“Because I’ve been forced.”
“Your grandmother Iris has to be cheering. She’d hoped for this day long before she passed away.”
“So have you, Papoú,” she said in a broken voice.
“When he gets here, I want him to come in so I can shake his hand. He never stopped trying to do the honorable thing where you were concerned. These letters prove it.”
“I—I need to freshen up,” she stammered and hurried to the bathroom.
Alexa looked and felt like death. The doorbell rang while she finished putting on lipstick. She still had to give her hair a brushing. When she walked back to the living room, Phyllis had already let Nico inside.
He’d changed out of his business suit and wore casual pants with a white crewneck cotton sweater. Her breath caught at his virile, masculine appeal.
Nico darted Alexa a glance. “It’s an honor and privilege to meet your grandfather.” She caught no hint of anger in his voice just now. “Gavril Filo has given remarkable service to our country, but even more, he has helped you raise our daughter. For that I’ll be eternally grateful.”
Moved by his kind words to her papoú, she walked over to the wheelchair and slid an arm around her grandfather’s shoulders. “After my parents died, he and my grandmother raised me too. No one will ever know what they mean to me.”
“I can only imagine.”
Her grandfather lifted his head. “I can only imagine how much you two need to talk, even if it should have happened nineteen years ago. You go on, honey. Phyllis is here.” He patted Alexa’s hand.
Tears slid down her cheeks. She hugged him hard. “There’s no one like you. I’ll be back soon.”
She and Nico left the house. With a sense of déjà vu, he helped her into a new black Mercedes and walked around to get behind the wheel. “The only place we can talk without interruption is my cruiser. It’s not the same one. After I returned from military service and couldn’t find you, I traded it in for a new one. You’re the only person who would understand why.”
“I do,” she whispered. “That was the most wonderful night of my entire life.” He’d said the same thing in his letter.
“And our beautiful daughter was the result.”
“Yes.” Her voice throbbed.
He drove them toward the pier where he’d docked his boat in the past. “She has traits that remind me of my sister Giannina, but now that I think about it, her smile is all yours.”
Alexa bowed her head. “Whenever I look at her, I see you.” She struggled for breath. “How you must despise me.” Her voice shook.
“To be sure, my anger over Monika Gataki’s malicious actions is white-hot. As for my feelings of anger, frustration, hurt and disappointment where you’re concerned, I’m trying to sort them out. But my first instinct after you left the monastery was to phone Kristos with the truth.
“He wants his mother’s blessing and mine to marry Dimitra before long. That dinner at Irena’s was meant for me to meet her and her mother. Now that I’ve learned she’s our daughter, I felt it necessary that he know everything immediately.”
“I’m glad you did. She loves him very much and will turn to him for comfort. I’ll be lucky if she ever speaks to me again.”
Nico’s silence told her he agreed, causing her to shiver.
When they reached the pier, she got out and walked along the dock to a sleek blue thirty-foot cruiser. He helped her aboard and undid the ropes. After tossing her a life jacket, he started the engine and moved them out at wake speed. She sat across from him. In another minute they took off for open water.
* * *
Before long he shut off the engine and lowered the anchor. A hot sun shone down on them. Nico got up and walked over to one of the padded benches. “Come over here and help me put all this together.”
She moved to the other bench opposite him. “It started with Monika.”
“First off, tell me why she was so jealous. I’m still trying to get my head around it.”
“Oh, Nico...” She made a sound. “You’d have to be a woman to understand.”
“Try me.” Wanting answers, he hadn’t slept since the dinner at the Papadakis mansion.
“It began the day you and I met. When I swam back to the beach, I told her I’d met a guy named Nico Angelis, and that he wanted me to go on a boat ride with him. I didn’t want her to worry while I was gone. It surprised me when she immediately flew into a rage about you.”
“In what way?”
“She said she’d seen you on the beach before and wondered that I hadn’t remembered what she’d said about you, your prestigious background and elite friends. She said you came from one of the most powerful, influential families in Greece. Monika warned me you were a playboy with movie-star looks and told me I was a fool to fall for your ridiculous line about my looking like a mermaid.”
He sucked in his breath. “That was no act. You looked and swam exactly like one.”
“Unbeknownst to me, the fact that you’d asked me to go on your cruiser did a lot of damage. I realize now it was jealousy because you’d never sought her out. Even though she was attractive, you hadn’t noticed her, but you’d shown interest in me. She’d been so sure you were just playing with me.
“When you kept coming around for the next three weeks, it was too much for her. She taunted me endlessly, but I was so crazy in love with you, I didn’t let it bother me or realize what was happening to her.”
He grimaced and sat forward with hands clasped between his powerful legs. “You never said a word of this to me.”
“At the time I didn’t worry that she was so upset. That realization came later. It wouldn’t have occurred to me to tell you. It would have sounded like I was bragging, that you preferred me to her. The last thing I would have wanted was for you to think me petty, or that I found pleasure in hurting her.
