He held her naked bottom in his big hands, her legs wrapped around him, and he thrust into her again and again.
How he could find his pleasure while supporting her entire weight, she didn’t know, but Nick gave a last, mighty thrust and groaned her name. He stood there with his face buried in her hair, his legs shaking, and they clung to each other for a long moment before falling to the bed in a boneless heap. She never once thought about the condoms he’d bought.
“It’s just like it was,” Helena murmured against his neck.
“No,” he told her. “It’s better.”
When they’d caught their breath, Nick made love to her again, slowly and sensuously, expertly. It was better. This Nick, Capitano Nick, was a seasoned and patient lover. He was no fumbling, eager boy of twenty-one.
All the awkwardness and suspicion that had accompanied the start of the evening had faded into pure enjoyment of each other. Somehow they’d fallen into uncomplicated nakedness and easy, affectionate banter.
This Nick knew exactly what to do for a woman, and he did it until she begged him, laughing, to stop.
“You’ve already half killed me,” she said severely, sitting up and sliding her legs over the side of his bed.
“I heard no complaints…but if you have some, you’re welcome to file them with the captain.”
“You think you’re funny, don’t you?”
“I think you’re beautiful.” He snaked out an arm and tumbled her back onto the bed. “Where are going, mmm?”
She spied his dress hat on the opposite nightstand. Snatching it, she set it on his head, where it looked incongruous against his spectacular nakedness.
Helena saluted him provocatively.
“At ease,” he said. “But I prefer that you take your ease nude.”
“Yes, Capitano,” she said faux demurely. “Will there be anything else?”
He nodded. “There will be. But first, would you like some champagne now that I’ve had my wicked way with you?”
She nodded.
He vaulted off the bed, still wearing his captain’s hat, and strode to a small minifridge he’d had installed.
As Nick opened the champagne, a nice Perrier-Jouet, Helena admired his backside. Taut and muscular, it really was quite spectacular. It reminded her of Poseidon’s rump in the Court of Dreams, and she repressed a chuckle at the idea of Nick wearing a long beard or a fig leaf accessorized by a trident.
He turned with a flute of golden, bubbly liquid and caught her. “Is there something about me that amuses you, Miss Stamos?”
She nodded.
“Care to share?”
“Not really,” she said.
“As your captain, I demand that you do.”
She raised a brow. “Oh, fine. Then I was thinking that you have a backside to rival Poseidon’s.”
He burst out laughing and handed her one of the crystal flutes. Then he became serious. “Don’t anger him by comparison with a mortal, Helena. He rules the sea, make no mistake. I’m simply allowed to navigate it.”
Interesting. But it made sense, given that Nick had grown up in a seaside village, son of a fisherman who had seen many friends and companions die when the ocean turned aggressive and vengeful.
“You really believe that?” She slipped off the bed and stood near him, splaying her hand against his broad chest. Her fingers looked small and white against his bronzed skin, even though she herself was no stranger to the sun.
“Yes, I do.” He brushed a tendril of her hair from her face and kissed the tip of her nose. “Cheers, agape mou. To our reunion…in Santorini.” He clinked his glass against hers.
“Cheers,” she said, trying not to think about the past. She stood on her toes to kiss him. Reunion…what did Nick mean, exactly?
“Did you know that in our home, we used to make offerings to the sea?” He sat on the bed and she followed suit.
“What kinds of offerings?”
He plucked the captain’s hat off his head and settled it on hers, smiling in approval. “All kinds of things. My mother did it, mostly. A loaf of bread one day, a little dish of oil the next. Once, during a terrible storm when my father’s boat was still out, I saw her take off one of her good earrings—she only had one pair—and she ran outside, down to the shore. She threw it as far as she could into the water. Came back in soaked to the skin, wearing just the one.”
Nick’s mouth twisted at the memory. “And when my father returned safely, she said a prayer of thanks. She slipped the other earring onto a chain to wear as a necklace. She wears it to this day.”
