Bought To Carry His Heir
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Definitely not Elsa, he thought.
Nothing about Elsa shimmered and danced. But she had once, hadn’t she? She’d been happy once...before she’d married him. Before she’d come to regret everything about her life with him...
Nikos smashed his hand into a tight fist, squeezing hard, fighting the past that haunted him always. He prayed the baby would mean new life...not just for the child but for him, too. He prayed that if he were a good father, he’d find peace. Redemption.
Or was it too late for that?
He forced his attention to Georgia. A footstool had been placed on the ground for her, making it easier for her to enter the lifted four-wheel drive vehicle, but she seemed amused by the stool, her full lips quirking as she stepped onto it and swung easily into the passenger seat.
He didn’t understand her smile. He didn’t understand such brazen confidence, either. She seemed to be throwing down the gauntlet. Challenging him.
He wasn’t sure he liked it. She’d only just arrived.
Fortunately he had his temper well in check. His pulse had quickened, but he was still in control. Once upon a time his temper had been legendary. But it was better now that he was older. He’d matured, thank God. He’d never really lost his temper with Elsa, but she’d been nervous around him. Skittish.
He shook his head, chasing away the memories. He didn’t want to think of Elsa now. Didn’t want to be haunted by the past any longer. It was why he’d hired the donor and surrogate. He was trying to move forward, trying to create a future where there hadn’t been one in far too long.
Climbing behind the steering wheel, he glanced at Georgia. She was fastening her seat belt and pale, gleaming hair spilled over her shoulders and down her back like a golden waterfall. Beautiful hair. Longer than Elsa’s had ever been.
Nikos felt a lance of appreciation, and then clamped down on the sensation, more than a little bit baffled by his attraction. He didn’t want to find Georgia Nielsen attractive. Didn’t want to find anything about her attractive. She was here as a surrogate...
A vessel.
A womb.
But his body had a mind of its own, and the heavy ache in his groin grew, his body tight with a testosterone-fueled tension that made him ruthless and restless. A tiger on the prowl. A beast out of the cage.
He didn’t like feeling this way. He didn’t like anything—or anyone—that tested him, challenging him, reminding him of his dark edges. He hadn’t known until he married Elsa that he had such a frightening personality. He hadn’t known until Elsa began hiding from him that he was such a beast...a monster...
Thirio.
Teras.
If he’d known who he was before he married, he wouldn’t have married. If he’d known he would destroy his beautiful wife with his temper, he would have remained a bachelor.
And yet he’d wanted children. He’d very much wanted to create a family. To have people of his own...
From the corner of his eye he saw Georgia cross one leg over the other, drawing his attention to her legs. The tunic hit high on her thigh and the boots stopped at her knee and her legs, in the gray tights, were slim and shapely.
“We’re about fifteen minutes from the house,” he said roughly, starting the engine, battling his thoughts, battling the desire that made him feel as if he had gasoline in his veins instead of blood.
“And town?” she asked, adjusting the belt across her lap.
His gaze followed, focusing on her waist. For the first time, he could see the gentle swell of her belly. She was most definitely pregnant. The cut of the cashmere tunic had just hidden the bump earlier.
The bump jolted him. His child. His son.
For a split second he couldn’t breathe. It was suddenly real. The life he’d made...his seed...her egg...
“Do you want to touch him?” she asked quietly.
He looked up into her face. Her cheeks were pale, and yet her gaze was direct, steady. “He’s moving around,” she added, lips curving faintly. “I think he’s saying hello.”
Nikos dropped his gaze to her hands resting at her side, and then back to the gentle curve of her belly.
“Isn’t it too soon for me to feel him moving?” he asked.
“It might have been a week or two ago, but not anymore.”
He stared at her bump for another moment, conflicted. He wanted to feel his son kick, but he couldn’t bring himself to touch her, not wanting to feel the tautness of her belly or the warmth of her skin. She wasn’t supposed to matter in any way, and yet suddenly she wasn’t this vessel, this hired womb, but a stunning young woman carrying his son.
