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Interesting. If the weather leant itself toward doing so, she would want to talk to Jean-René about incorporating fireplaces in the main areas of the resort at least.
“Pardon me, but do you speak English?” she asked the maid, who was now sliding their cases under the huge bed and out of the way.
“Yes.”
“Great, because my Greek is nonexistent.”
The young woman smiled. “You are American, yes?”
“Yes. I took Spanish in school.” It was the only language she knew she would find at any high school, no matter where her father had been stationed, so she could take it for the full four years. “Will it get cold enough in the evenings to light the fire?”
“Some, yes. Not so cold, but the fire, it is cozy.”
“I see.” Piper smiled. “Thank you.”
“You are welcome.”
“When did Mr. Nikos give instructions for us to share a room?” She felt ridiculous asking, but needed the answer for some reason.
The maid gave her an odd look, but didn’t hesitate to answer. “I do not know. On Monday, the housekeeper, she tell me to ready the room for Kyrie Nikos and his guest.”
So, he’d planned to share a room all along. This was not altogether shocking. They did not take pains to hide their sexual relationship, but he was not usually so blatant in a work setting. Before his revelations over dinner in Athens, she would have taken this as a good sign for the future of their relationship.
Now, it just added to her confusion about the man she loved.
Prior to this morning, he had not considered her in the role of mother to his children. He had also made it clear he did not anticipate ever entering into a permanent relationship with her. All bets were off if she was pregnant, though. That was something she had no doubts about.
If she was carrying his baby, he would insist on marriage. His assertion he was nothing like his parents hadn’t been necessary for her to realize Zephyr Nikos would insist on being a major player in his child’s life.
She just wasn’t sure what she wanted to do about that.
Zephyr found Piper sitting on a cushioned wrought-iron lounger on the terrace outside their bedroom. “Tired, pethi mou?”
“What?” She looked up at him, eyes the same color as the sea they’d been gazing at vague. “No. I was just thinking, trying to work things out and getting more confused in the process.”
“Would you like a sounding board?”
“Not this time.”
He frowned; that was not the answer he wanted, he realized. “You like the house?”
“You know I do. But house? I don’t think so. Mansion more like. How many bedrooms does this place have anyway?”
“Twelve, four of them large suites like this one.”
“Then how can you tell this is the master?” she challenged him.
“How did you tell?”
“The maid was unpacking our cases.”
“Really, that was it?” One eyebrow raised knowingly.
“You know it wasn’t.”
He nodded. “The bed.”
“It couldn’t be in any room but the master.”
“Exactly.” He moved to stand in front of her and put a hand out, which she automatically took. “I’m glad we aren’t tearing it down.” Sometimes, they had no choice but to destroy in order to build something new. Thankfully, that was not necessary this time.
“Is it going to be part of the resort?” Piper asked, not looking all that pleased at the prospect.
He tugged her to stand, then took her place in the chair and pulled her into his lap. “At first, I thought it would, but every time I come, I grow more attached to the place. Neo likes it as well. I think we may keep it for our personal use, but he’ll have to find his own master-suite bed, I’m keeping this one.”
“Really?”
“Why so surprised? We agreed the bed is perfect.”
“That’s not what I meant.” She squirmed until she was comfortable against him, having a predictable effect on the blood-flow south of his waist. “I don’t see either of you relaxing enough to get any use out of it.”
“He’s getting married. They will have children. This is a good place to bring them. The resort will only make it better. Cass likes to travel, but prefers private residence to hotels.”
“That makes sense, considering.”
“Yes.” He tugged her to relax further against his chest. “And you, can you imagine staying here on the occasional holiday?”
She sighed, her head coming to rest against his shoulder. “Too easily. If I owned a property like this, I wouldn’t relegate it to vacation home, though. I couldn’t resist living here.” The buried longing in her voice surprised him. “I don’t know how the previous owners did.”
“How would you run your business from here?”
“I thought daydreams didn’t have to be practical.”
“Indulge me.” He wrapped his arms around her waist, enjoying this moment of relaxed closeness.
She was good for him, which was just the dangerous kind of thinking he needed to avoid before he started spilling secrets again. This was about learning what was going on in her complicated brain, not revealing more of his own thoughts. And he would remember that.
