The Secret Behind The Greek’s Return by Michelle Smart

CHAPTER THREE

MARISAHADTROUBLEclosing her jaw enough to speak. Were her ears deceiving her or had Nikos really just said that? ‘“So what”?’

He shrugged, his expression now nonchalant. ‘Yes. So what? We were lovers but you knew the score. I don’t do long term and I never pretended differently. I’m not here to resurrect an affair that would have soon died a natural death. You’ve moved on and I’ve moved on but that doesn’t stop me wanting to know my child and being a father to him.’ He swirled the last of the Scotch in his glass and then tipped it down his throat.

Marisa hadn’t thought the evening could produce a bigger shock than Nikos being alive but this revelation landed even harder, filling her brain with the dizzying heat that had made her faint only an hour or so before.

It felt like she’d fallen through a trapdoor and had hurtled down and down to land with a thump that left her entire body bruised.

She knew the score? What score? She had a vague recollection of a date together when they’d talked about dreams for their respective futures and Nikos saying something about never wanting to be tied down, but that had been in their early days, before they’d slept together, before things had intensified so much that being parted had become a physical ache. The nights they couldn’t be together had still been spent together, laptops open, catching up on their day and making dirty talk through video calls before wishing each other goodnight.

Did none of that mean anything to him?

And what about all the times she’d told him she loved him? Didn’t that mean anything either? He’d never said the words back to her but every time she’d said it, he would either kiss her if they were together in person or blow her a kiss if they were speaking through their laptops or phones.

He was very different from her. She’d known that from the outset. His refusal to say the three magic words would have affected her far more deeply if she hadn’t intuited from the little he’d told her of his background that love as a word held no meaning for him. Nikos showed his feelings by deeds and in the six months they’d been together his actions had been those of a man infatuated.

Or was that what she’d wanted to think? Had she seen what she’d wanted to see? Believed what she’d wanted to believe?

She stared into the face that was giving so little away and fought to keep the tears burning the back of her eyes from falling. ‘Don’t you even care about Raul?’

If Nikos had ever felt anything for her then surely he would feel something at her being engaged to another man, and it was taking all the control she had not to fling herself at his feet and beg him to snap out of this horrid ice-cool persona and tell her she wasn’t alone in feeling overwhelmed at being in the same room together again, that she wasn’t the only one having to control hands that yearned to touch and lips that yearned to caress, an entire body that yearned to wrap around him and feel his warm skin against hers.

The growing desperation for his touch fought with what her eyes were telling her. This icy Nikos was a facet of his personality she’d seen only fleetingly before and never directed at her.

Nikos strove not to let the rancid burn at the mention of Marisa’s fiancé show on his face. When he’d learned two months ago during a wet afternoon spent trawling the internet that she’d become engaged, he’d shrugged it off. See? He’d been right that her affection and words of love had been nothing special. She’d picked herself up and found a replacement for him. Good luck to her.

When, later that same night of discovery, he’d found his fingers typing the name of her fiancé into his search engine, he’d been so disturbed at his actions that he’d hurled his phone at the wall. It had been unfortunate that he’d used enough force to crack the screen. His strength had been surprising too, considering how drunk he’d been that night.

He would not accept that his online search of Raul Torres’s name earlier that day and all the calls he’d made about him had been like lancing a boil. He’d only done it because her fiancé would be a huge part of his son’s life. Any father would do the same.

Theos. Him, a father.

‘I don’t know the man,’ he answered evenly, swallowing his anger to stare directly into her eyes. ‘But I don’t care for what I’ve heard. Does Nikos think of Raul as his father?’

Her head dropped. She rubbed her hands over her face before answering. ‘He hardly knows him and he’s too young to think in terms like that.’

‘Good.’ The relief he felt made his body sag but he ignored it to inject a warning tone into his voice. ‘I don’t want to make trouble for you, Marisa, but I don’t want my son to think of anyone as his father but me.’

But the sickly pallor her skin had turned told him her mind had wandered away from him and his stomach clenched to think it was that man it had wandered to.

‘What’s wrong?’ he asked.

‘Where’s my handbag?’

‘I assume it’s where you left it.’

