But why would someone enter Helena’s room? Had the guy been looking for something specific? He knew the jewelry she wore was valuable, but that was in the safe.
And that didn’t explain why her work had been destroyed.
Nick’s thoughts returned to Giorgio Tzekas, and his suspicions deepened. Spoiled, irresponsible, a gambler and a drinker. Impressed with his own good looks. A ladies’ man…Had he somehow gotten into Helena’s room?
He told himself that he was biased against Tzekas after they’d worked together at Blue Agean, and he had warned Elias about the first officer’s lack of discipline. But Tzekas’s father was a longtime friend of Stamos, and the ship’s owner wouldn’t budge.
As the captain, Nick had to be fair. He had to struggle with his own prejudices and put them aside in the name of running the ship. Something was off about Tzekas, but he didn’t think it had anything to do with Helena.
Nick called Gideon to check on his progress. “Any of the passenger names pop for misdemeanors or felonies?”
“Negative, sir. There’s one that cropped up for tax evasion, but apparently it was settled and the charges were dropped.”
“Did you find a Kostas Manolis anywhere?”
“Also negative.”
That set Nick’s mind at ease. He suspected that Eva’s nerves had prompted her call, not any real danger to him from her ex.
“I’m at a loss, Captain. All we can do is stay alert and keep watch.”
But another idea entered Nick’s mind. “We should do a check for Helena’s ex-husband. First name is Aristotle. Last name…let me think. Nakis, I believe. Yes, that’s it.”
“I’m entering it now, sir. Just a moment. No, nothing.”
Nick was both relieved and disappointed. “All right. Thank you, Gideon. Keep me apprised if anything comes up.”
“Will do, sir.” The chief security officer frowned. “Have you thought about the possibility that this is connected to Elias Stamos?”
“How do you mean?”
“Someone wanting revenge because of a business issue or a perceived slight?”
Perhaps that was the key. They couldn’t find any links between passengers and Helena, but maybe they should be looking for links to Elias. The man had made enemies over the years. The motive behind this disturbing incident could be to get to Elias through Helena. Make him think someone was stalking her. His daughters were his greatest vulnerability.
Nick nodded thoughtfully. “It’s a reasonable theory.”
“I’ll check into it, sir. And I’ll get a security detail on his granddaughter Gemma, too.”
“Good. I won’t be at ease until this is resolved. If anything happens to either one of them…” He couldn’t even think about it. “If we haven’t tracked this bastard down by tomorrow, then I think the best thing is probably to get them both safely off the ship at Valletta.”
“I agree, sir.”
“It will be awkward to explain to Elias, but that can’t be helped.”
“Yes, sir.”
“All right. Keep me posted.”
MIKE O’CONNOR POUNDED on the door of Giorgio Tzekas’s stateroom. In tones quite unlike the good Father Connelly’s, he snarled, “Open the door, you son of a bitch!”
“What do you want?” The first officer opened the door only wide enough to stick his rumpled head out. He wore nothing but a bathrobe.
Mike pushed his way in, only to roll his eyes at the sight of a naked redhead in Giorgio’s bed. Her eyes widened when she saw his priest’s collar. “Dios mio!”
Looking suitably horrified, Mike crossed himself and then averted his gaze.
“Get her out of here,” he said.
“We’re busy,” Giorgio growled. “Say what you have to say. She doesn’t speak English.”
“Good thing. Priests don’t usually swear at their parishioners. But this occasion merits it! Did we not talk about our arrangement?”
“We talked,” Tzekas admitted gruffly. “So what of it?”
“You went over to Crete yesterday and picked up another piece for yourself. What in the hell do you think you’re doing? It’s risky enough getting the stuff for the boss.”
“I don’t know where you get your information, Father, but you have no right to keep tabs on me! All I’m trying to do is make a living, just like you.”
“Listen to me, you sad sack of shit.” Mike said the words in the benevolent tones a priest might use to a confessor. “It’s not my problem that you run up gambling debts and buy expensive baubles for your—” he smiled over Giorgio’s shoulder at his bedmate “—cheap sluts.”
She smiled back at him a little sheepishly, the covers pulled up to her neck. Clearly, she really didn’t speak English.
“Don’t lecture me, Father. You’re always flirting…”
“I’m not endangering the entire scheme—”
“You sure as hell are if people guess you’re not really a priest.”
“—by lining my pockets to support a criminally stupid habit.”
“No? I’m not the only one lining his pockets, my friend. Get out of here before I notify a certain church that their precious triptych is a fake and the original is in the custody of a cruising priest.”
Mike shut his mouth. How had Tzekas discovered that?
The man nodded smugly. “I thought so. Au revoir, Father. Go and don a hair shirt. You can meditate upon your sins while I get on with mine.”
And Giorgio showed him the door.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
ALEXANDRA’S DREAM had docked at Kusadasi, a resort town on the Aegean coast of Turkey. The port was named after a rock in the shape of a bird’s head on a small island offshore.
