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“We’re getting ready to descend.”
“Thank you.”
He fastened his seat belt. Jeno was right about one thing: Nikos did feel ill. The meeting with the vice admiral was like the first handful of dirt thrown on top of the coffin. He saw the life he’d once known vanish into the void, leaving him to travel through a tunnel of blackness that had no end....
July 26
Stephanie was going to be a mother.
She ran a hand over her stomach, which had grown fuller, making it harder to fasten the top two buttons of her jeans. It still seemed unbelievable that she was carrying Dev’s child. When she’d missed her period last month it hadn’t alarmed her, because she’d always been irregular. In college she’d gone six months without a period.
But over the last three weeks she’d felt weak and nauseated. In her depressed state she’d lost her appetite and thought she had a flu bug. But it didn’t go away and then she started noticing other changes to her body. It all added up to one thing, and the home pregnancy test yesterday had turned out positive, shocking the daylights out of her.
The trip to Dr. Sanders today had confirmed that she was three months along with Dev’s baby. Incredible. Her OB had ordered pills for her nausea, plus iron and prenatal vitamins to build her up.
If she caught up to Dev, would he want to know he was going to be a father?
Deep down, she’d been waiting for him to contact her. He knew she worked for Crystal River Water Tours. It would have been easy enough for him to call and leave a message. But that hadn’t happened. He hadn’t planned on ever seeing or talking to her again.
Yet she felt certain the man she’d fallen in love with would have wanted to hear the truth about his own baby. But it seemed that man didn’t exist. If she were able to find him, would he still tell her he wanted nothing to do with her or the baby, once he found out?
For the next twelve hours she agonized about what to do, vacillating over the decision she needed to make. By morning, one thing overshadowed every consideration. She knew her child would want to know its father. It would be the most important thing in her baby’s life.
Stephanie knew all about that, having always longed to meet her birth father and know his name. It took two to make a child, and it was up to her to inform Dev if it was at all possible. What he did with the information was up to him.
But her hand hesitated before she reached for the phone to begin her inquiries at the resort. The two people she knew there might wonder why she needed information. They’d probably deduce she was some obsessed girlfriend.
How humiliating would it be to confide the truth about the baby to them? She just couldn’t. But maybe it would work if she explained she’d been worrying about him ever since he’d disappeared, the very night they were going to have dinner together. She felt certain he’d been ill, thus the reason for his swift departure. Did they know any way she might get in touch with him, just to see if he was all right?
With her hand shaking, she called the number on the brochure she’d kept, and waited.
“Dive shop. This is Angelo.”
She gripped the cell phone tighter. “Hello, Angelo. I’m glad it’s you. I tried to reach you earlier, but you were out. This is Stephanie Walsh. You probably don’t remember me. I was there almost three months ago.”
“Stephanie? I always remember the pretty girls, you especially.”
Her heart beat too fast. “You just made my day.”
He laughed. “You had a good time on vacation?”
“Wonderful, thanks to you.” The best of my whole life until the box of gardenias was brought to the table.
“That’s good. How can I help you?”
“I’m trying to reach Dev Harris, the scuba diver from New York I partnered with that first week. Do you have a phone number or an email for him? Anything at all to help me? He left so suddenly, I’ve worried over the last few months that he might have been taken ill. I have pictures I’d like to send him via email.”
“Let me check. Don’t hang up.”
“No. I won’t.”
She paced the bedroom of her condo while she waited. There were a lot of Devlin, Devlon or Devlan Harrises listed in New York City, but none she could reach was the man she was trying to find.
When she’d first gotten back to Florida, anger had driven her to phone New York information, but there was no such name listed for him. She’d spent several days phoning exporting companies where he might be working, but she’d turned up nothing.
After exhausting that avenue, she’d called various airlines that had landed planes on the island April 18, but got no help. The resort could tell her only what she already knew, that he was from New York. That was when she’d given up. But her pregnancy had changed everything.
“Stephanie? I’m back. Sorry, but there is no address or phone number. Perhaps one of the shops you visited would know something.”
