 
2017 Christmas Coda: The Greek Tycoons

by Lucy Monroe

http://lucymonroe.com

Praise for Lucy Monroe's Books

Lucy Monroe captures the very heart of the genre. She pulls the reader into the story from the first to the last page. ~ NYT Bestseller Debbie Macomber

Lucy Monroe writes smart, sensual, emotional books for intelligent women. ~ NYT Bestseller JoAnn Ross

Thank you for writing those alpha heroes I love. ~ NYT Bestseller Lori Foster

A Lucy Monroe book is a treat not to be missed. ~ NYT Bestseller Lora Leigh

Lucy Monroe is one of my favorite indulgences. ~ NYT Bestseller Christine Feehan

Monroe writes with a flourish the type of lovemaking and desire that women can truly appreciate. ~ RT Book Reviews

Lucy Monroe excels at creating authentic erotic romance. ~ Romance B(u)y the Book

Just when one thinks this author has written the best of her best heroes, she releases another story and we are proven wrong. ~ The Road to Romance

"Lucy Monroe has a way of turning a traditional storyline into a refreshing one by using a different approach vs. the tried and true." ~ Stacy (reader)

"I've found that with Lucy's passionate and powerful characters, not to mention her intricate plotlines I am always drawn in right from the first sentence." ~ Tami (reader)

"The characters are well rounded and compelling. The writing is crisp and flowing. You can't go wrong in this latest book [Watch Over Me] by the talented Lucy Monroe." ~ Judy (reader)
Table of Contents

Dedication

Leiandros & Savannah Kiriakis – from The Greek Tycoon's Ultimatum (2003)

Dimitri & Alexandra Petronides - from The Billionaire's Pregnant Mistress (2004)

Spiros & Phoebe Petronides - from The Greek Tycoon's Inherited Bride (2008)

Sebastian & Rachel Kouros - from The Greek's Innocent Virgin (2005)

Aristide & Eden Kouros - from The Greek's Christmas Baby (2005)

Sandor & Eleanor (Ellie) Christofides - from Bought: The Greek's Bride (2007)

Neo & Cass Stamos - from The Shy Bride (2010)

Zephyr & Piper Nikos - from The Greek's Pregnant Lover (2010)

Ariston and Chloe Spiradakou - from Not Just the Greek's Wife (2012)

Kayla & Andreas – Prequel - Kostas's Convenient Bride (May 2018)

Excerpt – Kostas's Convenient Bride (May 2018)

About the Author

DEDICATION:

For my compassionate and patient readers, and particularly those who have asked over the years: What ever happened to so-and-so, was their baby a boy or a girl, will their children grow up and get their own stories? These vignettes peeking into the lives of past characters are for you!

Dear Reader,

Over the years, I've received countless questions about what happened to this or that character, did they have a baby, was the baby a boy or girl, what are they doing now?

Some characters have gotten cameos in other books, like Leiandros Kiriakis from The Greek Tycoon's Ultimatum. He showed up in The Greek's Christmas Baby, but was also mentioned in Not Just the Greek's Wife. Sebastian Hawk showed up in other books, both before and after his own book (Forbidden: The Billionaire's Virgin Princess) was written.

In fact, he has a cameo in my upcoming May release, Kostas's Convenient Bride.

But ever since reading the yearly Christmas Codas put out by one of my favorite authors, I've toyed with the idea of doing my own. Now that I'm writing again, I was delighted with the prospect of fulfilling that dream.

My 2017 Christmas Coda: The Greek Tycoons was a pleasure and a joy to write. I had a lot of fun re-reading all of my Harlequin Presents Greek Tycoon books and reacquainting myself with the characters before writing their vignettes.

These vignettes are not intended to be books, or even novellas. They do not follow typical story structure with a beginning, a middle, a story climax and an ending. The beginning for each vignette was the book it's based on. Simply put, these are Codas, the asked for glimpses into the lives of favorite characters.

Each of those glimpses is different. Some are very short, others are near novella length and the rest fall somewhere in between. A few are sexy and sensual, all are a bit emotional, but a couple will take you on a new heart-wrenching journey with the characters.

All answer the question, "What happened after the HEA?"

It is my sincere hope that you, my reader, will find as much joy reading these peeks into the lives of the characters as I had writing them.