“Not right now,” he said, fingers curling around the stick shift, changing gears, driving forward. His gut was hard, tight. Air ached in his lungs. What had he done bringing this woman to him? How could he have thought this would be a good idea? “But it is good to know that he’s moving and seems healthy.”
“He’s very healthy. I trust you’ve been getting the reports and sonograms from my checkups?”
“Yes.” But he didn’t want to talk about the baby. He didn’t want to talk at all. She was here now so she didn’t have to fly late in the third trimester, but he hadn’t brought her to Kamari to create a friendship. There would be no relationship between them. He needed her to be safe, but beyond that he wanted nothing more to do with her, and the sooner she understood that, the better.
“And town?” she repeated, catching a fistful of billowing golden hair.
He shifted gears as he accelerated. “There’s no town. It’s a private island.”
She was looking at him now. “Yours?”
“Mine,” he agreed.
“And the house? What’s that like?”
“It’s close to the water, which is nice in summer.”
“But not as nice in winter?”
He shot her a swift glance. “It’s an old house. Simple. But it suits me.”
Her hand shifted on her mass of hair. “Mr. Laurent referred to it as a villa.” She shot him another curious look. “Was he wrong?”
“In Greece, a villa is usually one’s country house. So, no, he wasn’t wrong, but I myself do not use that word. This is where I live now. It’s my home.”
She opened her mouth to ask another question but he cut her short, his tone flat and flinty even to his own ears. “I am not much of a conversationalist, Georgia.”
* * *
If Georgia hadn’t been quite so queasy, she might have laughed. Was that his way of telling her to stop asking questions?
She shot him a swift glance, taking in his hard carved features and the black slash of eyebrows above dark eyes.
Just looking at him made her feel jittery, putting an odd whoosh in her middle, almost as if she were back on the plane and coming in for that rocky landing all over again.
He wasn’t what she’d expected. She’d imagined a solid, comfortably built tycoon in his early to midthirties, but there was nothing comfortable about Nikos Panos. He was tall with broad shoulders and long limbs. He had thick, glossy black hair, piercing eyes and beautiful features...at least on one half of his face. The other side was scarred around the temple and cheekbone. The scars were significant but not grotesque, but then she understood what they were—burns—and she could only imagine how painful the healing process must have been.
If one could look past the scars, he was the stuff of little girls’ fairy tales and teenage fantasies.
Correction, if you could look past the scars and brusque manner.
I am not much of a conversationalist, Georgia.
What did that even mean? Was there no one she would be able to talk to during her stay here?
Mr. Laurent had told her there was no Mrs. Panos. Mr. Laurent had said his client would be raising the child as a single father. Was this where the child would be raised?
On this arid volcanic island, in the middle of this sea?
“Where will you live?” she asked abruptly. “Once the baby is born?”
His black eyebrows flattened. “Here. This is my home.”
Georgia held her breath and stared out at the narrow road that clung to the side of the mountain. The road was single lane, barely paved, and it snaked down and around the hillside. She wished there was a guardrail.
She wished she was back in Atlanta.
She wished she’d never agreed to any of this.
Georgia fought her anxiety and practiced breathing—a slow, measured inhale, followed by an even slower exhale.
Why was she doing this? Why was she here?
The money.
Her chest ached with bottled air. She was doing it for the money.
Sometimes focusing on the two huge sums that had been wired to her bank account gave her perspective when her hormones and emotions threatened to overwhelm her, but it wasn’t working now.
Maybe it was the long flight or jet lag or just the relentless nausea, but Georgia’s stomach heaved once, and then again. “Please pull over,” she begged, grabbing the car’s door handle. “I’m going to be sick.”
CHAPTER THREE
IN HER ROOM at the villa, Georgia slept for hours, sleeping away the remainder of the day.
She dreamed of Savannah, of her goodbye with Savannah yesterday, her younger sister’s emotional cry playing out in her dream.
What do you even know about him?
He could be dangerous...seriously deranged...
Who will be able to help you when you’re on his island in the middle of nowhere?
The dream was broken by the dull, but insistent, pounding on her bedroom door.
