“I’m traveling to New York for a shoot in January. And I didn’t want to leave without... I came by to tell you that I want a compromise between us.”
He was closer and the masculine scent of him drenched her pores. She inhaled a long breath as if she were a junkie getting her fix.
He was her drug, she realized. But unlike her mother’s and brother’s choice of poison, he made her stronger, bolder, more her than anything she had ever been.
His gaze lingered over her mouth. “What sort of compromise?”
Oh, how tempted she was to taste that mouth of his again... “I want to be with you. I want us to give our relationship a try. But you can’t ask me to marry you again. Not like that. At least, not until we decide together that it is a step we want to take, until we decide it is what we want.”
He flinched. She knew he did because she was standing so close, breathing in every nuance in his face. Slowly, he took a step back and studied her. “But you want this?”
Her heart racing again, she nodded. There was a bittersweet pang in her gut but she ignored it for now. One day, he would admit to her that he loved her. One day, she would prove to him that he was the most honorable man she had ever met.
She stepped forward, eating up the distance between them. Pressing her hands into his shoulders, she pulled herself up and kissed his mouth.
Those large hands of his snaked around her and slammed her against that chest. Powerful frame shuddering around her, he kissed her forehead. “I’m so sorry I hurt you with that arrogant proposal. I have become such a stranger to emotions or love that I didn’t even realize what I was doing until you told me. You were right. You deserve so much more than I offered.”
Hot liquid filled her eyes. Jas blinked, trying to keep the tears away. “Dmitri, are you listening? I’m not afraid anymore.” She clasped his jaw, willing him to understand. “I won’t break like I thought. Loving you makes me stronger, not weaker. All I want is to be with you.”
“And if I do ask you to marry me again, not to protect you, but because I love you?”
“You’re not playing another game with me, are you?”
“No, pethi mou. I’ve been counting the days, waiting to show you how much I need you... I thought I would show you that you’ve changed me already. Irrevocably.”
“Wait, that’s what you’ve been doing? Selling your bike and yacht?”
“For years, I filled myself with expensive toys that gave nothing but fleeting pleasure, with women who made me feel nothing but an echo. But with you... You have made me see that I never forgave myself. That I never thought myself worthy of anything meaningful, even though Giannis tried his hardest to tell me that it wasn’t my fault that she had died.”
Her chest aching for the boy he had been, Jasmine embraced him with everything she had. “It wasn’t your fault, Dmitri. Just as it wasn’t my duty to sacrifice my life over Andrew’s and my mother’s mistakes. I want to live this life for me and I want to live it with you.”
“I will wait as long as it takes. I will spend my entire life showing you that I love you.” He kissed her so softly then tenderly, as if he was determined to fill all the lonely places inside her with his love. “I love you, matia mou. I love you so much that the world itself feels colorless without you.
“Marry me, Jas. Marry me because I want you to be mine eternally. Marry me because I need you. I need you to make me laugh, to make me feel, because I need you to love me every day for the rest of our lives.”
Her heart overflowing, Jas buried her face in his chest. Fear still pulsed through her, but it was a soft echo rather than the raging growl it had been when she had come in. They would make this work; they loved each other too much for it to fail. “I love you, too, Dmitri. I want to wake up with you. I want you to help me figure out what the hell I’m going to do with my life. I want to grow old with you. I want to be a part of the family you have with Leah and Stavros. I want to spend forever with you.”
“Then, you will,” he said before crushing her mouth. “I promise, Jas. I will never treat you as if you were something to be protected. I will never shower you with gifts and riches instead of my heart.”
“Your kisses, those are all I want,” she moaned, air already an alien concept.
“Those you will have, in abundance, and in every imaginable place. Remember how you promised you would give me anything I wanted?”
Her reckless offer pulsed in the air around them, turning his eyes into a stormy sky.
“Would you dance for me one night? Just once, Jas,” he said softly, but it didn’t hide the guttural quality of his voice.
She braced herself, but instead of that usual wash of shame that had always flooded her, something else filled her.