Love and Hugs,

Lucy

Leiandros & Savannah Kiriakis

from The Greek Tycoon's Ultimatum (2003)

December, 15 years after the birth of the twins.

Taking a moment to enjoy the scene before her, Savannah Kiriakis stopped in the doorway to their living room. Both the older girls were home from university for a month. Savannah had missed them so much. Despite the fact that Eva was in her third year attending an American college and Nyssa, who had followed her to the US for school, was now in her second year, Savannah had never gotten used to them being gone.

Neither had Leiandros, though he was less willing to admit it.

He was here now, though, and had been all day, visiting with the girls and the twins, who were also out of school for the winter break.

Her gorgeous, tycoon husband looked up and their eyes caught, her breath going shallow just like it always had. She'd never learned to take for granted her reaction to the man who did his best to show her his love every single day. Perhaps because her first marriage had been so painful and not at all sexually compatible, she still found wonder in how perfectly she and Leiandros, tycoon, family man and amazing husband, fit.

"What are you thinking with that look on your face?" he asked, coming forward to take her hand in his and press a kiss to her cheek. "You look beautiful."

"Thank you. I was thinking what a perfect husband you are."

"Oh, please. Let's not go all mom-and-dad sappy before dinner," Nyssa, their twenty-year-old daughter, teased.

Bea, their youngest daughter and one of the fifteen-year-old twins, rolled her eyes. "They're always like this. It doesn't matter what time of day."

"Would you prefer we argued all the time?" Leiandros lobbed right back, while tugging Savannah to sit on the sofa with him.

"You can't argue when you always give in," Leo said with an eyeroll very much like his twin's.

Savannah gave her son a mock frown. "Your father does not always give in."

"To you, he does. He's got other billionaire business colleagues quaking in their shoes, but you just have to look a little upset and boom, whatever you want." Her son did not sound as disgusted as his words might imply.

In fact, his tone was wholly approving and a little wistful. Savannah couldn't help wondering if there was a certain daughter of one of their friends that inspired the desire to be the same. At fifteen, they were far too young for permanent commitments, but Leo and Chara Kouros had a connection that seemed very familiar to Savannah.

She just hoped their lives allowed them to explore it without the trauma, guilt and pain she and their father had experienced finding their way to each other.

And still...fifteen was too young.

"Now you've got that, my children are growing up too fast look on your face," Bea said, looking just a tad more concerned than Savannah thought she would with such an offhand remark.

"You all are growing up too fast!" Savannah's smile slipped a little as she accepted in that moment that, in the not too distant future, each of the incredible children she'd spent the last two plus decades pouring her heart into, would be leaving the nest.

"Now, she looks about to cry." Nyssa jumped up from where she'd been sitting beside the tree and rushed over to give Savannah an impromptu hug. "It's okay, mama. We're still here."

"I love you all so much. My life as your mom has been so full, so perfect."

"You can say that after how I screamed at you during my teenage years?" Nyssa asked with a laugh.

Savannah felt the tears her daughter had teased about burning the back of her eyes as she nodded vehemently. "You are stubborn, a little dramatic and perfect."

"I'm so not perfect." Nyssa shook her head. "But you always see the best in us children, even when we're calling you names and sending dad into apoplectic fits with our rebellions."

"I have never been apoplectic, I assure you." Leiandros managed to utter that blatant lie without a single blink.

"So that wasn't you shouting the house down when Eva and I ditched our bodyguards and spent the day shopping in Athens before going to a club?" Nyssa tormented her father with a memory that still caused the indestructible tycoon to wake in a cold sweat at night.

"But you have promised to never do that again," Savannah said before her husband's good mood disappeared in memories.

Nyssa grinned, unrepentant. "Never again. I promised."

"And we let them go to university in America. What were we thinking?" Leiandros asked, not altogether teasing.

"I don't know!" It wasn't Savannah answering that way to her husband, but their oldest daughter looking suddenly ready to explode with some terrible emotion.

Savannah was on her feet in a second, headed across the room, but still Leiandros reached their usually quiet, not at all dramatic daughter before Savannah did.

He pulled the now crying twenty-one-year-old into his arms. "It is all right, moro mou. Papa will fix whatever it is, I promise."

"You can't fix this," Eva wailed. "Not even you."

