Karen Kendall - An Affair to Remember

by An Affair to Remember (lit)

  True. They were larger since her brief pregnancy. She said nothing, just gasped as he took one into his mouth and gave her exquisite pleasure. He shifted their positions so that she sat astride him, and he transferred his attentions to her other breast.

  She closed her eyes, blocking out everything but the sensations that his mouth and hands created. It was only when he stopped that she became aware of the fact that he was fully clothed and she was nude, her bare thighs pressed to the white cotton of his uniform.

  She looked down at him and, a little shyly, unbuttoned his shirt. Underneath it was a white undershirt, and she helped peel off both of them. Helena traced those shoulders she’d once sketched, shoulders that were still just as taut and lean and muscled as they’d been the first day she’d seen him. So was his abdomen.

  He wasn’t as bronzed and his chest hair held a sprinkling of gray, but she loved it. Somehow it made him sexier.

  He smiled as her hands went to his fly and they made quick work of shucking his pants. Finally he was gloriously naked and he pulled her back on top of him. She lay with her full length pressed to his warm skin, feeling his heart beat solidly against her own pulse.

  He stroked her shoulders and back, slipping his hands down each notch of her spine and then spreading them over her bottom. She shivered because it felt so good. Then his fingers dipped lower still and the breath caught in her throat.

  Gently, Nick turned her so that she lay with her back to his chest, nudging her bottom with his arousal. He caught her breasts in his hands again and toyed with them, making her ache with want. When she tossed her head restlessly, he nibbled at her ear and continued to tease her nipples.

  Then he smoothed his hands down her stomach to tickle the light hair at the apex of her thighs. He found the center of her expertly and stroked while she went rigid against him, then arched her back and disintegrated into sudden, surprising pleasure. “Nikolas…”

  His chest rumbled with contentment under her; his arms wrapped around her and held her tight. She felt his warm breath in her hair.

  She expected him to move, to roll her body under his, to take her. But he didn’t. She stirred against him. He was rigid against her backside, so she knew that he wanted her.

  “Nikolas?”

  “Mmm?”

  “Don’t you—” She bit her lip. “What about you?” She wanted him inside her, wanted the fullness and the intimacy and the memories. She wanted to feel him lose control as she just had, without warning.

  “I don’t have a condom, sweetheart.”

  “It’s all right. I’m back on birth control.”

  “Back on it?”

  She hadn’t meant to say that. “I was, well, off it for a while.”

  He gently rolled her over. “You and Ari were trying to have a baby?”

  Baby. That sweet four-letter word that got to her every time she heard it. Helena swallowed and shook her head. She really didn’t want to talk about this. “No, no. My doctor took me off the pill for, ah, medical reasons.”

  He looked at her as if he knew she was omitting something, but said nothing. “Helena, do you want me to make love to you?”

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  He hesitated. “It’s better if we use a condom,” he reiterated. “It’s been a long time since we…knew each other.”

  Did he suspect that she’d been promiscuous? Had a disease? Or was he cryptically dancing around his own sexual past? She had no way of knowing.

  “I don’t have a condom, either,” she said after a long moment.

  “I can go and buy some tomorrow.” Nick sat up and ran a hand through his hair. “If you’d like.”

  She nodded, reaching for her robe and feeling awkward. She averted her eyes from his healthy erection, feeling as if she’d somehow let him down, even though he was the one calling a halt to things.

  He’d given her pleasure; she hadn’t returned the favor. “Would you like me to—” She broke off, unable to say it.

  “No, no,” he said quickly and a little too reassuringly. But he was right; it would be uncomfortable at this point.

  Helena slipped off the bed, wrapped herself in the robe and took a moment in the bathroom to pull herself together.

  When she came out, Nick was almost fully dressed, just tucking his shirt into his trousers. She remained silent as he put on his socks and shoes, then checked his hair in the mirror.

  “Do you want to shower?” she asked.

