“Just a figure of speech. I like them, too. But I have no idea how you control the little ones, Gem.”
“Guidelines, activities and a lot of patience.” Her niece glanced again at the sketch pad on Helena’s lap. “What’s bothering you?”
“Nothing. Why?”
“Please don’t lie to me. I’m not a kid any longer, okay? There’s a guard outside of my room and nobody will tell me why, except that for some reason security is on high alert—for me.” Gemma took a sip of her own drink and slid onto the neighboring chaise longue, swinging up her long, tanned legs in their casual slides. “As if I couldn’t have figured that out for myself.”
Helena remained silent.
“What is going on?”
“Sweetheart, a man has been in my room. It’s very possible that someone has targeted me as a way to get to Pappou, all right? And we simply can’t take the chance that he might know who you are, too. So yes, security is looking out for us. And the captain has even urged that we consider leaving the ship.”
“What?” Gemma’s lips set mulishly. “No! I have a job here. I’m not walking away from it because of some vague threat that might not even be a threat. Maybe the person was in your room to steal something.”
Helena looked over at her. “That’s almost exactly what I told Nick. Er, Captain Pappas.” She smiled.
“He’s not going to call Pappou, is he?” Gemma looked concerned. “I love my grandfather, but I don’t want him in the middle of my first job. He’s already paranoid that I’ll be kidnapped on dry land and held for ransom. Please tell me the captain won’t call him.” She frowned. “Hey, since when do you call Captain Pappas Nick?”
Helena opened her mouth and then closed it again. Finally she said, “I knew him when I was younger.” She could feel a telltale blush spreading across her cheeks.
“Aunt H! You have a thing for him, don’t you?”
“I do not have a ‘thing’ for him.” Liar. Helena busied herself by closing the sketch pad and wiping her fingers on the cocktail napkin Gemma had brought with her drink.
“You sure didn’t look like you minded dancing with him the other night,” her niece said frankly. “I saw you.”
Helena pushed her dark glasses firmly up on her nose, glad that they were wraparound and completely obscured her eyes from Gemma. “Captain Pappas is an excellent…dancer.”
“I’ll just bet he is.” But Gemma knew better than to pry. Seconds later, Helena wished she had.
“Aunt Helena, let’s say that I, um, wanted to dance with someone. How do you know when it’s the right guy?”
Alarmed, Helena laid the sketch pad aside and took off her glasses, turning her full attention toward her niece. Was Gemma asking what she was afraid she was asking? And how on earth did she answer that question? Couldn’t Gem ask her mother?
Helena tried desperately to think of what Katherine would say to her daughter. For her sister’s sake, and for Gemma’s sake, she couldn’t screw this up.
“Well, it’s normal to consider…dancing…with an attractive man. But I’d err on the side of caution and get to know him very well first. And I’d think about what your expectations are, regarding that first, uh, dance. I’d also make very sure that you know all the steps.”
Gemma gazed directly at her. “By ‘steps,’ do you mean birth control?”
Helena almost choked. “Something like that.”
“I have that covered.”
“Oh.” Helena swirled the ice in her drink.
“You have to realize that I’m probably the only girl in my school who hasn’t done this yet.”
Helena chose to ignore the fact that she’d only been a year older than Gemma when she’d fallen in love with Nick. “Your grandfather would want me to give you the ‘save yourself for marriage’ speech here. Possibly your mother and father would, too.”
“Don’t bother. It’s my decision, not theirs.”
“That’s true,” Helena said carefully. “It’s your body. But I’d urge you not to do anything just because of peer pressure or a feeling of not belonging to some ‘club.’ All right? And try to wait until it’s someone you truly love.” As I loved Nick.
Gemma nodded. “You sound so conservative, Aunt H. I thought you were supposed to be the wild one in the family.”
Helena sighed and took her niece’s hand. “The truth is that I’m really not so wild. Your grandfather has never liked my clothes or my job or my friends. He thinks they all indicate an irresponsible lifestyle. Even your parents tease me about being ‘bohemian.’”
