by Caro LaFever
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him fist his hands before him. “Natalie?”
“I don’t understand any of this,” she blurted. “What do you want from me?”
His blunt fingers splayed on his pants leg like he was reaching for something. “The question really is, what do you want from me?”
The words were filled with panicked bafflement. As if he only needed to be given a simple demand and he’d deliver whatever she wanted.
If only it could be that easy.
He might have confessed his love for his family and he might have even hurtled across the issues he had with his father, but at the bottom of this man’s heart lay the ugly brew of anger he held toward women. “What I want, you can’t give me.”
His fingers turned white when they pressed down on his leg. “I can.”
Oh, Aetos, if only you could.
She knew he had the ability to love. Yet he’d never shown her any kind of love. Lust, yes. Perhaps once or twice, she’d been foolish enough to imagine a special look in his eye or a tenderness in his touch. But he didn’t love her. Perhaps the ability to love a woman had been crushed by his childhood trauma. He hadn’t said anything more about his stepmother, still it didn’t take much of her imagination to put the dots together. Maybe it would take years and years with his loving family before he could find his way through the treachery that had been done to him into the loving embrace of a good woman.
Except it wouldn’t be her embrace. Her heart couldn’t stand the pain of loving this man with only a glimmer of hope that he’d reciprocate at some point.
She wouldn’t demand an emotion he couldn’t give.
It wouldn’t be fair to him. It wouldn’t be fair to her.
“You can’t,” she said, unable to hide the sorrow leaching into her words. “But I don’t blame you.”
The rasp of his breath echoed across the stone, amplified by the silence. Nat waited, she didn’t know for what. There wasn’t anything he could say or do that would stop her pain or make her whole. He didn’t have it in him.
“I love you.”
The simple words curled in a thin wisp of sound. Plaintive and pleading. A male cry of helpless need. The Whispering Bench was well known for catching every secret and swirling it down the stone to the other scrolled side. But she couldn’t believe the words had actually come from him. Come from his mouth and tongue and heart.
She whipped her head around and stared at him. He didn’t meet her gaze. His dark, gold-tipped lashes lay on his olive cheeks and his head was bowed.
“Look at me,” she demanded.
His broad shoulders twitched and his blunt fingers tightened into fists.
“Aetos.”
He sucked in a breath as if he were about to jump off the highest mountain, as if he were about to jump from his lonely perch. He glanced over and met her gaze.
She gasped at what she saw.
The chestnut eyes were open and alive. No shadows of concealment. No blank hostility or angry disguisement. All she saw was everything. He let her see everything. For the first time.
Love. Pure and deep and whole flowed across the cold stone. Along with his words. This time filled with conviction. “I love you, Natalie.”
The whispered confession rang with truth.
She’d been wrong. There was something he could say, there was something he could do to make her whole. To make her believe.
“Really?” The tears, the tears of happiness, spilled down her cheeks.
A flicker of panic flashed through his brown eyes. “If you don’t want—”
With a cry, she flew across the bench to his side and wrapped her cold hands around his warm jaw. “Aetos.”
“What?” His gaze latched onto hers, a wary gaze that made her heart twist.
He’d been giving her gifts all along here and it was now her turn to give one of her own. “Do you know what the cufflinks meant to me?”
A furrow creased his forehead. “No, not really. Not anymore. I’d thought you knew about my father’s emblem, but you didn’t.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Then…what did the cufflinks mean to you, mágissa?”
She sucked in a breath and jumped herself. “They represented you and me. Together. Flying together throughout our lives.”
His mouth went slack with surprise. “That’s what it meant to you?”
“Yes, that’s what it meant.” A smile of complete joy and happiness spread across her face. Because she’d taken a chance, leapt, and this man had caught her in his strong embrace. “I love you, too, Aetos. So much.”
“You do?” The wariness on his face died and his gaze lit to golden honey. “You do?”
“Nai.” She threw her head back and laughed. “I do.”
Epilogue
The Greek sun lazed along the line of vines like the slide of fine wine going down a thirsty throat. Natalie plucked one golden grape off a vine and popped it in her mouth.
“Those aren’t clean.” Her husband’s voice rumbled at her side.
She swallowed, the tart taste lingering on her tongue. Casting a glance over, she gave Aetos a witchy smile. The smile that always got his attention. “I like dirty. Down and dirty.”
He blinked. Then, the familiar glint of golden lust swam in his chestnut eyes.
In the six months since they’d wed, he’d become used to her. Used to her female need to know everything about him. Used to her invading every part of his life and leaving her stamp. He’d even reluctantly become used to her insistence on independence.
Yet she still surprised him. And challenged him.
“Down and dirty, huh?” He stopped in the middle of the dusty path and grabbed her hand, tugging her against his warm body. The man who’d first arrived in Greece bound in a noose of a tie and trapped in a slick silk suit, that man? He now wore a brown cotton T-shirt ripped at the neck and an ancient pair of jeans she’d found him in a second-hand store.
