by Tara Pammi
Eleni laughed at that, joy overflowing in her chest. “That was before I met you, Gabriel. Before I...before you showed me what and who I was. Before you challenged all my preconceived notions about myself. But I can’t go, Gabriel. Please, not now.”
“Why not, Princesa?” he said, clasping her cheeks with a tenderness that always snagged her heart.
“I wish I could hate Andreas for his interference, Gabriel. It was just like my father, though I didn’t have the heart to tell him that. In those moments when I thought you would never return, when I lay in our bed alone, longing for you... I did hate him then. But he means well. He did it out of love for me. You know that, don’t you? He did the right thing, in his own twisted way.”
Gabriel nodded.
Only Gabriel’s love for Eleni, his respect for everything Nikandros had accomplished in the past year had stopped him from making hell rain on Andreas and his precious Drakon for his interference. Something had happened to Andreas and he felt pity for the woman he was searching for when he found her.
“Andreas made me see I had no choice. Not if I loved you. I hated that he was right, but I had to do it. I had to walk away. But I do not like you anywhere near his controlling influence, Tesoro. I do not like him playing with us as if we were pawns.”
Tears filled her eyes. “All my life, I’ve been the buffer between him and Father, him and Nik, Nik and Father. I couldn’t take it if you asked me to not see him. If you made me choose between you, I would choose you, yes. But please don’t make me.
“He...something’s wrong with him. He’s possessed, Gabriel. He needs me. He needs us.”
Gabriel shook his head, amazed at the generosity of his wife yet again. At her capacity to forgive and forget, at her capacity to love. He took her in his arms again, the sight of her tears unmanning him. In her eyes, in the love she evoked in her hard-hearted brother, Gabriel saw even a chance for Andreas. A slim one. “Andreas doesn’t need us, Princesa. But yes, until he finds what he does need, we will stay. We will watch over your brother, but not a single day after that.”
He kissed her eyes, letting the rush of love and fear flood him. Understanding that loving this fierce woman meant accepting that there would be others who could hurt her. Accepting that she loved everyone without reservations. He pulled her to him and held her tightly. “I will not share you with anyone ever again, Princesa. Not with Nikandros, not with Andreas and not with Drakon, yes?”
“You might have to, Gabriel,” Eleni whispered against his lips, her heart bursting with happiness.
“What?” he said, scowling.
Eleni pushed a thick lock of hair away from his strong face, her breath stuttering in her throat. She pulled his hand down to her belly and smiled at him.
His gaze flitted up to her face and back down a few times, before it became wary, almost blank. “When would you have told me?” It was a whisper but she heard his growl in it anyway.
“When you decided that you loved me, Gabriel.” She clasped his cheeks and forced him to look at her. “If I had told you, you would have taken over my life. You would have made me your wife whether or not—”
“My child and my wife belong with me.”
“Whether or not, you loved me? Can’t you see? I couldn’t take the chance. I couldn’t live like that again. I love you, Gabriel. And I will never hide anything from you ever.”
Slowly, the anger abated and he kissed her gently. “You better keep that promise, Princesa, or you will learn what a grumpy beast I can be.”
Eleni laughed. Grumpy beast or not, he was the man who loved her.
EPILOGUE
MARIA DRAKOS MARQUEZ, a tiny bundle that fit in her father’s hands, arrived seven months later with a boisterous cry that declared she was no sweet angel.
With thick black hair and gray eyes, she stared out at her father, her cherubic mouth scrunched tight in protest.
His heart had crawled into his throat a few hours ago when his wife’s pains had started. Now, as she looked at his baby infant, it seemed as if his heart would never return to his chest.
That life would never cease to amaze him.
And it was all due to his wife.
Gabriel looked at Eleni, an overwhelming tightness in his throat. Each day he spent with his wife and daughter, each moment of joy that touched their lives, he thought couldn’t beat another.
And yet, his life seemed to be filled with such glorious moments. With such all-encompassing joy.
“Let me see, Papa,” Angelina cooed in his ear, tugging nervously at his arm.
“Slowly, pequeña,” he whispered, glad to see that his oldest showed no evidence of feeling left out or neglected. Of course, he didn’t know who had been more excited about the little girl’s arrival—him or Angelina.
Angelina’s eyes widened with awe as she traced her little sister’s tiny hands in a reverent touch. “She’s so tiny, Papa. I...”
He understood exactly how Angelina felt.
He felt both happiness and trepidation that the care and well-being of someone so fragile was in his hands now.
Gabriel carefully handed his precious little baby to his own mother, whose eyes were overflowing with tears. Angelina instantly drifted off toward the baby but before she did, she threw her arms around Eleni, pressed a fierce kiss to her forehead and whispered “I love you, Ellie.”
Gabriel smiled as his brothers-in-law, Andreas and Nikandros, crowded around his mama, waiting for their turn to look at his new daughter. His heart thudded in his chest as Andreas took her in his arms and cooed at her. His tone and the slight tremble of his hands belied the fiercely unemotional expression on his face. The hollows of his face became even more pinched as he studied his tiny niece.