Savannah looked around at the other children, to see if any of them had an inkling what this wholly unexpected meltdown was about. Nyssa was staring at her older sister like she'd grown a second head. No joy there then. Leo looked panicked, like he didn't know what to do to make it better, but didn't like that feeling at all.

But Bea, Eva's fifteen-year-old sister, was biting her lip, her eyes, the same espresso brown as her father's, filled with concern and understanding.

Savannah pressed her hand to her sobbing eldest daughter's back, but focused on the youngest. "Bea? Do you know what's going on?"

Bea wrapped her arms around her stomach and nodded. "Please don't make me tell you. That's for Eva to do. It's not my place."

Savannah gave Bea as reassuring a smile as she could muster.

What on earth was going on with her usually even-tempered daughter? Despite being an artist and going for a fine arts degree, Eva was the most level headed of Savannah's children. And she had plans. For her life, for her siblings. One of those plans had to have gone awry for this kind of reaction, but honestly, if it wasn't Nyssa, and her baffled expression said she had no idea what was going on, Savannah couldn't imagine which of her children could have gone off the rails to cause this kind of reaction.

"What?" Leiandros shouted loud enough to make Savannah jump. "What did you just say to me?" he asked their daughter, his expression utterly gobsmacked.

"You heard me," Eva said, making no move to leave the comfort of her father's arms.

"You are pregnant?" Leiandros asked, his tone too bewildered to be angry, despite his earlier shout.

Savannah didn't hear her daughter's answer. Blood was rushing too loudly in Savannah's ears. The room had lost all its oxygen too and she didn't know what to do about that, but no matter how many breaths she took, she felt like her chest was too tight. The world went a little black around the edges, but Savannah refused to sway on her feet.

Her daughter couldn't see her dismay. Not right now. She needed support. Love. Encouragement. Inside, Savannah was screaming; terror unlike she'd felt since ending her marriage with a monster took over her brain. Fear for her daughter. Fear for the baby she carried. Worry for their family, concern for Leiandros. Because he adored his children. He would take this on himself, thinking somehow, something he had done had brought this about.

Was it the end of the world? No.

But Savannah's heart screamed at her. What if the father was that terrible boy Eva had been dating? The one the bodyguards had warned them got physical when he got angry; although, because of their presence, he'd never crossed that line. Only someone had crossed some line because Eva wasn't pregnant without having had sex.

Savannah wanted to remind her that she'd promised not to ditch the bodyguards again, but now was not the time. Savannah had to stuff her fears way down. She had to let the love she felt for her daughter rise to the top. She was the voice of hope in their family, the emotional barometer and if she didn't keep it together, everything would fall apart.

Never had she felt so sure that her own emotions did not matter, that they could not show, as in that moment when faced with her daughter's pregnancy.

Eva was a year and a half from being finished with school. Did she even think about that? She'd had the opportunity to do things with her life that Savannah never had, the safety net that Savannah had lost when her aunt had gotten Alzheimer's when she was nineteen.

"It will be okay," Leiandros was saying. "You are not alone."

"Mama?" Eva asked, her voice trembling.

Savannah hugged her daughter tight. "Your father is right. We are a family. Whatever you want to do, we will support you."

"I want to finish school, but that's not fair, is it? After all, I made the mistake, nobody else." Eva was crying again.

Savannah gently nudged her husband out of the way so she could take her daughter's face in her hands and meet beautiful green eyes. "Listen to me, right now, Eva. Yes, you had sex with a man and became pregnant. I'm not sure how that happened with the bodyguards, much less the birth control, but it happened. And we will go forward as a family."

"But—"

"No, no buts, no questioning the love of your parents. I've adored you since the moment you were conceived, your father has loved you nearly as long, but just as deeply. You are our daughter and this child? This child you carry is our grandchild."

"I don't know what I want to do, what I can do."

"Let's start with what you want."

"You're not giving that baby up," Nyssa said with characteristic firmness and certainty of her own opinion. "He or she isn't just yours, but ours as well."

"I know that," Eva said, giving her sister a grateful look, rather than the frown Savannah might have expected after that bit of bossiness. "I want the baby. I want to stay in school."

"And the father?" Leiandros asked in even tones that meant he was doing his best to control his emotions as well.

