Nikos's jaw tightened. He didn't take his eyes off the road, but he didn't feel as if he could see it at all. For a long minute he couldn't answer. He couldn't get words past the thickening in his throat. At last he nodded, and when he could speak, he said harshly, "Mari has him. She's good at what she does."
The look Stavros gave him was a hard and assessing look.
Nikos didn't care. Let the old man think whatever he wanted. Let him wonder whatever he wanted. Nikos deliberately flexed his fingers on the steering wheel and drove on.
If Stavros had more questions, he didn't ask them. He did pull out a cellular phone once and call the hospital. His relief at being allowed to speak directly to Julietta was profound.
"Ah, agape mou! Julietta, my love, how do you feel?"
Nikos's teeth clenched. Don't play the devoted husband in front of me, old man. He didn't want to hear it! He didn't even really believe it.
But though he began by doubting his father's sincerity, once the niceties were dealt with, and Stavros would customarily have lapsed into his normal curt, businesslike manner, with Julietta he was not curt or businesslike at all. His tone was soft, his questions gentle. This loving man, this agonized husband was Stavros Costanides?
This was his father?
Nikos's hands strangled the steering wheel. He stepped down harder on the accelerator. His leg hurt from the continued demands of driving. He wanted to stretch it. Ease it. Kick something. Someone.
He thought he might explode.
They continued in silence. Nikos drove straight to the hospital. It wasn't until he'd pulled up out front and said, "I'll take your gear to your place," that his father spoke again.
Stavros sighed just slightly and looked down at his hands before he turned his gaze to meet his son's. "Nikos,' ' he said. His voice was as gentle as Nikos had ever heard it when speaking his name.
He looked away.
"Nikos," his father said again, and didn't move to get out until Nikos had looked back at him. "Thank you."
"I didn't want his damned thanks!" Nikos was prowling the length of the patio overlooking the pool where Mari was sitting and watching while Alex paddled in the shallow water. She'd seen Nikos coming and had sent her own prayer of thanks winging heavenward.
She'd had visions of him dropping Stavros off at the hospital, then taking straight off for London, figuring he'd done more than enough, and washing his hands of the whole mess.
But he was here. Limping. Irritable. Irascible. Annoyed. But here. And Mari breathed a sigh of relief,
"I know," she said softly now. "But keep your voice down or Alex will hear."
Nikos scowled, but he stopped fuming, and he stopped muttering. He stood, instead, just watching his brother play. There was a gentleness on his face, when he watched Alex, that Mari never saw there any other time.
"He's very like you," she said.
Nikos grunted. "More than you know."
She cocked her head to look at him, wanting him to continue, praying that he would.
"I've been where he is," was all he said.
"Nikos?" Alex stopped jumping in the water and looked up at his brother. "Can you come swimmin'?"
Nikos started to shake his head, to say no. Then he stopped. He glanced at his watch. ' 'For a little while. I have a plane to catch."
"A plane?" Mari felt a sinking feeling in her stomach.
"Cornwall. Brian. My work. Remember?" Nikos said.
"Yes, but—"
"I'm not going to stay here. They don't need me!"
Mari thought they did, but she didn't think an argument would convince him. She just looked at him sadly.
Nikos didn't look at her at all. "How about going down to the ocean?" he said to Alex.
His little brother beamed. "Oh, yeah!" He started scrambling out of the pool.
Nikos took Alex down to the ocean. Mari didn't go with them. There were things that needed to be done here. And someone needed to stay around to take the calls if Stavros rang. Or Brian, for that matter, she thought glumly.
She glanced toward the beach. Nikos and Alex were standing on the shore, side by side. Nikos seemed to be talking, then Alex looked up and answered. Then they stood there again. Just as she was about to turn and go into the house, she saw Alex reach out and touch his brother's hand. She saw Nikos wrap his bigger hand around his brother's small one.
The two of them stepped closer together.
It was odd the way he felt bonded with Alex.