The jeans had become his favorite whenever they landed on his family’s homeland.
They still spent a lot of their time in New York City or traveling to the numerous Tuckermarkets strewn across the United States. Natalie had started a popular blog on how Aetos was reviving this landmark company and expanding economic opportunities in dozens of cities. She’d also begun writing a book on the history of Tuckermarket and had an offer from a major publishing house waiting for her back in New York if she wanted it. His support and encouragement in her endeavors had surprised her at first. She’d expected he’d demand her every moment and crumb of attention. But during the last few months, she’d realized beneath his bluster and reserve beat a heart of a gentle, caring man.
A wounded man who was gradually healing.
A great part of his healing happened here. In Greece, where he truly belonged. Under the warm gaze of his giagiá. Led by the wisdom of his pappoús. Surrounded by his happy family. Most of all, she’d like to think, held in her embrace and acceptance and love.
He’d even begun a reconciliation with his father’s relatives and Nat hoped that soon, the cousins would be running the old Zenos empire with Aetos’s help and counsel.
His homeland. Their homeland. Both families’ homeland.
Looking into his eyes, she smoothed her palm across the rasp of his jaw. The chestnut turned dark as the edge of his mouth lifted in the beginnings of a grin. He grinned a lot, now. Laughed a lot. Loved, too.
She liked him best like this. Rough and slightly tousled. Relaxed and willing. Willing to let go with her and just be together. The difference between the cold, driven Aetos Zenos she’d first met in his New York bedroom so long ago and this rumpled, happy man standing before her was nothing short of amazing.
And he had her to thank for it.
“What are you thinking, I wonder.” His golden brow arched. “You look decidedly smug.”
“Happy.”
“Happy,” he countered. “Also, smug.”
She chuckled. “
You know me so well.”
“As a matter of fact, I do.” He pulled her tight to his chest and his arousal bumped against her pelvis.
A shiver of pleasure ran through her.
Running right beside the pleasure was anticipation. And a tiny sliver of trepidation as well. Would he be okay with this knowledge and the responsibility? Would this news freak him out as the love of his family first had?
Would he run away like he’d done when first confronted with his feelings for her?
“What?” He frowned, as always instantly sensing the shift in her emotions. For a man bereft of real human contact for so long, Aetos had become amazingly astute. He immediately knew when his grandfather needed to stop work and sit down. He recognized with sharp clarity the moment his giagiá had had enough of the grandchildren. And he never missed the slightest change in his wife’s mood. “What is it, Natalie?”
Not telling him wasn’t an option. The man was far too smart and much too aware of her body and its rhythms and rituals. It was surprising he hadn’t questioned her yet about her normally predictable cycle.
She was scared, she’d admit it. But for no good reason, really. They were in love. They were married. This was a natural progression of that love.
His gorgeous mouth twisted in a grimace at her continued silence. His athletic body went taut as if bracing for a blow. “Something’s wrong. I can tell.”
Nai, her man could tell the moment anything was wrong with her. He’d proved a dozen times in the months they’d been together. This wasn’t something wrong, though, was it? This was something right. Right?
“Tell me, mágissa,” he said. “I’ll fix it.”
She choked a laugh out. With the sound, her fear loosened and flew away into the bright-blue sky above them. Some things had not changed about Aetos Zenos. He was as arrogantly confident as ever. She loved even that about him. Nevertheless, some things had changed completely. His ability to love, his ability to change, his ability to be a part of her. In an instant, she knew he would not flee from her news. He’d embrace it.
“I don’t think you can fix this.” She beamed a smile at him.
A look of shock crossed his face and he stepped back from her, his male mind clearly not able to follow her changing moods as fast as he’d like. “Nat, I—”
“Let me put it another way.” She danced away from him, throwing him a teasing grin over her shoulder. “You won’t want to fix this.”
“I’m not following you,” he growled.
“Yes, you are.” She laughed as he paced determinedly behind her.
Suddenly, a strong arm encircled her from the back and stopped her in her tracks. The call of an eagle above them rang through the air.
Natalie leaned back on her husband’s strength and stared at the dark bird circling high above them. She breathed in the air scented with heat and earth and pine. Her mind went quiet, her heart filled with joy, and her soul rang with surety.
“What is it?” he muttered into her ear.
Another eagle flew across the brilliant sky, dipping and diving around the first, trailed by an eaglet, fresh from the nest.
She wanted to see his face. Wanted to know his instant thought. Turning in his arms, she touched his neck with a soft brush of her fingers. “I’m pregnant.”
A flash of terror swept through his eyes. “Are you sure?”
