by Lucy Monroe
For him? For her?
Because if he’d always loved her, then what did that say about how easily he dismissed her feelings before?
“We need…” He paused like the words were too hard to find.
“What?” she prompted. “What do we need?”
“A place to talk where we will not be interrupted and where I can hold you properly.”
“Another hotel suite?” she said, teasingly, trying to lighten the mood a little.
He shook his head, his demeanor entirely grave. “This discussion is too personal for any place but our home.”
“Okay.”
He nodded. “Okay.”
He released her with one arm, but kept the other around her while he grabbed his phone and texted someone. A few minutes and several texts later, he said, “Done.”
“What?”
“Petros and Corrina will keep Helena tonight.”
“That’s kind of them.”
“Petros has an interest in us working through our problems.”
“He does?” Well of course he did. Petros loved his brother and he loved Polly like a sister now too.
“Yes,” Alexandros said grimly.
“Okay, well, it’s still nice of them.”
“It is, yes,” he admitted grudgingly. “Another instance where my brother is showing his considerate nature.”
“You can be really caring and considerate too, Andros.”
“Do you think so?” He didn’t sound like he believed she thought anything of the sort.
“It may have taken you five years to get there, but once you realized what your mom and sister were like with me, you put a stop to it. Once you realized I wanted to see more of you, you took steps to make that happen.”
“That doesn’t make me considerate. That makes me a desperate man who does not want to lose his wife.”
“But you can be considerate.”
“I’ve convinced Piper to redecorate the villa. She and Zephyr will be in Athens next week and she’ll consult with you then on what you want.”
“That really was thoughtful. Thank you.” Though Piper designed the decor for her husband’s resorts, she excelled at the type of warm and inviting decor that Polly loved.
“One instance out of how many where I ignored your preferences for expediency or taking my mother’s opinions over your own about what you needed?”
He really had been listening, but she didn’t like her super confident husband in this down spiral. He had made mistakes, but he really was doing his best to rectify them.
“Who was it who took the entire day to shop with me for nursery furniture? Who made sure I rested when I needed to?” And maybe sometimes when she didn’t. “Who bought me a second bassinet because I loved it?” She winked. “Who bought that second bassinet even after the very talented furniture maker flirted with me?”
The master carpenter had said Polly had her husband wrapped around her finger. Could it be true? Now?
Were Alexandros’s eyes open, and in opening them, had he become genuinely determined to see her as happy as possible?
“You had more in common with him than you do with me.”
“Not possible. I have love in common with you, and that’s bigger than anything else.”
“You think so?”
“I’m beginning to.”
His expression turned arrested. “You are.”
“Yes.”
The kiss they shared was beautiful and hot, and when the car stopped, the only thing Polly wanted to do when they got home was take her husband straight to bed.
Like he was reading her mind, Alexandros slammed the door to their home in the face of the security team.
By the time they reached their bedroom, neither had a stitch of clothing on and Polly’s lips were swollen and hot from kissing.
Alexandros lifted her and laid her on the bed as if she was both precious and breakable.
Then he joined her, his expression so intent. “Polly. Agape mou.”
They reached for each other at the same time, kissing and touching. The passion between them tinged with love so recently acknowledged.
He was tender.
She was pushy.
When their bodies connected, they both stilled and savored the moment. For the first time in so long, she felt a complete emotional connection with him every bit as deep and real as the physical one.
They moved together, his hands on her body, her hands giving pleasure where she could. She screamed with her orgasm, more tears burnished his eyes with his.
After, he held her close, kissing her temple, whispering words of love in Greek and English.
The walls around Polly’s heart crumbled as she accepted that he meant every single utterance. He wasn’t perfect, but he was undeniably hers, and she was the one thing he would never willingly give up.
“You never have to see my mother or sister again, if you don’t want to,” he promised with another soft kiss.
“Is that realistic?” she couldn’t help asking.
“They hurt you. They hurt us. We will make it realistic. No one will be allowed to hurt you again on my watch.”
“You can’t promise that.”
“Can’t I?”
“Well, your arrogance is back in force, I see.” She smiled at her gorgeous husband, thinking more about how happy she was than what they were talking about.
That was probably why it took her a moment to take in the words he was saying.
“We can move to America and be near your family.”
“What? What are you saying?”
“I have spoken to Petros, and he can take over running the company. I will take a secondary role in a new American office.”
“You? Secondary?” She couldn’t imagine.
“I want you happy, and you are not happy here with my family. You will be more content living near yours.”
“First, I am happy here. Now. Adjusting to life as your wife wasn’t easy. I won’t pretend otherwise, but I am your wife and I love our life in Greece.”
“You didn’t love it only a few weeks ago.”
