“And loving Angelina?”
“Having Angelina has made me rethink everything. On one hand, I can’t believe how my mother ever walked out on me. The guilt I think is etched onto her face now.
“On the other, knowing that Angelina will be a woman one day, the idea of her stuck in a marriage to a man double her age...it gives me new perspective.
“For years, my mother wanted to see me. When I heard what your father had done to you...it tore me up. Your pain tore me up.
“And it made me realize what she must have felt. Barely a woman, and saddled with a husband double her age and a son. Caught with no escape or outlet.
“It made me think of how it would have crushed your spirit in a situation like that. I could forgive Andreas anything in the world for stopping your father from doing that to you. When I thought of you, what I had to do became simple, easy.”
“What was that?”
“After all these years, I went to see her.”
“Oh, Gabriel,” Eleni whispered into his neck, love filling her chest. “I wish you had told me this before. I wish I could have been there for you.”
“But you were, Princesa. You were in my heart. Or else I’d never have understood her pain.”
“Was she happy to see you?”
He smiled and there was a depth of joy in it. “She was. She is marrying some guy and I think she thought I wouldn’t forgive her for that.”
“Are you angry with her again?” Eleni asked, heart aching for him. Because, now she knew, it would only be because he cared. Because he wasn’t quite the ruthless man he thought himself to be.
“No. I’m not. I wanted to know more about the guy but I felt it wasn’t my place.” A hint of his pain, even resentment, maybe, peeked through in his voice. But what he had done was a huge step. Those scars, Eleni knew very well, would take time to heal. “Once I saw her, I couldn’t stay away anymore. I couldn’t not...see you, Princesa.
“Angelina told me you sent Spiros away and I breathed fully for the first time in weeks.” He turned toward her and cupped her face. “I love you, Princesa. Without fear or reservations. I love you so much that I cannot live without you for a minute.”
Heart bursting with happiness, she pressed her mouth to his and sank into his toe-curling kiss. His mouth drifted from her mouth to her nose, to her temple, to her hair, his arms almost crushing the breath from her lungs. In a deft movement, he pulled her up, a sudden urgency to his movements. “Eleni, I know what I promised, but I have a demand to make of our marriage this time.”
Laughing, she went on her toes and pressed her mouth to the pulse at his neck. The powerful man shuddered all around her. “Anything, Gabriel.”
“I want us to leave the palace, make a home somewhere else. Anywhere in this world that you want to live in. But not here.”
Eleni swallowed away the confusion within. “Because of what Andreas did?”
“Because this palace has sad memories for you. It makes you feel as if you were less than the magnificent woman you are, Princesa. I would have you happy, Eleni. You and me and Angelina and all the children we will have.”
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.