“They have it all wrong?”
Helena nodded. Then she added with a smile, “But don’t tell them, all right? I’d hate to disappoint them.”
Gemma grinned. “Okay. It’ll be our secret.”
When they parted, Helena went back to her room, her sketch pad under her arm, thinking about Nick and their first time. He’d been so sweet, so tender, so afraid he would hurt her.
And when he’d left her later, she’d wondered if the old cow-and-free-milk adage had been true. She’d wondered a lot of things, but never once had she considered that he might have been about to propose to her. What had he done with the ring when he’d left, angry and disappointed?
Could she get up the nerve to ask him? Would he tell her? She shook her head. Best that she not bring up the subject. She didn’t know what they were doing with each other right now, anyway. She was fooling herself if she thought they had a chance at happily-ever-after. They had a blazing physical attraction that was based on hormones, the past and the forbidden, that was all.
He belonged to the sea and she belonged in a city of concrete. London was the heart of theater and film in the U.K. How could she go anywhere else? But tears blurred her vision as she reached her new door and dug into her pocket for her key card. It had been a very bad idea to have another fling with Nick.
She slid the card into the lock and entered her room, looking around quickly. Nothing was out of place. No sickly sweet, smoky male scent. No reason for alarm.
She sighed in relief and tossed her sketch pad on the bed. A light on the telephone flashed red at her and she picked up the receiver for the message, toeing off her sandals as she listened. It was from Katherine, who was calling to say hello and to ask how Gemma was doing.
Helena felt a little guilty at not apprising Katherine of the security situation, but she didn’t want to worry her, and there had been no threat to Gemma. If that changed, Helena would alert her sister.
HELENA WAS QUIET as Nick stood stiffly inside the door of her cabin. He was so formal that he made formal look casual, and she knew what he was going to say before he came into the room with her and said it.
“You have to pack your things and leave the ship at Valletta.”
“No.”
“I am concerned for your safety. We still cannot locate this man. He may be dangerous. So this is not a request, Helena, it’s an order.” He gazed down sternly at her from his superior height. “Nick, I’m sorry and I mean you no disrespect, but I won’t take orders from you. I’ve had enough of being pressured by other people to do things that I don’t want to do.”
He set his jaw and simply walked to her closet, which he opened. He pulled out her empty luggage and tossed it onto the bed. Then he opened a drawer and began placing her things neatly inside one of the suitcases.
“Stop it, Nikolas,” she warned. “I won’t have you making my decisions for me. Elias has done enough of that.”
“Let’s keep your father out of this, all right? By your own request. I run this ship, Helena, and despite the relationship between us, you are a passenger on it. Even though you’re essentially royalty on this cruise line, you will follow my orders while you’re aboard. Is that clear?” He was Nick in his most buttoned-up state: a military commander, not her sweet and tender lover. He seemed cool and emotionless.
Where was the real Nick? This man in the sterile white uniform barking orders at her was not her fir
st love.
An unwelcome thought formed in her mind. While she was sure that he did, in fact, have her safety in mind, was this also a convenient opportunity for him to say a hurried goodbye?
He couldn’t possibly date his boss’s daughter without incurring Elias’s wrath. And she’d made it very clear that she didn’t want promises or marriage anyway. So was this the clean, uncomplicated break that Nick was undoubtedly looking for?
I’m not ready to say goodbye. The sudden knowledge flooded her mind, along with panic. She couldn’t possibly get attached to him again…she’d known it going into this fling. She didn’t want to be attached to any man, even Nick. She’d had enough of answering to her father, then feeling guilt-ridden about Ari.
She wanted to go back to London and be free. But not yet. Not now. And not on Nick’s orders. Her entire being rebelled.
He’d filled a suitcase and was opening more drawers. “Stop it, I said! I’m not going.” She rushed over to the suitcase and began throwing things out of it again.