Helena had been to the ruins at Epheseus twice before, so she opted not to go ashore. She spent another enjoyable morning with Gemma, teaching a puppet-making class to some of the children who were five and older. It was an opportunity to have fun with her niece, use her creative skills and take her mind off the disturbing intruder.
Helena, who was dedicated to her career, was surprised at how much she loved being around kids. She responded to their simple joy in creating their puppets, and also sympathized with the children who got cranky and frustrated when their less developed motor skills turned out puppets that weren’t quite the way they’d imagined. As an artist and designer she understood the gap between vision and end product, and how hard it was to bridge sometimes.
She waved goodbye to the group when the session was over, and kissed Gemma’s cheek amidst a chorus of “Bye, Miss H’lena!”
She made her way back to her suite and greeted the cheerful, uniformed young woman who was posted outside her door.
She’d only been inside a few minutes when she jumped at a firm knock. “Who is it?”
“It’s Nick.”
She let him in immediately, and as soon as the door was closed behind him she stepped into his arms. She didn’t think about whether it was unwise. She didn’t care that they had no future or that he had left her without a word in the past. She just wanted to feel his strong, solid chest under her cheek and take comfort from the warmth of his presence.
“Helena, agape mou, it’s all right. I will keep you safe. I promise.” He murmured the words into her hair, holding her tight. He rubbed a big hand in comforting circles on her back, then tipped her head back and kissed her.
She drank him in, as much of him as she could.
“We will find this man, I swear to you.”
Helena nodded.
“We’re searching the ship manifest, trying to track him down every way we know how. We can’t find any connections between other passengers and you. Is there anything else you can tell us?”
“No, nothing.”
“Then he may be trying to hurt your father through you.”
She breathed in the scent of him and clung to him tightly. “I really don’t want to talk about it anymore. There have been so many questions and theories…I just want it to go away.�
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“I know. I’m sorry, sweetheart.” Nick kissed her nose and each of her eyelids, then traced her lips with his index finger.
“Just make it all go away, Nikolas,” she said.
“I wish I could.”
“You can.” She placed her hands flat against his chest and met his eyes. “Make love to me.”
He cupped her face in his hands. “Helena…you’re reacting emotionally.”
“Yes. Is there any other way to react to this?”
He sighed. “There’s logic.”
“Logic?” she repeated, and laughed. “No. I’ve had this feeling of being watched, too. And that’s not logical—it’s pure instinct. None of this is logical. But now all I can think of is that man in my room. Please, push that out of my mind, replace it with something healthy and tender and loving….”
Then Nick’s mouth was on hers again and his fingers stroked through her hair and she stopped trying to articulate what she felt because it was no longer necessary.
He understood, just as he always had. He kissed her tears away, and when more fell he gently consumed them, taking them from her and replacing them with his touch so that they condensed into desire.
He undressed for her, dropping his clothes to the floor and never taking his lips from hers. His hands skimmed up under her simple sundress, caressed her thighs, lifted the skirt and tugged it up and over her head. Then he slid her panties down.
Nick picked her up and she wrapped her legs around him. He walked with her to a chair and sat on the edge of it, placing her on his knees, holding her for a few moments against his chest. She could feel that he was aroused, but he made no move to take her.
Restless, she reached her hand down and wrapped it around him, urging him on. Maybe it was shameless but she wanted to ride him into oblivion so that she could block out her panic about the unknown prowler, replace fear with pleasure.
But Nick stopped her, brought her hands up and then placed them on his shoulders. Provocatively, he ran his tongue around her nipples, laving them until she whimpered for more.
He cupped her bottom in his big palms, squeezing and caressing until she squirmed. Then his hands moved along her thighs until his clever fingers crept inward and began to play. He rubbed, he stroked, he slipped inside and out until she felt she was flying, supported by nothing but his hands and the sensations he created at her core.
She arched her back, heard herself cry out—and color exploded behind her closed eyes. Then Nick entered her, stroking inside her, and she convulsed around him, aware only of his own shudder as he climaxed in her arms.
NICK TWINED HIS FINGERS through Helena’s silky hair as she lay sleepily beside him among her rumpled covers. “I have to go, sweetheart,” he said. “I’m sorry. I wish I didn’t have a ship to run.”
She stretched a hand out and splayed her fingers over his bare chest. Her touch made him ache for her all over again. “It runs without you, Nikolas. It’s not as if you have to keep your hands on the wheel.”
He smiled and shook his head. “No, but it’s complicated, as you know.”
“When I was a little girl, I thought the captain of a ship just stood at the helm in a dashing skipper’s hat, occasionally peering through a spyglass and shouting, ‘Land ho!’”
He laughed. “You know now that it’s closer to running a floating company.”
She sat up and pulled the sheet over her naked body, her smile dimming. “Yes. You and Elias.”
Nick raised his eyebrows. “What does that mean?”
Helena shrugged. “Always busy. Running from one meeting to another…managing problems. I’m sorry I’ve created yet another problem for you.”
“You haven’t created anything,” Nick said, hauling her against him. “But speaking of Elias, I’m going to have to call him and tell him what’s going on.”
She stiffened. “No.”