She staggered to her feet. ‘My phone’s in it. I need to get it.’

‘You want to go back to the snake pit for your phone?’

‘If there’s a problem at home, Estrella won’t be able to get hold of me. She’s looking after Niki for the night.’ Just thinking it was enough for icy shards to stab at Marisa’s chest and pierce into her brain. How long had she been uncontactable in this suite?

‘She must have your mother and sister’s numbers?’

‘Yes....’

‘Then stop panicking.’ He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. ‘What does your bag look like?’

‘Small and silver... Can I borrow that to call Elsa? I know her number by heart.’

He unlocked it and handed it to her. ‘If she doesn’t answer, we’ll call the concierge service. They’ll find it.’

Thankfully her sister answered, assured her she was looking after the bag, and promised to bring it to the suite straight away. From the tone of her voice, Marisa could tell she was dying to bombard her with questions but, for once, Elsa restrained herself.

When the call was over, she dragged her feet to the bar where Nikos had moved to, pushed his phone to him, and helped herself to another Scotch.

Marisa had avoided alcohol during the pregnancy and in the weeks she’d unsuccessfully tried to breastfeed, and had barely touched it since. She’d never been a heavy drinker but any tolerance she’d developed would surely have been lost. With the amount of Scotch and the earlier champagne she’d had that night, she should be drunk but the only effect it was having on her was a slight numbing of all the mounting shocks and adrenaline surges.

How could she have forgotten about her phone? It didn’t matter that Nikos was right and that the housekeeper could easily get hold of her mother and sister. Niki was her responsibility.

But, dear God, this was all so overwhelming. Impossible. Nikos standing close enough that she could reach out and touch him.

Her grief for him had left her bedbound for weeks. Only the positive pregnancy test had got her out of bed, some maternal instinct kicking in that demanded she take care of herself for the sake of her growing foetus. Her baby had been the spur she’d needed to fight through the despair. His birth and the responsibility that came with it had forced her to nestle Nikos away into the hidden reaches of her heart. Though time had never even begun to heal the pain, it had dulled her memories of how deeply her need for him had consumed her. She’d been like a schoolgirl, daydreaming constantly about him, aching for him, her mind on him wherever she was and whatever she was doing.

To stand beside his towering body now, to watch him breathe, drink, the movements of his mouth and throat when he spoke, the movements of his muscles, flesh and blood, alive...

It was too much. Every cell in her body ached to throw itself at him, to rip his black shirt off and press her cheek to his chest and feel the steady beat of his heart in her ear.

And then she caught his baleful stare and nausea roiled in her belly. He wasn’t here for her. He didn’t want her any more. Nikos had moved on in every way imaginable.

Holding her glass tightly, she filled her mouth with the fiery liquid and willed her eyes not to leak again.

He leaned his back against the bar and breathed heavily before saying, ‘I meant what I said. I don’t want to cause trouble for you, Marisa, but Raul Torres is bad news. From everything I’ve been told about him, the man’s a snake, in business and love.’

She swallowed the Scotch and willed even harder for the tears to stay hidden, tried to breathe through the crushing weight in her chest and stomach. ‘What business is it of yours?’

Nikos had watched her fall apart at his feet with an indifference that bordered on clinical. He’d just admitted he wouldn’t have cared if she’d spent the rest of her life believing he was still dead. He’d never had any intention of seeing her again.

‘If you marry him then he has influence over my son,’ he said roughly.

‘He’s not going to have any influence because I’m not marrying him.’ She drank more of the Scotch and gave a tiny spurt of near-hysterical laughter. ‘It’s almost funny. I only went ahead with the party tonight because I didn’t want to humiliate him but he’s been humiliated in the most public way imaginable. God knows what he’ll do now.’

Nikos stared at her. The anger that had pulsed and churned at the mention of her fiancé reduced fractionally. ‘You were already planning to end the engagement?’

‘Yes. I thought he was a good choice but I was wrong. He let me believe he’d love Niki as his own but it was a lie. If he cared about Niki he would have been there when we needed help but he abandoned us. It’s the business he wants.’ She finished her Scotch, placed the glass on the bar and wiped her plump mouth with the back of her hand.