Anticipation, joy, even a sense of power. Wrapping her arms around his nape, she pressed herself into his chest wantonly, reveling in the thunderstorm she could unleash in his eyes. “For the man I love? I would do anything, Dmitri.”
With a smile that set her nerves on fire, Dmitri picked her up and walked over to the sitting area. And while Athens burned bright around them, he made love to her so tenderly, so softly that Jas fell in love all over again.
EPILOGUE
JASMINE WOKE UP with a huge smile on her face and then realized it was Christmas morning. Her first Christmas with Dmitri and a happy one after a long time, she thought, lazily soaking up the warmth of the Egyptian cotton sheets.
Her smile turned into a frown as she remembered her upcoming three-week trip to New York in January.
If truth be told, she had been more excited about seeing New York than her photo shoot. And now, even the attractions of the city that never slept paled in the face of not seeing Dmitri for so long.
Would Dmitri come to New York if she asked him?
Imagining all the ways she could try to convince him, she quickly showered in the en suite and dressed in a red-and-white sleeveless knee-length collared dress. She quickly braided her wet hair, applied some lip gloss and went in search of Dmitri.
The atrium gleamed in the morning sunlight, the sound of voices drawing her to the cozily contemporary kitchen.
There was no fire in the fireplace, but a four-foot Christmas tree, complete with ornaments and lights, stood near it.
Tears filled her eyes as Jas looked at it. She had spent so many Christmases trying to convince first her mother and then Andrew that they had more than most people in the world had—each other. But nothing had ever made a difference. Lost to their own weaknesses, she had never made a difference to them.
And after Andrew had been gone, she had been so lonely that even thinking of Christmas had been painful.
Strong arms encircled her from behind.
“Merry Christmas, yineka mou,” he whispered, before turning her around and kissing her with a tender warmth that chased away some of the pain.
Wrapping her arms around his neck, Jas sank into his kiss. She nibbled at his lower lip, dueled with her tongue, poured every bit of herself into it.
And he returned everything, his hands roaming around her back, whispering promises of forever.
Holding her at arm’s length, he stared at her for a long time and caught one of the tears that had escaped. “I’m so sorry about him, Jas. I wish I had saved him for you.”
Jasmine shook her head, knowing that it was a habit that she had to cure Dmitri of slowly. That protective instinct was in his genes. “I wish he had saved himself, Dmitri. But no, I don’t want to ruin Christmas morning with—”
“Merry Christmas, Jasmine,” Leah said from behind her, a beaming smile on her lips.
Tears coming to her eyes again, this time happy ones, Jasmine returned Leah’s fierce hug. And then Stavros’s.
They all chattered at once and then Dmitri tugged her toward him. “Is it okay that I invited them over? I knew how happy they would be for us.”
Jasmine kissed him again. She couldn’t seem to stop. “Absolutely. Dmitri, I have a trip to—”
“New York, I know. If you agree, I will fly out the week after your shoot and we can see the city together. You will adore New York.”
“I love you, Dmitri.”
“I love you, Jas. Come, I have something for you.”
While a smiling Stavros and a grinning Leah watched, he opened a small velvet box, went down on one knee and said, “Jasmine, will you marry me?”
Crying again, Jasmine nodded, absolutely incapable of speaking. Dmitri slipped the ring on her finger, a single princess-cut diamond on a plain white-gold band, his heart in his eyes.
Then he took her in his arms again and kissed her. “We’ll take as long as we want, ne? I’m starting an inner-city program for young adults who come from broken homes and with a background of abuse and neglect. Stavros and I have already found an old building to renovate here in Athens and then we will start hiring staff.
“If, at some point in time,” he stated matter-of-factly, “you have had enough of modeling and want to work on something like that, you would be more than welcome. I’m trying to cut down on my interests so that I can give it some time instead of just throwing money at it. Give a chance to someone like Giannis did for us.”
Stunned into speechlessness, Jas could only stare at him.
“Jas, there is absolutely no pressure. If modeling is where your heart is, then that’s what you should do. You have my support in any career you want to pursue and I will follow you around the world.”