“Living here would be the ultimate indulgence, but in answer to your all too prosaic question, with high-speed Internet, a reliable telephone service and a color fax machine, I could run my business from anywhere.”
“It would require a lot of travel.” Especially if she continued to work full-time.
“I travel a lot now.”
Didn’t he know it? He understood her desire to live here, though. “I forget how much I enjoy the sunshine sometimes, but a few days in Greece and I’m spoiled to blue skies again.”
“We can’t claim our fair share of those in Seattle.” She gave a rueful sigh.
He chuckled. “This is true. The first year Neo and I lived there, we thought the rain would never end.”
“Seattle gets all four seasons.”
“And all of them have rain.”
“True,” she said grudgingly. “But it’s better than New York blizzards, trust me.”
“Here, though, the weather is perfect.” He and Neo had not left Greece because they wanted to get away from the sunshine.
“If you are partial to a warm climate.”
“Which I am.”
“Me, too.” She sighed. “Maybe I should have relocated to Southern California, when I left New York.”
“No, we would not have met.”
“You might have been better off.”
What? He did not think so. He maneuvered her so their gazes met, and saw that her azure eyes were troubled. He shook his head. “Are you trying to imply that our friendship has been a detriment to me in some way?”
“Well, it’s not as if I’m the woman you envisioned as the mother of your future children.” Her voice echoed with pain he would not have expected.
“I had not given any thought to who that might be.” No serious contemplation anyway. He had thought of her in that role, before they started having sex. He admired her character and thought she would make an ideal mother and wife, except for that romantic streak even her rotten marriage had not cured her of.
“But you would not have considered me.”
“You are right.” At least that had been his final determination.
She turned her head away completely, but not before he saw sadness making her blue eyes shimmer dangerously.
Oh, no. Tears were not going to happen. He gently, but inexorably, tugged her face back around. “Not because I do not think you would be eminently suitable, but because I knew you would never consider a…what did you call my nebulous marriage plans? A business merger.”
“Why would it have to be a business transaction between the two of us?” she asked plaintively.
“How could it be anything else?”
“Love.”
“Love?” Hadn’t they already discussed this? “Whatever propensity to love I may have had once is gone. Even if it were not, love does not always last. Blood ties do not count for much, either.”
“So, there is nothing left but business?”
“True friendship can endure,” he admitted.
“Like your friendship with Neo.”
“Yes.”
“He’s the only person in your life who has never let you down, isn’t he?”
“On a personal level? Yes.” He brushed her lips with his thumb. “Well, not actually. You have never let me down, either.”
“Until this morning.” Her lower lip trembled and she bit it.
“You did not let me down.”
“How can you say that?” she asked.
“It is the truth. We are done assigning blame, remember?”
“I don’t think I got the memo.” She gave a pale version of her usual teasing smile, but at least she was no longer on the verge of tears.
He hoped. “We agreed this morning.”
“That was not agreement, that was you saying it did no good.”
“I am right.”
“You have what can be an annoying tendency to think you are.” But she nuzzled his neck and he was not too worried.
“What can I say? I usually am.”
She pulled back and gave him a gloating glare. “Ah, so you admit to at least some small level of infallibility.”
“Naturally.”
“You’re so darn arrogant.” She shook her head in bemusement. “Why do I find that charming again?”
“You tell me.”
“I plead the Fifth.”
“We are in Greece,” Zephyr pointed out, “not the U.S. The Fifth Amendment does not apply here.”
“I bet the Greek constitution has some similar guarantee against having to testify against themselves for their citizens.”
“We are getting off topic here.”
“You’re right.” Piper gathered her thoughts. “Why, if you trust friendship so much, do you think a marriage based on it would fail?”
“I did not say I believed a marriage between us would fail utterly, but it would fail to make you happy.” And ultimately, that had decided him against the prospect.
“Why? Would you plan to sleep around after?”
“No. I could give you fidelity.” Of that, he had no doubts. “However, I could not give you something you’ve made clear is of equal importance to you.” Long before their discussion of love at dinner the other night, he had known she was still waiting for her fairy-tale ending complete with love ever after and Prince Charming.
He was a former street rat, no prince, and love was not, and never would be, on his agenda.
“You’re talking about love again, aren’t you?”
