THE FINAL FALSON SAYS I DO (14 page)

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CHAPTER ONE

April 27

E
VERY
TIME
MORE
hotel guests entered the beachfront resort
restaurant on Grace Bay in the Turks and Caicos Islands in the Caribbean,
Stephanie expected to see her black-haired Adonis appear. That was how she
thought of Dev Harris.

After their fantastic ninety-foot dive to Elephant Ear Canyon
that afternoon to see the huge sponges, the tall, powerfully built New Yorker,
who resembled a Greek god, had whispered that he’d meet her in the dining room
at eight for dinner. They’d watch the sunset
and later,
each other.

As he’d helped her out of the dive boat, giving her arm a warm
squeeze, his eyes, black as jet, conveyed the words he didn’t speak in front of
the others in their scuba diving group. He was living for another night with her
like last night.

She’d reluctantly left him to go to the beachfront condo and
get ready for dinner. Her silvery-gold hair needed a shampoo. She’d decided to
wear it loose from a side part. Time with the blow dryer and a brush brought out
the natural curl, causing it to flow across her shoulders.

With the golden tan she’d picked up, tonight she’d chosen to
wear a blue sleeveless sundress. She wanted to look beautiful for him. Last
night she’d worn a filmy tangerine-colored dress and had bought a shimmering lip
gloss to match. He’d told her that, in the dying rays of the sun, she’d look
like a piece of golden fruit he longed to devour very slowly and thoroughly.

Her body trembled just remembering those words. While she
waited for him to come, the memory of the way he’d made love to her over and
over again made it difficult to breathe. It was her first intimate experience
with a man, and had happened so naturally she felt as if she was living in a
dream, one from which she never wanted to awaken.

In ten days’ time Stephanie had fallen so deeply in love, her
whole world had changed. Throughout her dating years she’d had various
boyfriends. Just last week she’d gone on a date with a guy named Rob Ferris, who
ran an auto parts franchise, but she knew when he took her home after dinner
that she really wasn’t interested in a second date.

Then she met Dev. The first time she’d seen him walking toward
the boat with the dive master, her breath had caught. When their gazes collided,
that was it. The feeling she’d been waiting for all her adult life.

Other relationships with past boyfriends had nothing to do with
the profound kind of love she felt for the sophisticated thirty-two year-old
bachelor, who’d told her he was in the international exporting business. He blew
away every other man in existence.

Her three girlfriends who’d arranged their April vacations to
come on this scuba diving trip with her fully agreed he was out-of-this-world
gorgeous. Melinda thought he must be one of those frogmen from the military, the
way he maneuvered under the water. He was certainly built like one.

Stephanie agreed with her friends, but there was more to Dev
than his physical attributes and diving skills. Much more. Everything he said
and did revealed that he was well-traveled and educated, making him exceptional,
and so charismatic she could hardly breathe when she thought about him.

Where was he? By now it was quarter to nine. Obviously, he’d
been held up. The only thing to do was go back to her room and call him on the
hotel land line. His beachfront condo, where they’d spent last night, was
located on the other side of the restaurant, but she thought she should phone
him first.

Stephanie was on her way out when a waiter came toward her with
a florist box in his hands. “Ms. Walsh? This is for you, with Mr. Harris’s
compliments.”

Thrilled to have received it, she went back to the table to
take off the lid. He was probably on his way to her now. Inside the tissue was a
corsage of gardenias with a card.

Thank you for the most memorable ten days and
nights of my life, Stephanie. Your sweetness is like these gardenias and
I’ll never forget you. Unfortunately, I’ve had to leave the island because
of an emergency at my work that couldn’t be handled by anyone else. Enjoy
the rest of your trip and be safe flying back to Crystal River. I miss you
already. Dev.

Stephanie sat there and felt the blood drain from her face.

Her spring idyll was over.

He’d already driven to the airport to catch his flight to New
York.
Of course
he hadn’t left her a phone number or
address, nor had he asked her for the same information. On purpose he hadn’t
given her a shred of hope that they’d ever see each other again.

