What The Greek's Wife Needs - Dani Collins Page 0,21
was waiting. Kyrkos never missed a chance to catch up if they happened to cross paths in their travels on the Med, so it hadn’t surprised Leon that he’d hailed the yacht when he’d seen it. “I don’t think you’ve met my wife, Cameron.”
Not this one, no. Leon had been at the wedding when Kyrkos married his first wife, and had only heard through the grapevine that this youthful socialite had elevated herself from office assistant to mistress and recently to trophy wife.
“I made Kiki bring me, even though your captain said it’s a medical call. I’m dying to see this yacht I’ve heard so much about. Do you mind?” Cameron asked with an appealing tilt of her head.
“Not at all.” Lavish crafts like this existed to be shown off. “I’ll have a steward give you a tour.” Leon signaled to the crewman behind the bar.
“I thought I’d find you bleeding out,” Kyrkos said. “Who needs attention? One of the crew?”
“No—” It hit Leon that he didn’t have an explanation for who Tanja was. She was tucked in his bed so he couldn’t dismiss her as merely a guest. If Kyrkos decided she needed urgent care, Leon would want to be identified as her closest relative to authorize medical care so he couldn’t call her anything but what she was.
“I need you to check on my wife. Tanja.”
“You’re married? Oh, my God! Is she pregnant?” Cameron asked with hand-clasping glee.
“What? No,” Leon said firmly, reconsidering honesty as the best policy. “Can you show our guest every courtesy while I take the doctor up?” he said to the hovering steward.
“Of course, sir.” The crewman drew Cameron away while Leon took Kyrkos up the elevator.
“Wife?”
“Kiki?” Leon countered.
“I know,” Kyrkos muttered. “But now you’re married, you’ll soon learn it’s better to pick your battles than lose the war. When did you marry? How was I not invited to the wedding?”
“It’s a long story,” Leon dismissed, leading him toward his stateroom. “We were headed to Greece, but if Tanja needs a hospital, we’ll go back to Malta.”
The good doctor came up short at the sight of the baby cot.
“She is not pregnant, is she? What the hell, Leon? You have a baby?” He peered at the sleeping Illi. “How am I the last to hear? Cammy follows every gossip site in existence.”
“It’s not something we’ve advertised. My main concern right now is Tanja. We’re assuming it’s a stomach bug from drinking some stale water. She’s been running a fever since this morning and she’s nauseous.”
Tanja blinked in disorientation when he gently woke her, but predictably asked, “Where’s Illi?”
“Napping.” He pointed toward the adjacent room. “This is Dr. Kyrkos.”
“Hi.” Since she’d gone to bed with her hair damp, Tanja’s red-gold hair was bent in odd directions. Her face was pale, and his T-shirt hung off her bony shoulder when she sat up.
She answered his questions about her general health and the onset of symptoms, said “ah,” and accepted a thermometer under her tongue.
Her fever had come down thanks to the pills the medic had given her.
“I agree with the medic’s assessment. This will likely work itself out within a few days. Keep your fluids up, your fever down. If things worsen, definitely visit a doctor in Athens. I can take a sample to the lab in Malta as a precaution if you like, to be sure it isn’t anything more serious. We’re headed there.”
Tanja held out her arm for a blood draw and then took a cup into the head.
“Is she a model?” Kyrkos asked while Tanja was absent. “She’s very thin. Iron supplements and a multivitamin would be a good idea.”
Leon texted that instruction to the purser.
As Tanja came out of the head, Illi began to cry in the other room. Tanja would have gone to her, but Leon stopped her.
“I’ll look after her. Go back to bed.”
“She hasn’t eaten since we’ve been aboard, has she?”
“No, but I had all her bottles sent down to the chef so everything could be sterilized and ready when she needs it. I can handle it.” He was speaking with more bravado than genuine confidence, but Tanja looked so weak and peaked.
She wore an indecisive look, but Kyrkos said, “It’s a good idea to give her formula while you’re under the weather. Keep your strength up.”
“Oh, um—”
Leon could tell she was about to explain she hadn’t given birth to Illi and therefore wasn’t nursing. He signaled behind Kyrkos’s back to keep that detail to herself for now.
“Okay,” she