She bit her lip in disappointment. “We didn’t do any shopping, but he did have some flowers delivered to me. Would they have come from the resort?”
“No, no. The Plant Shop in town. Just a minute and I’ll give you the number.” She held her breath while she waited. “Yes. Here it is.”
Stephanie wrote it down. “You live up to your name, Angelo. Thank you so much.”
“You’re welcome. Good luck finding him.”
After hanging up, she placed the call. Stephanie had once told him she loved gardenias. Tears stung her eyes. She had to admit his parting gift had been done with a certain style, while at the same time destroying her dreams. If there were no results, then the baby she was carrying would never know its father.
“The Plant Shop.”
“Hello. My name is Stephanie Walsh. I’m calling from Florida. On April 27 a box of gardenias from your shop was delivered to me at the Palm Resort. I never did get to thank the gentleman who sent it to me. He left before I realized he’d gone. His name was Dev Harris. Could you give me an address or a phone number, please? He’s from New York City. That’s all I know.”
It was a long shot, but she was desperate.
“I’m sorry, but we can’t give out that information.”
“Can you at least tell me what time he left the order?”
“Just a moment and I’ll check.” After a minute, the salesclerk returned. “It was phoned in at 5:00 p.m.”
“Thank you for your help.”
After she hung up, one more idea flitted through her mind. She called the resort again and asked if she could speak to Delia, the darling girl who’d been the maid for their rooms. Could Delia call Stephanie back collect, please? It was very important.
The front desk said they’d give her the message. Within a half hour, Stephanie’s phone rang and it was the resort calling. Delia was on the other end.
“Hello, Stephanie.”
“Oh, Delia. Thanks so much for calling me back.”
“Of course. How is the handsome Dev?”
I wish I knew. “Actually, I’m not sure. I’m really worried about him. That’s why I’ve phoned you. I’m thinking he must have left the island early because he was ill and didn’t want me to know or worry. I thought I would have heard from him by now, and need your help to find him if it’s at all possible.”
“Tell you what. My boyfriend works at the airport servicing the planes before takeoff. I’ll ask him to find out what planes took off on April 27 after five in the evening. Perhaps he’ll learn something that can help you.”
“I’ll make this worth your while, Delia.”
“I would like to do this for you. I never saw two people more in love.”
Tears scalded Stephanie’s eyes. “Thank you,” she whispered. “I just hope he isn’t fatally ill.”
“I don’t blame you for being upset.”
Whether Delia believed her excuse for calling or not, Stephanie couldn’t worry about that now.
Two hours later her phone rang again. “Stephanie? He couldn’t get you names, but there were three flights out that evening, if this helps. One was a nonstop flight to Los Angeles, California, another nonstop to Vancouver, British Columbia. The last was a private jet owned by the Vassalos Corporation, headed for Athens, Greece.”
She blinked.
None of the planes had headed due north to New York. Her spirits plunged. If he’d been called back to his work on an emergency, surely he would have taken a direct flight to New York. There were dozens of them leaving the Caribbean for that destination.
“You’re an angel for being willing to help me, Delia. Expect a thank-you in the mail for you and your boyfriend from me.”
Stephanie rang off, shaking with the knowledge that Dev had lied to her without compunction. Who are you, mystery man? Had he pulled a fictitious name out of a hat on the spur of the moment? Was Dev a nickname?
One thing she was convinced of at this point: he was no New Yorker. And he’d been in an enormous hurry when he’d left Providenciales. Thousands of businessmen traveled by private jet. Certainly if he’d needed to leave before they’d even had dinner, it would make sense he had his own special mode of transportation waiting. No long lines...
Before she did anything else, she went to her computer in the den of the condo she’d inherited from her mother, to make a global search of the name Vassalos in Greece. One source came up more prominent than all the rest and drew her attention. Vassalos Maritime Shipping, Egnoussa, Greece.
Shipping...
