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.