"He's not in the picture. I don't want him in the picture. When I told him I was pregnant, he..." Eva had to collect herself. "He hit me."

"I will kill him and bury him so deep none will ever find the body."

Savannah had no doubt her husband meant every word he said. She shook her head firmly. "No. We will let the lawyers take care of this. You aren't laying a hand on anybody, in fact, you'll pay him off if that's what it takes to get him to sign over parental rights."

"His rights will be nil here in Greece. Good luck proving his parentage in our courts."

"Nevertheless, we aren't going that route. We're getting the papers signed." Savannah looked around her family, letting every single one of them know just how serious she was right now. "We are going to grow by one within the next year and every single one of us will take on whatever role we are meant to with grace and love."

"Yes, mama," all of her children said while Leiandros inclined his head, his expression saying, of course.

"All right. As to school—"

"She's not going back to the U.S. In fact, neither girl is going so far away again." Oh, Leiandros was going into full on protection mode.

If Savannah didn't rein him in quickly, he'd have the younger children learning with tutors and the girls finishing their university years at an all-girls college as close as he could find one.

"We will discuss where our daughters are going to university later," Savannah said, then went for the strategic change of subject. "We still have an annual party to host tonight. Our family's new addition and the changes the baby will bring will have to wait until tomorrow."

"Chara is coming tonight," Leo said.

Savannah bit back a smile. Like she didn't know the Kouros teenager was one of the three guests she'd allowed her son to invite to the adult party.

"As tempted as you may be to discuss this new situation with your friends, we are not announcing Eva's pregnancy until we have solidified our future plans, is that understood?" Leiandros' tone and firm jaw did not invite argument.

Neither Savannah, nor the children gave him one.

#

Savannah crawled into bed feeling older than her forty-seven years, so exhausted, her limbs ached. Hosting their annual Christmas party was always tiring, but doing it with the secret knowledge that her oldest daughter was pregnant by a man who had struck her when she told him? Now, that had challenged Savannah right down to her soul.

Leiandros didn't climb in on his own side, but came into the bed on hers, pulling her under him and blanketing her body with his big one in that way that always made her feel safe. "Everything will work out. You need to trust me, agape mou."

"She had sex with that awful boy."

"We have all had sex with people we wish we had not. At least she is not compounding the mistake by trying to build a relationship with him."

"But he'll always be a part of the baby's life."

"No. He will not."

"Even you can't guarantee that, Leiandros."

"Watch me."

Savannah had never gotten to a place where her husband's arrogance annoyed her. Okay, sometimes in the moment, but for the most part? His absolute confidence gave her a sense of security she'd never known in her first marriage, or even while growing up as she had done.

"Promise me, Leiandros," she begged him. "Promise me our daughter's life isn't going to implode and she isn't going to spend the next two decades forcibly connected to a man who hit her by the string of their child."

"I do promise you. Even if he takes anger management counseling and chooses to pursue visitation, our daughter will never have to see him again."

The tension that had been holding so tightly to Savannah since her daughter had dropped the I'm pregnant bombshell began to dissipate. Okay, so Eva wasn't finished with university. And the final year could well take longer than one, but they had resources Savannah had not had in her early adulthood. Perhaps that wasn't fair, but she didn't care. Her daughter was never going to feel like she'd done something wrong or awful getting pregnant or being a single mom.

Leiandros chose to complete her relaxing through means he had perfected in twenty years of marriage.

#

He wasn't doing a thing to help her relax on Christmas Eve as he blithely told the rest of their family that Eva and Nyssa would be completing their university education in Europe.

Nyssa gasped, turned red and glared like she was ready to throttle the stepfather that had treated her more lovingly and accepted her more completely than her biological one ever had. "I am not transferring schools."

Nyssa didn't yell. She'd learned long ago that raising her voice didn't get her heard, but oh, the look she cast Leiandros said he had the fight of his life on his hands if he thought she was buckling to his wishes in this instance.

Leiandros grimaced, acknowledging her stance, but his stubbornly held jaw said he wasn't swayed by it. "I am sorry if you are disappointed, but that is exactly what is going to happen."

"Why have you decided this?" his mother, Baptista, asked, her expression concerned. She'd helped Savannah convince Leiandros to allow first Eva, then Nyssa to go to university in the States.