After more searches she discovered the Oinousses, a group of small islands in the eastern Aegean Sea near Turkey. Egnoussa, the largest inhabited one, was fourteen kilometers long. One of Greece’s most important naval academies was based there, due to the rich seafaring history of the islands. A smaller island, Oinoussa, was also inhabited.
Reading further, she learned Egnoussa was home to some of the richest shipping magnate families in the world. There were only four hundred or so inhabitants, with some fabulous mansions. A naval commercial academy and museum were located on one part of the island.
She replayed the memories of Dev in her mind. His urbane sophistication and knowledge set him apart from other men she’d known. He’d possessed a natural authority and spoke impeccable English. But when she thought about it, she realized he hadn’t sounded like a New Yorker.
Had he come from a Greek island? If so, he would naturally be at home in the water.
He’d told her he worked for an international exporting company in New York. Did that company have an outlet in Greece? Did Dev work for it? Exporting could translate to mean shipping, couldn’t it? In her mind it wasn’t a far stretch to see where he might have come up with his lie.
What if Egnoussa was his home? Was he from that Vassalos family, with the kind of wealth that had opened every door for him? Maybe this was a stab in the dark, but the more she thought about him, the more the shoe seemed to fit. The cliché about looking like a Greek god fit him like a second skin.
She could phone the shipping company and ask questions. But since he obviously didn’t want to be found, if he was there or got wind that she was trying to reach him, she might never get answers. Scrolling down farther, she found more information.
After a short flight from Athens to the island of Chios, an hour’s boat ride takes you to Egnoussa Island. There’s one hotel with only twelve rooms, one taxi. You can walk Egnoussa in a day.
Her mind reeled with ideas. She could take some pictures of him with her and show them to someone at the shipping office. Stephanie would know immediately if that person recognized him. Maybe she was a fool, but for her baby’s sake she had to try to find him, and would use some of her savings to get there.
Stephanie called the doctor to make certain it was okay to fly. He told her she’d be all right for twenty-eight weeks. After that, she’d need to check with him about it. Since Greece didn’t require immunizations for visitors from the United States, she’d be all right.
Luckily, she already had a passport. When she and her friends had decided to vacation together, they’d applied for passports in case they decided on a vacation along the French or Italian Riviera. But in the end, the Caribbean had won out.
If she traveled to Greece and it turned out to be a fruitless mission, then so be it. Whatever happened, the sooner she went, the better for her state of mind. Unlike her mother, who didn’t attempt to tell her lover he was a father, at least Stephanie could explain to her child that she’d done everything humanly possible to locate the man who’d called himself Dev Harris.
Life was going to be difficult enough from here on out. She would have to discuss her condition with her boss. If he could give her a front desk job until after the baby was born, she’d be thankful and grateful. But if not, she’d need to start looking for another kind of job after she got back from Greece. Besides finishing paying off the mortgage, she needed to earn enough money to provide for herself and the baby.
CHAPTER TWO
July 28
NIKOS HAD BEEN out on the Diomedes for two weeks, but this afternoon he’d docked at the marina in Egnoussa. As soon as he replenished his food supply, he’d be leaving again. To his chagrin, he still needed support to move around, but had traded in his crutches for a cane. He used it only when he was exceptionally tired.
His right-hand man, Yannis, a seaman who’d worked for the family for over forty years, had just finished tying the ropes when Nikos’s silver-haired father approached them.
“Where have you been, Nikos?”
“Where I’ve been every day and night since I was released from the hospital, exercising and swimming off shore.” Battling his PTSD.
Despite taking medication, he’d had two violent episodes flashing back to the explosion. According to his doctor, with the passage of time they’d start to slow down, but it might take months or even years. For the time being Nikos had made the small custom-built yacht his home, where no one except Yannis could be witness.
What his family didn’t know was that some of his time had been spent with Kon’s grieving parents. He’d also had long talks with Kon’s married brother, Tassos, about many things. He was only a year older than Nikos and lived on Oinoussa, an island close to Egnoussa. Before Kon’s death the three of them had been close.