  “I’ll do that in my stateroom, where I have a change of clothes. But thank you.”

  So polite. So formal. So lacking in emotion. No, no, she thought ironically. Thank you for the nice little orgasm. Of course she didn’t say anything of the sort out loud.

  He hesitated for a split second, then of all things, kissed her cheek! As if they hadn’t recently been intimate, although not as intimate as she would have liked.

  “I’ll…call you,” he said.

  She stared at him. “All right.”

  And then he opened her door and stepped out, nodding to a white-mustached old gentleman shuffling his way down the corridor with the aid of a walker.

  CHAPTER NINE

  NICK WENT ASHORE at Santorini for a while, alone with his thoughts. Santorini, their old stomping grounds—his and Helena’s. It was a magical place, a group of gorgeous little volcanic islands. Santorini’s towns all clustered along the top of cliffs that sloped down toward a central lagoon, where Alexandra’s Dream and other ships had docked.

  He wandered, bought some local wine and wandered some more, happy to be away from the ship for a little while. He still couldn’t quite believe that he had been naked in bed with Helena, and that it had felt utterly right until he’d come to his senses.

  Had they cleared the air, as he’d intended? Well, somewhat. But they’d managed to muck it up again, too.

  It was so easy when he was with her to just forget everything but the past and his desire for her. But the realities of their situation were complicated. For one thing, as the captain of the ship and an enforcer of rules and protocol, he had no business fraternizing with a passenger. Especially not one as high-profile as Helena Stamos!

  He could hardly say anything to Giorgio Tzekas or any other crew member who stepped over the line when, as captain, he had done a hell of a lot more than fraternize. He’d come within seconds of making love to her—

  Nick sighed. Oh, come on. He was splitting hairs. He had made love to her. He was in direct violation of the rules of his own damn ship—and with the owner’s daughter, no less. How could he have let this happen?

  And added to that was his suspicion that Helena wasn’t on board for a simple vacation or to check on her niece. He couldn’t get rid of the notion that she was there as a representative for Elias, checking to make sure things were going well on the ship under his command.

  Though he hated the idea, he wondered if he might do the same thing in Elias’s shoes—send someone trustworthy to check out the situation and report back. Could he blame the man? Not entirely. Nick’s reputation had taken a beating after his resignation from his previous job.

  Could he blame Helena? Oh, hell. That was where things got complicated. Now that they’d been so intimate, was it fair of him to expect her loyalties to change? Expect that she’d come clean with him and tell him why she was really here?

  Nick walked along the main thoroughfare of Oia and thought about it. If she did come clean, then he’d know that she was trustworthy, and that she didn’t make a habit of lying. If she didn’t, then he’d know that it was time to get over any vestiges of feeling he had left for her.

  The heat beat down upon him and a trickle of perspiration slid down his spine. He ducked into a little shop and grimly purchased some condoms, wondering if he’d lost his mind. But he sure as hell couldn’t buy them on board and have everyone wondering who the captain was balling.

  A little devil on his left shoulder said, “C’mon, buy two or three boxes! You’ve already violated t
hat nofraternization policy. May as well make the most of it, eh?”

  A little devil on his right shoulder smirked and added, “Besides, in order to get to the bottom of why Helena’s on board, you have to spend more time with her. And you will inevitably end up in bed.”

  Nick shoved his change and the condoms deep into his trouser pocket, thankful for the anonymity of his simple collared shirt. To all appearances, he was just another tourist.

  He stopped in a shop specializing in original prints and maps and bought a small, eighteenth-century Italian maritime chart for his growing collection. He loved old maps and what they told of history.

  Finally he had some lunch in a little café and then headed back to the ship and his office. Nick went up the separate crew gangway and put his new map, rolled into a tube, through security. He thanked God that the condoms could remain in his pocket and not be X-rayed by curious ship personnel.

  He stowed his things in his stateroom and changed back into uniform before making his way to his office. Curiously, Petra, the secretary he shared with the hotel manager, wasn’t there. And odder still, his door was open.