Or maybe it wasn't odd. The two of them shared a common parent. A pretty unfortunate tie, as far as Nikos could see. But no one else shared it. And as much as he personally would have liked to have washed his hands of his father, he couldn't quite do it yet.
Not until he'd told Alex what no one had ever told him.
It was easier somehow in the ocean. The ocean had always seemed to Nikos, ever since his childhood, to be his home. It was easier to understand than the people he'd lived with—his loving, doting, supportive mother, who let herself be hurt by a man not worthy of her love; his hard, unyielding father, who demanded so much and gave so little. Nikos loved the former, despised the latter—and understood neither.
It was easier to be by himself on the ocean. Sailing had been his salvation. Swimming had been his joy. Just sitting by the water had soothed him when the various sides of his world had seemed at odds with each other.
Until now he'd gone there alone. No—once at least he'd come close to bringing someone else. Mari—the day they'd gone to Montauk.
He'd barely known her then, but somehow he'd sensed that she would love it the way he did. Watching her drive his car had taught him that. It was the same feeling—being small and yet taking on something powerful, harnessing the power and making it your own.
He'd done it with the sea. Mari had done it with his Jaguar. Yesterday she'd taken Alex to sail, to share that love with him. Alex had told him about it while they'd walked down to the sea together.
"We sailed," he'd told Nikos. "Fast!" His eyes were bright. "Mari let me hold the rudder."
"Tiller," Nikos corrected gently.
"Yeah, that. We went soooo fast!" Alex had given a little hop. ' 'I never been so fast. We're gonna do it again.
We're gonna go to her aunts' and go sailing again. Do you want to go, Nikos?" He'd looked up at his brother, his eyes shining. "I wish you would go, Nikos."
And Nikos had smiled. "Yeah, Alex. I'd like that."
Alex's trust made it easier to tell him—to say the words he needed to say, that Alex, even if he didn't know it yet, needed to hear.
They were together, out in the ocean, far enough out so that Nikos was holding Alex in his arms while they bobbed up and down as the swells pushed toward the shore. "Alex, if you ever...need, um...if you ever need...anyone—" he couldn't say me "—if you ever need anyone... for any thing... you can always call me. Always."
Alex, who had been bouncing against his chest, seemed to sense Nikos's sudden seriousness. He stopped and looked. Their eyes, on a level this once, locked. It was like looking into a mirror, Nikos thought.
For a long moment Alex didn't say anything, and Nikos wondered if he understood, or if he was too young...if what he remembered—the desolation, the loneliness, the anguish—were his alone. A projection, nothing more.
And then Alex bumped his forehead against Nikos's. "Good." And then he giggled and nipped Nikos's nose.
Mari met them coming up from the beach.
They were running, but Nikos was lagging a little behind, letting Alex take the lead. They were laughing. They looked like father and son. At least, Mari thought, they were acting like brothers.
And a good thing, too.
She hurried on, needing to reach them, to tell them.
"Mari! I catched a wave!" Alex yelled. "Me an' Nikos rode a wave!" He lunged forward and threw his small wet arms around her legs.
Mari caught him, hugged him close, but her eyes raised to meet Nikos's.
"What'
s up?" He arrived just as wet and a whole lot more desirable than his little brother. His dark eyes searched her face.
She mustered a smile. "Do you want the good news or the bad news first? The good news is they've got the labor stopped and Julietta is resting comfortably. The bad news is...your father had a heart attack."
CHAPTER NINE
On Sunday, Julietta, worried but stable, came home.
Brian, worried, called almost hourly about Carruthers—who to Nikos's way of thinking was definitely instable—and his latest revisions of the boat they were building for him.
Stavros, out of danger and stable for the moment, was still in the hospital where he was the doctors' problem. Nikos was glad. Anyway, there was nothing he could do for the old man.
"You'll be fine. Just fine," he told Mari firmly Sunday evening as they sat in the living room of the little cottage where they had brought Alex for the night so that Julietta could get some rest. "Everything's under control. And for you actually," he went on cheerfully, "things couldn't be better."