Nick caught her wrist and turned her to face him. “You will go, Helena.”
“You just want to be rid of me!” The words spilled out before she could recall them and he jerked back as if she’d slapped him.
His gray eyes went even steelier and his nostrils flared while his mouth tightened to a grim line. “Is that what you think?”
She said nothing and his grip tightened on her wrist. Then suddenly he let go.
“If that is what you wish to tell yourself, then so be it,” Nick said formally. “But you will pack and you will depart the ship tomorrow morning when we dock.”
She made no move toward the suitcase.
He gazed at her coolly and said, “If you find yourself unable to gather your things personally, then I will be happy to see to it that you have valet service.”
She hated that professional calm of his. She wanted to upset him as he had upset her. “Goodbyes never were your strong suit, were they, Nikolas?”
His only reaction was a tiny twitch at the corner of his left eye.
“We both know that you won’t remove me publicly. My father would never stand for it.”
Nick’s gaze drilled into hers. “Fighting dirty, I see. Invoking Papa’s big name as my boss? I thought you never traded on your father’s influence.”
She looked away, feeling her cheeks flush. Damn him!
“But you’re right, my love. I won’t risk a public and melodramatic scene.”
“I didn’t think so.” Satisfaction crept into her voice—her fatal error.
He noticed. “Helena, make no mistake. If you don’t leave the ship tomorrow morning, I will have you quietly tossed into the brig.”
Her mouth dropped open as he made his way to the door. “You wouldn’t dare.”
He opened it and stepped over the threshold before turning to face her. “You don’t think so? You’re wrong.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
NICK WAS IN the foulest of tempers when he left Helena’s stateroom. How could she have accused him of forcing her to leave the cruise so that he didn’t have to say goodbye?
It had made him so furious that he’d been on the verge of shaking her, or shouting at her, something he never did—and especially not to a woman. He’d sooner break down and sob on a public street.
He’d never even shouted at Linnea when things were at their worst between them. She’d castigated him for being a cold, emotionless bastard who’d never cared about her. She’d goaded him, slapped him, got right into his face and screamed until he’d just walked out the door.
Nick wouldn’t play her game and he wouldn’t give her the satisfaction. Not to mention the fact that by that point, five years into the marriage, he didn’t have much feeling for her. They’d both known it was a mistake. He’d simply been relieved that they hadn’t had children.
Goodbyes were never your strong suit, were they, Nikolas?
Helena could think whatever she liked about him, but by God he would keep her safe. He would never again let down a woman he cared about. Carolina’s tragedy had taught him not to stand by passively.
Nick knew that Gideon would eventually find and close the loophole in security, whether it was human or technological or both. Gideon was the best. But in the meantime they had to minimize any risk to Helena.
Carolina’s waxen face appeared in his mind, eyes staring, dull and lifeless despite their expression of pain and fear, and Nick raised an unsteady hand to his own eyes.
Helena said that he couldn’t blame himself, but he’d been the one to find Carolina. He’d grown concerned because nobody had heard from her in over a week. He’d figured she was depressed and had stopped by to cheer her up….
Why couldn’t he have stopped by three days before? Why had he been so goddamn self-absorbed, too busy for his own family?
I failed her.
Well, he wasn’t taking any chances with Helena, no matter what she said or thought.
THAT EVENING before dinner, Nick stood for a long time in the shower. As the hot water cascaded down his body, he debated whether or not he should go to Helena’s room in the morning to say goodbye.
Given the last scene between them, it was perfectly reasonable for him to avoid her. After all, why inflict himself upon a woman who clearly suspected him of trying to get rid of her for personal reasons?
He gritted his teeth. That still bothered the hell out of him. After what they’d shared together, after the confidences they’d exchanged, she could still suspect him of such a thing?
I once was ready to marry you, agape mou.
And yet, he had walked away. Would a different man have ignored her father’s prominence and gone ahead and proposed with that tiny, pinhead of a diamond?
