Karen Kendall - An Affair to Remember

by An Affair to Remember (lit)

  “I never touched her!”

  “Most likely, she sucked you off,” Kostas mused, ignoring him. “Fine.” He spread his thighs and pushed Helena forward so that she fell between them to the floor. “Time to get on your knees, whore.”

  “No!” Nick shouted. Without even being conscious of it, he was out of the chair again.

  “Sit.” Manolis hissed the word. “Or watch her die.”

  Helena still hadn’t moved, remaining collapsed on the floor with her head dropped onto her arms.

  “On your knees, whore. Don’t make me say it again.”

  Slowly she raised her head and stared straight at Nick. The one good eye that he could see blazed with intention, and she raised her eyebrows.

  Then she turned, eyes downcast and shoulders slumped, squatting at Manolis’s feet as if begging for mercy.

  A triumphant, unholy expression filled his face and he licked his lips. “On your knees and pull down my zipper.”

  No! Nausea rose in Nick’s gut and he gripped the arms of the chair so tightly that he thought his fingers would stab through the fabric.

  She hesitated.

  “Pull it down!” Kostas slapped her with his left hand, keeping his right one on the gun.

  Slowly, centimeter by centimeter, she took down the sick bastard’s fly.

  Impatiently, Manolis undid the button himself. “Now take it out.”

  She fumbled at his crotch among the folds of fabric there.

  Bile rose in Nick’s throat, threatening to choke him. He was going to be sick. You’re going to vomit? Think about her.

  Helena freed Kostas from the material, and Nick had never seen an uglier sight. Again, he wanted to launch himself at the man and pulverize him into nothing but bloody pulp.

  Discipline. This is the only chance we’re going to get. He clutched the arms of the chair even more tightly, and noticed that sweat from his palms had soaked the upholstery.

  Manolis leaned back and spread his thighs even wider. “You know what to do,” he said.

  Again she hesitated, and he turned his focus to yell at her. “Do it!”

  She bent her head and Nick almost came unglued.

  Then Kostas screamed in agony, shock and anger. She’d grabbed his testicles and twisted, hard.

  Please—God—don’t let him pull that trigger. Nick shot forward as Manolis grabbed Helena’s hair in his free hand and yanked her head back. His knee slammed into her jaw.

  Nick came from a diagonal and knocked Kostas flat onto the mattress. The man shrieked again and again. Helena was apparently yanking back and still twisting. Good girl!

  The gun discharged with a muffled pop. Pain exploded in Nick’s right arm. He didn’t care. He grabbed Manolis by the neck and rained blows onto his face.

  Helena finally let go and rolled out of the way. Nick saw that she was safe and still unleashed his rage on the son of a bitch who’d hurt and humiliated her, threatened to kill her.

  Kostas tried to fight back, but Nick threw him off the bed and jumped on top of him.

  Dimly he saw Helena at the phone. Then she was shouting at him and pulling him off Kostas. “Nikolas! Nikolas, stop! Stop it! I have the gun. Security is coming. Stop it! No more.”

  Somehow she got through to him, despite the bloodlust, and he collapsed next to Manolis’s prone body.

  “You’re bleeding,” Helena said, kneeling next to him. “Oh God.”

  “Don’t care,” mumbled Nick as he crawled across the floor to her, tears running down his face. He threw his arms around her and held her tight. “I love you. God, I love you, Helena. Please forgive me.” And despite all of his years in the navy and the four stripes on his shoulders, despite his legendary discipline, Nick broke down and cried like a baby because she was alive.

  “Nikolas,” she sobbed. “Oh, Nikolas.”

  He’d never known fear like that in his life. He was forced to let her go because nausea overcame him. He stumbled up and over to the sliding door, shoved it open and lurched outside. He braced his arms on the rail, hung his head over it and vomited.

  She ran to the bathroom and wet a washcloth for him. He took it with thanks, mopped his face and breathed in great lungfuls of the ocean air while she clung to him, and he to her. Manolis was unconscious but breathing; there was no need to keep the gun trained on him.