“Did your father ever notice?”
Nick nodded. “He’d given those earrings to her as a wedding present. So of course he noticed when she was missing one. She told him she’d lost it, and he stomped around like an angry bear for a day…until I told him the truth.”
Helena listened, charmed.
Nick looped his arms around her and grinned. “That evening my brother and I were sent on a silly errand. Told to walk very slowly to the next town and back.”
“I can’t imagine why,” Helena said dryly.
“I was only ten, but I knew exactly why we were trudging to the next village for something I could have gotten quite easily in our own. Our cottage had only three rooms and the walls were thin.”
Helena hadn’t grown up in a village or town. She’d lived her childhood in a bougainvillea-draped, cliff-top villa. Just short of a palace, really…. Elias had already been raking in millions and he wanted his English wife to live in Mediterranean luxury.
Elias hadn’t made offerings to the sea, though perhaps he should have, since he’d made his living from it just as Nick’s father had. Elias had been more likely to make offerings to political candidates and causes.
A three-room cottage…The small yellow playhouse in which she and Katherine had arranged their dolls probably was larger than Nick’s whole cottage. The playhouse was still there, complete with planted window boxes, white trim and even a small garage for their two push-pedal cars. Gemma had loved it when she visited Pappou and Yiayia, Grandpa and Grandma.
Nick lay back against the pillows of his bed and snugged Helena against his chest. “So you’ve never made a sacrifice to the sea, eh?” He stroked the underside of her breast.
She hesitated and then took a sip of her champagne, letting it roll along her tongue while the bubbles popped inside her mouth. “I dropped my wedding and engagement rings into the ocean.”
His fingers stilled. “Did you?”
“Yes.”
“Not an offering, then. A repudiation. Why were you so angry, Helena, if he was a nice man, as you said?”
She sighed. “I was throwing the idea of marriage as far away as I possibly could. I was angry at my father. I was angry at myself. I wasn’t angry with Ari. He was the one innocent party in all of it—he and the—” she broke off, unable to say it. She would not, could not, speak of the baby. Tears sprang to her eyes, but thank God, Nick couldn’t see them.
He tightened an arm around her, set his champagne on the nightstand and then hugged her from behind. He kissed her head, her ear. “Shh, it’s all right, glika mou.”
How does he know? Her tone of voice hadn’t changed. He couldn’t see her eyes. How does Nick know there’s a lump in my throat the size of a lifeboat?
“What did your father have to do with your marriage?”
Helena stiffened in Nick’s arms, then forced herself to relax. She took in a deep breath. “My father…had everything to do with my marriage.”
Nick remained silent, encouraging her to talk but not demanding it.
“‘Just go out on a date with Ari,’ he said to me. ‘The boy is mad for you. What harm will it do?’ So I went out on one date. ‘Just go with Ari to the regatta,’ he said next. Then, ‘Just go with him to Santorini. You love it and he wants the company.’ And so on. Before I knew it, we were an item. And he was nice enough…I felt affection for him.” She stopped. How could she say any
more without speaking of the baby?
Nick just threaded his fingers through her hair, twisted it into a loose knot and dropped a kiss on the nape of her neck.
“One thing led to another,” she said lamely, “and then he gave me a ring. I wouldn’t take it at first, but he put the box into my evening bag and told me to think about it.”
“And Elias got wind of it and pressured you?” Nick asked.
Helena sighed. “More or less. I told him that I wasn’t in love with Ari, even though I’d tried to be. That I knew he was kind and decent, but he wasn’t exciting. But my father pushed and pushed and pushed…until he’d shoved me right down the aisle of the church.”
Nick rolled her to face him and put a finger under her chin. “You’re leaving out a chapter of this story.” His eyes weren’t judgmental, they were sympathetic.
How does he know? A sob rose in her throat. How can he read me so well, even after all this time?
