LITMIR.BIZ

       CHAPTER NINE

      NIKOS PAID THE BILL, and they left the restaurant just as it began to fill up. The night was cool but not cold, and they wandered through Chora’s narrow streets, getting glimpses of families relaxing at the end of the day. Men stood outside smoking together. Boys kicked a ball despite the shadows spilling into corners. Loud voices came from one house. A dog barked in another.

      As they returned to the town center, heading for their hotel, they passed a couple with a stroller. Georgia and Nikos both looked down at the toddler, who was sitting up, taking in the world with wide, dark eyes as he contentedly sucked his thumb.

      “I told you why I became a donor and a surrogate,” Georgia said to Nikos as they stepped back to let the couple with the baby pass. “But why did you decide that this was the right way to start a family?”

      For a moment she didn’t think he was going to answer her, and then he leaned over and picked up a small coin he spotted next to the curb. He rubbed it between his fingers, cleaning it. “An American penny,” he said, handing it to her.

      She looked down at the penny he’d placed in her palm. Smiling, she chanted the rhyme, “Find a penny, pick it up and all day you’ll have good luck.”

      He smiled faintly. “Should we call it a night?”

      Georgia nodded, hiding her disappointment. She wasn’t ready to go to bed, and she wanted to hear more about his marriage and why he’d chosen a surrogate, but she knew better than to push. He’d tell her if and when he was ready to talk. And if he didn’t, well, she had to respect that, too.

      Upstairs on the second floor, Georgia started to unlock her door. She was aware of Nikos behind her, and she kept hoping he’d invite himself in or suggest they have an after-dinner drink, even if her drink was just the bottle of mineral water next to the side of the bed.

      “It wasn’t a good relationship,” Nikos said abruptly. “My marriage was strained from the start. Elsa was unhappy most of our marriage, and she thought a baby would fix things. I thought a baby would only make things worse.”

      Georgia slowly turned around, key forgotten. “So you refused to have a baby with her?”

      “No.” He folded his arms over his powerful chest. “But you have to sleep together to conceive. Elsa wouldn’t let me come near her.”

      “Why not?” And then she shook her head. “You don’t have to answer. I’m sorry that I ask so many questions.”

      “I’m happy to talk, but I think somewhere more private would be better. We’ll go to my room. It has that little balcony. We can open the doors and get fresh air.”

      But once inside his room there was no getting past the bed without noticing there was a bed. Georgia suddenly felt shy, which was odd considering she was pregnant with this Greek tycoon’s baby.

      Nikos opened his bottle of water and filled the two glasses on the dresser. “Cheers,” he said.

      She lightly clinked the rim of her glass to his. “To a great day with my new friend, Nikos Panos.”

      He flashed her a lazy smile, a smile that didn’t strike her as particularly platonic. “Sit here. It looks like the more comfortable chair.” He in turn sprawled on the bed.

      It wasn’t a huge bed, either. It reminded her of a bed in children’s rooms in America. She’d read that many of the European hotels were small, and so beds were small, too, but it didn’t seem like a proper size for a man Nikos’s size.

      “Are we really friends?” Nikos said, studying her from beneath heavy lids with long black lashes.

      “I think we should be. It’d make this attraction seem more logical.”

      “You feel it now, then?”

      “The chemistry between us?”

      He nodded.

      “I felt it all day,” she answered honestly. “I don’t even have to look at you and I can feel you. And we can be laughing about something, but I know that if you touched me, or kissed me, I’d be done for. I’d just want more kisses.”

      “Hmm.” He dragged his nails across the plain white coverlet on the bed. “You are nothing like her.”

      The words were spoken so softly Georgia wasn’t even sure they were meant for her. It was on the tip of her tongue to ask him to explain, but then he looked at her, dark eyes piercing, and said, “She didn’t like it when I touched her. She didn’t want me to touch her. Elsa was uncomfortable making love...or at least, with the way I made love.”

      Carnal. Aggressive.

      Georgia was beginning to understand. “She was the one who made you question yourself.”

      “It was no longer making love, but sex, and then the sex no longer felt consensual.”

      “What happened then?”

      “We stopped sleeping together. She moved into her own room. I had mine. We lived like that for almost a year.”

      “Was it that way before you married?”

      “We married very fast. I was respectful. We kissed and did things, but she wanted to wait until we married to have sexual intercourse, so we did.”

      “And then you married and she didn’t want to do it?”

      “I thought she needed time. I thought it was because it was all so new. But she said no—it was me. I was always angry and yelling and scaring her.”

      Georgia frowned. “Were you?”

      “I became frustrated as time went on. And I may have yelled once or twice, but I was never cruel. I never said mean things to her. I never treated her badly. But I wouldn’t release her from the marriage vow, and this I know now was the mistake. I should have let her go. I should have divorced her. It would have been better. In hindsight, I know it would have been the right way to go. But at the time I was young. Twenty-six, twenty-seven. I had a beautiful wife. I was proud of my wife. I was not going to just give up.”

      “Many people would think you were being a good husband, fighting for your marriage.”

      He shrugged. “I fought for it too long. I should have set my pride aside and let her go.”

      “Or had the baby?” Georgia looked at him, troubled. “Would that have helped?”

      “I don’t regret that decision. It was the right decision. I wanted a family. Elsa and I discussed children before we married, and she knew I wanted them, but I could not see raising a child as we were. I wanted to wait until our relationship improved. I hated how toxic it was. Wasn’t healthy and it wouldn’t have been healthy for a child. And then she was gone, and I wasn’t just grieving the loss of my wife but the loss of the family we’d never have.”

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