  Nick frowned and looked around. Nothing seemed out of place, but the papers on his desk had been disturbed.

  A filing cabinet drawer wasn’t shut properly, and he pulled it out, checking inside. If someone had opened it, what had they been looking for?

  This was the drawer that held personnel files and incident reports. Normally it was locked, but a set of keys dangled from the keyhole at the top. Keys that were normally kept inside his assistant’s desk.

  Where was Petra?

  Nick tried to shrug off a feeling of unease. She’d probably needed something out of the drawer, and had then gone for a late lunch—forgetting that she’d left the keys there. But she was very detail oriented and conscientious, and to do such a thing was unlike her.

  He’d just gotten down to reading the satellite communications report when she bustled back to her desk, a slight frown on her face.

  “Well, that was a wild-goose chase,” she said.

  “Pardon?” asked Nick.

  She shook her head. “I was summoned to the purser’s office because they supposedly had an envelope there for me. But when I went down there, they didn’t know what I was talking about. They sent me over to the Tourist Information desk, which sent me to Communications. No envelope anywhere with my name on it.” She rolled her eyes.

  “Sounds like it took a while,” said Nick, his tone sympathetic.

  “Half an hour of my time! Wasted.”

  “Frustrating. Oh, by the way, did you need something out of the personnel file?”

  She looked puzzled. “No. Why do you ask?”

  Nick gestured behind him, toward his office. “It was open and the keys are dangling from it.”

  “What?”

  “My office door was open and unlocked, too.”

  “Oh dear—I don’t know who or why…” Distress spread across her plump, good-natured face. She opened the top drawer of her desk. “My keys are gone. Whoever was in your office must have taken them out.”

  “It may have been Thanasi,” Nick said, half to reassure her, half to reassure himself. “He may have had to check on a staff member’s file for some reason.”

  But the hotel manager didn’t know what he was talking about when Nick called him. Pappas thanked him and hung up.

  “Petra, have you seen anyone suspicious nearby?”

  “No.”

  “Has Giorgio Tzekas been in here for any reason?” For reasons of tact, Nick hastened to add, “He might have needed a report while I was ashore.”

  She shook her head.

  “Helena Stamos, perhaps? She may have needed to check a design file.”

  “No, sir. Nobody has been here, to my knowledge.”

  They both stared through Nick’s open office door at the keys dangling from the file drawer. Oh, yes. Somebody has. The question is, who? And why?

  The intruder had been smart enough to get Petra out of the way for a while; smart enough not to let himself—or herself—be seen.

  Nick was not happy, but he didn’t show his displeasure to Petra. “If you’re called away for any reason during your shift, make sure everything is locked up and sealed tight, all right?”

  “Yes, sir. I’m sorry, sir.”

  Nick locked the drawer and handed her the keys. “And keep those secure.” He sat at his desk and went through the motions of some work, but his brain whirled. Tzekas? Looking for any possible dirt to make Nick look bad? Or Helena, checking through his files for her father? Someone had undoubtedly been here, and was up to no good.

  UNLIKE THE GORGEOUS weather, Helena’s mood today was cloudy with a chance of rain. She turned her focus to the canopy of her veranda, trying to find calm in the simple green-and-white stripes, the blue of the ocean and the pinky-orange glow filling the sky. She always found her center in color and design.

  At the moment she wasn’t even sure she had a center, though.

  Nick’s behavior, past and present, puzzled her. He had had a ring in his pocket. A ring. Nick had been prepared to propose—so why hadn’t he just talked to her that night? Confronted her with his feelings…both positive and negative? Why had he pretended that nothing was wrong, then just left her without a word?

  Nick was, plain and simple, emotionally repressed. Emotionally unavailable. She thought ruefully of her outburst the night before—she was the opposite.

  But if he’d just talked to her—they could have been married all of these years. She might have been the mother of a teenager by now. The thought stunned her—she put a hand over her belly.