Mari looked at him doubtfully. "Oh, really?"
"Sure," he said, not looking at her. He couldn't look at her, hadn't been able to do more than glance at her since he'd thought he was home free only to be thrown back into her company again. It was too tempting. She was too tempting. And she needed somebody far better than him. "They need a nanny," he told her now. "And you're the best. You've proved it. You've saved their necks over the past few days."
"Not just me!" she exclaimed. "You—"
He cut her off. ' 'You wondered what you were going to do when I left? Now you know. The old man will be eating out of your hand just for being here and taking over. He'll give you whatever you want." It was true. All of it. The only bad part was, if she was working for his father, sometime, somehow, he would probably see her again.
"So it's perfect." He forged on. "And it's fine for me, too. I was here when you...when you needed me. And now I'd be in the way if I stayed. Besides, I can do my work better there."
He still didn't look at her. But he made the mistake of looking at Alex, playing cars on the floor, instead.
Alex looked up at him, dark eyes serious. "But / need you here, Nikos," he said.
It felt like they were playing house.
Like Mari was the mommy and Nikos was the daddy and Alex was the little boy. There was, of course, this underlying strain in Nikos that Mari couldn't pretend she didn't see. But at least she didn't think Alex saw it.
And Alex, of course, was the reason he stayed.
She knew it was for Alex, not for her. But she couldn't help herself—she was glad he was there. At some point she had quit lying to herself about it being the passion that was important. Certainly passion was important.
But Nikos was more important.
She loved him.
She wasn't sure when she stopped lying to herself about that, too. She thought it might have been when he went to get Stavros at the airport, even though she knew it was hard. She thought perhaps it was when she saw him with Alex on the shore, hand in hand. But she knew for sure when Alex looked up at him and said, "I need you here, Nikos," and he stayed.
She knew it was hard. She knew he hurt. She wanted to heal him.
She wasn't sure how.
She thought he was avoiding her, but it didn't seem like he was angry at her. More like she made him nervous.
She asked him why.
He looked at her like she'd grown antlers on her head. "Why the hell do you think?" They were sitting on the beach, watching Alex build a sandcastle. Or rather Nikos was watching Alex build a sandcastle. Man was watching Nikos. She had been all day.
He'd looked at her once—just after breakfast. And, catching her eye, he'd looked abruptly away. He had studiously avoided looking her way ever since. He'd tried to discourage her from coming with him and Alex to the beach.
"It will give you a break," he'd said.
But Alex had wanted her to come. "She hasn't seen me body surf," he'd told Nikos.
"You're not missing much," Nikos had said under his breath so only Mari could hear.
But Alex had pleaded and Mari had wanted to go anyway, so she'd come.
But Nikos hadn't looked at her. Still.
"You act like you're mad at me. Like you don't want me here. Don't you?" she asked him bluntly.
He looked at her then, his dark eyes fathomless. "I want you in my bed." His jaw bunched tightly. His fist curled over a handful of sand.
Mari burned under the intensity of his gaze. And knew she wanted it, too. She swallowed. She ran her tongue over salty parched lips. "So do I," she said.
His eyes widened. He gave a hard quick shake of his head. "Don't say things like that."
"It's true."
"Even if it is, don't say things like that!" He shoved himself up and limped down the beach toward his brother.
Mari pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. She watched him drop down on the sand next to Alex. She saw their two dark heads bent over the castle. Alex look her way, waved, beckoned her. Nikos said something to him, distracted his attention.
Oh, Nikos. I love you. Mari rested her head against her knees. / would show you. I would sleep with you.
But Nikos wouldn't sleep with her!
Did that mean he loved her, too?
He was a fool.
She'd virtually offered him her body. And he'd said no!
He needed to get out of here!
Regardless of what he'd promised Alex, he needed to leave. To get his own life back. At the very least, he needed to get out of here tonight. To stop playing house with Mari.