“I was pregnant,” she whispered. “That’s why I married him. Elias couldn’t stand the idea of my giving birth to a Stamos bastard. My baby had to bear his father’s name. Very interesting in light of the fact that Elias didn’t give his to Theo.”
She knew Nick had met Theo Catomeris and was aware of the story of his birth, which had occurred a couple of years before Elias had married her mother.
Helena tried to suppress her threatening tears. “Poor Theo—we only just found out about him! He’s had sisters all his life. It’s so unfair to all of us.”
She paused for a moment and he stroked her hair, the side of her cheek. “The truth, Nick, is that I married Ari for the baby, not for Elias.”
“What happened, glika mou?”
It was no use to fight the sobs. “I don’t know,” she cried, tears streaming hot from her eyes and down to the pillow between them. “I didn’t do anything risky—didn’t drink or smoke or skydive, for God’s sake. I didn’t even exercise. But one day I woke up and…” She could barely get the words out. “There was so much blood. I’d lost the baby, Nick. Lost it…”
He gathered her close and kissed her wet cheeks, her eyes, her mouth. “Oh, Helena. Agape mou, I’m so sorry.” He continued to stroke her hair and rub her shoulders until she quieted.
They lay in silence for a few moments and then, as if deliberately to distract her, Nick moved his hands from her waist up to her breasts. He lifted them, caressed them, rubbed the nipples with his thumbs, until she let desire wash away the pain and turned her head to meet his kiss.
Then Nick’s clever, seeking fingers moved lower, smoothing over her belly and stroking between her thighs. The captain was truly expert at steering a different course.
CHAPTER TWELVE
NICK’S TELEPHONE RANG, waking both him and Helena. She murmured sleepily and rolled over, while he slid across the bed to answer it. “Yes?”
The ship’s operator said, “I have a Mrs. Eva Manolis calling for you, sir.”
Eva Manolis. Nick felt his heart spasm as if someone had held a cattle prod to it. Eva, the woman he’d saved—his mouth twisted—in memoriam. For Carolina, his cousin.
He swung his legs over the side of the bed, found the floor and then groped for his desk chair. He sat, heavily. He’d gotten Eva Manolis’s postcard a year ago. Why was she calling him now?
“Shall I put her through, Captain?”
“Yes, thank you.”
A soft, shy voice said, “Hello? Captain Pappas?”
“Yes, Mrs. Manolis.” He could picture her, a thin, weary blond woman with sagging shoulders and dark circles under her eyes.
“How are you?” He didn’t ask the question casually. He asked it because she might not reply that she was fine.
“I’m very well, thank you. And you?”
“Couldn’t be better.”
She hesitated for a moment and then plunged right in. “I’m so sorry about what happened at Blue Aegean—I knew my husband would make trouble, but I didn’t realize that he would focus on you—create such a mess that you’d be forced to resign.”
Nick exhaled. He’d never met a nastier excuse for a man than Kostas Manolis. Many wife beaters were simply pathetic. He’d been malevolent.
“I know that, Mrs. Manolis. It’s a pity that he woke from his drunken stupor before we sailed, but these things happen. I’m just glad that you got away from him.” Some women aren’t so lucky. Thinking about it made his blood feel heavy and thick as failure, guilt and cold anger worked through his veins.
“I—will you please call me Eva? I can’t—I can’t bear his name. I’m living under an assumed one at the moment, but I’ve also changed back to my maiden name since the divorce was final.”
“Where are you, Eva?”
She hesitated. “Canada. I’d rather not say exactly where.”
“I understand.”
“It’s not that I don’t trust you, but he has people looking for me.”
Nick went rigid. “You’re sure?”
“Yes. He’ll never give up. That’s part of the reason I’m calling, Captain. I’m afraid that he might be out for revenge—against you.”
Nick was taken aback. “But surely he got that when I resigned?”
Eva released an audible breath. “Kostas is, as you know, a violent man who does not like to be crossed. He hasn’t given up searching for me. And the more frustrated he grows, the more he’ll need to pursue another target to vent his rage. I’ve talked with a psychiatrist about Kostas and his behavioral tendencies. It was the doctor’s opinion that I should contact you. Warn you.”
