Nikolas Meets His Real Father

Nikolas met his father for the first time in Helena's makeshift lab. Stavros pretended to still be frozen, not trusting his son. He was justified when Nikolas said that he hated him. Luke later killed him, and Helena went to prison.

With that over, Nikolas faced his past again when Sarah Webber returned to Port Charles, which made Gia jealous. During dinner at a restaurant, Gia became upset about Sarah and left the restaurant before Nikolas did.

She was in a car accident with Courtney Matthews on the way home. Gia was at fault and drunk at the time; Nikolas would not allow her to confess her involvement and paid off witnesses.

Gia grew bored with life in Port Charles. She decided to go back to school to become a lawyer and went to work for Alexis Davis, Nikolas' aunt, who was also an attorney

Gia befriended a young man named Zander Smith. Jealous, Nikolas attempted to pay Zander to leave town. An angry Gia broke off her relationship with the Prince.

Nikolas and Emily Fall in Love; Nikolas Marries Someone Else

Gia was out of his life, and Emily, who had been away, was about to enter it with a proposition involving his same nemesis, Zander Smith.

Diagnosed with breast cancer, she considered herself terminal and didn't want Zander, her boyfriend, to know the truth. Emily asked Nikolas to help convince Zander that she and Nikolas had fallen in love, hoping that Zander would leave her before she died.

The plan worked, but Nikolas and Emily had to announce their engagement.

Stefan wasn't happy about the news. Helena recently had lost a lot of the family money, and he was terrified of bankruptcy. Stefan took several loans, and the creditors wanted repayment.

Banks will listen to payment arrangements, but loan sharks won't. If Stefan couldn't pay, he would be walking on stumps.

As a solution, he introduced Nikolas to Lydia Karenin, who was in line for a vast fortune if she married Nikolas. Since Nikolas was engaged to Emily, Stefan decided Emily would be better off dead at the bottom of the Wyndemere cliffs.

Stefan hired an assassin who would do the deed during Nikolas' engagement party. Parties at Wyndemere have a tendency to end in death, injuries, or breakups, and this one would prove no exception.

But it wasn't Emily who died. In the heavy fog, another young woman known to Nikolas and Luke, Summer Holloway, was killed instead.

Nikolas turned his attention to Emily and convinced her to attend a breast cancer survivor group meeting. She decided to fight the cancer and also to tell Zander the truth.

One small problem -- she and Nikolas by this time were in love. Torn, Nikolas decided to do the responsible thing for his family and marry Lydia, though he wanted nothing to do with her once they were married.

Turned out there was a little more to the condition for Lydia inheriting: she had to have a baby within five years.

When Emily was in critical condition, Nikolas ignored Lydia and stayed at the hospital. Believing she would soon be dead, Emily married Zander as a gift to him.

In a dream, she kissed and married Nikolas, and that brought her back from death. She would live. She told Nikolas that she would honor her marriage to Zander. Nikolas understood.

However, they almost made love one night, and that was caught on film. On seeing the photos, Zander went after Nikolas.

By this time, Nikolas had been beaten by Lorenzo Alcazar, one of the Cassadine creditors. Emily managed to stop Zander from beating Nikolas.

Buried Treasure and the End of the Cassadine Feud, Says Nikolas

Nikolas filed for divorce in order to be with Emily, whose marriage was a mess. Emily was there for him when Luke killed Stefan.

Nikolas put up a brave front but he felt sad and guilty. Nikolas informed Luke, who had escaped custody but later returned, that the Cassadine-Spencer feud ended with Stefan's death.

Nikolas' and Zander's rivalry over Emily continued. Emily distanced herself from both men, finally choosing Nikolas, who proposed when his divorce was final.

Nikolas was forced to confess to the Quartermaines that the Cassadines were broke. However, he planned attempted recovery of the Cassadine freighter The Courage, which had sunk centuries before with a of large shipment of treasure.

Tracy immediately hired Sam McCall to recover it for her family, while Nikolas hired Sam's father Cody.

Cody was murdered and found at Wyndemere -- Zander was blackmailing Ric to frame Nikolas for Cody's death. Ric got sick of Zander and his threats and, after he and Nikolas fought, threw Zander into jail. The charges against Nikolas were dismissed.

The treasure from the ship disappeared; Helena had stolen it for the Cassadines and told Nikolas the location of the hiding place.

Nikolas and Emily retrieved it with plans for an auction. Again, the treasure evaporated on auction night, the night of the Port Charles Hotel fire. For a time, it was believed that Nikolas died in the fire, but he surfaced a few days later at Wyndemere.

Emily informed him that Zander died in the fire, but he hadn't. Emily, Nikolas, Ric, and Elizabeth each received a letter, in which each person's mate was accused of killing Zander before the fire.

Nikolas was nearly arrested, as was Elizabeth, until Emily convinced Jason to claim that one of the detectives who died in the fire confessed that he killed Zander. Jason obliged.

Nikolas' Saga of Amnesia Begins

But Zander wasn't dead. He wanted to start over with Emily and showed up at the cottage where he and Emily had lived. He tried to have sex with her, saying that he had taken Nikolas hostage. He promised that if she slept with him, it would free him -- but he couldn't go through with forcing her to have sex.

Nikolas heard Zander was alive on the radio as he was driving back to Port Charles from a business trip. He called the police. Distracted by the radio announcement, Nikolas lost control of his car and swerved off of the road.

Zander died resisting arrest. Nikolas vanished from the scene of the accident. The feeling was that, half unconscious, he fell into the nearby river.

Nikolas was actually found by someone living nearby, Mary Bishop. She believed that Nikolas was her lookalike husband, Connor, who had been killed in Iraq.

Nikolas came to believe it as well and lived with Mary. Mary moved heaven and earth to keep Nikolas from finding out that he wasn't Connor. She even secured a job at GH and befriended Emily.