Georgia heard it but didn’t want to wake, and for a moment she lay in the strange bed, heart racing, pulse pounding, late-afternoon sunlight slanting through wooden blinds, as she tried to cling to the last of the dream, missing Savannah already.
But the knocking on her door wouldn’t stop.
Georgia dragged herself into a sitting position and was just about to rise when her door crashed open and Nikos came charging into her room.
“What on earth are you doing?” she cried, rising.
“Why didn’t you answer the damn door?”
“I was asleep!”
“We’ve been trying to rouse you for the past hour.” He stalked toward the bed, his dark eyes glittering. “I thought you were dead.”
She pulled on the hem of her cotton pajama top, trying to hide the skin gaping beneath. She was just starting to need maternity clothes. She hadn’t bought any maternity wear until recently, not wanting to spend money until absolutely necessary. “Not dead, as you can see.”
“You gave me quite a scare,” he gritted out.
She was still trembling with shock. She lifted a hand to show him how badly her hand shook. “How do you think I feel? You broke my door—”
“It can be fixed.”
“But who does that? I thought that was just cops in movies.”
“I’ll have someone repair it when you come upstairs for lunch.”
She wanted an apology, but it seemed she wasn’t going to get it. He really didn’t think he’d done anything wrong. Georgia glanced to the shuttered window with the late-afternoon sunlight stabbing through the gaps and cracks in the wood, trying to calm down and regain her composure. “I would think it’s dinnertime, not lunch.”
“We don’t eat dinner until ten or later, so we’re having a late lunch for you now. Dress and come upstairs—”
“Can you not send something to the room?” she interrupted, irritated all over again by his curtness. He lacked manners and the basic social graces. “After the long flight I would prefer to stay in my pajamas and just read a bit—”
“Head straight up the stairs to the third floor, we’re on the second floor now, and then through the living room to the doors to the terrace,” he concluded as if she’d never spoken.
She frowned, increasingly annoyed. “Mr. Laurent led me to believe that I would be able to have my own space and as much privacy as I desired.”
“You have your own space. Three rooms, all for you. But once a day we will meet and visit and have a meal together, and we might as well begin tonight as it will help establish a routine.”
“I don’t see why we need to meet daily. We have nothing to say to each other.”
“That is correct, and I am in complete agreement. You and I have nothing to say to each other, but I have plenty to say to my son, and since he is inside of you, you are required to be present, as well.”
She clamped her jaw tight to hold back the caustic comment that was tingling on the tip of her tongue, and then she couldn’t. “I am sorry you have to endure my dreadful company for the next three months, then.”
“We both are making sacrifices,” he answered. “Fortunately, you are being compensated for yours.” He nodded at her and turned to leave.
“I would like to shower first.”
“Fine.”
She had to hold back another caustic comment. “And you’ll have someone repair the door while I’m upstairs?”
“I already said that.”
* * *
Leaving Georgia’s room, Nikos summoned Adras, the older man who oversaw the running of the villa, and told him that his guest’s bedroom door needed to be repaired. And then Nikos went up to the shaded, whitewashed terrace to wait for Georgia.
The sun had shifted, deepening the colors of the sky and sea. The terrace was protected from the worst of the wind, with the most protection closest to the house. Nikos stood at the wall, looking out over the sea, and the wind caught at his shirt and hair. His hair was perhaps too long, but it helped hide the scars on his temple and cheekbone.
It was easy to ignore the breeze as he was anticipating Georgia’s appearance. It was strange to have her in the house. He wasn’t used to having visitors. Kamari was his own rock, 323 acres in the northwestern Cyclades in the Aegean Sea. Amorgós was the closest island to Kamari, with a hospital, ferry, shops and monastery, but Nikos hadn’t been to Amorgós in years. There was no point. There was nothing good on Amorgós...not for him.
Instead everything he needed was flown in from the mainland, and if he wanted company, he’d fly to Athens. Not that he ever wanted company. It’d been months and months since he’d left his rock. He had a home in Athens, along with his corporate headquarters. He had another place on Santorini, but that was the old family estate, a former winery that had once been his favorite place in the world and now the source of his nightmares.
