“All because of Monika,” he bit out.
“Yes. In time I finally had to accept the fact that Monika had been right. You’d played me, nothing more. It didn’t seem possible, not after we’d planned to be married once you returned from military service. We’d dreamed of a whole life together and talked about children, but I decided you really hadn’t meant it.”
Nico looked out over the water, turned inside out by what she was telling him. “My letters proved otherwise.”
“They did, but back then I had no knowledge of anything, and my agony increased when I discovered I was pregnant. I’d been nauseated at school and the doctor ran tests. I was so thrilled to be having your baby, but the unexpected news changed my entire world.”
“It would have changed mine if you’d gotten word to my parents.”
“I realize that now. My grandfather said he would track you down through your family so you could know you were a father. But I begged him not to do anything.
“I remembered you telling me your family had been forced to live down a scandal to do with your uncle Ari. I couldn’t remember details, but you said it had affected your aunt in a terrible way and she’d never been the same. I didn’t want to add to that misery with another scandal. And I felt such shame that my time with you had been nothing more than a summer fling, the kind Monika had alluded to.”
Nico let loose a curse.
“My only excuse was that I was a witless teenager who’d ignored my grandparents’ advice and had gotten into trouble like so many other girls. I definitely didn’t tell Monika I was expecting. She would have derided me for being the gullible fool who would now pay the price forever. I chose to say nothing to avoid her merciless ridicule.”
He lifted his head to look at her. “What’s happened to Monika?”
“Over time we stopped writing letters. She never had faith in your love for me. I no longer considered her a friend by the time she told me the truth. The last contact with her was that phone call. It altered my view of life.”
“Tell me about it,” he said in a withering tone.
“I’ve gone over that moment for nineteen years. What if I’d told Monika I was pregnant the moment I knew? Would she have felt shame and admitted to me what she’d done to sabotage our love? Would she have confessed that she’d returned every letter? Or would she have laughed and stayed silent?”
“That was a missed opportunity.”
“It was, Nico, and I’ll suffer for it for the rest of my life. Last month I saw you on TV and it made it worse to know you were so close.”
“You saw me on the news?”
“I’ve seen you several times, and it has haunted me. I reasoned that Dimitra was an adult now and could make up her own mind if she wanted to get to know you. Her age and distance were no longer a problem for visits.
“But I worried about you. Would you welcome a relationship with your grown-up daughter at this stage of life? How would it affect you and your wife and children? I was tortured by endless questions with no satisfactory answers. Then I saw you at Irena’s...”
“You handled your shock well enough,” he muttered.
“Thank you for not exposing me in front of the others. Dimitra will always blame me for keeping her apart from you. I know she’ll never forgive me. I don’t deserve forgiveness and will never know the answer to certain questions if I’d just come forward with the truth.
“Naturally you would have had no choice but to think the worst about the girl who’d promised to write you back faithfully every day until your military duty came to an end.”
Nico couldn’t take much more of this.
“I was blessed to be able to turn to my patient, loving grandparents who listened to my heartfelt plea to stay quiet and honored my wishes. They agreed to help me raise my love child. It wasn’t fair to them, Nico. They raised me from the age of five when my parents were killed in a train accident. My grandparents were and are saints.”
“I agree.”
“As you can imagine, Dimitra has turned out to be the great joy of my grandparents’ lives. She’s also my darling daughter who became my raison d’être.”
CHAPTER FIVE
ALEXA WALKED AROUND the deck for a minute, then drew closer to Nico. “Would you tell me a bit about your wife? Were you happy with her, Nico? Tell me you were.”
“Yes.” It was the truth.
“I’m so glad. It means you recovered from what happened with us and wanted love in your life again.”
He gripped the side of the boat. This conversation about Raisa needed to end. “Didn’t you