by Holly Rayner
“I had to find you,” she said. Then, she put a hand to her face and shook her head. “Sorry. The heat. I’m exhausted. I need a minute.”
“Why are you here, Maxine?” I asked. I couldn’t wait a minute. I needed to know what she wanted.
“I need to talk to you.”
“How did you find out who I am?” I asked.
She rambled out an answer about seeing the family crest from my suit jacket at a restaurant, learning my last name, finding me in magazine articles. Then, she said what I’d been afraid of.
“It said you’re this billionaire guy who’s almost royalty.”
“Is that why you’re here?” I asked, interrupting her. “Is that why you found me? You saw my family crest somewhere and realized you could cash in?”
Her face went pale and I felt bad for being so cruel, but I couldn’t afford this kind of heartbreak. I’d been fragile since she had left, and as happy as I was to see her again, to be reminded that she was real, I couldn’t let her in just yet.
“Do you really think I’d do something like that?” she asked, standing up on shaky legs. “Do you think I’d come back here just because you’re rich? You paid for everything while I was here on my trip, but I never asked you for anything. I knew you were rich when I was here. You didn’t exactly make it a secret, you know.”
“But you waited until you saw my crest somewhere to come and find me,” I began, but Maxine interrupted me.
“Because I had no other way to find you. I’d been looking for you for weeks before I saw your crest in that restaurant. I’d been scouring the internet looking for you. I called the resort and they said you’d moved, and you didn’t give me any other clues. I had nothing to go off of. The crest was just a lucky break,” she said, getting flustered, color returning to her cheeks.
“But why are you here?” I demanded. “What was so important that you—”
“I’m pregnant!” she shouted, drowning out the second half of my question.
My words died on my lips. My brain went blank as I stared at her, trying to understand.
She took a deep breath and continued. “I found out a few weeks ago that I’m pregnant. The baby is yours.” With that, she sat back down in the chair.
Suddenly feeling a little unsteady myself, I dropped down onto the bed. “How far along?”
“A little over three months,” she said.
I nodded. “Are you here for money? Are you going to take it to the tabloids? What do you want from me, exactly?”
Her mouth pinched into a straight line. “That’s not my intention. I just thought you might want to be involved in your child’s life.”
I’d imagined reuniting with Maxine too many times to count since she’d left. I’d imagined that I would find her and tell her the truth about me. I would let her know about my life and my past on my terms, so I could be sure of her intentions. But having her show up out of the blue with a surprise pregnancy had never crossed my mind.
Never did I imagine we would be this cold with one another. That there would be such a heaviness to our meeting.
“What are you thinking?” she asked. I could tell she was angry. Her arms were crossed over her stomach, making it impossible to see if she was showing at all, but there was concern etched into her forehead. I just didn’t know if the concern was for me or herself. Or, perhaps, both.
“I’m not sure if I can believe you,” I said honestly. “But I want to. Do you have somewhere to stay?”
Her eyes widened for a second, and then she stood up and moved towards the door, shoulders sagging. “I’ll leave my number in case you want to get in touch.”
“You didn’t answer my question. Do you have a place to stay?” I repeated.
She looked at me and hesitated before shaking her head. “No. I quit my job to try to move closer to the ocean; it was only afterwards that I found out I was pregnant. I came here on borrowed money to find you.”
“Stay on the ship,” I said, making the decision in the moment. She didn’t have any money, and it was clear she was desperate, though she didn’t want to say so. That only made me more nervous. Had she quit her job and fallen on hard times and then looked me up, hoping I’d bail her out? I wasn’t here to be anyone’s piggy bank. Either she wanted me for me, or she didn’t want me at all.
She shook her head. “I can figure it out. I can—”
“If you’re really pregnant, I’m not going to have you wandering around the city with no money,” I said.
“If?” she asked, her voice breaking a little.
I wanted to tell her it was a mistake, that I didn’t mean anything by it. But I didn’t. I just shrugged and showed her to one of the guest rooms, as the words died on my lips.
Chapter 16
Maxine
What had I expected? For him to jump for joy at the news that the woman he’d known for three days was pregnant with his child?
Actually, yes. I was ashamed to think so, but I’d expected Andreas to be excited. I knew it was a crazy situation, but I had been excited. Once I’d found out who he was, I’d thought maybe we’d be a family.
The excitement of it all left me exhausted, and I ended up laying down on the bed to think and falling asleep for several hours. I only woke up when a knock sounded at the door.
When I opened it, a young woman in a crew uniform was standing outside the door with a package. She handed it to me and disappeared down the hallway without a word.
Inside was a gorgeous empire-waist dress and a note.
Maxine,
Meet me for dinner at seven. We need to talk.
Andreas
Just beneath the “K” of his name, I could see the crossed-out beginnings of an “D”; he’d nearly signed his name as Dimitri.
The same crew member knocked on my door at seven and led me through the yacht to the upper deck where a table had been set. Two tall candles sat around a fragrant bouquet of blue and white flowers. Andreas stood from his seat as I approached, looking as handsome as ever in a navy suit. His hair was longer than it had been when I’d left, and the salty air had put a wave in it that I still found myself wanting to reach out and touch.