  Nick held Helena away from him and looked at her again, at her swollen eye, the open wound on her cheek, the awful bruise at her jaw. He framed her face with his hands, gently kissed each injury and then just gathered her into his arms again.

  This is my fault—all of it. I let this happen to her.

  “I’m so sorry,” he said in ragged tones. He could barely form the words because of his shame.

  “Nick, it’s not your fault. You are not responsible for the actions of a madman.” She rested her uninjured cheek against his chest.

  “Yes, I am. I incited them, and I was warned.” He gripped the rail so tightly that his hands went white.

  If only he had taken Eva’s call seriously. If only he’d thought about the possibility that Manolis might board the ship with false identification. If only he had watched over Helena himself.

  I failed her just as I failed Carolina. What kind of man am I? In command of an entire ship and I cannot protect one woman from harm?

  “Listen to me, Nikolas. You did not incite anyone. That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. That man is unhinged. He considers women property. He’s obsessive and violent, and it’s probably only thanks to you that his ex-wife is still alive!”

  Helena didn’t know what else to say to make Nick stop blaming himself. He touched her face gently, the expression on his own full of guilt, regret, anger and so much more. His eyes filled with tears again, and it took her breath away that Nick, so normally buttoned-down and controlled, Mr. Military Discipline, was actually crying for her.

  She, the emotional and dramatic one, was calm now that it was over. How strange.

  Nick shook his head. “I was warned,” he said again, wincing as he looked at her. “Oh, Helena, your eye…”

  “Forget about my eye, Nick. Please. We’re both alive and everything will heal. That’s the important thing.”

  “I could have prevented this. God, Helena, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  “There’s nothing you could have done! You were looking for a man in his early forties, not an octogenarian with a walker. And anyway, you had no reason to suspect that Manolis would target me—when it was you he wanted revenge upon.”

  “I failed you,” was all he said. “Just like I failed Carolina.”

  “No, sweetheart. You didn’t fail me. You were there and you stopped him.”

  But he didn’t seem to hear her. He walked back inside and stood with his back to her, distant and unapproachable. Had he retreated emotionally again? Would she be able to reach him?

  “Nikolas!” She felt desperate, angry now. “Get hold of yourself. And you have to stop taking the blame for Carolina’s death. That was in no way your fault.”

  Nick slumped into the armchair near the door. “I could have prevented it.”

  “No, you couldn’t have. You didn’t know what was going on!”

  “I knew,” he said shortly. “I had a gut feeling that things weren’t quite right. She had changed so much. She had let herself go, which wasn’t like her at all. She no longer laughed….”

  “A feeling isn’t the same thing as knowledge, Nick. You can’t continue to blame yourself—”

  “I can,” he said flatly. “Just as I blame myself for what happened to you today.”

  Helena put her hands on her hips and leveled her gaze on his. “Nick, what can I say to convince you?”

  He drew in a ragged lungful of air and shook his head. “You can’t say anything.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  HELENA THREW UP her hands and quickly discarded her clothes for the terry robe hanging on the back of Nick’s bathroom door. Her clothing wa
s in an unsalvageable state of disrepair. She couldn’t wait to take a shower and rinse the touch and the stench of Manolis off her skin. But Nick was more important, and his wound needed immediate attention.

  She was taking his jacket off so that she could inspect his injured arm when several armed security officers burst into the room, closely followed by Gideon Dayan and the ship’s medical personnel.

  Their collective adrenaline was palpable, but there was nothing for them to do but to move out of the way as the medics loaded the now conscious Kostas Manolis onto a stretcher. He moaned as if in agony.

  Helena couldn’t dredge up any sympathy at all.

  “Are you all right, Miss Stamos?” Gideon asked.

  She nodded, self-consciously putting a hand up to her swollen eye. She must look a sight.

  He turned to Nick. “Sir?” His eyes took in the state of the captain’s hair, the wound in his arm, the blood all over his uniform. Then he swore in Hebrew.