Nikos had lived alone so long that he couldn’t imagine being part of the outside world. His son would not need the outside world, either. He would teach his son to live simply, to love nature, to be independent. He’d make sure his son knew what was good and true...not money, not accolades, praise, success. But this island, this sky, this sea.
But perhaps the years of living so isolated had made him rough and impatient. He felt so very impatient now, waiting for her. She wasn’t rushing her shower. She wasn’t hurrying up to meet him. She was taking her time. Making him wait.
Finally the sound of the wooden door scraping the tumbled marble floor made him turn.
Georgia stepped outside, onto the terrace, her expression wary. She was dressed in black tights, a long black-and-white knit jumper, high-heeled ankle boots, and her shimmering blond hair was drawn back in a high ponytail. Even though she was wearing no makeup, she looked far more rested than she had earlier, but her guarded expression bothered him.
He didn’t want to be a monster. He didn’t enjoy scaring women. “You found it,” he said gruffly.
“I did.”
“Something to drink?” he asked, gesturing to the tray with pitchers of water and juice that had been brought up earlier.
“Just water. Please.”
He filled a tall glass and brought it to her. She was standing now where he’d been just seconds ago, looking out over the Aegean Sea. He wasn’t surprised. The view was spectacular from the terrace, and the setting sun had gilded the horizon, turning everything purple and bronze.
“How are you feeling?” he asked.
“Fine,” she said crisply, keeping her distance.
He should apologize. He wasn’t sure where to begin, though. The words stuck in his throat. He wasn’t very good at this sort of thing, and he was certain that the apology would be rebuffed.
“Do you get carsick easily?” he asked, trying to find a topic that would help them move forward.
“Not usually. Everything is different when you’re pregnant, though.”
“My pilots did say it was a turbulent landing. We get very strong winds this time of year.” He hesitated. “I apologize.”
She arched an elegant eyebrow, her expression cool. “You can’t control the wind,” she said, taking a sip of the water before adding, “But you can control yourself. Don’t break down my door again. Please.”
Nikos wasn’t used to apologies, but he also wasn’t accustomed to criticism. His temper flared. He battled it back down. “I’ve assured you that the door will be fixed.”
“That’s not the point. Your use of force was excessive. I’m sure there must be an intercom or house phone you could use next time you wish to check on me.”
“Maybe you don’t lock the door next time.”
Her brows pulled. “I always lock my bedroom door.”
“Even in your own home?”
“I live alone. I lock doors.”
“Is Atlanta so very dangerous?”
“The world is dangerous.” Her voice was cool, almost clinical. “If I don’t lock my door, I can’t sleep.”
“You’re safe here.”
Her chin lifted, her smooth jaw firming as her gaze met his. “I’m not sure what that means.”
He was baffled by her response. “You can relax here. Nothing will hurt you here.”
“Does that include you?”
Nikos stiffened. He took a step away, glancing past her to the water, and yet all he could see was Elsa. Elsa, who had been afraid of everything he was.
“I wouldn’t hurt you,” he ground out, forcing his gaze back to Georgia. “The reason you are here now is that I want to ensure your safety. Your well-being is imperative to my son’s well-being. You will have only the best of care on Kamari.”
She stared back at him, blue eyes bright and clear, as well as thoughtful. She was weighing his words, assessing them for herself. “I don’t need care. I need space and respect.”
“Which you will have, along with proper care.”
She continued to hold his gaze. “I am not sure your idea of proper care and mine are the same thing. In fact, I’m sure it’s not. For me, proper care would have been remaining at home, close to my sister and obstetrician. I would have felt healthier and safer with my doctor and family nearby.”
“I have hired the best obstetrician and pediatrician in Greece. Both will attend the delivery, and the obstetrician will see you once a month until you are close to delivery.”
“I would have been happier at home, though.”
“Once the newness wears off, I think you will find it quite restful here.”
A spark flickered in her eyes. Her lips compressed. “I don’t think you’re understanding what I’m saying. When I agreed to the surrogacy I never expected spending time here, with you. That wasn’t part of the initial agreement. Indeed, I wouldn’t have agreed to the surrogacy if I’d known that I had to spend the final trimester here. I’m not happy being here. This isn’t good for me.”