‘If he abandoned you,’ he said slowly, ‘why go ahead with the party? Why care if you humiliate him?’

‘Because he’s got a vengeful side. He’s expecting to take over the running of Lopez Shipping—we were going to align our two businesses. He’s already learned too much about how we run ours. He can undermine us and undercut us and steal our contracts and do God knows what other damage. I need to end things amicably. After everything my family’s been through these last eighteen months, the last thing I want is another fight.’

‘What on earth were you thinking when you agreed to marry him?’

‘Actually, he agreed to marry me.’

‘Marriage was your idea?’

‘Yes.’

‘What the hell...?’ The woman who’d made Nikos do all the running in their relationship had been the one to propose? The notion landed like a white-hot slap.

She spun to face him, eyes narrowed dangerously. ‘Have you forgotten that my father was murdered?’ she ground out. ‘Our dog drowned! Can you imagine what it was like for me to have a newborn baby and a business to run under those circumstances when the cartel was still out there circling my family like sharks? I was juggling a thousand balls on my own and the people who should have helped wouldn’t or couldn’t.’

‘So you went running to Raul Torres?’ he accused. ‘I learned in one hour of research that he’s a snake and you chose him as a father to my child?’ And a husband for herself.

‘I was trying to protect us!’

‘You had protection!’

‘Paid protection! Niki had no father or grandfather. All he had was me and Mama.’ She put the bottle of Scotch to her lips but before she could take a swig lowered it again. ‘Don’t you think that if my son’s father hadn’t decided to fake his own death without telling me, then things might have been different?’ Her face contorted as she swigged the Scotch. ‘If you’d confided in me and had the courage to tell me we were over—and, let’s be honest, you used the faking of your death as an excuse to dump me without the bother of having to tell me—I would have been hurt but at least I would have known you were out there and that one day you’d come back and be Niki’s father. I would have had something to hold onto.’

‘Don’t blame your lack of judgement on me,’ he snarled. Her insinuation that he’d been too cowardly to end things had hit the intended target.

It was true that he’d had no intention of seeing her again but that was because he’d reasoned they’d had their time together. It would have come to an end anyway. He’d given Marisa more than he’d given any other lover. Given her all he was capable of.

If he’d known there was the smallest chance that she could be pregnant then of course he would have acted differently but he hadn’t had the faintest idea and for her to try and put some of the blame for her actions on his shoulders was enraging. When he’d made the decision to fake his death, her family had been nowhere near the cartel’s radar. He’d never dreamed they could have created a life together either, but he knew it now and he was here, ready to take responsibility and step up to the mark. If he was the coward she implied he’d still be in Mykonos. He would be like his father, happy to leave the burden of an unwanted child on someone else’s shoulders. ‘I get that it’s been a difficult time for you...’

‘Difficult?’she screamed. ‘I gave birth to my son with my father fresh in his grave and thinking the man I loved was fish food!’ And with that, she hurled the almost empty bottle of Scotch across the suite. It landed on the dining table and smashed into pieces.

Nikos surveyed the damage, from the shattered mess of glass on and around the table to the woman who was staring at him frozen in white-faced horror.

He was saved from deciding which mess to prioritise by the knock on the door.

Trying to get a grip on the fetid emotions burning his guts, he rubbed the back of his neck. ‘That will be your sister.’

‘I’ll get it.’

He watched her stumble to the door then turned away. He didn’t like the way his heart tugged to see her trying to hold her head up, as if she were fighting to regain her dignity.

Swallowing hard in a throat that had inexplicably thickened, he began collecting the larger shards of glass. By the time he’d put them in a bin and called the concierge service to send someone to the suite to clear the rest of it, Marisa and Elsa had finished their murmured conversation and they were alone again.

She stood with her back to the closed door hugging her silver bag to her chest.

‘Has Estrella been in touch?’ he asked.

‘Just to put my mind at ease that Niki’s fine.’

‘You don’t leave him much?’ He observed her reaction carefully. Not until he watched Marisa interact with their son would he be able to judge her as a mother but it was necessary to be prepared.

