said sharply. “You’re about to get burned.”

“You scared me,” she said, but she was happy to sit in one of the blue-painted chairs with the woven straw seats. She watched him use a pot holder to lift the copper kettle and fill her mug. Steam swirled up, shrouding his hand. “I had a bad dream, so I came here for tea. But I was trying to be quiet. I’m sorry to wake you up.”

“I’m a light sleeper.”

“Then I’m definitely sorry to wake you.”

He flashed her a rare smile, and her heart did a strange, funny beat.

He was devastatingly attractive when he smiled. And right now, watching him make her tea, his black hair thick and tousled, his long black lashes shadowing his cheekbones, his full lips slightly curved, she felt her pulse drum faster.

She shouldn’t want to know him. She shouldn’t care at all, but she found him fascinating, and his scars just made her want to know more. They added an air of mystery. How did he get them? And why had he exiled himself to this rock of an island?

He’d virtually cut himself off from the world, and now he planned on raising his son here. Why?

“How did you get burned?”

He shot her a swift glance over his big shoulder, black brows flattening. He didn’t look angry as much as surprised. “It’s an old story. Not very interesting.”

She didn’t believe it for a minute. “I have a feeling it’s very interesting.”

“Not to me,” he answered flatly, bringing the pot and cup to the table. “Do you drink it with milk or sugar?”

“Honey?”

He went to one of the painted cabinets and dug through bottles and jars but came up empty.

“Don’t worry,” she told him as he went to look in a basket of jars and bottles next to the stove.

“It’s here,” he said, bringing a small ceramic bowl with a lid to the table. “Why do you have nightmares?”

So that was what they were doing. Tit for tat. “I’ve told you about losing my family in Africa.”

“Not really. You just say you lost them. I’m interested in the details.” And then his piercing dark eyes met hers. “I’d find it interesting.”

“So if I tell you about my nightmares, you’ll tell me about how you were burned?”

“If you tell me about your nightmares, I’ll tell you about the burns...sometime, soon. Just not now.”

“Why?”

“You have to trust me on that.”

An interesting choice of words, she thought, stirring in the honey. You have to trust me...

The word trust had come up several times now.

“Okay,” she said, not sure she was entirely comfortable with their agreement but thinking they had to start somewhere, building this trust, and she did want to trust him. She needed to trust him, otherwise how could she live with herself after she’d delivered the baby and returned to Atlanta? “But maybe you could tell me something else—”

“You’re the one with the nightmares, not me.”

She drew a deep breath. “The nightmares started a little over four years ago, after the assault. It happened when I was twenty, and in my final year at university. My sister Savannah had come to visit me, and we were looking at colleges together, so she wasn’t at the mission when the attack happened. Thank God. She escaped.”

Georgia looked down into her steaming tea, and for a long moment she battled the awful pain and tightness in her chest. The emotion was so intense. It made thinking, much less speaking, nearly impossible.

“They all died,” she whispered. “My parents, my grandparents, my baby sister—Charlie. They all perished on the church grounds.”

It was awful saying the words out loud, and the silence afterward was painful and heavy.

“What are the nightmares?” he asked after a moment.

She blinked hard, determined to stay calm. “I’m there and I’m supposed to save them. And I can’t.” She looked up at him. He was leaning against one of the kitchen counters, his arms braced against the countertop, and he looked so big, so sure of himself, and she envied him then. Envied his size and strength. Envied his fierceness and vitality. The nightmares always made her feel so small and helpless. Vulnerable. She hated it, and she worked hard to keep from ever feeling weak.

“Is that what you dreamed tonight?”

“More or less.”

“Tell me about tonight’s dream.”

She made a soft, rough sound. “It’s too sad.”

“Maybe talking will help.”

She lifted her head and gave him a hard look. “Does talking about the accident that burned you ever help?”

“No.”

She lifted her cup and sipped the tea. It was hot and almost burned her tongue. Again tears started to sting her eyes. She blinked hard, determined not to cry.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Tea is too hot.”

“That’s not why you’re upset.”

Nikos was far too perceptive. “I just wish I hadn’t told you about the attack—”

“If it’s any consolation, you didn’t say much. You didn’t say how it happened. You didn’t tell me who did it, or if they were ever caught.”

“I hate discussing it.”

“Is that why the information wasn’t part of your donor file?”

“There’s no reason for people to know. Savannah tends to be a bit more open about it. I can’t stand talking about it. I get too angry.”

“Angry...why?”

“My parents knew their work was dangerous. They knew what they were doing was risky, and it’s one thing to put their own lives in jeopardy, but to put my sisters in danger? Charlie was just twelve. She shouldn’t have been there. She should have been protected.”