“I didn’t love aspects of it, but we’ve found compromises to make our family life the stuff of my dreams.” They’d even agreed not to have a housekeeper for the penthouse, just some daily cleaning help, so Polly could cook any time she liked and take a more normalized role—for her—in her children’s and husband’s lives. The villa housekeeper had been very pleased to stay on in the country. “I’m so happy with the way things have been, I’m nearly sick with it.”
“I could not tell.”
She rested against him, finding a comfortable angle for her pregnant tummy. “I was afraid to show too much, to trust in the changes.”
“You thought everything would go back to the way it was.”
“Thought? No. Feared? Yes. I’m truly sorry, but yes.” She hadn’t trusted him. Not even a little. No matter how hard he’d been trying, Polly had struggled to believe the changes would be permanent.
But something had changed. Something inside her and maybe something inside him.
“And you do not fear this now?” he asked, like checking the facts.
“No. Now especially, I know.” After his offer to give up the legacy his father had left him and move to another country, she really knew. “I know that it’s worth fighting for what I need. It’s worth fighting for our family.”
“But it wasn’t before.”
“Before, I genuinely believed I wasn’t that important to you.” That all her fighting and arguing was just wasted energy.
“And now you believe differently?”
“You’ve made a lot of concessions for my happiness, things I didn’t recognize as such even before your rescue bid for our marriage.”
“No
t enough.”
“No, maybe it wasn’t enough, not then. At least not for me to keep trusting you with my heart.”
“But you trust me now. You told me you love me.”
“And I meant it.”
“As did I.”
“I know.”
“You believe.” His smile was incandescent.
She was feeling pretty glowy herself. “Yes, I believe.”
He took a deep breath, like girding himself to say something difficult. “I think you should consider us moving to America.”
“There is no need. I’m not going to think about doing something that will hurt you and I never wanted to begin with.”
“But—”
“No, Andros. This is our life and I can love this life as long as I know that the children and I are some of your top priorities. That you love me for me, not the emulation of the perfect Greek society wife your mom tried to make me into.”
“I have always loved you for you, and I never wanted you to become someone different. Though I can see now that I did a poor job of helping you adjust to our life or believe that. But you and our children are my top priorities.”
“I’ll remind you of that the next time you work until midnight two days in a row.”
“Not going to happen.”
“It will, sometimes…but that’s okay, so long as I know it will be the exception and not the rule.”
“A very rare if ever exception.”
He was such an overachiever, but she loved that about him, so Polly just smiled. “I bet Petros wasn’t keen to take over the company.”
“No, he was not, but he agreed.”
“What was the stick?”
“What do you mean?”
“A carrot wouldn’t have worked. There’s no incentive big enough to entice your brother into your role. He’s very happy being second in command.”
Alexandros shrugged. “If he didn’t want to take over, I was going to sell the company.”
“What?” Polly sat up and stared down at her too-relaxed husband. “You can’t do that. That company is your father’s legacy and his father before him.”
“Yes, but the legacy I want to build requires you by my side.”
“I wasn’t going anywhere.”
“And now we know you never will, but more importantly, we know that you will be happy staying.”
He got so focused when he had a goal. And now she realized she was his ultimate goal. “I love you so much, Andros, but sometimes you scare me.”
“You have nothing to fear from me.”
“No, but I think I’ll have to watch out you aren’t sacrificing your own happiness for mine going forward.”
“I would be honored for you to watch out for my happiness.”
Then they were kissing again and whispering more words of love and making promises that lovers make.
EPILOGUE
THEIR SON WAS born a week early and they named him Theodore Robert for his grandfathers.
Polly’s mother and father were there and she’d relented at the last minute, calling her mother-in-law when she’d gone into labor and inviting her to the hospital.
Athena had sent Polly a very moving letter of apology beforehand. They’d spoken on the phone a few times, short conversations, but entirely void of the former veiled insults and implications Polly should be doing this, that and the other, differently.
Alexandros had started having lunch with his mother once a week, but never pressured Polly to join him.
His sister hadn’t shifted her attitudes at all and therefor had no place in her brother’s life. By his choice, not Polly’s suggestion.
Maybe one day Stacia would grow up and think of someone else’s point of view, but until then, Polly didn’t have to deal with the younger woman’s poisonous words.
Alexandros never dismissed Polly’s opinions now, especially when it came to family life. When they disagreed, they talked. Sometimes, they argued. Heatedly. They were both passionate people. Making up was fun.
And Polly’s mom remarked that her daughter was definitely more her headstrong and passionate self than she had been in a long time.
Eight weeks after the birth of their son, Alexandros took Polly on a second honeymoon. They toured the islands on a yacht big enough to accommodate their children, the nursemaids and security. But no one else.