He stroked her cheek. “Agape mou, I mean you no disrespect, but I wasn’t asking your permission. I will call your father. He needs to be informed.”
“Please, leave Elias out of this!” Her voice shook with suppressed emotion. Not anger, exactly. He couldn’t put his finger on it. “I am not a child, Nick. I don’t need Baba to swoop down and ‘make it all better.’”
“It’s not a question of that, Helena. The fact is that he’s my boss, and he will want to be apprised of security problems on one of his ships, especially if there is a personal angle to them.”
“Very diplomatically stated, Nikolas.” But her tone was bitter. “However, I am asking you as my friend—and as my lover—not to call him.”
Nick was silent.
“He will jet over here and board at the next port. Look, Nick, I love him dearly, but I don’t want him here right now. Promise me that you will not call him.”
Nick sighed. Elias was his employer. “I can’t promise that. Don’t ask me.”
“He’ll want to know everything that’s being done and he’ll demand to see every piece of evidence. Do you think I want my father involved in all this? He’s already overprotective.
“As a costume designer, I associate with ‘strange people.’ According to my father they’re flea-bitten artists, crass creatives, nihilistic novelists. Hooligans and homosexuals! I expose myself to the wrong elements, you see. Elias doesn’t find my crowd appealing. He would like to rewrite my life for me.”
“Helena, he is your father and the owner of this ship. We should tell him what’s going on.”
She shook her head.
Nick sighed.
She leaped out of the bed and faced him with her hands on her hips, gorgeous even in disarray. “I do love my father, Nick, but he can be overpowering. Did you ever think that maybe I might have had other reasons not to claim Elias as my father when I was eighteen? Reasons that had nothing to do with hiding my financial status?”
He stared at her. “No. I never considered that.”
“I just wanted to be me. Pretend I was free and happy and not a hostage to his position as the shipping king of Greece.” Her mouth trembled and she crossed her arms over her naked breasts.
“You were always free and happy with me.” Nick touched her arm.
“Exactly. And I treasured that. I never wanted it to change.”
“Everything changes,” he told her. “It’s the nature of things.”
She nodded miserably. “Just please don’t call Elias, Nick. Promise me.”
He swore. “If I agree not to call him, and we have not found this intruder by the end of today, then I want you to promise me that you and Gemma will disembark at Valletta and fly home. I am worried for your safety.”
“Gemma has nothing to do with this situation!” she cried. “Why should she leave? You’ll ruin her internship for nothing.”
“This may not have to do with you, but with Elias himself. The culprit may wish to get at him through you and Gemma. Upset you or hurt you or both. If we can’t track him down, then I want you gone and safe.”
Helena locked gazes with Nick. “No. I’m not running from him. This is my vacation. He’s not going to scare me off the ship.”
“Agape mou, I will remind you that I don’t need to ask your permission. If I order you to leave the ship, you will go. Do you understand me?”
“Pulling rank, Capitano?” she said lightly, but her chin came up.
“No, I’m being sensible,” he returned.
“This man is a coward. He lurks and spies. He sneaks in and rifles through panties. He is not confrontational. I don’t think I have anything to fear.”
“He very well may be a coward,” Nick told her. “But there is also the chance that he is not. So if he comes near you, there are two possible outcomes. One of them is entirely unacceptable and I will not risk it.”
“Fine, then post a daisy chain of armed guards and call Elias, if your loyalty lies with him. But I will not get off this ship.”
“You will if I order it.” They stood toe-to-toe and she refused to back down
.
“Go ahead and order it, Captain. But you’ll have to carry me off kicking and screaming. I won’t go quietly.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
HELENA SAT on a lounge chair on the Helios deck, knees drawn up to support her sketch pad. Her emotions flowed almost madly through her fingertips to the broken nubs of the silky, almost oily Cray-Pas she was using this afternoon.
She sensed rather than saw fellow passengers stop to scrutinize her picture, but her huge dark glasses and hunched posture communicated that she wished to be left alone. Her work today was abstract, and people seemed to lose interest anyway when they couldn’t identify a representational object in her drawing.
Dark slashes of black, shades of gray and mottled purples settled over the top half of the canvas, their visual weight suffocating the radiant yellows, cheery cantaloupe-peach and hopeful spring-green wavering below. A lovely, glowing ruby-red had all but disappeared from the bottom right-hand corner, and a jagged edge of midnight-blue splintered a blissful swath of orange that had dared to rise from the bottom center.
Her hands were shaking a bit, but it didn’t matter for her purposes. Helena reached the end of both the black and gray Cray-Pas with a gloomy smear across the page and felt some measure of relief. Only more cheerful shades remained. But she didn’t pick them up; she simply rubbed her ashy, smoky-looking thumb against the other colorful smears on her fingers.
“Wow,” said Gemma from behind her. “The dark colors look like they’re eating the bright ones. Are you in a bad mood, Aunt Helena?” Her niece handed her a cocktail glass brimming with fruit juice and sat next to her.
“No, no,” Helena said absently. “How are you? How are the multitudes of little monsters in the children’s center today?”
Gemma grinned. “They’re not monsters. I like them.”
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