Tassos had gone into oil engineering and had recently returned after working on an oil rig in the southern Aegean. He had a brilliant head on his shoulders. He and Nikos had been talking a lot about Greece’s financial crisis and the direction of the country. For the time being Nikos mostly listened to Tassos, but he could scarcely concentrate while he felt half-alive.
“I’ve been phoning you for the last hour! Why didn’t you answer?” His father had to be upset to have come down to the dock.
“I was doing some shopping with Yannis, who’s bringing things on board from the car. What’s wrong?” His father looked flustered.
“You have a visitor.”
“If you mean Natasa, you’re wasting your time.”
“No. Someone else.”
“I can’t imagine who could be so important it would send you here.” Since returning home from the hospital, Nikos had stayed in touch with his family by phone, but he’d seen no one except Kon’s family and Yannis.
His father’s eyes, dark like his own, studied him speculatively. “Does this woman look familiar to you?”
He reached in his pocket and pulled out two snapshots. One showed Nikos and Stephanie in the dive boat. They’d just removed their gear and were smiling at each other. His breath caught at how beautiful she was. Angelo had taken the picture.
The other photo showed them on the beach with their arms around each other, right after the sun had set. In that sundress she’d looked like a piece of golden fruit. In fact that’s what he’d told her, among other things. The girl Delia, in housekeeping, had taken their picture.
“I take it she’s the woman who has erased thoughts of Natasa from your mind.”
Nikos could hear his father talking, but at the sight of Stephanie in those photos, he reeled so violently he almost fell off the pier into the water. She was here on the island? But that was impossible! There was no way on earth she could have found him.
“You were careless to allow yourself to be photographed in the Caribbean while you were still in active service. What is she to you, Nikos? Answer me.”
He couldn’t. He was still trying to grasp the fact that she’d flown to Greece and known exactly where to come.
“After looking at these pictures,” his father continued, “I’ve decided you’re in much deeper than I thought. Her beauty goes without saying, and she has a breathless innocence that could fool any man. Even you, my son.”
Nikos closed his eyes tightly.
“You’ve never looked at Natasa or any woman the way you’re looking at this female viper. I admit she’s devilishly ravishing in that American way, but she’s a mercenary viper nonetheless, one who knows your monetary worth and has come to trap you.
“Surely after what happened to Kon years ago, you realize that getting involved with a foreign woman on vacation in those surroundings can only mean one thing. Don’t let her get you any more ensnared. I know you well enough that if she’s pregnant, it’s someone else’s.”
His father’s words twisted the knife deeper. The mention of Kon’s tragedy brought back remembered pain. Was history repeating itself with Nikos? This just wasn’t possible! No one in the Caribbean knew Nikos or anything about him. No one.
He rubbed the back of his neck. “Do you mean she simply walked into the building?”
“Like she knew the place, according to Ari,” his father explained. “After arriving in the taxi, she approached him at the front desk and asked to speak to Mr. Vassalos. When she showed Ari the pictures, he phoned me at home. I told him to have her taken into my office, where she’s waiting for word of you.”
Nikos still couldn’t believe it. For a number of reasons this seemed completely out of character for Stephanie. He could have sworn she was the one woman in his life who gave everything without wanting anything back. While he’d been diving with her, he’d trusted her with his life, and she him. Or so he’d thought. To have been so wrong about her gutted him in an agonizing way.
“Have you made a commitment to her?”
They’d made love all night, transforming his world.
“Though it’s none of your business, the answer is no,” he muttered in a gravelly voice, poleaxed by this revelation. Not then, and since the explosion that had blown his dreams to hell, most definitely not now...
After receiving the gardenias, the Stephanie he thought he’d known would never have come searching for him. She would have understood the gesture meant goodbye, but apparently that hadn’t deterred her from what she wanted.
How had she found him? Was it his money she was after? He’d taken precautions, ruling out pregnancy as a factor. But as his father had said, she could be pregnant by someone else. The very accusation he’d turned on Nikos’s mother, ruining their lives. The notion that Stephanie had been after Nikos for his money made him feel ill.