Gabriel looked away and took a deep breath.
From Andreas, Maria went to Nik, who carried her with the aplomb and finesse of a new father.
There were so many people who would love Maria. So many who would nurture her and ensure that she was taken care of. And if he made a misstep, his wife would correct him, show him how to love this tiny being.
His lungs expelled in a sudden rush.
“Gabriel?”
The husky, raw tones of his wife made him look up. Sweat pasted thick tendrils of her hair to Eleni’s forehead, her eyes sleep-deprived, yet to Gabriel, she had never looked more beautiful.
“Yes, Princesa?”
She extended her hand and he took it. Lifting it to his mouth, he pressed a tender kiss to the inside of her wrist. She clasped his jaw, as if she understood the enormity of his emotional reaction to their little daughter.
The wetness behind his eyes slowly abated. To his wife’s raised brows, he somehow managed to squeeze himself into the tiny bed and wrapped his arm around her. The others had left the room.
“Was that your mother, Gabriel?”
Nothing went missed by his superefficient wife. “Hmm.”
“You asked her to visit?”
“Yes. I...” He nuzzled into her neck, needing the warmth and scent of her. “When you went into labor, I couldn’t bear it. I called her and she offered to jump on a plane within minutes. So I sent her my jet and she got here a few minutes before Maria arrived. You’ve brought me so much love, Eleni, that it seems very hard to hold on to the past, to hold on to anger. There’s no place in my heart, it seems, for anything more than love.”
“I understand, Gabriel. Loving you has taught me to love myself.”
He pushed off a lock of her hair and pressed a kiss to her temple. “Te amo, Princesa. With all my heart.”
She took his hand and kissed it, her eyelids droopy, her mouth trembling. “Thank you for loving me, Gabriel. Thank you for giving me two wonderful daughters.”
“Thank you for making a family with me, Princesa,” he said.
Within minutes, she was out like a light. When his mother returned a little later and handed him Maria, Gabriel said everything he had to in a kiss on his mother’s cheek.
A
nd went back to the bed, sleepy bundle in hand, to wait for his wife to wake up and kiss him again.
Looking at the tight fist that formed around his finger, he realized he was in for a long wait and sighed.
But he didn’t care.
The Princess of Drakon and her kisses were worth waiting for.
* * * * *
EXCLUSIVE EXTRACT
Ariston Kavakos makes impoverished Keeley Turner a proposition: a month’s employment on his island, at his command. Soon her resistance to their sizzling chemistry weakens! But when there’s a consequence, Ariston makes one thing clear: Keeley will become his bride…
Read on for a sneak preview of
THE PREGNANT KAVAKOS BRIDE
‘You’re offering to buy my baby? Are you out of your mind?’
‘I’m giving you the opportunity to make a fresh start.’
‘Without my baby?’
‘A baby will tie you down. I can give this child everything it needs,’ Ariston said, deliberately allowing his gaze to drift around the dingy little room. ‘You cannot.’
‘Oh, but that’s where you’re wrong, Ariston,’ Keeley said, her hands clenching. ‘You might have all the houses and yachts and servants in the world, but you have a great big hole where your heart should be—and therefore you’re incapable of giving this child the thing it needs more than anything else!’
‘Which is?’
‘Love!’
Ariston felt his body stiffen. He loved his brother and once he’d loved his mother, but he was aware of his limitations. No, he didn’t do the big showy emotion he suspected she was talking about and why should he, when he knew the brutal heartache it could cause? Yet something told him that trying to defend his own position was pointless. She would fight for this child, he realised. She would fight with all the strength she possessed, and that was going to complicate things. Did she imagine he was going to accept what she’d just told him and play no part in it? Politely dole out payments and have sporadic weekend meetings with his own flesh and blood? Or worse, no meetings at all. He met the green blaze of her eyes.
‘So you won’t give this baby up and neither will I,’ he said softly. ‘Which means that the only solution is for me to marry you.’
He saw the shock and horror on her face.
‘But I don’t want to marry you! It wouldn’t work, Ariston—on so many levels. You must realise that. Me, as the wife of an autocratic control freak who doesn’t even like me? I don’t think so.’
‘It wasn’t a question,’ he said silkily. ‘It was a statement. It’s not a case of if you will marry me, Keeley—just when.’
‘You’re mad,’ she breathed.
He shook his head. ‘Just determined to get what is rightfully mine. So why not consider what I’ve said, and sleep on it and I’ll return tomorrow at noon for your answer—when you’ve calmed down. But I’m warning you now, Keeley—that if you are wilful enough to try to refuse me, or if you make some foolish attempt to run away and escape…’ he paused and looked straight into her eyes ‘…I will find you and drag you through every court in the land to get what is rightfully mine.’
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THE PREGNANT KAVAKOS BRIDE
by Sharon Kendrick
Available July 2017
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www.millsandboon.co.uk
Copyright © 2017 Sharon Kendrick
ISBN: 978-1-474-05254-2
THE DRAKON BABY BARGAIN
© 2017 Tara Pammi
Published in Great Britain 2017
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
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