Had he been truly motivated by anger at her deception—or fear that she wouldn’t say yes? Pride because he couldn’t offer her the lifestyle she’d grown up with?
He braced his hands on the cool tiles of the shower stall and leaned his weight upon them, as if pushing the unwelcome thought away.
Then he rinsed the last traces of shampoo from his hair and shut off the tap. He stood there dripping and naked and all too aware….
Goodbyes never were your strong suit, were they, Nikolas? For the third damn time that day, the words echoed in his mind. He could be angry at Helena’s comment, or he could acknowledge that there was some truth to it. He’d left and nursed his pride and his ego instead of putting them to the test.
What would she have said all those years ago? What might she say today, if they had a chance to do everything over again?
Nick opened the shower door and wrapped a towel around his lower body. He slicked back his hair with both hands. Then he went to the birch dresser that held his clothes and opened the third drawer. Under some casual collared shirts was a box his grandfather had carved for him when he was ten. He drew his fingers over the small waves and the tiny boat so lovingly etched into the lid. He traced the outline of the gull in the little swatch of sky.
Then he opened the box and removed a safety-deposit key, an ancient coin that he’d found in his teens while skin diving and a seashell from the coastal village of his birth in Greece.
Last, he tugged up a corner of the felt lining and pulled the fabric-covered piece of cardboard completely out.
Underneath was a small velvet pouch.
Nick untied the drawstring and shook out the object inside. It was a simple gold ring set with a diamond that looked almost microscopic. His mouth twisted. Only he knew that though the stone was tiny, it was of the finest quality and without a flaw—as white in color as nature made diamonds.
The ring had cost him all his savings: four months’ salary plus a hell of a lot of overtime on Elias Stamos’s freighter. He’d even helped unload the whole vessel to scrape together some more money. Fifteen years later, his muscles remembered the ache and strain and repetitive grind of the work. He’d injured his lower back and told Helena that he’d done it in a wrestling
match.
Nick held the ring up to the light, the stone glittering at him. Still pure, still white, still encompassing the hopes and dreams of a silly kid.
I don’t want promises, Nick. I’m not good wife material…I’m just a Gypsy.
A Gypsy like him. A Gypsy he’d ordered off his ship, to be on her way. Because he wanted her safe, and for no other reason. Nick put the ring back into the pouch and hid it under the lining of his box again. He couldn’t believe he’d kept it all these years. But it hadn’t seemed right to give it to Linnea, and he hadn’t known what else to do with it. So he’d hidden the ring and tried to forget it was there.
He shoved the box back under his shirts and closed the drawer. What would she have said, if he’d only asked her?
The thought invaded his mind and took over. Marched through all the main roads of his consciousness. What would she have said?
And finally Nick knew. He knew without question what her answer would have been.
It would have been yes.
WHAT A BEAUTIFUL morning it was. Craig Peters paid little attention to the view of Valletta from his cabin. He clicked his fingers over the keyboard of his laptop, playing with a word here, changing a phrase there. He composed a long, florid letter mostly for his own entertainment, and then erased everything and started over. Best to keep this letter short and sweet.
My dear Helena,
We must further discuss the situation between us.
It is very important. Meet me in my stateroom at ten.
Nick.
There. That should be effective, and it was formal enough to sound like Captain Pappas. Craig’s pulse spiked and his breathing quickened. He was taking a calculated risk by using Nick’s room, yet there was a guard posted outside Helena’s. He’d observed Nick for over a week now, and he’d never once returned to his room before lunch….
But if he did break the pattern, he’d get a nasty surprise—just a little earlier than scheduled.
Peters slipped on a pair of surgical gloves and printed out the note on shipboard stationery, folding it carefully. Now, how to get it to Helena Stamos with all of the heightened security? He thought he’d use the niece for that. They probably hadn’t told her too much, considering her youth. And the silly little slut would likely enjoy the intrigue of passing along a love letter.
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