Georgia turned on her lamp and checked her watch. Four thirty in the morning. She wasn’t going to be able to sleep again. She wondered if she could maybe go to the kitchen and make a pot of tea. The activity would be good. It’d distract her, help push the vividness of the dream away.
She pulled a thin cashmere sweater over her nightgown and then added a thicker button-down cardigan over that. After stepping into slippers, she headed for the kitchen on the ground floor.
She’d never been all the way inside the kitchen, and there was no microwave, so it was a bit of a game trying to find everything she needed. But at least the kettle was on the stove and she had a box of loose tea, a teapot and a tea strainer.
Georgia hovered over the stove as she waited for the kettle to boil, and her thoughts returned to the bad dream. And it was such a bad dream. But at least it was only a dream. What happened to her family wasn’t.
For the past six months she’d told herself that the pregnancy wasn’t a bad thing, either, because she was bringing life and light into the world.
She’d convinced herself that she was doing something good; she was giving Nikos Panos a gift. And, no, her mother and father wouldn’t have approved, but they were gone. Her baby sister Charlie was gone. Her grandparents, who’d been visiting in Africa at the time of the assault, were gone, too. Georgia and Savannah were the only ones left, and in view of such darkness and tragedy, wasn’t creating life a good thing?
Wasn’t a new baby a miracle?
And since she was not going to ever be a mother, wasn’t this a chance to do something good while providing for Savannah?
“Everything all right?” A deep voice spoke from the kitchen doorway.
Georgia jumped and turned around just as the kettle whistled. She startled again. Swearing—or it sounded as if he swore, she didn’t know as it was a stream of muttered Greek—Nikos crossed the kitchen, pushed her away from the stove and turned off the burner.
“Sit down,” he said sharply. “You’re about to get burned.”
“You scared me,” she said, but she was happy to sit in one of the blue-painted chairs with the woven straw seats. She watched him use a pot holder to lift the copper kettle and fill her mug. Steam swirled up, shrouding his hand. “I had a bad dream, so I came here for tea. But I was trying to be quiet. I’m sorry to wake you up.”
“I’m a light sleeper.”
“Then I’m definitely sorry to wake you.”
He flashed her a rare smile, and her heart did a strange, funny beat.
He was devastatingly attractive when he smiled. And right now, watching him make her tea, his black hair thick and tousled, his long black lashes shadowing his cheekbones, his full lips slightly curved, she felt her pulse drum faster.
She shouldn’t want to know him. She shouldn’t care at all, but she found him fascinating, and his scars just made her want to know more. They added an air of mystery. How did he get them? And why had he exiled himself to this rock of an island?
He’d virtually cut himself off from the world, and now he planned on raising his son here. Why?
“How did you get burned?”
He shot her a swift glance over his big shoulder, black brows flattening. He didn’t look angry as much as surprised. “It’s an old story. Not very interesting.”
She didn’t believe it for a minute. “I have a feeling it’s very interesting.”
“Not to me,” he answered flatly, bringing the pot and cup to the table. “Do you drink it with milk or sugar?”
“Honey?”
He went to one of the painted cabinets and dug through bottles and jars but came up empty.
“Don’t worry,” she told him as he went to look in a basket of jars and bottles next to the stove.
“It’s here,” he said, bringing a small ceramic bowl with a lid to the table. “Why do you have nightmares?”
So that was what they were doing. Tit for tat. “I’ve told you about losing my family in Africa.”
“Not really. You just say you lost them. I’m interested in the details.” And then his piercing dark eyes met hers. “I’d find it interesting.”
“So if I tell you about my nightmares, you’ll tell me about how you were burned?”
“If you tell me about your nightmares, I’ll tell you about the burns...sometime, soon. Just not now.”
“Why?”
“You have to trust me on that.”
An interesting choice of words, she thought, stirring in the honey. You have to trust me...
The word trust had come up several times now.