  “Gideon, you seem to be implying that I look less than my best.”

  The man ran a hand over his mouth and jaw. “I’m sorry, Captain—we couldn’t find Manolis anywhere. He wasn’t in his room, his ship card hadn’t been used—” The usually stoic Dayan looked distressed.

  “None of us anticipated anything like this, Gideon.”

  The chief security officer assessed Helena. “I take full responsibility.”

  Nick glanced at him and shook his head.

  “Just find out how he got that gun on board. And he’s got some kind of master key—he entered my room and Helena’s.”

  Gideon nodded soberly. “All baggage is scanned, so the gun must have come through food services or maintenance.” He frowned. “As you know, the ship’s security is the tightest in the industry—I have to believe he bribed a staff member. There’s no other way. But we’ll review procedure and do a full investigation. Maybe I can get Manolis to talk.”

  Helena stared at the two men. “Neither of you should blame yourselves for the actions of a deranged and twisted man.”

  She shuddered as she looked at the prone Manolis, even though at the moment he was more pathetic than frightening. But she didn’t feel sorry for him—he was the embodiment of evil. Had Nick carried things too far? Probably. But a cold knowledge hit her: if their positions had been reversed, she wouldn’t have hesitated to shoot Manolis dead to save Nick.

  She hoped that Manolis stayed in prison for the rest of his life, though she knew that was unlikely.

  He moaned on the stretcher. Then he spat out of his bloodied mouth. “Eva. Where is she, you bastard?”

  Nick tore away from the man tending to his arm. He walked over to Kostas and eyed him grimly. “She’s beyond your reach. You will never hurt her again.”

  Manolis told him to do something anatomically impossible.

  Nick turned away, disgusted. “Gideon. Make sure you note for the record that this man is still obsessing about his ex-wife and trying to discover her whereabouts. The courts won’t be impressed.”

  “Sit down, Nikolas, and let them take care of you.” Helena touched his good arm.

  He looked down at her, his gray eyes deepening as he caressed her uninjured cheek. “Nobody is doing anything to me until you are taken care of.” He eyed the ship’s doctor. “She needs a complete physical exam and the very best care.”

  “I’m fine,” said Helena. “I need no such thing. Perhaps a bag of frozen peas for my eye. He’s the one who needs a tourniquet! If he loses any more blood out of that arm we’ll be able to paint the ship with it.”

  The doctor, a cool, competent, blond woman, nodded. “Sit down, Captain.”

  Nick gritted his teeth. “I told you to take care of her first, damn it!”

  Helena rolled her eyes and poked him in the chest with her index finger. “Nikolas, be a good boy and stop disobeying Dr. Latsis. Now sit down.”

  Nick opened his mouth, probably to bark back at her. She doubted that anyone had spoken that way to him since he was eight years old, and never on board his ship. But under the bemused gazes of at least eight of his staff, Nick nodded meekly and sat.

  Two of the ship’s medical assistants wheeled Manolis out of the room, to Helena’s relief.

  “When you’re done with his exam, handcuff him to the hospital bed,” ordered Gideon. “And under no circumstances is he to be left alone.”

  As the room slowly began to clear out, Helena caught a glance at herself in the mirror above the dresser and recoiled.

  Her hair was matted and tangled, one eyelid was swollen and purple, and there were bruises and scrapes everywhere.

  Nick met her good eye in the mirror. Tears came to his. “I should have killed him.”

  “No, you are a better man than that.” She grimaced at her reflection. “I’m a monster.”

  “You’re not a monster. You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”

  “Nikolas,” she said, brushing his forehead with her lips, “you are a terrible liar.”

  A nurse hurried over to her. “Ms. Stamos, you must come to the medical center where I can do an exam.”

  The doctor nodded. “And in order for me to get this bullet out of his arm, Captain Pappas also needs to go to the medical center.”

  “Then I need you both in my office so that we can file a police report,” added Gideon. “And we need this kept under wraps. Liberty Line and Argosy don’t need any bad PR. We need to call Katherine Stamos immediately.”