Her shoulders hunched in on themselves as she stepped wearily to the sofa. ‘Very rarely.’

She sat heavily and clutched at her head. After a long moment, she met his stare. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered, throat moving and chin wobbling. ‘I didn’t mean to throw it.’

A spike of guilt sliced through him.

‘I’m sorry too. I shouldn’t have passed judgement.’ And he had no right to feel any kind of jealousy that she’d moved on with her life. It was irrational and no doubt caused by spending eighteen months with only his tortured thoughts for company.

Marisa rubbed her pounding forehead and tried to control the trembles fighting to break out through her.

Since Niki’s birth, she’d spent each and every day using all her strength to keep a lid on her emotions. Nikos’s return had sprung the lid free and it was terrifying how easily the emotions were taking control of her.

‘I know I made a mistake with Raul,’ she said, the compulsion to explain too strong to keep contained. ‘But, Nikos, I was desperate. All I could think was that Niki deserved a father and that I needed help. My head was all over the place. Grief...’ She swallowed and rubbed her forehead even harder, choosing her words carefully. ‘I’d lost my father and protector. I didn’t want to marry anyone but I thought I needed to, for Niki’s sake and for the business’s sake.’

‘What about for your sake?’

‘Those reasons were for my sake. I was trying to find some kind of peace of mind. Protecting my son and getting help for the business was the only way for me to have that.’

‘Yes, but you can’t deny that Raul’s a handsome man,’ he observed casually. ‘Waking up to that face must have made it an easier pill to swallow.’

She clutched her cheeks, immediately understanding his implication. ‘God, no, that had no part in it. We didn’t... We never...’

His brow rose sceptically. ‘Never?’

‘No!’Marisa dropped her gaze to the carpet between her feet in a futile attempt to hide the flame of colour scorching her face. ‘I wasn’t ready.’

She would never have been ready, something Raul, with a ready-made mistress tucked away, had been happy to accept, but there was no way she would admit that to Nikos. Her pride would not allow him to know how desperate her grief for him had been or that the thought of another man touching her left her cold inside, not now that she knew how little she’d meant to him.

To her great relief, their conversation was interrupted by another knock on the door.

This time it was the concierge service. The splinters of glass were vacuumed in short order but the noise was enough to make the pounding in her head feel like a dozen hammers were knocking inside it.

‘Headache?’ Nikos asked when they were alone again, observing the way she was now clutching her whole head. The colour he hadn’t noticed return to her cheeks had drained from her again.

‘I don’t feel so good.’ She didn’t sound so good either. Her words had a definite slur to them. ‘I think my body’s telling me off for all the Scotch...and the champagne.’

‘I’ll get you some painkillers.’

He found some in his toiletry bag, took a bottle of water from the fridge and handed them to her.

She gave a grateful, wan smile and swallowed the painkillers down with half the water.

‘Lie down and rest for a while,’ he said.

‘I need to speak to Raul.’

‘Out of the question.’ He wasn’t letting her out of his sight.

‘Nikos—’

‘No,’ he cut in firmly. ‘You’re not in any state to deal with him. Rest, sober up...’

‘I’m not drunk.’

‘You should be.’

‘I know.’

He couldn’t help but smile. ‘You’re not drunk but you are feeling the effects. Your body’s telling you to rest, so rest. Have my bed if you want.’

She shook her head, the action making her wince. ‘I should go home.’

‘Is your housekeeper expecting you back?’

‘Not until morning.’

‘Then rest for a while. I’ll get my driver to take us to your home when you’re feeling better.’

‘Us?’

‘I want to see my son, Marisa.’ And see with his own eyes what kind of a mother she was. From everything she’d said, he doubted she was as lousy and indifferent a mother as his own had been but he needed to be certain. Words were cheap. If he sensed for a second that she treated their son as an encumbrance or neglected him in any way, he would sue for custody. He hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

‘Okay,’ Marisa whispered, resting her head back. Her head was killing her. ‘You can see him but you’ll have to wait until morning to meet him properly. He’s grouchy like his father when he doesn’t get enough sleep.’

Nikos’s faint chuckle was the last thing she remembered before she fell asleep.