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Lisa came down the stairs and in her arms was a baby.
Naomi was struck by how much the little boy looked like Chris. Same dark eyes and hair, but the little boy had the biggest cheeks she’d ever seen, and a gummy smile that completely lit up his face when he saw Chris.
“Sorry,” Lisa said, handing the baby over to Chris. “He got up late and then his whole schedule was thrown off.”
“It’s okay,” Chris said. “Enjoy lunch with your cousin. I’ll see you back here in an hour.”
Chris then turned his entire focus onto his son as he carried him up the stairs away from the hallway. The baby gurgled and laughed, and all Naomi could do was stand there in stunned silence.
Her heart was melting as she watched how loving he was with his son.
And thought how completely heartbroken it made her feel.
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_8acf4050-f349-5d25-af8a-50b06b33a66b)
SHE COULDN’T GET the picture of Chris carrying his son up the stairs out of her mind. How he’d held the baby so close and just how much he’d doted on him.
Would he have doted on their baby just as much?
She wanted to think he would, but she couldn’t be sure, and the fact that they would never know made her sad. Made her ache.
It had been a long time since she’d let herself think about her baby and the miscarriage. She never let her mind go there...it was too painful.
Work usually took care of that, but now she was working with Chris and he constantly reminded her of what might have been. What she might have had.
“You’re awfully quiet, Naomi,” Lisa said, interrupting Naomi’s thoughts.
“What?”
“I said you’re quiet,” Lisa teased. “I thought you were a chatterbox when we first met.”
“Sorry. I’ve got a lot on my mind.” Naomi fidgeted with her napkin and tried to put Chris and his son out of her mind—but she couldn’t.
She just saw him again and again in her mind’s eye, kissing that baby who was the spitting image of him.
“I noticed. You’ve completely missed those handsome men over there who have been trying to get your attention for some time.”
Naomi turned and glanced over at the men in question. They were young—around Lisa’s age, which was about eight years her junior. They were definitely flirting with them, but Naomi wasn’t interested.
“Did you know your father’s mother? Our yia-yia?”
Lisa frowned. “Not really. She died when I was about seven years old. She lived outside of Athens and we rarely went to see her. She hated my mother. And Yia-yia travelled a lot. She died shortly after she came back from America.”
“She used to say I was cursed.” Naomi laughed half-heartedly.
Lisa looked confused. “Cursed? What? You were like...what...? Fourteen when you met her?”
Naomi nodded. “Yep—and she called me cursed or the cursed one the entire time she was visiting. Really annoyed my mother and father.”
“Well, my father said that Yia-yia had that effect on people. I don’t think you’re cursed, and I definitely don’t believe in curses, but people around here do take religion seriously. When they bring out the Saint for his yearly airing, people are really into seeing his mummified remains being carted around in a gold sarcophagus. They say it brings good luck, but I don’t know...”
“I could use some good luck,” Naomi said, and groaned. “This bachelor auction is coming up fast at the end of the month. It’s being held in Athens now, rather than on Mythelios, so we can get more exposure and hopefully more funds for the wider community as well as the clinic. Theo thought I was the perfect person to take it on, and it’s a great idea, but now I have to find some bachelors from Mythelios to auction off. Bachelors who are willing to give a romantic fantasy type of date. I was hoping to coerce some of the male doctors here into it, but they all have someone.”
Lisa took a sip of her iced tea. “There’s always my boss. He’s single. He has a baby, but it’s just a date for charity. It’s not like you’re selling off husbands or something. I’m sure if he knew what it was for he’d say yes. He’s quite generous.”
I’m sure.
“I’m sure he has enough women on his hands that he doesn’t need to be auctioned off.”
Lisa frowned. “Actually, no, I’ve never seen him on a date. He’s totally devoted to his son and his work. Mind you, I’ve only known him since I was hired to care for Evan. I don’t remember him from when my family would visit the island when I was a child.”
“Do you know anything about the baby’s mother?”
Lisa frowned. “Nothing. I just know that she’s not in the picture and that Chris has full custody of his son. Which is why he hired me shortly after he returned to Greece a few weeks ago. The only woman who lived with him before I came was Dr. Erianthe Nikolaides, but not for long. She’s married to Dr. Xenakis now.”
Naomi worried at her bottom lip, because she couldn’t help but wonder what kind of woman Evan’s mother was. Why didn’t she want her baby?
Naomi would’ve given anything to keep her baby.
One thing she knew: she felt really sorry for that sweet little boy, growing up without a mother.
“I can’t ask Dr. Moustakas to take part in the bachelor auction,” she said, steering the subject back to the auction because she didn’t want to think about Chris and his baby. How it had made her completely weak in the knees to see them together.
She’d never seen him like that before. So gentle, so loving. It made her long for what had been taken from her. For what she’d never got to have.
“You can ask Dr. Moustakas. He’ll probably say yes—and, honestly, he needs a night away,” Lisa said. “He really has no life.”
Lisa continued to chat about different things, but Naomi was only half listening. It surprised her to hear that Chris had become something of a hermit when he’d been the quintessential playboy in Manhattan—or so all the tabloids had said, when she was doing her fellowship in Nashville.
The church bell in the center of the old town chimed the hour.
“I’d better get back. Evangelos is due for a walk and Dr. Moustakas has to get back to work.” Lisa picked up her shawl and purse. “Are you heading back to Athens tonight?”
Naomi nodded. “There’s no place to stay on the island after the earthquake—though Dr. Nikolaides did offer a boathouse. But a place like that is more suited to a bachelor. Are you headed back to Athens too?”