Her heart trembled and threatened to sink to her toes. Could her sudden confidence in his reaction have been wrong? Had she imagined something he still wasn’t capable of? She yanked around in his arms, now facing out, looking blindly at the long row of vines and into an uncertain future.
“Nai,” she whispered.
He swallowed, his Adam’s apple moving against her cheek. His hands tightened around her waist. For a moment, she felt suspended between heaven and hell, between everything and nothing.
Slowly, so slowly she at first thought she imagined it, his fingers slid down over her hips and tentatively across her belly. Her breath stopped as well as her heart. His breath brushed her cheek, warm and familiar.
A soft laugh whispered against her ear. “You are amazing.”
Her heart lifted and flew. She’d been correct. Correct about this man and their love. Correct to take a chance on finding a way to heal him and make him whole. She threw her head back on his shoulder and placed her lips on his neck, feeling his chuckle rumble from his throat. “I am, aren’t I?”
His mouth touched her forehead in supplication and appreciation. “Nai. You are amazing and wonderful and perfect.”
“True.”
His laugh was rich and vibrant as he twirled her around in his arms and stared at her. His eyes no longer flared with panic, only pleasure and love and peace. “Not only are you perfect…”
Wrapping her arms around his neck, she began to pull him down for a kiss, not needing his words now, just needing him.
But he wasn’t done, not yet. “…you are the perfect wife for me.”
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Check out the rest of the series. There are two other stories within the Greek trilogy of the International Billionaires series. You can check out A Perfect Man and A Perfect Love by clicking on each title.
A Perfect Man
A bitter and betrayed beau. A furious and forced fiancee. A recipe for rebellion and…rapture.
A Perfect Love
A male bent on revenge. A female determined to prevail. Young lovers ripped apart...forever?
A Perfect Love
International Billionaires VI: The Greeks
by Caro LaFever
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Raphael Vounó demands custody of his nephews, who’s existence he’s just discovered. He cannot allow them to be sullied by their mother’s family—a family he’s vowed revenge on for years. Determined to win the boys, he finds himself facing a foe he’d long ago cursed for betraying him.
The boys’ half-sister, Tamsin Drakos, can’t believe she confronts an enemy she thought to never see again. But this man doesn’t resemble the shy, charming boy she fell in love with when she’d been sixteen. Hard and cruel, this billionaire will do anything to get his way—including forcing her out of her home and into his control.
When Raphael and Tamsin reignite a passion neither can deny, both are unwilling to admit to feeling the emotion that destroyed their lives before. But the terrible love flames to life, threatening to consume them and their families. How can they overcome the tragedy of the past when it follows them into the present?
Excerpt:
“Very smart.” Long, masculine fingers nudged the door partially shut, leaving them alone in the hallway. “It would be mistake to put the twins in the middle of this.”
“This?” Tamsin wanted to flee from him. She wanted to run down the hall to the elevator and escape. She wanted to forget what an awful man her first love had become. Aarōn and Isaák tied her down, though. Leaving the boys to this man wasn’t an option and right now, she didn’t have the weapons to drive Raphael away. Not yet.
“This disagreement between us on what is best for them.”
She forced herself to look at him. Faint white lines of strain bracketed his mouth and his deep-set eyes were hooded, as if he had a hard time keeping them open. Long dark eyelashes brushed down and then up, bringing her attention to the smudges of weariness on his skin.
Her too-
soft heart turned over.
“We’re all tired.” She offered an olive branch. Fighting him was inevitable, yet at this moment she didn’t want the inevitable. At this moment, she wanted him to lie down and rest. “Let’s table this until tomorrow.”
“The doctor’s going to be here soon.” His mouth turned grim as he stared at his watch.
She already knew what the test was going to tell her, but she needed time. Time to evaluate her options, her weapons. “No. I’m not going to allow the boys to be tested just because you say so.”
His head jerked up, his expression going fierce. “We can do this the easy way. Or the hard way. Either way, I will win.”
She hadn’t ever once let herself slip into trawling for information about Raphael Vounó. Never once had she allowed herself to Google him on the web or search for him on Facebook—it would have been too painful. She’d assumed he’d used the gift she’d sacrificed for and was somewhere in Greece being a pediatric doctor, fulfilling his life-long dream. There’d been many moments when she’d derived some comfort from the thought of him fulfilling his destiny.
Did you go to medical school?
No, of course not.
So this particular dream, like every one of her others, was dead. The reality was she knew nothing about him or the weapons he might hold to get his way. Yet look at where they were staying. Look at the sleek limo that had driven them here. Look at the silver Rolex watch on his wrist. More than anything, though, the deadly intent in his words told her what Raphael Vounó had become.
A man who wouldn’t be a good influence on her brothers. A man who threatened all the hard work she’d done through the years to raise her boys in the right way. She just needed a few hours to take stock and strategize how she was going to save them from this man.