"You aren't making me pay for Eva's mistake. I have friends at school. I'm in the best program for my major. My professors like me. I'm not quitting school because you're angry."

"I am not angry."

"Then why punish us?" Eva asked, her eyes glistening with tears. "If you aren't ashamed of me and disappointed me getting pregnant—"

"I thought we weren't talking about that in front of anyone else," Leo interrupted.

Leiandros shrugged. "That was in front of others, everyone here is family and there is nothing to be ashamed of discussing this openly," he emphasized.

Too little, too late, in Savannah's opinion, but she silently acknowledged the effort. "And still, I think you might have shown a little more tact in sharing our daughter's good fortune," Savannah chided her husband.

"Good fortune? He so furious with me, he's punishing Nyssa by association!" Eva's voice was so loud it could be heard over the cacophony of voices that had broken out with the announcement of her pregnancy.

It was so unlike her, so shocking to hear quiet Eva screaming at the top of her lungs, everyone in the room went silent.

Even Leiandros. He stared at her with consternation and shock. "I'm not angry with you, my daughter. I'm angry at myself for not protecting you."

"Was she raped?" Helena, his aunt and Savannah's former mother-in-law, asked with less tact than even her bull-headed nephew had shown.

"I was not raped!" Eva's eyes snapped with fury, her tone glacial. "I had sex. With a man who is not ready to be a father, even less so to be a boyfriend or, heaven forbid, a husband."

"What does that mean?" Sandros, her biological grandfather (and uncle to her stepfather) demanded. "Was it like Dion with Savannah?"

He asked about Savannah's first marriage, the one to his son, Dion. The result of which had been her two beautiful daughters that Leiandros loved every bit as much as the twins they'd had together.

"A little," Eva said with dignity, breaking Savannah's heart. "Not as bad."

The girls knew Dion had forced Savannah to flee with them to America, and if not all the intimate details, enough about that history to hopefully never make the same mistakes their mother had. And her daughter hadn't.

Eva didn't want to marry the man who had hit her and no doubt denied the paternity of their child.

Sandros turned grey, falling against the wall. His daughter Iona's husband made a sound of shock and worry before leaping forward to guide the older man to sit on the sofa. "It is all right, Sandros. Your granddaughter is fine."

Iona's children, closer in age to Leo and Bea than Nyssa and Eva, were asking questions, making remarks that Savannah hoped her daughter was ignoring and, in general acting with all the drama of teenagers.

Savannah gave her husband a serious look of reproach before settling her gaze on the other teens in the room. "You all need to calm down. My daughter is pregnant, not dying of an incurable disease. In a few months, I'm going to be a grandmother and I'm delighted about that fact. Anyone who doesn't feel as I do is welcome to keep his or her opinion to themself."

"You're really not mad at her, Aunt Savannah?" her youngest niece asked.

"No. I'm proud of her for coming to her father and I and being honest. I'm so very proud she realizes a man who reacts with his fists in anger is not ready for an adult relationship, or marriage. But most of all? I'm just grateful we are a close and loving family and I get to be a part of this baby's life. Full stop."

"How would you be if she went back to the States?" Leiandros demanded, sounding belligerent.

Which only happened when he was worried.

"You know I love your arrogance, but you aren't making these kinds of decisions for our daughters. Do I hope that Eva will transfer to a local university to finish her degree? Yes, of course. But there's no reason she can't finish out this year. Even less of a nonexistent reason for her sister to leave the school she is enjoying so much."

"And that man? How are we to protect her from him, if she is over there and we are over here?"

"First, I think she files an assault report, though without physical evidence, it probably won't go anywhere." Savannah had documented everything Dion had done to her and still it hadn't been a walk in the park keeping him out of her life. "Second, we get more security assigned to both girls until we are assured of their safety."

Nyssa groaned, but she didn't argue, which said she was fully aware of how serious her father was about pulling the financial plug on school in America.

"Third," Savannah smiled at both her daughters. "We trust our daughters to continue to make mostly good choices and protect themselves by being smart."

"That is all well and good, in theory," Iona (her former sister-in-law and Leiandros' cousin) said with some asperity. "But in reality, two women from our family should never have gone to America for college to begin with. They are the stepdaughters of one of Greece's wealthiest men. The fortune hunters have open range on them there."

