Bought for the Billionaire's Revenge(32)

‘It is because I am not often here when she is awake.’

‘Sure it is,’ Marnie said with another laugh. ‘And also because you spoil her silly. That’s okay—I’m not offended.’

And she wasn’t. How could she be? She had everything she’d ever wanted in life.

It was a beautiful afternoon, filled with happiness and joy. Finally, though, after the last of the guests had left and Lulu was fast asleep, Marnie went in search of her husband.

She found him on the terrace, his eyes focussed contemplatively on the shimmering moon. It was a cool night now, and Marnie wrapped her arms around herself for warmth.

Nikos noticed—as he did everything about his wife—and shrugged out of his jacket, placing it around her slender shoulders on instinct.

‘Here, agape mou,’ he said, pulling her closer to his warmth.

‘Thank you,’ she murmured, inhaling his intoxicatingly masculine scent. ‘Have I ever told you there was a time when I hated you calling me that?’ she asked softly.

‘Did you?’

‘It just reminded me of what I wanted from you. What I doubted you’d ever feel for me.’

Her eyes pierced his, and for a second those thoughts and feelings were right there before her. Such pain and heartbreak! How had that ever been their story when there was now such love between them? Such joy and trust?

She blinked to clear those dark vestiges of the past.

‘Did you doubt, Mrs Kyriazis? Did you really doubt?’

His eyes held hers, and in them she saw the truth that perhaps she’d always held deep in her heart. The incontrovertibility of who they were to one another.

His soft sigh breathed warmth across her temple. ‘I called you that, even when we were at odds, because I needed to believe we could be that to one another again. I wanted to feel that I had the right...’

Her smile shifted her features, taking his breath away completely.

‘It sounds a little like you were the one who doubted we’d find our way here.’

He put an arm around her waist, his fingers feathering over her hip. ‘Not for a second.’ His voice was gravelly. ‘I could never accept a world without you in it.’

‘Even if that meant blackmailing me?’ she teased, finding it almost impossible to credit the start of their marriage with the state of it now.

‘Even then.’ He dropped a kiss against her hair. ‘Will you ever forgive me for that?’

‘Forgive you? Hmm...’ She pretended to think, her eyes full of love and amusement. ‘I can think of one way you could make it up to me.’

He smiled softly. ‘Your wish is my command. Although in this case I think it is my wish also.’

The stars shone overhead and the rose garden was bathed with magical milky moonlight. Nikos Kyriazis kissed his wife, carrying her into their now quiet home.

And it was a home. Not simply a house, as it had been for so long.

Now it was a collection of walls that contained their family’s life, that was filled with pictures and love and the kind of warmth he had only ever dreamed possible. It was a home he shared with Marnie and Lulu, just as he shared his heart and his being with them.

A man who had never known love was now overflowing with it, and always would be.

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