The Greek Millionaire's Secret Child

“If having enough food to feed an army is a problem, then yes.”

He shrugged. “What can I say? Greeks love to eat.”

“Well, I can’t possibly do justice to all this, and since I have no wish to offend your father’s housekeeper when she’s obviously gone to a great deal of trouble…”

“Yes, Emily?”

She grimaced, as if her next words gave her indigestion. “You might as well stay and help me eat it.”

He stroked his jaw and made a show of weighing his options. “It would be a pity to let it go to waste,” he eventually conceded, “especially as this is but the first of several courses.”

For a moment, he thought he’d overplayed his hand. Skewering him with a glance that would have stopped the gods of Olympus in their tracks, she waited until Damaris mopped up her spilled drink, then took a seat at the table and said, “Try not to gloat, Niko. It’s so unattractive.”

He wasn’t accustomed to female criticism. The women he associated with were so anxious to please, they’d have swallowed their own tongues before issuing such a blunt assessment of his shortcomings. That she suffered no such hesitation appealed to him in ways she couldn’t begin to imagine. He devoted his entire life to challenging unfavorable odds. And took enormous pleasure in defeating them.

Collecting the wine bottle as he passed, he joined her and topped up their flutes. Nothing like dim lights and good champagne to set the scene for seduction. Raising his glass, he said, “Here’s to getting to know one another all over again.”

She responded with the merest tilt of one shoulder, took a dainty sip, then helped herself to a little tzatziki and bread.

“Have more,” he urged, pushing the tray of mezedes closer.

She selected an olive, but ignored her champagne.

“You don’t care for Greek food?”

“I’m not very familiar with it.”

“There are no Greek restaurants in Vancouver?”

“Hundreds, and I’m told they’re very good. I just don’t eat out very often.”

“Why is that? And please don’t tell me you lack opportunity. Suitors must be lined up at your door, wanting to wine and dine you.”

“I’m afraid not. Shift work tends to put a crimp in a nurse’s social life.”

Right. And you’re such a dedicated professional that you never take a night off!

He shook his head in feigned mystification. “What’s wrong with Canadian men, to be so easily discouraged? Are they all eunuchs?”

She almost choked on her olive. “Not as far as I know,” she spluttered. “But then, I haven’t bothered to ask.”

“What about your colleagues? As I understand it, hospitals are a hotbed of romance between doctors and nurses.”

“The idea that all nurses end up marrying doctors is a myth,” she informed him starchily. “For a start, half the doctors these days are women, and even if they weren’t, finding a husband isn’t particularly high on my list of priorities.”

“Why not? Don’t most women want to settle down and have children? Or are you telling me you’re the exception?”

“No.” She nibbled a sliver of pita bread. “I’d love to get married and have children someday, but only if the right man comes along. I’m not willing to settle for just anyone.”

“Define ‘the right man,’” he said—a shade too abruptly, if her response was anything to go by.

She dropped her bread and stared at him. “I beg your pardon?”

“By what standards do you judge a prospective husband?”

She reached for her glass and took a sip while she considered the question. “He has to be decent and honorable,” she finally declared.

“Tall, dark and handsome, too?”

“Not necessarily.” She gave another delicate shrug, just enough to cause her dress to shift gently over her rather lovely breasts.

He wished he didn’t find it so alluring. “Rich and successful, then?”

“Gainfully employed, certainly. If we had children, I’d want to be a stay-at-home mom.”

“If you had to choose just one quality in this ideal man, what would it be?”

“The capacity to love,” she said dreamily, her blue eyes soft, her sweet mouth curved in a smile. Outside, the wind tore at the palm trees with unusual strength for September. “I’d want love more than anything else, because a marriage without it is no marriage at all.”

Annoyed to find his thoughts drifting dangerously far from their set course, he said flatly, “I disagree. I’d never let my heart get the better of my head.”

“Why not? Don’t you believe in love?”

“I might have once, very briefly, many years ago, but then she died of a blood clot to the brain. I was three months old at the time.”

“You mean your mother?” She clapped a distressed hand to her cheek. Her eyes glistened suspiciously. “Oh, Niko, how very sad for you. I’m so sorry.”

He wanted neither her sympathy nor her pity, and crushed both with brutal efficiency. “Don’t be. It’s not as if she was around long enough for me to miss her.”

The way she cringed at his answer left him ashamed. “She gave you life,” she said.

“And lost hers doing it, something I’ve been paying for ever since.”

“Why? Her death wasn’t your fault.”

“According to my father, it was.” Her glass remained almost untouched, but his was empty. Needing something to deaden a pain he seldom allowed to surface, he refilled it so hurriedly, the wine foamed up to the brim. “She was forty-one, and giving birth at her age to an infant weighing a strapping five kilos put her in her grave.”

“A lot of women wait until their forties to have children.”

“They don’t all die because of it.”

“True. But that’s still no reason for you to think Pavlos holds you responsible for the tragedy that befell her. After all, she gave him a son and that’s not a legacy any man takes lightly.”

“You might be a hell of a fine nurse, Emily Tyler, but you’re no spin doctor.”

Puzzled, she said, “What do you mean?”

“That nothing you can say changes the fact that my father didn’t care if he never had a child. All he ever wanted was my mother, and as far as he’s concerned, I took her away from him.”