"Fortune hunters come in every nationality, Io," Savannah said.

"There's nothing wrong with a Kiriakis attending school in America. If you haven't forgotten, our mother is from there." Leo was giving Io an offended look, his stance combative.

"I haven't forgotten."

"That is enough." Leiandros tone dripped ice. "Savannah had every right to want her children to experience some of her heritage after graciously allowing our family to remain in Greece after we wed."

"Where else would you go?" Iona scoffed.

"Oh, I don't know. The U.S. maybe?" Bea asked with the perfect sarcasm of a fifteen-year-old girl.

"Beatrice, you will not be disrespectful of your aunt," Sandros ordered.

"She's not my aunt. She's my cousin. And I wasn't being rude, I was being honest. There is a difference."

But her daughter was heading toward the cliff on that one fast. Savannah sighed. Really? Why had Leiandros decided to open this can of worms, now?

Eva was looking ready to bolt and Savannah didn't blame her.

Leiandros noticed too and his expression went stoic like he did sometimes, then he grimaced and then he sighed. He crossed the few feet to their daughter and pulled her into his arms. "I apologize. My arrogance got away with me again. I should have allowed you to make this announcement in your own time."

Eva nodded from where she'd let her forehead fall against her father's chest, hiding from the rest of them. "Yes."

"I am not ashamed of you. I am not angry with you."

"Then don't punish me."

"How will you care for the baby without your mother and my help?"

"Other women do it, but I don't want to. I admit that. Maybe it makes me weak, but I want you two around."

"So, you come home."

"After next term. I'll move home permanently in the summer. I'm glad both you and mom want me to finish school, because I want my degree, but I want this baby more."

"Good. It will take every bit of that passion to be a single mother and do right by your child."

"I know." Oh, Eva sounded so lost.

Leiandros pulled her into a tight hug. "You are not alone."

"We're all with you," Nyssa announced with a glare around the room, daring any of their relatives to disagree. "But I'm still not finishing college in Europe."

Her father laughed. "You are stubborn."

"Like you aren't?" she cheeked.

Savannah smiled, feeling like the crisis had been averted.

Sandros pulled himself up from the sofa and crossed the room lay his hand on Eva's shoulder. "Congratulations, granddaughter. I won't pretend it isn't difficult for an old man like me to accept this single motherhood thing, but we made the mistake once long ago of not accepting family as they needed and lost the first few years of your and Nyssa's life. I will never allow that mistake purchase in my family again. This great grandchild will be celebrated and loved."

And it was, the next summer when the little baby girl was born, every member of the Kiriakis family showed their love and welcome volubly and often.

Savannah would never regret her decision to marry her arrogant tycoon, the only man who had ever shown unconditional, powerful, protective love toward her and who, once started, had never stopped.

Dimitri & Alexandra Petronides

from The Billionaire's Pregnant Mistress (2004)

Spiros & Phoebe Petronides

from The Greek Tycoon's Inherited Bride (2008)

Five years after Spiros & Phoebe's wedding.

"Phoebe is only twenty-seven. We are in no rush to have children, pappous." Spiros rubbed his eyes with one hand, leaning against his desk, rather than sitting behind it.

Phoebe had come to ask if he wanted to join her for lunch, having confirmed they had a rare free hour plus on both their calendars.

Her husband and best friend grimaced at whatever his grandfather said in response to his words.

She'd been waiting for this phone call, and dreading it. According to the contract she and Spiros has signed before their wedding, Phoebe would not be expected to provide a Petronides heir for a minimum of five years. She knew the older Petronides patriarch had expected a grandchild by that five-year mark. But Phoebe had not been ready to become a parent and despite teasing her in the beginning that he would be jealous of his brother's good fortune in becoming a parent, Spiros had never pressured her to have a child.

"No, grandfather, we are not coming for Christmas. Both Phoebe and I have responsibilities here in Paris; getting away for a prolonged holiday just isn't a possibility right now."

His grandfather said something.

Spiros' body went rigid, his free hand fisting at his side. "Perhaps you and her parents should have considered that very thing five years ago when you did your best to blackmail my wife into marrying a man who had no desire to marry her."

Voluble Greek sounded from the phone, though Phoebe could not tell what the words were.

Her husband's reaction wasn't promising though. He'd gone from stoic to full-on anger as his grandfather spoke.