It would be fine if "playing house" extended to the bedroom. But he couldn't let it extend to the bedroom!
So he needed some other woman's bedroom. Some other woman's arms. Some other woman who could make him forget all about Mari Lewis's sweet face, her curvy body, her luscious mouth.
A man could be celibate just so long.
Nikos was way past that!
He waited until Julietta had retired to her room, until Alex had gone to bed, until there was just Mari and himself—and then he grabbed his jacket and headed for the door.
"Nikos?" She looked up from where she was sitting in the den. She had her shoes off and her feet tucked up under her. Her hair was loose, framing her face, making him focus on it—on her mouth.
"What?" he said harshly, still moving toward the door.
"Do you have work to do? Did Brian call? Do you want some help?"
"No. I don't need help. Or not that kind anyway! I need—" he glared at her "—damn it all, you know what I need!"
And he slammed out.
He could find it in East Hampton. He could go into a bar and meet some lonely woman, someone who wanted just one night and nothing more. There were plenty of women like that—refugees from the city, come out to the Hamptons for a little R&R.
It wouldn't be a problem. No problem at all.
He'd have his pick, he was sure.
The trouble was, he discovered, after four bars and four times that many likely women, he found something wrong with all of them. This one was too forward, that one was too tall. This one was a redhead. That one was blonde.
None of them had a sunny smile and an infectious giggle. None of them had lips begging to be kissed. At least not by him.
They'd have been willing—if he had.
He couldn't do it.
Damn it to hell!
What was the matter with him?
Maybe he needed a celebrity. Maybe all his days as a globe-trotting playboy had spoiled him. Maybe he needed a photographer and notoriety to spark his interest.
But in the fifth bar he found a model he'd dated once or twice, one he'd been photographed with on several occasions. Where Karla went, photographers went—so if that was his problem, Karla could fix it.
And Karla was clearly willing.
But Nikos said, "I can't," when she asked him back to the hous
e she was renting for the week.
"Can't?" Karla looked at him, astonished. He doubted very many men said no.
"I...have to get back," he said. "My brother..." Oh, good, he berated himself, start dragging Alex up as an excuse. "I can't," he said again.
Karla's brows lifted. "Brother?"
Nikos shook his head. He wasn't going into that. "I'll...see you around."
"Of course, darling," Karla said. She pursed her lips for a kiss.
Nikos ducked in, but turned his head at the last moment. His lips grazed her cheek.
She looked at him, eyes as big as soup bowls. But Nikos couldn't explain. He didn't understand himself. He just knew he had to get out of there.
He got into the Jaguar and drove. And drove.
He drove for hours, it seemed—along one back road after another. From one side of the island to the other. At two in the morning he found himself sitting in the Jag overlooking the dock by Mali's aunts' house.
Damn, he thought. Oh, hell.
Damn, she thought. Oh, hell.
She thought a few other unprintable things over the next few hours. She couldn't decide if she was more furious or more hurt.
She knew, of course, what he was doing. He was out bedding another woman. Having sex with another woman. She refused to say making love with another woman. She was sure that love had nothing to do with it—unless it was because he was running scared from his love of her.
Did he love her?
Or was that merely wishful thinking? Had she gone beyond Mary Poppins, right into a Pollyanna approach to life?
Mari sat in the dark on the deck and tried to sort things out. It wasn't easy. For a long time after Julietta's light had gone out and Alex had long since gone to sleep, she'd paced the house and the grounds.
How dare Nikos just up and leave like that? How dare he imply that it was somehow her fault?
She hadn't refused him, for heaven's sake! In fact— and she blushed as she recalled it—this afternoon she had frankly admitted she wanted to go to bed with him, too!
But had he taken her up on it?
No. He'd acted like she'd said something wrong! Like she was Eve, holding out the apple that would damn him!
Mari would like to damn him right now.
She jumped to her feet and began to prowl again, turning every once in a while to glare down the drive toward the road in the direction he'd gone. Where was he? Who was he with?
The Playboy and the Nanny Page 12