“You look beautiful,” he said, running his eyes down my body, hesitating at my middle.
I could tell he was looking for the beginning signs of my baby bump. I wanted to show him just to prove that I wasn’t lying, but it felt like a betrayal. He should have believed me. I wasn’t the one who had lied about my name or my identity. I had always told him the truth.
I didn’t say any of this, of course. I simply thanked him and took my seat.
Wine had been swapped for sparkling water, and Andreas poured me a glass and then one for himself. Someone from the kitchen brought out a tray of freshly baked bread topped with feta and tomatoes, and I didn’t realize how hungry I was until I saw them. I hadn’t eaten much of anything all day. I practically lunged for them.
“Same appetite as before, I see,” Andreas said.
“Worse, now, actually. I had bad morning sickness, but now that I’m out of the first trimester, I’m hungry all the time.”
“Have you been to the doctor?” he asked.
I nodded. “I have. They confirmed the pregnancy, checked my HCG and progesterone levels, and monitored the baby’s heart rate—172 beats per minute.”
His mouth twitched, and I couldn’t tell if he was about to smile or grimace. “Do you have any pictures of the baby?”
I’d thought he might ask, so I’d packed the sonogram picture in my purse. To anyone who didn’t know what it was, they might think it was a photo of a potato. Babies in the first trimester more closely resemble blobs of clay than a baby.
“It’s about the size of a lime right now.”
Andreas picked up the picture and stared at it. Studied it, actually. He seemed to want to commit it to memory.
“Do you believe me now?” I asked.
I wanted to be patient and give him time, but I also couldn
’t help being defensive. I’d found out I was pregnant and, as if that wasn’t enough stress, I’d had to dedicate myself to tracking him down, which he hadn’t exactly made easy. Then, I’d crossed the world to tell him about it, only for him to say he wasn’t sure if I was telling the truth.
“Of course, I do,” he said, still looking at the picture. “I’m sorry. I know you wouldn’t lie about something like this.”
He seemed genuine and it settled my frustration a bit. He set the sonogram in the center of the table between us and then asked me to re-explain how I’d found out and what I’d done to find him. So, I did. I told him about throwing up on the man at the club, which he found hilarious, and about the crest at the Greek restaurant, and Katie loaning me the money for a ticket.
“I’ll pay for that,” he said, interrupting me. “I’ll pay for all of it. I appreciate you coming to tell me.”
“I thought you should know,” I said quietly. “I’m sorry I had to drop it on you like this.”
I knew I didn’t choose to get pregnant, but I wasn’t apologizing to him as much as I was sympathizing with him. In the first few days after finding out I was pregnant, I’d hardly believed it. Even though I’d had the positive pregnancy tests—all four of them—it had felt like it couldn’t possibly be real. So, on some level, I could understand how he felt. The news had been a giant bombshell on what he’d expected out of life.
“Don’t apologize,” he said. “I’m glad you are here. I’ve missed you, Maxine.” He said it like it was a fact, rather than a declaration of any feelings. “Before meeting you, I spent all of my time working and I thought I was happy. I had money and freedom to travel as I wanted. But then, I showed you around Barkas and I felt like I was seeing the world through new eyes. You brought joy and wonder back into my life.” He paused. “And then, you left. Work didn’t satisfy me anymore. Traveling didn’t satisfy me. It used to be that sitting on this yacht in the middle of the ocean was my happy place, but suddenly, it felt empty.”
“The months after I left were tough for me, too,” I admitted. “I missed you a lot. And then, I found out about the baby, and while I still missed you, I also had a part of you with me. It made missing you more bearable.”
Something glistened in his eyes and then he looked out towards the water, hiding his expression from me. “Perhaps, a baby will fill the hole inside of me. Maybe our child will be my purpose.”
After dinner, Andreas walked me back to my room. “We’re leaving for Barkas in the morning. Is that all right?” he asked.
I nodded. “I’d love to go back and see it again.”
He smiled. “Sleep well.”
As soon as he was gone, it became impossible to fathom that I was on his yacht. That we were together again. For months after returning home, I’d dreamt about this, and now, it was happening. Not at all like I’d expected, of course, but still, I was back in Greece. And even though I was halfway across the world, a tiny part of me felt like I was finally home.
I knew he needed time to process the information, but I didn’t want to be in a guest room. I didn’t want there to be doors and walls and the length of a ship between us. I wanted to be with him. We’d both been so shocked by seeing one another that we hadn’t even hugged. Our conversation had been stiff and formal. I was frustrated with him for doubting me and thrilled that he’d missed me and hopeful that he would want to be a father.
But—more than anything—I was desperate to kiss him. Desperate to feel the warmth of his body on mine again.
When I finally managed to fall asleep, I dreamt of Andreas and our honey-haired baby. We lived together in a house on the beach. We travelled and ate good food and played in the sand. We were a perfect family.
When I woke up, I prayed that the dream was a premonition of what was to come.