It was a glorious trip, but Polly loved coming home because this time, the honeymoon didn’t end with stepping back in Athens.
Her attentive husband continued being loving and wonderful amidst everyday life.
Coming next month
PRIDE & THE ITALIAN’S PROPOSAL
Kate Hewitt
‘I judge on what I see,’ Fausto allowed as he captured her queen easily. She looked unfazed by the move, as if she’d expected it, although to Fausto’s eye it had seemed a most inexpert choice. ‘Doesn’t everyone do the same?’
‘Some people are more accepting than others.’
‘Is that a criticism?’
‘You seem cynical,’ Liza allowed.
‘I consider myself a realist,’ Fausto returned, and she laughed, a crystal-clear sound that seemed to reverberate through him like the ringing of a bell.
‘Isn’t that what every cynic says?’
‘And what are you? An optimist?’ He imbued the word with the necessary scepticism.
‘I’m a realist. I’ve learned to be.’ For a second she looked bleak, and Fausto realised he was curious.
‘And where did you learn that lesson?’
She gave him a pert look, although he still saw a shadow of that unsettling bleakness in her eyes. ‘From people such as yourself.’ She moved her knight—really, what was she thinking there? ‘Your move.’
Fausto’s gaze quickly swept the board and he moved a pawn. ‘I don’t think you know me well enough to have learned such a lesson,’ he remarked.
‘I’ve learned it before, and in any case I’m a quick study.’ She looked up at him with glinting eyes, a coy smile flirting about her mouth. A mouth Fausto had a sudden, serious urge to kiss. The notion took him so forcefully and unexpectedly that he leaned forward a little over the game, and Liza’s eyes widened in response, her breath hitching audibly as surprise flashed across her features.
For a second, no more, the very air between them felt tautened, vibrating with sexual tension and expectation. It would be so very easy to close the space between their mouths. So very easy to taste her sweetness, drink deep from that lovely, luscious well.
Of course he was going to do no such thing. He could never consider a serious relationship with Liza Benton; she was not at all the sort of person he was expected to marry and, in any case, he’d been burned once before, when he’d been led by something so consuming and changeable as desire.
As for a cheap affair…the idea had its tempting merits, but he knew he had neither the time nor inclination to act on it. An affair would be complicated and distracting, a reminder he needed far too much in this moment.
Fausto leaned back, thankfully breaking the tension, and Liza’s smile turned cat-like, surprising him. She looked so knowing, as if she’d been party to every thought in his head, which thankfully she hadn’t been, and was smugly informing him of that fact.
‘Checkmate,’ she said softly and, jolted, Fausto stared at her blankly before glancing down at the board.
‘That’s impossible,’ he declared as his gaze moved over the pieces and, with another jolt, he realised it wasn’t. She’d put him in checkmate and he hadn’t even realised his king had been under threat. He’d indifferently moved a pawn while she’d neatly spun her web. Disbelief warred with a scorching shame as well as a reluctant admiration. All the while he’d assumed she’d been playing an amateurish, inexperienced game, she’d been neatly and slyly laying a trap.
‘You snookered me.’
H
er eyes widened with laughing innocence. ‘I did no such thing. You just assumed I wasn’t a worthy opponent.’ She cocked her head, her gaze turning flirtatious—unless he was imagining that? Feeling it? ‘But, of course, you judge on what you see.’
The tension twanged back again, even more electric than before. Slowly, deliberately, Fausto knocked over his king to declare his defeat. The sound of the marble clattering against the board was loud in the stillness of the room, the only other sound their suddenly laboured breathing.
He had to kiss her. He would. Fausto leaned forward, his gaze turning sleepy and hooded as he fastened it on her lush mouth. Liza’s eyes flared again and she drew an unsteady breath, as loud as a shout in the still, silent room. Then, slowly, deliberately, she leaned forward too, her dress pulling against her body so he could see quite perfectly the outline of her breasts.
There were only a few scant inches between their mouths, hardly any space at all. Fausto could already imagine the feel of her lips against his, the honeyed slide of them, her sweet, breathy surrender as she gave herself up to their kiss. Her eyes fluttered closed. He leaned forward another inch, and then another. Only centimetres between them now…
‘Here you are!’
The door to the study flung open hard enough to bang against the wall, and Fausto and Liza sprang apart. Chaz gave them a beaming smile, his arm around a rather woebegone-looking Jenna. Fausto forced a courteous smile back, as both disappointment and a very necessary relief coursed through him.
That had been close. Far, far too close.
Continue reading
PRIDE & THE ITALIAN’S PROPOSAL
Kate Hewitt
Available next month
Copyright ©2021 by Kate Hewitt
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