She had to be the biggest fool who’d ever lived.

No, there was one other person she knew who shared that honor.
Her mother, who’d died from cancer after Stephanie had graduated from college.
Twenty-four years ago Ruth Walsh had made the same mistake with an irresistible
man. But whoever he was hadn’t stuck around once the fun was over, either.
Stephanie didn’t know his name and had no memories of him, only that her mother
had said he was good-looking, exciting and an excellent skier.

He and Dev were two of a kind.

Stephanie closed her eyes tightly. How many females went off on
vacation and supposedly met their soul mate, who swept them off their feet, only
to abandon them once the excitement wore off? It had to be in the hundreds of
thousands, if not the millions. Stephanie, like her mother, was one of those
pathetic statistics who’d gotten caught up in the rapture.

White-hot with anger for being in her mid-twenties before
learning the lesson she should have had memorized early in life, because of her
birth father, Stephanie shot out of the chair. As she passed the waiter, she
gave him a couple dollars and told him to get rid of the things she’d left on
the table.

Stephanie didn’t know about her friends, but she couldn’t
possibly stay on the island for the last four days of their trip. Tomorrow
morning she’d be on the first plane back to Florida. If a man was too good to be
true, then shame on the woman who believed she was the first female to beat the
odds.

Dev was so attractive there had to be trails of broken-hearted
females around the scuba diving world who knew exactly what it was like to lie
in his arms and experience paradise, only to wake up and discover he’d moved
on.

He’d told her that scuba diving was his favorite form of
recreation. What he hadn’t mentioned was that womanizing went hand in hand with
his favorite pastime. It was humiliating to think she was one of those imbeciles
who didn’t have the sense to take one look at him and run far away as fast as
possible.

Too furious for tears, she returned to the condo, thankful her
roommates were still out. They’d probably gone into town to party with some of
the other tourists staying at the resort. That gave Stephanie time to change her
flight reservation and pack without them asking a lot of questions.

By tomorrow afternoon she’d be back on the job. Stephanie loved
her work. Right now she was planning on it saving her life.

If she let herself think about those long walks with Dev, past
the palms and Casuarina trees while they were entwined in each other’s arms,
she’d go mad.

July 13

“Captain Vassalos?”

Nikos had just finished putting on the jacket of his
uniform—the last time he would wear it. Steadying himself with his crutches, he
looked around in time to see Vice Admiral Eugenio Prokopios of the Aegean Sea
Naval Command in Piraeus, Greece, enter his hospital room and shut the door. The
seasoned Greek naval hero was an old friend of his father and grandfather.

“This is an honor, sir.”

“Your parents are outside waiting for you. I told them I wanted
to come in first to see you. After your last mission, we can be thankful the
injury to your spine didn’t paralyze you, after all.”

Thankful?

Nikos cringed. His last covert operation with Special Forces
had wiped out the target, but his best friend, Kon, had been killed. As for
Nikos, his doctor told him he would never be the man he once was. His spine
ought to heal in time, but he’d never be 100 percent again, and couldn’t stay in
the Greek military as a SEAL, not when he would probably suffer episodes of PTSD
for a long time, maybe even years.

He’d been getting counseling and was taking a serotonin
reuptake inhibitor to help him feel less worried and sad, but he’d had several
nightmares. They left him feeling out of control and depressed.

“Now that you’re being released from the hospital this morning,
it won’t be long before you won’t need those crutches.”

Nikos hated the sight of them. “I’m planning on getting rid of
them as soon as possible.”

“But not until you’ve had a good long rest after your
ordeal.”

“A good long rest”
was code for one
reality. The part of his life that had brought challenge and purpose was
finished. Only blackness remained.

“I don’t expect it to take that much time, sir.”

After a two and a half months’ hospitalization, Nikos knew
exactly why the vice admiral had shown up. This was his father’s work. He’d been
thwarted when Nikos had joined the military, and expected his son to return to
the family business. Now that he was incapacitated, his father had sent his good
friend Eugenio to wish him well with a pep talk about getting back in the family
fold.