“And you said you weren’t maternal.”

Georgia’s eyes felt hot and gritty, and impatiently she shook her head, regretting sharing. “I think I’ll take my tea back to my room. If I’m lucky, I’ll be able to fall back asleep.” She rose and gathered her things, china cup and pot clinking as she accidentally knocked them together.

Nikos crossed the floor. He took the dishes from her, placed them on the table and then took her hands. “You’re shaking.”

“I miss them.” And just like that tears filled her eyes. She turned her face away, trying to hide the tears.

“You loved them.”

“So much.”

She didn’t know how it happened, didn’t know what happened, but suddenly her face was tipped up and his head dipped and his lips covered hers.

It was impossible to know what his intentions were, impossible to know if the kiss had meant to comfort, because the moment his mouth touched hers, Georgia jolted as if she’d stumbled into a live wire. Sensation rushed through her in electric waves, making her shudder.

Nikos deepened the kiss, his lips parting hers, and she shuddered again at the pleasure of his tongue stroking the inside of her sensitive lower lip and then finding her upper lip.

It’d been ages since she’d kissed anyone. She couldn’t even remember her last kiss, and Nikos was in total control, drawing her close, his hard body pressed to the length of her as lips and tongue made her melt.

She felt hot and explosive, her blood humming in her veins. She shivered as his hand moved beneath her long hair to cup her nape and then down her neck, stirring every nerve ending in her skin.

She couldn’t remember ever feeling so much. Hunger gnawed at her, and her nipples ached, pebbled tight and pressed to his chest.

His tongue swept the inside of her mouth, teasing her, making her grow warmer, making her feel wet.

She shouldn’t want this or like it. She should push him back, break free, and yet a small, scientific part of her mind was amazed.

This was unlike any kiss she’d ever known.

This was shockingly electric.

Chemistry.

His hands were on her waist, and then sliding up to cup her breasts, and she whimpered against his mouth. She felt wild with need, starved for sensation. Georgia pressed her chest against him, trying to assuage the ache.

And then just as fast as the kiss happened, it was over, with Nikos breaking it off and stepping back, muttering in Greek.

She’d bet a thousand dollars he was cursing again.

She looked up at him, and he looked grim as anything. Clearly he was regretting the kiss.

She fled. It was that or collapse in a puddle on the kitchen floor.

In her room, she locked the door and leaned against it, legs still shaking.

What just happened?

She’d never felt anything so consuming...pleasure and hunger and something else, something so intense that it continued to ripple through her in hot, dizzying waves.

Desire. Lust. Need.

Georgia exhaled slowly, trying to get control, needing to clear her head, and yet all she could feel was the pressure of Nikos’s body against hers and the feel of his mouth...as well as his taste.

He tasted like heat and honey and licorice.

She’d never tasted anything like it. And God help her, she wanted more.

* * *

Nikos headed out at dawn to run his mountain. It was what he did when he wasn’t calm, and couldn’t think.

He put on running shoes and forced himself to run up his mountain to the top, where he’d put in the landing strip for his planes, and then at the top, he did wind sprints across the tarmac, letting the Cyclades northwesterly wind buffet him.

By the time he was finished, he was exhausted. The beast had been subjugated. He could return to the house without fearing for Georgia’s safety.

He couldn’t hurt her. He couldn’t scare her. He must not disgust her with his sexual appetite.

That didn’t mean he didn’t still want her—he did—but he wouldn’t break her door down to put his mouth on her taut nipple or kiss behind her knee until she opened her thighs for him.

As a boy he’d been fascinated by sex. As a young man he discovered he was quite good at it...pleasing women, making them sigh, making them come. He’d never imagined that you could like sex too much. It hadn’t crossed his mind that he liked it too much, at least, not until he married Elsa and everything he thought about the world was wrong.

Correction, everything he thought about himself was wrong.

He’d thought in the beginning she was just inexperienced. He imagined she’d just need time to get used to married life, but it only got worse with time. She’d close her eyes when he kissed her and then turn her head away when he entered her; she’d hold her breath, waiting for his “animal side” to end.

Nikos had fallen in love with a woman who didn’t love him, or even like him. It was a disaster from the start, and by the time the marriage was over, he loathed everything about himself.

And now Elsa’s doppelgänger was living in his house, her belly round with his son, and he’d kissed her, and the kiss had been potent.

He wanted...

He wanted her.

But he couldn’t have her. He couldn’t. Even a monster like him could see why she was off-limits.