The Love Islands Collection. Jane PorterЧитать онлайн книгу.

       CHAPTER FOUR

      IT TOOK FOREVER for Georgia to fall asleep.

      She’d only been in Greece a few hours and yet she was already wishing she’d never agreed to travel to Kamari. The money wasn’t worth it—

      She stopped herself there.

      The money would be worth it, if she calmed down and focused. Getting upset wasn’t going to help. She’d been through many difficult experiences in her life and she could handle this one.

      With that said, it would have been better to have known more about Nikos Panos than she did. Mr. Laurent had told her a little bit about the Panos family when she’d been selected for the surrogacy. He’d explained that the Panos family’s fortune was fairly recent, only since the end of World War II, and that they’d made their money rebuilding war-torn Europe, then branched from construction into shipping and from shipping into retail.

      She did a little more research on her own at that point. The Panos story wasn’t all sunshine and roses. The company had floundered during the past decade, poor investments and too much expansion in the wrong direction. Teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, son and heir Nikos Panos took the helm and turned the floundering company around.

      Nikos’s success had reassured her. She’d assumed he was successful and stable. She needed to learn not to make assumptions.

      Or perhaps she needed to stop thinking about Nikos. Maybe she needed to practice detachment. And not just about Nikos, but the pregnancy, too.

      She’d lost so much when her parents and sister and grandparents died. And now she had to be careful she didn’t get her heart broken again. He wasn’t her baby. He wasn’t her son. Nor would he ever be.

      Georgia finally fell asleep, but the morning came far too quickly. Waking, she frowned at the bright sunshine. She was not ready for the tour or more time with him.

      Boundaries and distance, she told herself, showering and then dressing, choosing skinny jeans and an oversize gray cashmere sweater and gray ankle boots. The sky was clear, but her room was cold and outside the wind howled, buffeting the stone villa.

      Boundaries and distance, she repeated when Nikos knocked at her bedroom door a few minutes later, coming to collect her personally for the morning tour.

      It was a shock seeing him in the windowless hall, cloaked in shadows. He was wearing black trousers and a black shirt, and although she was tall, he towered over her, his broad shoulders filling the doorway, consuming space.

      His dark gaze swept over her before focusing on her feet. “Please change the boots to something more practical.”

      She choked on an uncomfortable laugh, thinking he was joking, but he didn’t laugh or smile. Her brows lifted, unable to believe they were starting a new day this way. “You’re serious?”

      “That’s the third pair of boots. Heeled boots—”

      “These are practically flats. The heel is maybe an inch tall.”

      “They are two inches or more, and you’re not going to wear them and risk twisting an ankle or breaking your neck.”

      “I don’t know what clumsy women you dated in the past—”

      “We are not on a date. You are a surrogate. Change your shoes.”

      She laughed. She couldn’t help it.

      From the darkening of his expression, he hadn’t expected that response, which made another bubble of laughter rise. She struggled to smash this one, too, but the sound escaped, and she bit the inside of her lip, trying to muffle her amusement and failing miserably.

      Did he really expect her to jump to his bidding? Was he accustomed to women bowing and scraping?

      Clearly he had no idea who he was dealing with. The Nielsen sisters were not pushovers. Neither Savannah nor Georgia were known to be quiet, timid, pliable women. The daughters of Norwegian American missionaries, they’d grown up overseas, moving with their parents from mission to mission, before losing their family in a horrific assault four years ago. Georgia and her sister had battled through the grief together and had emerged stronger than ever.

      And Nikos should know that.

      He’d selected her from thousands of egg donors and potential surrogates. Mr. Laurent told her that Nikos had examined her profile in great depth as he was very specific about what he wanted—age, birth date, height, weight, blood type, eye color, natural hair color, education, IQ.

      “You laugh,” Nikos said grimly.

      “Yes, I did, and I will again if you continue to act as if you’re a barbarian. I might be your paid surrogate, but I’ve a good brain, and I don’t need you telling me what to do every time I turn around.”

      “Then your good brain and your common sense should tell you that wearing impractical shoes is asking for trouble.”

      “They are ankle boots, with a tiny stacked heel.” She held up her fingers, showing him a sliver of space between her thumb and pointer finger. “Tiny.”

      His sigh was heavy and loud. “You are as exasperating as a child.”

      “I don’t know how much experience you’ve had with children, but you do seem to be an expert in belittling women—”

      “I’m not belittling women in general. We’re discussing you.”

      “You might be surprised to discover that I don’t want your attention. I don’t want your company, either. You are insufferably arrogant. I completely understand why you live on a rock in the middle of the sea. Nobody wants to be your neighbor!”

      “And I think you enjoy fighting.”

      “I don’t enjoy fighting, but I’m not about to bow and scrape. I don’t like conflict, but I won’t let you, or anyone, bulldoze over me.” She was breathing fast, and her hands knotted at her sides. “You started this, you know. You talk to me as if I’m feebleminded—”

      “I’m helping you.”

      “You’d help me more by staying out of my business. I don’t tell you how to eat or exercise. I don’t tell you how to dress or what shoes to wear—”

      “I’m not pregnant.”

      “No, I am—that’s correct. And when I’m upset my blood pressure goes up and my hormones change and the baby feels all of it. Do you think it’s good for your child when you get me all worked up? Or maybe since he is your son he enjoys a good fight.”

      Nikos scowled at her. “I don’t enjoy a fight, and nor does he.”

      “Then if you don’t enjoy a fight, don’t provoke one.”

      “Maybe you are the one that needs to compromise.”

      “I am. I have. I’m here!” Georgia gestured to the room, the window, the view beyond. “I left my home to be your guest for three and a half months, and I’ve given up everything to make you happy. You can try to make me happy, Nikos.”

      He stretched out his arms, putting an elbow on either side of the plastered doorway, his shoulders forming a thick, muscular wall. He drew a slow, deep breath, his dark eyes burning, revealing his chaotic emotions. “We are not going to do this for the next three-plus months,” he growled as a lock of his thick black hair fell forward, half hiding one dark eye, concealing the scars at his temple. “This is my home, my sanctuary. It’s where I live