  Then she realized that though she would have said yes to Nick’s proposal, Elias would have roared a resounding no. He would never have allowed his daughter to marry a deckhand on a freighter ship. And at age eighteen…Helena’s mouth twisted. She’d allowed herself to be manipulated by her father even recently, in her thirties.

  Elias wasn’t physically a big man, but the force of his personality more than made up for what he lacked in stature.

  Helena rose and walked to the railing, where the breeze blew back the loosely belted robe. She didn’t care. Nobody on Santorini was close enough to see one nude woman on a private deck.

  And besides, she was through with convention—it didn’t suit her. She was also through with pretension. What good came of valuing one’s family name over one’s very soul?

  And so, having bared her body to Nick, she bared it to Poseidon, Zeus, the gulls and the sea creatures. To the last rays of Apollo. She asked for guidance from Wind, Sea and Fire because Earth had failed her.

  And they sent her not answers but more questions. Would she have been happy even married to Nick? Was romantic love enough to hold her and ground her? She loved her independence. She loved to travel. She loved her work, all aspects of it.

  If she’d had a baby on her hip and a husband demanding meals, could she have made it in costume design? It was not impossible, but it was doubtful.

  The throaty, sensual and defiant words of Edith Piaf played in Helena’s mind: “Non, je ne regrette rien…”

  Do I have regrets? she asked herself honestly.

  She did. But, like heartbreak, they were part of the fabric of her life; part of what made her who she was. Given the opportunity, would she turn back the clock? Erase the omissions and lies and abandonment and walk down the aisle with Nick?

  She wanted to say yes. But to her surprise, she couldn’t. And that realization brought not only a measure of peace but a peculiar freedom.

  Should I have kept my identity from Nick? No. That was neither right nor fair. But the past was the past, and now she had the closure she’d sought for so long. More troubling was the way her body still responded to Nick.

  And most troubling of all was the way he’d avoided making love with her, even after her statement about being on the pill. She felt odd about losing sexual control in front of a man who, well, didn�
�t.

  The kiss on the cheek and the promise to call her had been almost patronizing. They’d been the actions of a man who wanted to get to the door. She was tired of the mixed signals he sent her. When she withdrew, he pursued. When she gave a green light, he stopped. When she’d said there were no strings attached to a sexual relationship this time around, he’d seemed offended.

  It all made her want to throw something. She decided instead to visit Gemma again in the children’s center, where things might be chaotic, but they were also straightforward.

  CHAPTER TEN

  HELENA WAS DELIGHTED to see Angela, the little girl she’d met while boarding, in the children’s center.

  “Hi, Miss Helena! Are you having fun on this big boat ride? I am!”

  Was she having fun? Not…exactly. The situation with Nick was too disturbing. “Yes, I am,” she fibbed. “It’s good to see you again, Angela.”

  “I wanted to call your room yesterday, but Mommy said we couldn’t bother you,” she confided.

  Helena was touched and taken aback. “Well, sweetheart, here I am today. So what are you up to?”

  “Miss Gemma taught us how to make beads out of colored clay. It’s called Fimo. She’s going to see if they’ll bake the beads for us in the galley—did you know that’s what they call a ship kitchen? Do you want to see my beads?”

  “Yes, I do!” Helena caught Gemma’s eye across the room and waved to her. She was reading stories to a circle of rapt children and looked less frazzled today, since she was working with an older age group. Another intern was handling the toddlers.

  Since it looked as though she’d have to wait a while to interact with Gemma—at least until Horton heard the Who—Helena sat with Angela and admired her beads.

  “These are special princess beads,” the girl told her.

  “They’re lovely,” Helena said. “I like the way you swirled the pink and yellow and purple together.”

  “D’you know how I did that? Gemma taught us to roll long, snakey things and then braid them! Then we rolled them into one big, long snake, and we cut it up. Isn’t that way cool?” Angela’s face shone with excitement.