The older man eyed him solemnly. “Our navy is grateful for the
heroic service you’ve rendered in Special Forces. You’re a credit to your family
and our country. Your father is anxious for you to resume your place with your
brother at the head of Vassalos Shipping so he can retire.”

His father would never retire.

Vice Admiral Prokopios had just let Nikos know—in the kindest
way, of course—that though his military service was over, the family business
was waiting to embrace him again. Of course, the older man knew nothing about
Nikos’s history with his father, or he would never have said what he did.

Until after Nikos was born and turned out to be a Vassalos,
after all, his father hadn’t believed he was his son, all because of a rumor
that turned out to have no substance. The experience had turned him into a
bitter, intransigent man. The damage inflicted on the Vassalos marriage carried
over to the children, and had blighted Nikos’s life.

The navy turned out to be his escape from an impossible
situation. But ten years later it was back in triplicate.

He was thirty-two years of age, and
everything was over.

Sorrow weighed him down at the loss of Kon Gregerov. Nikos’s
best friend from childhood, who’d come from a wonderful family on nearby
Oinoussa Island, had joined the navy with him. The man had been like a brother,
and had helped keep Nikos sane and grounded during those tumultuous years while
he fought against his father’s domination, among other things.

He and Kon had plans to go into their own business together
once they’d retired from the military, but his friend had been blown up in the
explosion that almost killed Nikos.

It should have been me.

“I’m sorry you were forced to leave Providenciales unexpectedly
to perform your last covert operation. So when you’re ready, we’ll send you back
there for more rest and relaxation.”

Nikos’s stomach muscles clenched at the mere mention of
Providenciales. That experience had been like a fantastic dream, one he’d
relived over and over on those nights in the hospital when he wasn’t suffering
flashbacks. To go back there again without
her
would
kill him. After what had happened to him, there could be no Stephanie Walsh in
his life. He was going in another direction entirely.

“Nikos?” the vice admiral prodded.

“Thank you for the kind offer, but I’d rather recuperate at
home.”

“If that’s your wish.”

“It is.”

“Then I’ll say goodbye for now. Be assured I’m mighty proud of
you. Good luck.”

They saluted before he left the room. Moments later one of the
hospital staff entered with a wheelchair. As Nikos sat down, his parents swept
into the room. They’d been constant visitors, but they hovered until he felt he
would choke.

“Darling!” his mother exclaimed, and hugged him before carrying
his crutches for him. “You look wonderful despite your weight loss. Once we get
you home, we’ll fatten you up in no time. Your grandparents are elated and your
sister and Timon have already arrived with the children to welcome you
back.”

“This is a great day, son.” His exultant father embraced him
before reaching for his luggage. “Leon’s eager to talk business with you.”

Nikos had no intention of working in the family business like
his elder brother, and his father knew it. But his dad never let up about
anything, and it had driven a wedge between them that couldn’t be breached.
However, now wasn’t the time to get into it. The three of them moved out of the
room and down the corridor.

“How did it go with Eugenio?”

As if his father didn’t know. “Fine.”

They emerged from the main doors of the hospital under a blue
sky. Once they were settled inside the limousine, his father said, “We’ve been
waiting for this day. So has Natasa. She and her parents will be joining us
tomorrow evening for a small party.”

Nikos’s anger flared. “Then
uninvite
them. You might as well know that after tonight, I’ll be
living on the
Diomedes
while I get my strength
back.” He was sick of visitors and hospital staff. He needed to be completely
alone and didn’t want anyone to know his activities. His boat would be his
refuge from now on.

“You can’t do that to us
or
to
her!” his father thundered. “You’ve put this situation with Natasa on hold for
long enough. A marriage between the two of you has been understood for years.
She’s expecting it now that you’re home for good. Your mother and I want you to
give us grandchildren. We’ve waited long enough.”