“Okay,” she said, not sure she was entirely comfortable with their agreement but thinking they had to start somewhere, building this trust, and she did want to trust him. She needed to trust him, otherwise how could she live with herself after she’d delivered the baby and returned to Atlanta? “But maybe you could tell me something else—”
“You’re the one with the nightmares, not me.”
She drew a deep breath. “The nightmares started a little over four years ago, after the assault. It happened when I was twenty, and in my final year at university. My sister Savannah had come to visit me, and we were looking at colleges together, so she wasn’t at the mission when the attack happened. Thank God. She escaped.”
Georgia looked down into her steaming tea, and for a long moment she battled the awful pain and tightness in her chest. The emotion was so intense. It made thinking, much less speaking, nearly impossible.
“They all died,” she whispered. “My parents, my grandparents, my baby sister—Charlie. They all perished on the church grounds.”
It was awful saying the words out loud, and the silence afterward was painful and heavy.
“What are the nightmares?” he asked after a moment.
She blinked hard, determined to stay calm. “I’m there and I’m supposed to save them. And I can’t.” She looked up at him. He was leaning against one of the kitchen counters, his arms braced against the countertop, and he looked so big, so sure of himself, and she envied him then. Envied his size and strength. Envied his fierceness and vitality. The nightmares always made her feel so small and helpless. Vulnerable. She hated it, and she worked hard to keep from ever feeling weak.
“Is that what you dreamed tonight?”
“More or less.”
“Tell me about tonight’s dream.”
She made a soft, rough sound. “It’s too sad.”
“Maybe talking will help.”
She lifted her head and gave him a hard look. “Does talking about the accident that burned you ever help?”
“No.”
She lifted her cup and sipped the tea. It was hot and almost burned her tongue. Again tears started to sting her eyes. She blinked hard, determined not to cry.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Tea is too hot.”
“That’s not why you’re upset.”
Nikos was far too perceptive. “I just wish I hadn’t told you about the attack—”
“If it’s any consolation, you didn’t say much. You didn’t say how it happened. You didn’t tell me who did it, or if they were ever caught.”
“I hate discussing it.”
“Is that why the information wasn’t part of your donor file?”
“There’s no reason for people to know. Savannah tends to be a bit more open about it. I can’t stand talking about it. I get too angry.”
“Angry...why?”
“My parents knew their work was dangerous. They knew what they were doing was risky, and it’s one thing to put their own lives in jeopardy, but to put my sisters in danger? Charlie was just twelve. She shouldn’t have been there. She should have been protected.”
“And you said you weren’t maternal.”
Georgia’s eyes felt hot and gritty, and impatiently she shook her head, regretting sharing. “I think I’ll take my tea back to my room. If I’m lucky, I’ll be able to fall back asleep.” She rose and gathered her things
, china cup and pot clinking as she accidentally knocked them together.
Nikos crossed the floor. He took the dishes from her, placed them on the table and then took her hands. “You’re shaking.”
“I miss them.” And just like that tears filled her eyes. She turned her face away, trying to hide the tears.
“You loved them.”
“So much.”
She didn’t know how it happened, didn’t know what happened, but suddenly her face was tipped up and his head dipped and his lips covered hers.
It was impossible to know what his intentions were, impossible to know if the kiss had meant to comfort, because the moment his mouth touched hers, Georgia jolted as if she’d stumbled into a live wire. Sensation rushed through her in electric waves, making her shudder.
Nikos deepened the kiss, his lips parting hers, and she shuddered again at the pleasure of his tongue stroking the inside of her sensitive lower lip and then finding her upper lip.
It’d been ages since she’d kissed anyone. She couldn’t even remember her last kiss, and Nikos was in total control, drawing her close, his hard body pressed to the length of her as lips and tongue made her melt.
She felt hot and explosive, her blood humming in her veins. She shivered as his hand moved beneath her long hair to cup her nape and then down her neck, stirring every nerve ending in her skin.