Although Nick appreciated Eva’s concern, he found it groundless. “Thank you for letting me know, but there’s no need for you to worry. I’m at sea for the next few months, hardly ever in one port more than a day. He’d have a devil of a time tracking me, or getting past shipboard security.”
“Captain, don’t underestimate Kostas. I’m convinced now that he’s a…psychopath. He’s quite capable of purchasing a cruise just to get to you. As you know, he has the means.”
“Duly noted. Again, I appreciate your concern. I’ll make sure that Security has his name and description.”
“Good. I’m glad to hear you say that. It sets my mind at ease.” She sighed. “Again, I’m sorry that I ever got you tangled up in this….”
“You didn’t,” Nick replied. “You came to the authorities for help. That’s all. We gave it to you. You deserved protection. Never, never apologize for seeking help, Eva. All right?”
“But—”
“Eva, you are not responsible for your ex-husband’s behavior. You never were. No matter what he told you or how he made you feel, you didn’t deserve the abuse. Please, please accept that.”
“I have,” she said in a small voice.
Nick struggled before saying his next words. “I had a cousin who was in a similar situation. Like Kostas, her husband seemed nice enough on the surface. None of us knew what really went on—that he was nasty to her and hurt her behind the scenes. She never told anyone. Never.”
“What…happened to her?”
Nick swallowed. He rubbed at his eyes. “She’s…she’s fine,” he lied. He curled his fingers around the empty champagne bottle still on his desk. He gripped the bottle until the tips of his fingers turned white.
“I see,” Eva said in a strained voice, as if she knew he wasn’t telling her the truth. “Well, she was lucky that her family was there for her.”
“Yes.” Goddamn it all, why weren’t we there? Why?
Neither of them spoke for a long moment. Then Nick said, “I think perhaps it makes you understand why I helped you. It was the right thing to do, but I also did it for Carolina.”
She fell silent for a few moments. At last she asked, “What happened to Carolina’s husband?”
“Vigo is in jail where he belongs,” Nick said harshly. I hope to God he rots there.
“I wish Kostas were in jail,” Eva murmured. “Then I might not wake up screaming at night.”
Nick made a sound of pity. He wondered if the woman would ever stop being afraid.
“I have adopted a dog,” she told him. “A German shepherd.”
“I’m glad to hear that.” It was a good sign. Eva Manolis sounded stable, if not completely healed. That might take years. “Thank you for calling, Mrs. Manolis.”
“Please be careful, all right?”
“I will,” Nick promised. “Don’t worry about me. You take care of yourself.”
He hung up the phone and stared into the darkness, then let his face drop into his hands. Carolina…
And I gave her away at the wedding. To him.
His uncle had died two years before, so Nick had done the honors. He still saw her laughing face, glowing with happiness that day.
How could I not have known?
He glanced over at the sliding-glass door that led to the balcony. He would find peace outside, in the water and the sky. He wasn’t going to find it in his mind.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
HELENA HADN’T MEANT TO eavesdrop, but lying there in the bed, she couldn’t help but overhear Nick’s end of the conversation.
When he got up after hanging up the phone, she stretched a hand out to him. “Nick?”
“Sorry that the telephone woke you.” He was oddly formal after what they’d shared, and she didn’t know what to make of that. Was it because she’d overheard a very private exchange?
“No, it’s fine. I should be getting back to my room, anyhow.” She slipped from under the covers and located her clothes, pulling on her thong. She hoped that Nick would say something about the conversation he’d just had with the mysterious Eva, but he didn’t.
Finally she couldn’t help herself. She shouldn’t be sleeping with him—it complicated things so—but she’d be a liar if she claimed that she didn’t care about him. “Nick—are you in danger?”
He smiled grimly, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “No, Helena. We have excellent security on Alexandra’s Dream. You shouldn’t worry.”
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