"Don't think to ever use that threat with me. If you have a heart attack, it won't be because of anything I, or my wife have done. You made your choice to put your own desires ahead of Phoebe's well-being five years ago. I will never allow you, or her parents, the opportunity to hurt her that way again."

Phoebe's heart warmed. She needn't have worried about how her husband would respond to pressure, like she'd been getting from her parents, from his grandfather.

In the years since they'd wed, Spiros had shown unwavering loyalty to her. He had supported her need to pull back from a closeness with her parents that felt insincere now that she knew that to them, she was not the child they stood behind and she was little more than a commodity to be sold to finance their hopes, dreams and lifestyle.

After waiting in silence while his grandfather spoke some more, Spiros said, "No. I don't think five years is too long to hang onto my anger over that truth. Because it is not anger I am holding onto. I am justifiably protective of the wife that I love."

His grandfather's voice sounded sharp through the phone.

"Ne. Of course, I love you as well, pappous. I always will, but I will never forget what your actions could have cost Phoebe, what they very nearly cost me."

Spiros shook his head as his grandfather spoke again, his expression closed, his eyes narrowed. "No, I categorically do not see it as the harmless efforts of an old man to see to his family's happiness. You didn't care about anyone's happiness but your own. The fact Dimitri forgave you is a gift you should never take for granted. You nearly cost him the woman he loved and the son he adores."

Phoebe hadn't realized that Spiros was still so unhappy with his grandfather. Okay, so he'd said he wasn't angry, but for the first time since their marriage she realized how much damage the older generation's machinations had done to relationships on both sides of the families.

She always simply appreciated the fact he never pushed to visit their family in Greece, seemingly content to see them as infrequently as Phoebe was.

They never talked about how their marriage came about, that at one time Spiros himself had been one of the people pressing her to marry his older brother despite knowing how little she or Dimitri wanted it.

Spiros let out an impatient breath. "Perhaps that is because she does not see you as her uncle any longer."

Guilt was an acrid taste in Phoebe's mouth. She'd stopped referring to Theopolis Petronides as uncle when she'd learned he had used his health as the battering ram to force his grandson Dimitrius into agreeing to marry Phoebe, despite the fact he had been having a relationship with another woman. Phoebe had known about the other woman and there was no way Theopolis hadn't. He'd used the threat of not having necessary life-saving surgery to blackmail Dimitri into setting a wedding date neither of them had wanted.

She couldn't change the fact that she had parents who had been happy to sell her in order to save the family company and their lifestyle, but she didn't have to acknowledge a special relationship with a man who was not her uncle, not her grandfather.

She wasn't unkind to the old man, but she would not trust him. She didn't trust any of them anymore.

Not her father. Not her mother. Not Theopolis Petronides.

Phoebe loved her husband very much, but being forced into marriage rather than being allowed to find that path on their own was a wound that had never completely healed.

"I love you too. We'll do a video call on Christmas."

Phoebe smiled at her husband as he turned toward the door, his expression brightening when he noticed her standing in his office.

"Thank you," she offered.

"For what, agape mou?"

"For not giving into his guilt trip about returning to Greece for Christmas. For not promising a baby in nine months' time."

"He will have to be content with the two grandchildren he has until, if and when, we decide to add to the number."

"He's getting on in years." She bit her lip, admitting what she knew to be true, "If we want our children to know him, we have to have them soon, I suppose."

Spiros cupped her cheek, his expression serious. "When you can come to me with something akin enthusiasm over the idea, rather than expediency, we will talk."

"You want children."

"I want this life I have with you, Phoebe."

"But you want a baby."

"When the time is right we will have one. You enjoy your position with Petronides Industries too much to give it up, or even go part-time right now. I feel the same. While I have no issue with both parents working full-time, that is not how I ever envisioned my life as a parent."

"You've thought about going part-time once the children come?" she asked, not sure why she was shocked. Family had always been paramount to her incredible tycoon husband.

So important that Spiros had almost ejected Phoebe from his life for the sake of loyalty to his brother and grandfather.

"Yes. Haven't you?" He put one hand on her hip and the other at her waist, pulling her closer to his virile body and making Phoebe wonder if eating lunch was really what she wanted to do with their free time.