“To my horror, I underestimated the depth of a dangerous jealousy that would drive her to destroy us. I’m afraid I was too naive and insecure to realize what was going on.”
Nico got up, trying to contain his rage over what Monika had done. “I’d met her several times at the house when I’d gone to pick you up. I hadn’t realized the depth of her bitter jealousy. She’d seemed nice enough. What in heaven’s name made her admit to her evil?”
“Her parents noticed that she and I had stopped writing to each other. They were concerned and wanted to know why. For a long time she refused to tell them, and they knew something was terribly wrong. One day they broke her down and she confessed to returning the letters.
“They were horrified and called me to apologize. I’d always liked the Gataki family. They’d been kind to me and my grandparents. Monika got on the phone and cried. She said she knew I could never forgive her. I told her that was up to God.”
Mara’s character hadn’t changed after all. His eyes played over her. “Did she know about Dimitra?”
“No. I never told her or her parents in the first place because I didn’t learn I was pregnant until after we’d moved to Canada. Before her attack of conscience, if she’d known I was carrying your child, she likely would have gloated over my pain at being dumped, as she called it. I could imagine her calling me an idiot for believing that you loved me. I couldn’t have withstood her mockery. That phone call from her and her family made me realize she did have a conscience, but she found it too late for us.”
“I had no idea she would go that far,” he ground out.
“No one did. After she confessed, I was afraid to call you with the news, knowing you’d recently been married to one of the most prominent women in Athens and had risen in the company.”
Nico groaned aloud. “But letting me know I was a father the second you knew you were pregnant should have superseded every consideration!”
She shuddered. “You’re right. It should have, which pro
ves I was a flawed human being not to get word to you from that first moment. And there’s no excuse for not telling you the truth once I heard what Monika had done. My only defense is that I felt it would have been so cruel to tell you and your wife about Dimitra. It terrified me it could do real damage to your happiness.
“I tried putting myself in your place, Nico. Thinking about being newly married, how hard it would have been to suddenly hear you had a four-year-old daughter on the other side of the world. No bride would want to be told news like that. Not when she loved you and wanted to make a home and life with you, give you children.”
Nico shook his head. Raisa had known how deeply in love he’d been with Mara. He agreed that to find out his former lover was alive and taking care of their four-year-old daughter so soon after his marriage to Raisa would have caused tremendous turmoil.
Though he imagined they would have stayed married, how did he know if Raisa could have handled his having a daughter from the woman he’d loved so desperately? The woman who was alive and had never married?
Again his lingering guilt over not loving Raisa as deeply as he’d loved Mara merged with his guilt that he hadn’t been able to save her or their unborn child in that crash. That guilt would always torment him.
“You have to understand, Nico,” she continued, unaware of his torment. “I didn’t know if you would have welcomed a relationship with Dimitra at any age. The last time I saw you, you had to go off to do your military duty. You took my very soul with you. On our last night together you crushed me in your arms, promising to write me the second you could.
“But no letters had come by the time I’d returned to Nicosia with Leia’s family four days later. After a week of being with my grandparents again, there still weren’t any letters from you sent to me at her parents’ house. You never phoned.” Tears poured down her cheeks.
He grimaced. “Because I was in the military, the rules forbade me to make any phone calls. To think Leia intercepted all my letters and sent them back to me unopened... The pain she caused both of us was beyond cruelty.”
Alexa nodded. “Her jealousy destroyed our dreams, knowing we were wildly in love. I remember waiting for Monika to call me and tell me the mail had come. My plan was to go over to her house and pick up all the letters I knew you would have sent me and forwarded.”
Nico paced the deck. “How could that Monika have done such a thing?”
“It’s beyond my comprehension. I waited and waited. There was so much I had to tell you, and I’d taken all those pictures I’d promised to send you. But in the middle of that nightmare, my grandfather received news that he’d been made the Greek ambassador to Canada. We were forced to leave immediately for his new post.”
Another groan came out of Nico. “I can’t believe you ended up in Canada.”
“I about died having to fly so far away from you. Once we made the flight and had gotten settled in Ottawa, there were still no letters from you forwarded by Monika. At first I was convinced you’d been injured on maneuvers and couldn’t write. After a month with no word, I knew something horrible must have happened to you. But if you’d died, it would have been all over the news. My grandfather assured me of that. Not hearing from you caused me the most excruciating pain I’ve ever known in my life.”
“All because of Monika,” he bit out.
“Yes. In time I finally had to accept the fact that Monika had been right. You’d played me, nothing more. It didn’t seem possible, not after we’d planned to be married once you returned from military service. We’d dreamed of a whole life together and talked about children, but I decided you really hadn’t meant it.”
Nico looked out over the water, turned inside out by what she was telling him. “My letters proved otherwise.”
“They did, but back then I had no knowledge of anything, and my agony increased when I discovered I was pregnant. I’d been nauseated at school and the doctor ran tests. I was so thrilled to be having your baby, but the unexpected news changed my entire world.”