The yacht took us to Barkas in the morning, and we dropped anchor near the secret swimming cove where Andreas and I had swum on our first day together. I laid on the deck of the yacht while Andreas did laps in the ocean below. When I got too hot, I climbed down a ladder into the cool ocean water to cool off. Closer to dinner, Andreas rowed us to shore in a small boat, and I shamelessly watched his muscles ripple in the setting sun.
He sat our picnic basket along a stone wall at the back of the beach and we slipped off our shoes and walked along the warm sand, our toes sinking in with every step.
“Can you believe we were here together only three months ago?” he asked.
I shook my head. “It feels like a lifetime ago. So much has changed.”
And so much had changed. When we’d last been on the beach, he had been Dimitri. I’d had a job in telemarketing that I’d hated. My biggest dilemma had been about whether I should live in Wisconsin or California. Now, it was whether or not I would be a single parent.
Andreas reached out and brushed his fingers along the back of my hand. I jumped, surprised by his touch, and looked up at him.
“Not everything has changed,” he said gently.
I thought for a minute that he would lean down and kiss me. As confused as I was about everything, I wanted him to. Instead, he smiled and kept walking.
“I never really imagined myself as a father, you know?”
“Really, never?” I asked. “Aren’t you kind of royalty? Aren’t royals really set on having heirs?”
He laughed. “Greece no longer has a royal family, but my lineage comes from royalty. And my parents wanted me to have children, but then circumstances changed. Then my parents died, and the idea kind of died with them.”
I nodded, disappointment threatening to choke me. “What do you think, now that you are one? Because you are a father. You know that, right? Even if you decide not to be in this baby’s life, you will still be his or her dad.”
He reached out and touched me again, but this time, it was to grab my arm and pull me to a stop. He turned me towards him, placed his hands on my shoulders, and looked into my eyes.
“I’m going to be in this child’s life, Maxine. I won’t let you do this alone.”
“Really?” It felt like a three-ton weight had been lifted off my shoulders.
“Really. I never thought I’d be a dad, but I’m excited by the idea, now. Neither of us planned for this to happen, but we talked about adventure while you were here. Life is full of adventures, and you can either choose to take part in them or not. This child is an adventure I want to take part in.”
My arms were wrapped around his waist before I could stop myself. I had been so worried that I would have to raise the baby on my own, and as relief washed over me, I felt tears streaming down my cheeks. Andreas wrapped his arms around me and smoothed his hands down my back, whispering in my ear that everything would be fine.
And, for the first time in a while, I truly believed that.
We unpacked our dinner of bread, cheese, vegetables, and hummus and spread it out on a checkered blanket in the sand. The sun was setting, reflecting the pink and yellow pastel sky into the water. Even though Andreas and I had a lot to figure out, we had settled into an ease, each of us coming around to the situation in our own time. But I also knew that I had a lot left to learn about him.
“Earlier, you said your circumstances changed in regards to having children.”
He nodded but said nothing.
“What did you mean?”
“Did you not read about it online?” he asked, noticeably more tense than he had been before. “Every magazine in the country has covered the story of my family at some point. I’m sure there was plenty of reading material for you to peruse.”
“I’m positive I don’t know as much as you think I do. Most of the articles that came up were in Greek and it was difficult to translate. I learned what I needed to know to find you and didn’t look much more. I met a woman in Athens yesterday who told me to stay away from you. She said that you and your family were cursed with bad luck but wouldn’t say why. Does it have something to do with that?”
He nodded agai
n.
I reached out and grabbed his forearm. “You can tell me. I’m not some visiting tourist you’ll never see again. I’m the mother of your child. We are going to be in each other’s lives, now. We are going to be family, no matter what happens.”
“It’s funny for me to talk about this, because for so long, everyone who has known me as Andreas has known this story. It was all the news could talk about for months. When people say Andreas Stanis, this is the story that follows.”
“I don’t want you to feel like you have to tell me if it hurts you, but I want to know who you are,” I said. “When I found out I was pregnant with your child, I realized how little I knew about you. I know if I couldn’t have found you, that my child would have known next to nothing about their father. I could tell them that you were kind and handsome and a businessman, but that’s not enough for a child. It terrified me to think about. So, please, let me in. I want to know who you are so badly.”
“Perhaps you will change your mind once you learn about me,” he said.
I shook my head. “No, never.”
“I was engaged once, before,” he said, taking a long, slow breath. “To an English woman named Victoria. She was beautiful and smart, but very mean when she wanted to be. Most of our relationship happened at sea. We would drink and dance and dive into the waves and sleep in the tiny hull beneath my sailboat.”
His eyes went far away while he relayed the story of their tumultuous relationship. He looked out at the ocean and it was almost as if he was reliving it. He talked about how hard they could party and how hard they could fight.
“We fought like crazy as soon as we set foot on land. I had responsibilities to my family—my father owned the Stanis Shipping Company, and we knew that it would eventually be handed down to me. Victoria didn’t want a life of responsibility—she told me she’d marry a man who respected her freedom. Somewhere in the back of my head, though, I thought she would settle down with age; that she’d mature and things would smooth out. And so, I proposed. The day we stepped back on land to tell my parents the news of our engagement, Victoria began to have second thoughts.”
