Alexandros sprang into the driver’s seat. In the silence, thinking that perhaps he hadn’t heard her, she repeated the question and pointed out that he used the expression a lot.
He drove off. His handsome mouth compressed, he shrugged. ‘It means…my love. That’s all.’
Katie’s eyes opened to their fullest extent. She dared not look at him. He’d sounded so dismissive of the endearment that it was clearly just an expression. Had her question made him uncomfortable? He said not a word all the way back along the twisting road that led to the house. Their smiling nanny emerged to take charge of Toby and Connor, and Alexandros gripped Katie’s hand and dragged her into the house.
Giggling and blushing as he urged her into their bedroom and kicked shut the door behind him, she protested, ‘Alexandros…’
‘There’s been something I’ve been meaning to say to you…’ Alexandros incised tautly. ‘It’s your own fault I didn’t say it on our wedding day.’
Dismayed by his tone and tension, Katie whispered, ‘Say what? What was my fault?’
His lean dark face clenched, lashes sweeping down as he studied the floor. ‘I just feel so stupid saying it. I love you…okay? Right? I fell in love with you in Ireland, but I didn’t recognise it for what it was. My emotions were so strong that I couldn’t believe it was normal to feel that way.’
Katie blinked. ‘Are you serious?’ she mumbled dizzily.
‘Yes. It was very destabilising stuff.’
Katie was honestly afraid she would faint with shock. ‘Destabilising?’
‘There I was, working at getting over a bad marriage, and then in you walked. I went straight off the rails into territory I didn’t know even existed,’ he admitted in a driven undertone. ‘I’m the guy who plans everything, and nothing that happened with you was planned. I didn’t realise it was love. I thought it was my unbalanced state of mind after Ianthe’s death…that I was upset, out of control.’
‘Our timing wasn’t very lucky. So you loved me,’ she conceded, striving to adjust to what he was telling her but very challenged to do so. ‘No wonder I was so devastated when it all ended. I’d felt so sure of you up until that point…’
His dense lashes lifted on his brooding golden gaze and there was a definite appeal there for her understanding. ‘When you told me you loved me, all I could think about was Ianthe. It was not that you reminded me of her in any way. But her confessions of love that I could never return still haunted me then.’
‘Maybe you needed that time to get over what had happened with Ianthe. Were you really going to tell me you loved me on our wedding day?’
‘You blew it,’ he reminded her ruefully. ‘You told me the wedding night was off.’
‘It would have been full speed ahead if you’d mentioned love! When did you find out that you loved me?’
‘I ignored my sneaking suspicions until the day I went into your apartment and thought for all of thirty seconds that it was you, rather than the nanny, who was shagging Damon Bourikas. Suddenly my mental fog cleared,’ Alexandros confessed raggedly. ‘The belief that you might have found consolation with another man almost killed me…almost killed him too.’
‘My goodness, is that why you pulled the blackmail thing to get me to marry you?’
Alexandros nodded warily.
‘Oh, that’s so sweet.’ Katie hugged him, thinking that fear of losing her was an award-winning excuse. ‘And the picnic I rubbished. It was more real than I could’ve appreciated.’ Her mind continued to rove over the blanks, and now she had him talking she had no intention of holding back any questions. ‘But why did you keep on harping on about how it was just sex?’
‘At first I thought it was, and then it seemed safer to keep it on that level—’
‘You almost broke my heart!’ Katie heard herself confess, and she was appalled, but a great surge of emotion had welled up inside her and a strangled sob emerged.
Alexandros grabbed her with a satisfying lack of his usual cool. Apologising in Greek and English, he covered her damp face with comforting kisses. ‘Signomi…I’m sorry. I can’t be happy without you. Nobody else can make me feel the way you do, yet until it was almost too late I didn’t understand why.’
‘You must have been really stupid!’ she hissed in tearful condemnation.
Alexandros wrapped both his arms tightly round her and rocked her against him until she had calmed down. ‘I know I don’t deserve you, but I really do love you, agape mou. You and the children have brought me back to life and I wake up every day feeling blessed,’ he swore gruffly.
She subsided against him and held him close. ‘I love you too,’ she whispered happily. ‘I can finally say it again.’
‘I’ll never stop saying it, agape mou.’
‘What a little precious,’ Calliope Christakis sighed, peeping into the cot at her newest great-grandchild, a little girl named Athena. ‘She’s dainty, just like her mother. And to think you and my grandson said there would be no more children for a few years!’
Katie blushed and grinned. Athena was now three months old. Not much planning had gone into her conception. Alexandros had merely murmured one night that he would love to see her body ripen with his child, and birth control had been abandoned there and then. Athena had been on the way within weeks.
Toby and Connor were now three years old. Energetic and talkative pre-schoolers, the twins were thick as thieves when plotting mischief, but each had a distinctive personality. Toby was a quick-tempered livewire, Connor the more thoughtful and calm leader of the pair.
They had flown out to the villa in Italy with his grandparents only two days before. Pelias and Calliope, however, weren’t staying for long on this occasion. The older couple were about to leave on an escorted tour of their favourite Italian cities. Leaving the children in the tender care of the staff, Katie strolled downstairs with Calliope and kissed her goodbye. She waved at Pelias, who was already waiting in the car and tapping his watch, shaking his head in teasing rebuke of his wife’s tardiness.
Sometimes Katie found it hard to credit that she had been married for two whole years. Her mother and her stepfather had been over for a lengthy visit at the start of the summer. Alexandros made sure she saw her family as often as possible. He went out of his way to make her happy and she loved that in him. Their marriage had gone from strength to strength as their trust in each other blossomed and added a sense of warm mutual security. They both very much valued what they had together.
Alexandros had taken some drastic mea
sures to cut down on his working hours. That had not been easy for him, and at first she and the twins had shared some of his trips abroad. But when she’d fallen pregnant with Athena, he had been afraid that she would overtire herself. He had made changes, and she saw a great deal more of her handsome husband now and loved the fact.
In actuality this very day was the day of their second wedding anniversary, but in answer to all enquiries she had told everyone that no, they weren’t doing anything special. That was a complete lie. Some things, however, weren’t for sharing. Some celebrations were of a more private nature. She adjusted the narrow pearl shoulder straps on her short swirling green organza dress and set off for the tower.
She walked down the woodland path and saw him through the trees. Her steps quickened without her even being aware of the fact. The romantic scene of luxurious quilts, cushions and a marble table overflowing with tasty food was every bit as beautiful as she recalled, and her sunny smile broke out. Alexandros, lounging back against the cushions with a glass of wine cradled in one lean brown hand, began to get up.
‘Don’t move,’ Katie urged softly. ‘You look like a Roman emperor.’
‘Bring on my dancing girls.’
‘There’s just me…will I do?’
Alexandros ran smouldering golden eyes over her and extended his hand. ‘I like the dress…I like you in it, but I’ll like you even more out of it, agape mou,’ he confided, with the earthy honesty that was so much a part of him
In response, Katie shimmied her slight shoulders and swung her hips. With one lingering glance he could make her feel like the most beautiful, sexy woman alive. ‘You are so predictable, Mr Christakis.’
Laughing, his lean strong face alive with humour and a powerful look of tenderness, Alexandros tugged her down beside him with possessive hands. He settled her back against the cushions and extracted a lingering kiss. ‘Isn’t it great to know we’ve had less than three years together and there’s hopefully another forty-seven at least ahead of us?’