“It would have changed mine if you’d gotten word to my parents.”
“I realize that now. My grandfather said he would track you down through your family so you could know you were a father. But I begged him not to do anything.
“I remembered you telling me your family had been forced to live down a scandal to do with your uncle Ari. I couldn’t remember details, but you said it had affected your aunt in a terrible way and she’d never been the same. I didn’t want to add to that misery with another scandal. And I felt such shame that my time with you had been nothing more than a summer fling, the kind Monika had alluded to.”
Nico let loose a curse.
“My only excuse was that I was a witless teenager who’d ignored my grandparents’ advice and had gotten into trouble like so many other girls. I definitely didn’t tell Monika I was expecting. She would have derided me for being the gullible fool who would now pay the price forever. I chose to say nothing to avoid her merciless ridicule.”
He lifted his head to look at her. “What’s happened to Monika?”
“Over time we stopped writing letters. She never had faith in your love for me. I no longer considered her a friend by the time she told me the truth. The last contact with her was that phone call. It altered my view of life.”
“Tell me about it,” he said in a withering tone.
“I’ve gone over that moment for nineteen years. What if I’d told Monika I was pregnant the moment I knew? Would she have felt shame and admitted to me what she’d done to sabotage our love? Would she have confessed that she’d returned every letter? Or would she have laughed and stayed silent?”
“That was a missed opportunity.”
“It was, Nico, and I’ll suffer for it for the rest of my life. Last month I saw you on TV and it made it worse to know you were so close.”
“You saw me on the news?”
“I’ve seen you several times, and it has haunted me. I reasoned that Dimitra was an adult now and could make up her own mind if she wanted to get to know you. Her age and distance were no longer a problem for visits.
“But I worried about you. Would you welcome a relationship with your grown-up daughter at this stage of life? How would it affect you and your wife and children? I was tortured by endless questions with no satisfactory answers. Then I saw you at Irena’s...”
“You handled your shock well enough,” he muttered.
“Thank you for not exposing me in front of the others. Dimitra will always blame me for keeping her apart from you. I know she’ll never forgive me. I don’t deserve forgiveness and will never know the answer to certain questions if I’d just come forward with the truth.
“Naturally you would have had no choice but to think the worst about the girl who’d promised to write you back faithfully every day until your military duty came to an end.”
Nico couldn’t take much more of this.
“I was blessed to be able to turn to my patient, loving grandparents who listened to my heartfelt plea to stay quiet and honored my wishes. They agreed to help me raise my love child. It wasn’t fair to them, Nico. They raised me from the age of five when my parents were killed in a train accident. My grandparents were and are saints.”
“I agree.”
“As you can imagine, Dimitra has turned out to be the great joy of my grandparents’ lives. She’s also my darling daughter who became my raison d’être.”
CHAPTER FIVE
ALEXA WALKED AROUND the deck for a minute, then drew closer to Nico. “Would you tell me a bit about your wife? Were you happy with her, Nico? Tell me you were.”
“Yes.” It was the truth.
“I’m so glad. It means you recovered from what happened with us and wanted love in your life again.”
He gripped the side of the boat. This conversation about Raisa needed to end. “Didn’t you
?” he riposted. “I can’t imagine your not finding someone else.”
“There were two men I cared about in Canada, but I could never be sure how Dimitra would be able to accept one into our lives.”
“Then you did entertain the idea.”
“Yes, but I could never commit. Dimitra has always been my priority. Close as I came to marriage in the past, I was afraid to go through with it in case it didn’t work out and she was unhappy. I’d rather have seen her future settled first, whenever that time came.
“Then she met Kristos. I know her love for him is real, but they’re still so young. I’d rather they waited another year at least. As you and I have learned, you never know how long love will last, no matter the reason for it getting cut off by unforeseen circumstances.”
Nico had been the victim of unforeseen circumstances twice in his life. “It’s Irena’s fear too.” He looked out over the water, still incredulous over what he’d learned.
“Do you mind if I ask how you met your wife? Unless it’s too painful.”
“Not at all.” He turned so he could look at her. “I learned to fly in the military, but that was after I stopped sending you letters. When I returned home I bought a small plane. I soon started flying everywhere when I had to go to meetings outside of Salonica. One evening I flew to Athens and met Raisa at a party for a friend.
“We started talking and one thing led to another. It felt good to connect with someone again and we began seeing each other on a regular basis. I thought it would put her off when I told her about you and me. She knew I was still looking for you, but she was patient and never gave up. The day came when I realized my search was futile. That’s when I asked her to marry me.
“One morning I took her on a flight with me and a coworker. She’d just found out we were expecting. It was a beautiful clear day with a nice tailwind. But then, suddenly, our flight from Chios where we’d celebrated our exciting news took on a different dimension.
“I had to struggle to keep us straight and level. In a flash, up became down. It was wind shear. Our seat belts barely restrained us. We crashed. I and my coworker survived, but Raisa didn’t make it. I haven’t taken control of a plane since.”
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