  Helena met Nick’s gaze ruefully. “It sounds as though we’re going to have such an enjoyable afternoon.”

  AFTER ANOTHER disagreement with Dr. Latsis, Nick buckled under again and left his very capable staff captain in charge of Alexandra’s Dream while he went to an unoccupied stateroom to rest. He refused to lie in a bed in the medical center near Manolis.

  Alone and exhausted after the day’s events, Nick stared stubbornly at the painkillers given to him by the doctor and refused to take them. The wound in his arm throbbed in time with his heartbeat, hurting like hell. But he didn’t want to go all woozy or fall asleep—he had too many things on his mind.

  First of all, he was one hundred percent in love with Helena Stamos, whether it was practical or not. And it made no difference whether or not she had once misrepresented herself to him.

  He’d love her no matter who her father was, how much money she had, where she lived or how opposite they might be. He couldn’t deny it and he couldn’t help himself.

  Seeing her almost die at the hands of that bastard had been the worst thing he’d ever been through, but also the most eye-opening.

  I wanted to marry her once. I still do.

  Helena, quite simply, came first. Before his career, before his adherence to rules and regulations, even before his reputation and his dignity. He didn’t want her with “no strings attached.” He wanted her all wrapped up in them, for good and for life.

  But she’d made it clear what she thought of marriage.

  Nick reminded himself that he’d thought he was done with it, too. Yet all it had taken was the right woman to change his mind. Could he be the right man for her, too?

  He clearly remembered telling her that he loved her. I love you. God, I love you, Helena. Please forgive me. And though she’d clung to him, cried with him, she hadn’t said, “I love you, too.”

  He knew that she cared for him. That he stirred up old feelings in her, that she was attracted to him. But did she love him back—or was it simply too late?

  His thoughts and memories crowded against each other, jostling for space in his mind. Nick now almost wished he’d taken the damn painkillers so that he could experience a spot of peaceful oblivion.

  He stared at the bottle, but left it where it was on the nightstand.

  I have to know how she feels. I have to let her know how I feel—and not when she’s in shock from having been manhandled and almost murdered. Once and for all, he needed to lay his emotions on the table.

  Nick thought about the
fact that she lived in London and was used to a cosmopolitan setting. She had a wildly successful career. She described herself as a Gypsy.

  And yet…the ship stopped in many exciting ports and was filled with interesting people from all walks of life. When not on location or in planning meetings, she could work from Alexandra’s Dream. She’d always loved the water. And what better circumstance for a Gypsy than a moving home that sailed around the world?

  He rubbed absently at his arm, only to make the pain light him up. Bad idea, Pappas. While he waited for the nerves to stop screaming, his mind, now made up, went quietly to details.

  He had a proposal to make.

  Nick’s thoughts then turned to Elias, her father and his employer. He had a strong suspicion that the old man had meddled once in their relationship—the disappearance of those letters couldn’t be coincidental.

  Would he try to meddle again? Fire the captain he’d hired for Alexandra’s Dream?

  Nick didn’t know and didn’t care. But the correct thing to do was to ask Stamos for his daughter’s hand. Old-fashioned? Yes. But he’d appreciate being asked.

  The bottom line was that Nick didn’t give a damn what the man said—this was up to Helena, and her alone.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  HORRIFIED at what had happened to her aunt Helena, Gemma almost forgot that she was supposed to meet Chris that night, but she reluctantly made her way to the spot they’d agreed upon, on the Bacchus deck.

  He was already there, lounging against the rail. He was off duty and had changed into a faded polo shirt and baggy shorts. He had long, thin legs covered with sparse blond hair.

  He immediately drew her against him and tried to kiss her, but she turned her head and avoided his mouth.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “My aunt was attacked,” Gemma said. “And I feel responsible, because I gave her a note that turned out to be from the crazy guy who did it.” Her chin trembled.

  “Wow,” Chris said.

  Was she being unfair, or did his response seem woefully inadequate?