* * *
“You’re still here, Kýrie Angelis?”
Nico looked up at the night watchman who’d worked for his father. It was ten after six in the evening. “Sunday’s the best time to get things done. No one else is around.”
“I never saw anyone work so hard.”
“How else to try and fill my father’s shoes?”
“You already do that, kýrie.”
“Don’t I wish, but thank you, Gus. I’ll be gone from here shortly. Have a good evening.”
As soon as the older man left, Nico took his private elevator to the apartment above the office. After Raisa’s death, he’d sold their villa in Salonica and had bought the one on Sarti, near the town of Sithonia that he now called home.
When he had to be in town, however, he stayed here for convenience since his father hadn’t used it for several years. Last night after seeing Mara at dinner he’d flown to Sithonia to get some needed items, then he’d returned to the office apartment. Work was always waiting for him. Today he’d settled down to stay busy. It was the only panacea to keep him from climbing the walls while he waited for tonight to come.
Mara hadn’t sent a message to let him know she’d received his text, let alone confirmed that she planned to meet him. He didn’t have any expectations where she was concerned, but it didn’t matter.
Nico couldn’t get used to the idea that her real name was Alexa Remis, that she’d lived with her daughter and grandparents in Canada after leaving Salonica for good.
No wonder Nico had never been able to find her! To think of the hours, weeks and months he’d spent trying to track her down in Greece, then in France. Tio had helped him after his marriage to Irena, but there’d been no trace of Leia or the Vasilakis family either. Like Mara, they’d disappeared off the face of the earth.
For a long time he feared the worst—that she’d been kidnapped or killed—even though there’d been no news of any kind to support that theory. His parents, who’d tried to help him, tended to think the same thing. It haunted him until one day when Giannina said, Have you ever thought she just doesn’t want to be found? Maybe she met another guy after you left and didn’t want to tell you. Maybe she felt trapped.
He’d stared at his practical sister, so wise even though she was two years younger. You really think that’s the answer?
I don’t know. I like guys, but can’t imagine being tied down to one until I’m at least twenty-five or twenty-six. Maybe not even then. But for you to spend your life looking for her when you could have any woman you wanted makes no sense.
If that’s true, then she was a coward not to tell me goodbye.
Maybe not a coward, but a flirt who got in too deep and was too young and frightened to tell you the truth. I know it’s easy for me to say, but I wouldn’t waste another minute thinking about her.
After all these years, their conversation rang true as he headed for Perea Beach. Last night he’d learned for himself that his sister had been right. Mara had met another guy and had had his baby. She’d also given Nico a false name and background.
Had she operated that way with every guy she’d met back then? Maybe she’d been young like himself, but he st
ill had a hard time imagining most girls that age were so deceitful.
He made his way to the beach. A white BMW sat in one of the parking spaces at the side of the restaurant. He recognized it from the night before and was glad to see she had the guts to face him and he wouldn’t have to track her down.
Grabbing his knapsack, he got out of the car and walked inside. The hostess greeted him warmly. “Kalispéra, kýrie.” She smiled at him. “I’ve seen you on television. Welcome to our restaurant.”
“Efharisto.”
“Where would you like to sit?”
“I’m meeting someone whom I think is already here, but I don’t see her.”
“Then she might be on the veranda. Feel free to go out and look for her.”
He took a deep breath and walked through the restaurant to the door leading to the veranda. Nico and Mara had eaten outside that last night he’d been in Salonica. When he saw her seated now at the same table as all those years before, his heart dropped to his feet. The possibility that she’d suffered amnesia could be stricken off his list.
He sat opposite her and put his knapsack on the chair next to him. The sun wouldn’t set for another hour and a half. The rays brought out the fabulous coloring of her hair. “Kalispéra, Mara.”
“Kalispéra,” she half whispered. Tears glazed her eyes, making them a deeper green, like the sea in front of them. In a simple pink top and white skirt, she looked so damn beautiful it destroyed any peace of mind he’d tried to achieve since last evening.
“I wondered if a day might come when we’d meet again by chance,” Nico said.