was a lot to digest, even for her.
Disruptive little thoughts had needled her all afternoon.
Her parents would be heartbroken if they knew what she was doing. And then there was Savannah, who’d been convinced from the outset that this would end badly. Savannah hadn’t been as concerned about Georgia being an egg donor since a number of female medical students considered it an opportunity to do something good while improving their situation financially, but surrogacy was another matter.
And now Georgia was worried she’d completely lost sight of the big picture.
She’d agreed to this arrangement because it would provide a future for her and Savannah, but the future was becoming cloudy. Georgia felt emotional and confused. It wasn’t a good combination. She had to get hold of her thoughts now. She needed to exert some control. It would be foolish, not to mention dangerous, to let the pregnancy hormones do her in. She had to remember her goals, focus on the objectives. There was a lot to come: the exam this summer, the rest of medical school, the right residency at the right hospital.
“More juice?” Nikos asked, interrupting her circular thoughts.
She lifted the special juice cocktail the cook had prepared for her—blood orange juice and sparkling water—and saw it was nearly gone. Beyond her glass, the sky burned, glowing with fiery orange and burnished gold.
“I’m fine, thank you,” she said, gaze riveted now to the horizon, transfixed by the sun dropping into the sea. “What an incredible sunset. Every night it’s different, too.”
“That’s why I come up here every night. It’s why I live here. I’m surrounded by beauty without all the madness.”
She turned to look at him, seeing already such a different man than the one she’d met four days ago. “What is the madness?”
“Cities. Noise. People.” He hesitated. “Gossip.”
Her brows pulled. “I don’t understand.”
Nikos’s expression turned mocking. But she sensed he wasn’t mocking her as much as himself. “You’re better off not knowing,” he said. “And there is no reason to know. You’ll be leaving here in a couple months. It’s not your problem.”
Her frown deepened. Nikos was baffling. She was just beginning to realize he might be as scarred on the inside as he was on the outside, which raised the question—was he mentally and emotionally healthy enough to raise a child on his own?
Would he be a fit parent?
One more question she didn’t have an answer for, but a question she knew she couldn’t ignore. She did worry about him raising the child alone here. She worried that maybe he was a little too antisocial, worried that he was more isolated than was good for him.
She might not be able to change the terms of her agreement, but maybe she could change...him.
Or at the very least, help him prepare to become a father so that he’d be the best father possible. But to do that, it would mean spending more time with him, not less.
It would mean focusing on who he really was, and getting him to drop his guard...that rough mask...and seeing if he couldn’t open up...become more emotionally available.
She had a little over three months until the baby was born. Couldn’t she use this time to study and help him?
She just needed to formulate a treatment plan. She’d do the same thing here that she did in school: learn everything she could, soak up every bit of information, memorize every fact, every detail, and then review her case at the end of each day to monitor progress and make sure she hadn’t overlooked anything.
Perhaps helping Nikos prepare for the birth would comfort her in June when it was time for her to go. Perhaps she’d feel more at ease with her decision.
Perhaps this was the missing piece.
Perhaps.
* * *
Georgia didn’t sleep well. She woke when it was still dark, her room icy cold, but she was so hot she couldn’t breathe. She kicked the covers back from her legs, her nightgown sticking to her damp skin. She shivered, chilled and pulled the covers back.
She’d had the old dream, although dream was an inaccurate description. It was more of a nightmare. Losing her family. Chasing through the trees for Savannah, trying to save her sister from the rebels, certain any minute she’d be killed, too. She was crying as she ran and then someone was there with a huge machete and she was begging for her life because she was pregnant...
That was when she woke up.
She was having the old dreams again, but this time she was pregnant.
Maybe because she was pregnant.
Lying in bed, Georgia drew great gulps of air, feeling overwhelmed and suffocated by grief and despair.
This was not going how it was supposed to go. She was beginning to panic, and it was too late for that. She’d signed contracts and agreements and beyond the contracts and agreements, she was in med school, studying to become a doctor.
She didn’t want to become a mother. She couldn’t become a mother.
Georgia turned on her lamp and checked her watch. Four thirty in the morning. She wasn’t going to be able to sleep again. She wondered if she could maybe go to the kitchen and make a pot of tea. The activity would be good. It’d distract her, help push the vividness of the dream away.
She pulled a thin cashmere sweater over her nightgown and then added a thicker button-down cardigan over that. After stepping into slippers, she headed for the kitchen on the ground floor.
She’d never been all the way inside the kitchen, and there was no microwave, so it was a bit of a game trying to find everything she needed. But at least the kettle was on the stove and she had a box of loose tea, a teapot and a tea strainer.
Georgia hovered over the stove as she waited for the kettle to boil, and her thoughts returned to the bad dream. And it was such a bad dream. But at least it was only a dream. What happened to her family wasn’t.
For the past six months she’d told herself that the pregnancy wasn’t a bad thing, either, because she was bringing life and light into the world.
She’d convinced herself that she was doing something good; she was giving Nikos Panos a gift. And, no, her mother and father wouldn’t have approved, but they were gone. Her baby sister Charlie was gone. Her grandparents, who’d been visiting in Africa at the time of the assault, were gone, too. Georgia and Savannah were the only ones left, and in view of such darkness and tragedy, wasn’t creating life a good thing?
Wasn’t a new baby a miracle?
And since she was not going to ever be a mother, wasn’t this a chance to do something good while providing for Savannah?
“Everything all right?” A deep voice spoke from the kitchen doorway.
Georgia jumped and turned around just as the kettle whistled. She startled again. Swearing—or it sounded as if he swore, she didn’t know as it was a stream of muttered Greek—Nikos crossed the kitchen, pushed her away from the stove and turned off the burner.
“Sit down,” he said sharply. “You’re about to get burned.”
“You scared me,” she said, but she was happy to sit in one of the blue-painted chairs with the woven straw seats. She watched him use a pot holder to lift the copper kettle and fill her mug. Steam swirled up, shrouding his hand. “I had a bad dream, so I came here for tea. But I was trying to be quiet. I’m sorry to wake you up.”
“I’m a light sleeper.”
“Then I’m definitely sorry to wake you.”
He flashed her a rare smile, and her heart did a strange, funny beat.
He was devastatingly attractive when he