“In what way?”
“She said she’d seen you on the beach before and wondered that I hadn’t remembered what she’d said about you, your prestigious background and elite friends. She said you came from one of the most powerful, influential families in Greece. Monika warned me you were a playboy with movie-star looks and told me I was a fool to fall for your ridiculous line about my looking like a mermaid.”
He sucked in his breath. “That was no act. You looked and swam exactly like one.”
“Unbeknownst to me, the fact that you’d asked me to go on your cruiser did a lot of damage. I realize now it was jealousy because you’d never sought her out. Even though she was attractive, you hadn’t noticed her, but you’d shown interest in me. She’d been so sure you were just playing with me.
“When you kept coming around for the next three weeks, it was too much for her. She taunted me endlessly, but I was so crazy in love with you, I didn’t let it bother me or realize what was happening to her.”
He grimaced and sat forward with hands clasped between his powerful legs. “You never said a word of this to me.”
“At the time I didn’t worry that she was so upset. That realization came later. It wouldn’t have occurred to me to tell you. It would have sounded like I was bragging, that you preferred me to her. The last thing I would have wanted was for you to think me petty, or that I found pleasure in hurting her.
“To my horror, I underestimated the depth of a dangerous jealousy that would drive her to destroy us. I’m afraid I was too naive and insecure to realize what was going on.”
Nico got up, trying to contain his rage over what Monika had done. “I’d met her several times at the house when I’d gone to pick you up. I hadn’t realized the depth of her bitter jealousy. She’d seemed nice enough. What in heaven’s name made her admit to her evil?”
“Her parents noticed that she and I had stopped writing to each other. They were concerned and wanted to know why. For a long time she refused to tell them, and they knew something was terribly wrong. One day they broke her down and she confessed to returning the letters.
“They were horrified and called me to apologize. I’d always liked the Gataki family. They’d been kind to me and my grandparents. Monika got on the phone and cried. She said she knew I could never forgive her. I told her that was up to God.”
Mara’s character hadn’t changed after all. His eyes played over her. “Did she know about Dimitra?”
“No. I never told her or her parents in the first place because I didn’t learn I was pregnant until after we’d moved to Canada. Before her attack of conscience, if she’d known I was carrying your child, she likely would have gloated over my pain at being dumped, as she called it. I could imagine her calling me an idiot for believing that you loved me. I couldn’t have withstood her mockery. That phone call from her and her family made me realize she did have a conscience, but she found it too late for us.”
“I had no idea she would go that far,” he ground out.
“No one did. After she confessed, I was afraid to call you with the news, knowing you’d recently been married to one of the most prominent women in Athens and had risen in the company.”
Nico groaned aloud. “But letting me know I was a father the second you knew you were pregnant should have superseded every consideration!”
She shuddered. “You’re right. It should have, which pro
ves I was a flawed human being not to get word to you from that first moment. And there’s no excuse for not telling you the truth once I heard what Monika had done. My only defense is that I felt it would have been so cruel to tell you and your wife about Dimitra. It terrified me it could do real damage to your happiness.
“I tried putting myself in your place, Nico. Thinking about being newly married, how hard it would have been to suddenly hear you had a four-year-old daughter on the other side of the world. No bride would want to be told news like that. Not when she loved you and wanted to make a home and life with you, give you children.”
Nico shook his head. Raisa had known how deeply in love he’d been with Mara. He agreed that to find out his former lover was alive and taking care of their four-year-old daughter so soon after his marriage to Raisa would have caused tremendous turmoil.
Though he imagined they would have stayed married, how did he know if Raisa could have handled his having a daughter from the woman he’d loved so desperately? The woman who was alive and had never married?
Again his lingering guilt over not loving Raisa as deeply as he’d loved Mara merged with his guilt that he hadn’t been able to save her or their unborn child in that crash. That guilt would always torment him.
“You have to understand, Nico,” she continued, unaware of his torment. “I didn’t know if you would have welcomed a relationship with Dimitra at any age. The last time I saw you, you had to go off to do your military duty. You took my very soul with you. On our last night together you crushed me in your arms, promising to write me the second you could.
“But no letters had come by the time I’d returned to Nicosia with Leia’s family four days later. After a week of being with my grandparents again, there still weren’t any letters from you sent to me at her parents’ house. You never phoned.” Tears poured down her cheeks.
He grimaced. “Because I was in the military, the rules forbade me to make any phone calls. To think Leia intercepted all my letters and sent them back to me unopened... The pain she caused both of us was beyond cruelty.”
Alexa nodded. “Her jealousy destroyed our dreams, knowing we were wildly in love. I remember waiting for Monika to call me and tell me the mail had come. My plan was to go over to her house and pick up all the letters I knew you would have sent me and forwarded.”
Nico paced the deck. “How could that Monika have done such a thing?”
“It’s beyond my comprehension. I waited and waited. There was so much I had to tell you, and I’d taken all those pictures I’d promised to send you. But in the middle of that nightmare, my grandfather received news that he’d been made the Greek ambassador to Canada. We were forced to leave immediately for his new post.”
Another groan came out of Nico. “I can’t believe you ended up in Canada.”
“I about died having to fly so far away from you. Once we made the flight and had gotten settled in Ottawa, there were still no letters from you forwarded by Monika. At first I was convinced you’d been injured on maneuvers and couldn’t write. After a month with no word, I knew something horrible must have happened to you. But if you’d died, it would have been all over the news. My grandfather assured me of that. Not hearing from you caused me the most excruciating pain I’ve ever known in my life.”