saluted before he left the room. Moments later one of the hospital staff entered with a wheelchair. As Nikos sat down, his parents swept into the room. They’d been constant visitors, but they hovered until he felt he would choke.
“Darling!” his mother exclaimed, and hugged him before carrying his crutches for him. “You look wonderful despite your weight loss. Once we get you home, we’ll fatten you up in no time. Your grandparents are elated and your sister and Timon have already arrived with the children to welcome you back.”
“This is a great day, son.” His exultant father embraced him before reaching for his luggage. “Leon’s eager to talk business with you.”
Nikos had no intention of working in the family business like his elder brother, and his father knew it. But his dad never let up about anything, and it had driven a wedge between them that couldn’t be breached. However, now wasn’t the time to get into it. The three of them moved out of the room and down the corridor.
“How did it go with Eugenio?”
As if his father didn’t know. “Fine.”
They emerged from the main doors of the hospital under a blue sky. Once they were settled inside the limousine, his father said, “We’ve been waiting for this day. So has Natasa. She and her parents will be joining us tomorrow evening for a small party.”
Nikos’s anger flared. “Then uninvite them. You might as well know that after tonight, I’ll be living on the Diomedes while I get my strength back.” He was sick of visitors and hospital staff. He needed to be completely alone and didn’t want anyone to know his activities. His boat would be his refuge from now on.
“You can’t do that to us or to her!” his father thundered. “You’ve put this situation with Natasa on hold for long enough. A marriage between the two of you has been understood for years. She’s expecting it now that you’re home for good. Your mother and I want you to give us grandchildren. We’ve waited long enough.”
Their families had been best friends for years. His sister, Gia, and Natasa Lander had always been close. It had been an impossible situation he’d been happy to get out of when he’d joined the military.
“Then that’s a pity, because I never made love to her or asked her to marry me. She should have moved on years ago.” She was attractive enough and would have made a good wife and mother, but he’d never been on fire for her. Thank heaven he hadn’t made the mistake of sleeping with her. After meeting Stephanie, the thought of Natasa or any another woman was anathema to him. “Now that I’m out of the hospital, I need to go my own way.”
“But that’s absurd! She’s in love with you.”
“It’s a moot point, since I’m not in love with her and never have been. Any hope you had for me marrying her is out of the question. I’m deadly serious about this.”
His father’s cheeks grew ruddy with emotion. “You don’t know what you’re saying!”
“But I do. Natasa is a lovely person, but not the one for me.” Unless she had an agenda of her own, there was something wrong with her for waiting around for him this long. “At this point I’m afraid a marriage between the two of us is only a figment of your and her parents’ imagination.”
“How dare you say that!” his father muttered furiously.
“How dare you?” Nikos retorted back. “You’ll be doing her a favor if you tell her and her family that I’m not well enough to see anyone now. Hopefully, they’ll finally get the point! Don’t turn this into a nightmare for me or you’ll wish you hadn’t!”
Nikos had suffered too many of them since the fishing vessel with all the surveillance equipment, along with Kon, had been blown out of the water by the enemy. If Nikos hadn’t happened to be over the side, checking the hull for damage because of a run earlier in the day, he wouldn’t still be alive.
As it was, he’d been found unconscious in the water. The doctors at the hospital hadn’t given him a chance of walking again due to the damage to his lower spine, but they’d been proved wrong. He’d come out of it with deep bruising and reduced mobility. No one could say how much he would heal with time.
“We can discuss this later,” his mother said, always anxious to mollify his father. For as long as Nikos could remember, she’d tried to keep peace between them. Though he loved her for it, the ugly history with his father had dictated that certain things would never change....
“There’s nothing to discuss.”
His military career was over. Life as he’d known it was over. Nikos was living for the moment when he could be away from everyone. Both his parents crowded him until he felt stifled, but he knew he had to endure this until tomorrow morning.
He’d already made arrangements with Yannis, who would come to the house and drive him to the marina in Nikos’s car. Once on board the Diomedes, he intended to stay put. Drinking himself to death sounded better and better.
Silence invaded the vehicle until they reached the small airport in Athens. Nikos took a fortifying breath as he stepped out and reached for his crutches to board his father’s private jet. The steward knew him well and nodded to him. “Welcome home, Nikos.”
“Thank you, Jeno.”
“Are you hungry?”
“No.”
“Some tea?”
“How about a beer?”
The other man smiled. “Coming right up.”
Nikos found a seat in the club compartment with his parents, who for once had gone quiet. He put the crutches on the floor and fastened himself in. It was a short forty-minute flight across the Aegean to Chios. From there they’d take the helicopter to Vassalos Shipping on Egnoussa, where they’d land and drive home.
He stared blindly out the window until fatigue took over, causing him to lounge back in the seat and close his eyes. The mention of marriage had triggered thoughts of a certain female in another part of the world he’d had to leave two and half months ago—so abruptly he still hadn’t recovered from the pain.
Stephanie Walsh would have received the gardenias with his note. It would have sent a dagger straight to her heart. Nikos knew how it felt, because when he’d had his farewell gift delivered to the restaurant, he’d experienced gut-wrenching pain over what he’d been forced to do.
His hand formed a fist, because there hadn’t been a damn thing he’d been able to do to comfort her at the time. As a navy SEAL, everything about his life was classified. Since then his whole world had been turned upside down, ensuring he would never seek her out again.
From the second he’d first met the beautiful American woman on the beach, her appeal had been so strong he couldn’t find the strength to stay away from her. Knowing his leave was for only two weeks, he hadn’t intended to get involved with her. Because he’d be returning shortly to join his unit, there could be no future in it.
Every day he kept telling himself he’d go to another resort on the island to keep his distance, but every day he grew more enamored of her. The night with her before he’d received orders to return to Greece should never have happened.
He loathed himself for allowing things to get that far, but she’d been like a fever in his blood. Intoxicated by her beauty, by everything about her, he’d given in to his desires, and she’d been right there with him. Her loving response had overwhelmed him, setting him on fire.
There’d been other women in his life, but never again would he know a night of passion like that. What he and Stephanie had shared for those ten precious days had been unbelievable. His longing for her was still so real he could taste it.
When he’d awakened on their last morning together, they’d been tangled up in each other’s arms. She’d looked at him with those sapphire eyes, willing him to love her, and he’d wanted to stay