“I’m sorry. I love you.”
“I know, me, too. I love you so much.”
Their mouths met in homecoming, both of them moaning as the ache ceased. He opened his lips over hers and she flowered like a plant tasting water. Heat flowed into her. Joy.
Love.
A door swished and a nurse said, “Bit soon for that, isn’t it?”
They broke apart. Gideon shot a private smile at Adara as he reached to tie her gown behind her neck.
“And how is our young man? Does he have a name?” the nurse chattered.
Adara licked her lips, eyeing Gideon as she said, “Delphi’s not exactly a boy’s name, but I thought...Androu?” It was Gideon’s real name.
His expression spasmed with emotion before he controlled it. “Are you sure?” he asked, voice strained, body braced for disappointment.
“He’s someone I love and want in my life forever. I think, someday, he’d be really proud to know who he was named after.”
“I don’t deserve you,” he said against her lips, kissing her resoundingly, right there in front of the nurse.
Adara flushed and smiled, bubbles of happiness filling her. “We do, you know,” she contradicted him. “We both deserve this.”
She didn’t care that the nurse was smiling indulgently at them even as she took Androu and undressed him so she could weigh him.
“Well, you certainly deserve to be happy. Me, I just demand the best and get it.” You, he mouthed. Him. He cocked his head toward the baby.
“A habit I’m adopting,” she said with a cheeky wrinkle of her nose. “I know how possessive you are of the things you’ve built, too. I’m taking on that trait as well. Us,” she whispered, soft and heartfelt.
“Yeah, I’m going to hang on to us pretty tight too,” he said in a way that made her heart leap. “Agape mou.”
EPILOGUE
GIDEON WALKED INTO his home office thinking he really needed to start spending more time in here. It wasn’t that things were falling apart. He and Adara had put some great people in place when they’d first learned of the pregnancy. Her brothers were still running things like a well-oiled machine and he should have quit micromanaging years ago, so this was a timely lesson in letting go.
But there was a fine line between delegating and neglecting. Much more lolling about his home, playing airplane with his son and necking with his wife, and he’d be a full-fledged layabout.
Of course, he could blame finishing the renovations, putting in a staircase to the lower floor, painting and furnishing their new private space away from the main floor. That had taken time. There had also been his recovery from minor surgery, but that had really only been the one afternoon on headache pills and he’d been fine.
No, he might be getting up in the night to change diapers, but he wasn’t breast-feeding or anemic from childbirth. He didn’t have Adara’s totally legitimate reasons for shirking work.
He certainly shouldn’t be leaving confidential papers lying openly on his desk, whether the workmen were gone or not.
The block letters and signature tabs were a dead giveaway that this was a contract, one he couldn’t remember even pulling out to review, but— Ah. It was the separation agreement he’d sent to Adara. She must have left it here.
A pang hit him, but it was merely the remembered pain of thinking he’d lost everything and was quickly relieved by a rush of relief and happiness that they’d recovered. Her devotion was as steadfast as his, prompting a flood of deep love for her as he walked the papers toward the shredder. He didn’t want this bad mojo in the house, but then he saw she’d signed it. His heart stopped.
Ha. That wasn’t her name. Under the statement that began, I, Adara Makricosta, hereby agree..., she’d scrawled with a deep impression, Never, and added a smiley face.
Quirking a grin at her sass, he decided this was a signed contract in its own right, definitely worth tucking in the safe. Suddenly, work didn’t seem important after all. Was she finished feeding Androu? he wondered. They’d had coinciding follow-ups at separate doctor clinics today. He’d returned to find her rocking a drifting Androu to sleep downstairs and decided to see what he could get done here, but...
He turned to find her in his office doorway, the baby monitor in her hand.
“He’s asleep?” he asked.
She nodded and came to set the monitor on his desktop. “How did your appointment go?”
“Not swimmingly.”
Her eyes widened in alarm.
“That’s a joke,” he hurried to assure her. “I’m saying there were no swimmers. I’m good. Shooting blanks.”