Marika…He thought of his ex-wife now and fought back anger that stayed with him still. But you needed to move on. He needed to move on.

He had.

Or he thought he had until he’d seen Athena tonight. She was every bit the girl he remembered-but now she was a woman. Her eyes had tiny creases-smile lines. Did she smile often? Did the unknown Oscar and Nicholas make her smile?

He’d forgotten how she’d made him feel-or maybe he’d blocked it out. Looking at her across the restaurant table tonight…it had taken all the power he had to keep his voice neutral, to keep his feelings in check.

She was still Athena-the girl he’d loved to the point of madness-and then she’d chosen her career over him. The woman he’d held in a corner of his heart for ten long years.

Oh, there’d been other women-of course there had. As the owner of the biggest fishing fleet in the Diamond Isles he was considered more than eligible. He was never lost for…companionship, only every woman he dated compared with Athena.

Even the woman he’d married.

Especially the woman he’d married.

The old anger gripped him, tore at him. The old hunger…

Only it wasn’t an old hunger. It was as real and as raw tonight as it had ever been.

He opened the door to the adjoining hotel room. The woman from the hotel sitting service rose to leave.

‘She’s been very good, sir. I read her the book like you said. She even undressed herself. I didn’t think…’

‘That’s great,’ he said. He didn’t want to hear what she didn’t think.

‘Goodnight, then,’ the woman said and slipped away into the night.

He stood for a moment gazing down at Christa. His daughter was sucking her thumb, even in sleep. She shouldn’t-but who cared?

He crossed to the bed and sat down beside his sleeping child. He stroked her pretty dark hair. She opened her eyes and smiled sleepily at him. ‘Papa.’