“No, I’m on for three nights and then off for two. I have a small room close to Evangelos. I suppose when the boy gets older I’ll be making the commute daily, but it’s really not that long.”
“No, but it would be easier to stay here. Isn’t there a ferry that goes to Spritos?”
Lisa frowned. “Spritos? What do you need to do there?”
“There’s another small clinic there, and I was told Spritos could be accessed by ferry from Mythelios.”
“On the other side of the island. The ferry only runs twice a day. Once in the morning and once in the evening. Pray you don’t get stuck there, because they really have nothing—but it’s a beautiful place.”
Naomi walked Lisa back to Chris’s house.
“I hope we can visit more,” Lisa said as she unlocked the old wooden door to Chris’s home. “It’s nice that you’re here, and if Yia-yia did put a curse on you, perhaps we can lift it, eh?”
Naomi laughed. “I would like that.”
She turned and began walking back to the clinic. She made slow progress and was annoyed with herself for wearing completely impractical heels—especially when walking on cobbled streets. Then her heel broke, and she swore out loud and leaned precariously against a wall to inspect the damage.
Yep. Definitely cursed.
There was the beep of a horn behind her, and she looked over her shoulder to see a little scooter being driven by none other than Chris, who was grinning from ear to ear as he leaned over the front.
“I told you those heels would be your downfall one day.”
She snorted. “I wasn’t thinking. In Athens it’s no big deal.”
“Here, especially on the cobbled streets of the old part of town, flats are your friend. How badly is it broken?”
“Bad—but I do have a pair of flip-flops in my bag back at the clinic. I was planning on getting a pedicure in Athens when I returned tonight.”
“Well, you won’t make it hobbling like that. Do you want a ride to the clinic?”
She eyed the scooter speculatively. “I thought you walked.”
“In the morning, yes, but I’m running late and I thought I’d take this for a spin. It was my yia-yia’s and is proving handy.”
“Your yia-yia’s?” Naomi tried to picture a tiny little grandmother, dressed in black, motoring around Mythelios on this little turquoise scooter.
“Why not?”
“A scooter’s not very practical for a man with a baby.”
“I have a car on the mainland. The ferry’s not a far walk and neither is the clinic. Do you want a ride or do you want to spend all day holding up that wall?”
“Thanks.”
Naomi hobbled over to him and climbed precariously onto the back of the scooter, sitting sidesaddle behind him because she was wearing a tight pencil skirt. She crossed her legs at the ankles.
He glanced over his shoulder at her. “Uh...you do have to hold on.”
“There’s nothing to hold on to.”
“Sure there is. Me. You have to hold on to me.”
Definitely cursed.
“Fine,” she murmured as she slipped her arms around his waist.
Under his loose scrubs she could feel every single one of his abdominal muscles, and when she closed her eyes, she could see him without his shirt on and it made her heart beat just a little bit faster.
She’d never really forgotten the electric effect he’d had on her, and being so close to him now, with her body pressed against his, it all came rushing back, making her blood heat and her palms sweat.
She hated that he still had this effect on her. Why did he still have this effect on her? Why was she letting him get to her?
Because you’re weak. Because you’ve never really gotten over him.
“You ready?”
“No!” she said, but nodded.
He chuckled. “Hang on.”
Chris revved the engine and the little scooter took off down the hill, through the narrow cobbled streets of the old part of Mythelios. Naomi closed her eyes tight for a few moments as Chris drove like a maniac through the streets, but then he turned away from the clinic road onto another road. A dirt track that overlooked the sea.
“Where are we going?” she shrieked over the roar of the engine.
“Just taking the back way,” he teased. “A more scenic route, since you probably haven’t seen all of Mythelios yet.”
“Uh, no—I really need to get back.”
“Live a little, Naomi. You’re always so uptight.”
That was what he’d said to her when they’d first met, and look where that had gotten her. It had left her with a broken heart, an unimaginable loss and, for the first time in her life, without a clue as to how to go on.
She’d fought hard to dig herself out of that pit of heartbreak and learn to put herself first. She wasn’t going to let him do that to her again.
“Chris, stop this thing now!”
Chris pulled over into a lay-by and stopped the scooter. Once she was off, she slipped off her shoes and began to walk barefoot down the dirt track toward the clinic.
“Naomi, I was only joking.”
She spun around. “That’s the thing. You’re always joking! I have real work to do. I have patients to see this afternoon! I don’t have time to waste driving all over the island just because I need to let loose! I’ve done enough of that in my life and look where it got me.”
Tears were stinging her eyes—not because she was sad, but because she always cried when she got mad, and she was mad about this whole situation. How he thought things could ever be normal between them was a mystery to her.
Maybe she was cursed and maybe he had all the luck, but she worked hard for what she wanted, for what she’d achieved, and she wasn’t going to let him stand in her way this time.
“Naomi!” he called out, but she ignored him, limping along the road, feeling small pebbles digging into the soles of her feet.
Chris came jogging up beside her and took her hand in his. It was so strong, so warm.
“I’m sorry, Naomi.”
There was sincerity in his eyes, and a well of sadness.
“Please let me take you back to the clinic and I’ll make it up to you any way that I can.”
“You’ll make it up to me?” she asked.
He nodded. “Of course. I was impertinent and flippant and I’ll do whatever it takes to make things right. I’ll do whatever it takes to make this whole thing go away so we can work together.”
“Okay.” She grinned suddenly. “I know exactly how you can make it up to me.”
