herself grieving all over again.
Unfortunately, she didn’t have the luxury of shedding more tears. For the sake of their child, it was Nikos, not Dev, who’d proposed to her, in order to give their baby a legitimate name and legacy.
“Any more questions?”
“I’m sure more will come up, but right now I can’t think of any.” She clutched the chair railing. “Is there anything else important you haven’t confided to me?”
He rubbed the side of his jaw. “Yes. If you agree to marry me, then I’ll tell you the rest. But if you would prefer that I set you up on Oinoussa as my pillow friend and a kept woman, so I have access to you when the baby comes, then there’s nothing more you need to know.”
She’d heard the Greek phrase “pillow friend” before. A woman with no claim to the man who provided for her until he tired of her and sent her away. Stephanie couldn’t imagine anything so awful.
“It’s either one or the other, Stephanie, because under no circumstances will I let you leave Greece now.”
Nikos meant it with every breath of his body. As he’d told her earlier, this baby was doubly precious to him now.
How bizarre that she was hesitating, when she’d come to Greece to find her baby’s father and do the right thing for her child. But nothing had gone the way she’d envisioned it. Theirs would be a marriage without love.
“When do you plan for us to be married?”
“Tomorrow.”
So soon! “Isn’t there a waiting period?”
“Not with my contacts.”
Naturally, Nikos knew someone in high places who could move mountains. Of course he did! Stephanie didn’t doubt he could make anything happen, if he wanted it enough. “Where will ours take place?”
“At the small church on Oinoussa, with Father Kerykes, the village priest. He performed Kon’s marriage. The man can keep a confidence and be trusted to honor my wishes.”
Stephanie moistened her lips nervously. At least they would exchange vows in a holy place.
“What’s it going to be, Stephanie?”
As a marriage proposal, it lacked all the passion and romance of her dreams. Without looking at him, she said, “For our child’s sake, I want to marry you to give it your name.”
“In that case, follow me. I have something to show you.”
He left the lounge and walked across the corridor to the locked door, which he opened with a key. It was another bedroom, with two twin beds. “You’re welcome to look in the closet.”
What on earth?
Stephanie stepped past him and opened the double doors. On one side she discovered two military dress uniforms hanging, one was white, the other navy blue with gold buttons and braid. Next to them was a pair of crutches.
When she glanced on the other side, she was startled to discover half a dozen rifles and a special black scuba diving suit, along with a ton of very official looking gear that would be used by someone in the military.
She turned slowly and sought his gaze. “This equipment belongs to you. What does it mean? I thought you worked for your family’s company.”
“I did until I was twenty-two. By then Kon was divorced and we decided to join the Greek navy, much to my father’s chagrin. We were in for ten years, but for the last five we’ve been Navy SEALs doing covert operations for our government.”
That’s why he was such an expert scuba diver.... All those years, Nikos had been fighting for his country. So far every minute she’d spent with him since she’d flown here provided one revelation after another.
“While I was on vacation with you, our unit got called up to do another highly classified mission. Since I can never use my own identity when I travel, and had to leave immediately, the note I left you was the best I could do.”
The memory of that note flashed through her mind. Unfortunately, I’ve had to leave the island because of an emergency at my work that couldn’t be handled by anyone else. Stephanie was so stunned, she sank down on one of the beds for support.
“Two days later the enemy ambushed our underwater demolition team. They bombed out of the water the fishing vessel we were using for surveillance. After it was detonated, I saw one of them swim away, before I could warn everyone. Kon died in the explosion. I was knocked unconscious and would have died if I hadn’t been picked up and flown to the hospital.”
“Nikos—”
“At first I was told the injury to my spine meant I’d be paralyzed from the waist down, but slowly feeling came back to my limbs.”
“Thank heaven,” she whispered in a trembling voice.
“The explosion should have taken me out, too!” His own voice shook with despair.
“But it didn’t, and you have to believe there was a reason you survived.”
His grim expression devastated her. “If you can make me believe that, then you’re a saint.”
Anger swept through her. “Kon didn’t leave a child behind, but you did! Think about the fact that you’re not paralyzed. Otherwise your child would grow up knowing you only in a wheelchair.”
He bit out a Greek epithet before he murmured, “It turned out I’d been deeply bruised, but I could walk.”
“You’re one of the lucky vets, Nikos, and it’s going to mean the world to your child that you continue to get better and stronger. Are you seeing a doctor regularly?”
“Yes,” he whispered.
“What about exercise?”
“Among his many jobs, Yannis helps me do mine up on deck.”
“I can help you with them, too.”
“That won’t be necessary, but since you’re going to be my wife, I wanted you to know about my past. Now we don’t ever have to speak of it again.”
Nikos closed the closet doors and pulled her cell phone from his pocket. “Before we make any plans, you need to talk to your boss and tell him you can’t work for him anymore.” He handed it to her. “While you do that, I’ll be in the galley. Come and find me after you’ve talked to him. If I’m not there, I’ll be in the lounge.”
With her heart thudding, she got to her feet. “Nikos?”
He paused in the doorway, darting her a piercing glance. “What is it?”
With that intimidating look, the question she would have asked him never made it past her lips. In fact, she already did have the answer to what would have happened to them if he hadn’t had to leave the island to go on a covert operation.
Nothing would have been different. Like her father, when he’d left her mother, Nikos would have said goodbye to Stephanie, telling her the lie that he’d see her again, and that would have been the end of it.
Until his accident, Nikos’s future had been tied up with another woman. As he’d told Stephanie a little while ago, Natasa wanted children....
WHEN NIKOS BROUGHT the dishes from the lounge into the galley, he found Yannis enjoying breakfast. The balding seaman needed a lot of food to keep going. He looked up. “What are your plans for today, Nikos?”
“After you finish eating, we’ll pull up anchor and head for Oinoussas. Once we’ve docked I won’t need you until tomorrow. That ought to give you some time to do what you want with Maria.” The widow who ran a small shop had become his love