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.”
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