“You’ve been compensated for coming to Kamari, generously compensated.”
“But money isn’t everything.” Her chin notched up. “And I am not going to have you throwing money in my face. It’s rude and demeaning.”
“But you chose to be a donor and surrogate for the money.”
“I needed to pay for medical school for my sister and me, but I also wanted to do something good. And I have. I’ve created life. You can’t put a price on that.” Her voice suddenly cracked, and she looked away, her lower lip caught between her teeth.
He studied her beautiful profile, saw a hint of moisture in her eyes and wondered if they were real tears or if this was perhaps part of a game. He didn’t trust tears, and it crossed his mind that she could be trying to manipulate him. It was possible. Elsa had taught him that.
“And you have no qualms about giving this precious life up?” he asked, unable to mask the ruthless edge in his voice. He was not the same man he’d been before Elsa. He doubted he’d ever be that man again.
Georgia made a soft, rough sound, and when she spoke again, her voice was husky. “It’s your son, not mine.”
“Your egg. Your womb.”
Her lips curved faintly, but the smile didn’t reach her eyes. “I am little more than a fertile garden. The soil doesn’t weep when you sow or reap.”
An interesting answer, he thought. She was an interesting woman. “The soil isn’t a young female, either. Nurturing...maternal—”
“I’m not maternal,” she said, cutting him off, her tone almost icy.
“And yet you’re doing this to help provide for your sister.”
“That’s different. She is my family. She is already my responsibility. But I have no desire to ever have children of my own. No desire to add to that family, or assume more responsibilities.”
“You may feel differently later.”
She leaned forward, her expression intent. “Do you want me to feel differently later?”
He was shocked, not just by her words but by the way she moved in toward him. No one invaded his space. No one wanted to be near him. He intimidated women. He made people uncomfortable. And yet she leaned in, she challenged him, and after the shock faded, he understood why.
She wasn’t timid. She wasn’t weak. She was strong, and she was going to give him as good as he gave her.
He admired her boldness and her confidence. He admired strength and courage, but what she didn’t realize was that her challenge just whetted his appetite.
He wasn’t about to move back and give her distance and breathing room. He was going to move in. Get closer. Crowd her.
Not because he wanted to scare her, but her energy and resistance were waking him up, making him feel things he hadn’t felt in forever. And yet what was good for him wouldn’t necessarily be good for her.
He was troubled by his response to her. She fascinated him. And, yes, she looked like Elsa, but her personality was nothing like Elsa’s. While Elsa had needed to be shielded, protected, Georgia charged at him, refusing to shy away from conflict.
He found her stimulating.
Refreshing.
But he should warn her. He ought to tell her that she was stirring the beast, rattling his cage. He should let her know that she wouldn’t like it when he woke...that it was better, safer, smarter to keep him leashed, caged, dormant.
“Of course I don’t want you to feel differently later,” Nikos said now. “He is my son.”
“Good. I am glad we are in complete agreement on that.” She walked away from him then, heading to the sitting area under the thatched roof and taking a seat on the white slipcovered bench against the house.
He watched her cross her legs and sit back, the picture of calm and cool, but her air of calm, that cloak of control, jolted him. A shot of adrenaline. Another shot of hunger. But he needed to smash the desire, not encourage the response. Hungry wasn’t good. Hungry would hurt her.
He walked slowly toward her, studying her expression. From across the terrace she exuded serenity, and yet as he neared he saw a flicker in her eyes. She wasn’t sleepy or lazy. She was alert and very much on guard.
He dropped into a chair across from her, his long legs extending, taking some of her space. “In the car you asked me where I was going to raise my son.” Nikos paused a moment, his gaze skimming her stunning features, dropping from her full pink lips down the elegant throat to the pulse he could see beating at the base of her neck. She was not as calm as she pretended to be. Not by a long shot. “Why did you ask?” he added.
Her shoulders twisted. “Curious.”
“Curious about the life he’ll live, or curious about me?”
She shrugged again, even more carelessly than before. “I was just making conversation. I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable.”