“It’s little wonder you’ve displayed such indifference to Natasa. What do you intend to do?”
Just when Nikos thought life couldn’t get worse, it had.
He stared at his father. “Nothing.” He handed him back the photos. “Give Ari instructions to tell her I’m out of the country and won’t be back.”
“No personal message?”
“None.” He bit out the word.
A gleam of satisfaction entered his father’s eyes. His parent still had this sick fantasy about Nikos and Natasa. “I’ll take care of it.”
* * *
Stephanie sat in the chair, actually stunned that her intuition had paid off. The second she’d shown the photographs to the man in reception, she’d seen the way his eyes had flared in surprise.
The next thing she knew, he’d made a phone call and said something in Greek she couldn’t understand. Before long he’d escorted her to an office down the hall filled with pictures of ships of all kinds, almost like a museum of navigational history. The man told her they were trying to locate Kyrie Vassalos.
Until that moment she’d believed this trip had been in vain, and that something might be wrong with her mentally to have gone this far to trace a man who didn’t want to be found. But a voice inside said he still had the God-given right to know a child of his was on the way.
She’d been waiting close to an hour already. But the longer she waited, the more she expected to be told he wasn’t available. If so, she would leave Egnoussa and not look back. He was a member of the Vassalos family. That was all her child needed to know.
One day years from now, it was possible Dev—or whatever he called himself—would be confronted by his son or daughter. That would all depend on whether or not her child was like Stephanie, and wanted to meet the man who’d given him or her life. Some children didn’t want to know.
No matter; Stephanie planned to be the best mother in the world. She loved this baby growing inside her with all her heart and soul, and would do everything possible to give it the full, wonderful life it deserved.
After another ten minutes had passed, she couldn’t sit there any longer, and decided to tell the man in reception that she would come back. The weather was beautiful, with a temperature in the mid-eighties. The island was so tiny she could walk around the port and then return. The doctor had told her mild exercise like walking would do her good and help bring her out of her depression.
As she got up to leave, the man who’d been at the desk walked into the room. “Ms. Walsh? I’m sorry I took so long. It seems Kyrie Vassalos is out of the country and won’t be back in the foreseeable future. I’m sorry.” He gave her back the snapshots.
So, it was just as Stephanie had thought. She would have handed him one of her business cards from Crystal River Water Tours, where she took tourists and groups on swimming tours. But at the last second she thought better of it. For their unborn child’s sake, she hoped Dev would be curious enough to find her on his own.
“Thank you for your time.”
“You’re welcome,” he said with a smile.
After putting the pictures in her purse, she left the office and walked down the hallway to the entrance of the building. If she hurried, she’d be in time to make the next boat going back to Chios. Her trip hadn’t been wasted. She’d done her duty for her child. That was all that really mattered.
She made her way through picturesque winding streets paved with slabs. En route she passed mansions and villas with tiled roofs built in the Aegean island architectural style. Dev lived in one of those mansions, but she feared she’d never see the home where he’d grown up, and they’d never share anything again.
Stephanie kept going until she arrived at the landing area, where she sat on a bench and raised her face to the sun. This island was its own paradise. Evidently the lure of scuba diving had caused Dev to leave it. Being born here, he would have been a water baby, which explained his natural prowess above and below the surface.
Was he a true playboy? Or maybe a hardworking shipping tycoon who took his pleasure on occasion where he could find it around the world, as in the Caribbean? She knew nothing about him. He might even have a wife and children.
Stephanie shuddered to think she could have been with a married man. If that were the case, she would never forgive herself for sleeping with someone else’s husband. If he had a wife, it could only hurt her to see Stephanie’s business card. She was glad she hadn’t left it.
Face it. You took a huge risk being with him at all.
Disturbed by her thoughts, she reached in her purse for some food to help abate her nausea. She ate a sandwich and drank some bottled water she’d brought with her. The doctor told her she needed to eat regularly, to maintain her health. For once she was hungry, probably because she finally knew Dev Harris was a Vassalos and could be reached here.