"Well, yes." She laid her hands against his chest, loving how she could always feel the beat of his strong heart if she placed her palm just right. "And you're right, I'm not ready to make that change yet."

"No. You find your position both fulfilling and challenging, as do I. We're still young. We have plenty of time to have children."

She sighed leaning her forehead against him. "Not according to my parents or your grandfather."

"Your father called you?" he asked, sounding ready to take up battle on her behalf.

She winced, tilting her head back to meet his gaze again. "This time, it was my mother. She's pulled out every guilt card. We don't spend enough time with them. I'm selfish to wait so long to have children. I have lost my sense of family. Blah, blah, blah..."

Spiro shook his head, then leaned down and kissed her, first on each cheek then her lips, allowing passion to build between them and her breathing to become erratic before pulling back. "You, precious woman, you have nothing to feel badly about. You make time for your family, but less for your parents than they would like. They precipitated that change in relationship and can now accept it with grace or deal with me."

"They don't consider the time I spend with your brother and sister-in-law, family time, or even the visits we have always done with Chrysanthos at his university in America."

"Their skewed perception of reality is not your responsibility. Do we change our policies because those who wish to do business with us do not like the way Spironides International conducts its affairs?"

"No, of course not."

"And just because your parents, or my grandfather don't like the way we choose to conduct our marriage does not mean we are going to make concessions. When, or if, we become parents is up to us. Not anyone else."

"You've said if twice now. Are you thinking you may never want children?" She'd never even considered the possibility he might feel that way. Mostly because he was amazing with his nephews, four-year-old Theo, named for their grandfather and fifteen-month-old Philip, named for Alexandra's Dupree grandfather.

"If you ever decide you want to be a mother, I'm with you a hundred percent, but listen and believe when I tell you that our life together is all that I need. I love you, Phoebe, with my whole heart."

"And I love you." It was a miracle considering how their marriage came about, but no less true for that. For either of them.

#

Dimitri found his wife playing with their children in the pool, a vice of emotion squeezing his heart at the tableau the three people he loved most in the world made. "What is a water nymph and her two cherubs doing in my pool?" he wondered out loud.

"We aren't cherubs. We're boys," his son Theo asserted while their fifteen-month-old just squealed, "Papapapapa." Philip hadn't quite got the hang of simply saying papa and repeated the pa over and over again, though Alexandra was definitely mama.

His wife smiled up at him, her beautiful body glistening with the water in the hot Mediterranean sun.

They lived in Greece, but spent two weeks every quarter in New York with her sister and brother-in-law, as well as traveling frequently to visit Spiros and Phoebe in Paris. It worked for them and their children, though once the boys were in school, the travel schedule would have to change.

Alexandra glided through the water and lifted their wet son up to Dimitri. "You might as well take him, he's not going to stop saying pa over and over until you do."

He didn't hesitate to grab the dripping wet baby and cuddle Philip in close, regardless of his own dry clothes. "Did you have a good day today, pethi mou?"

The baby babbled back, patting Dimitri's cheeks with his chubby little hands. The strain of his recent conversation with pappous melted away as he focused on his own little family.

"Papa?" Theo called from the pool.

Dimitri looked over. "Ne?"

"Watch."

"I am watching."

Theo bobbed down under the water and stayed for about ten seconds, then exploded upward, water cascading around him. "Did you see? Did you."

"I did, my son. You are getting better and better at staying under the water."

"I can swim to mama too." Then Theo demonstrated that skill, by kicking off from the wall and swimming the few feet to his mother.

Alexandra pulled the four-year-old in for a sweet hug, before releasing him back into the water. She was such a good mother, so loving, so committed to the children and their family, but still a woman with her own interests. And opinions. His wife definitely had strong opinions on the sustainability and social responsibility of Petronides International.

Theo looked up, to make sure Dimitri had been watching.

Dimitri gave his son a thumbs up. "Well done, son."

"Are you going to join us, or should we get out?" Alexandra asked, her hazel gaze traveling over him with warm interest.

Five years, two children and the fire between them still burned hot.

"How long have you been in?" Dimitri asked, not wanting to get changed into a suit only to be exiting the pool a few minutes later because Alexandra had determined the children had spent enough time in the salt-water infinity pool.

"We just got in," Theo asserted.

But Alexandra shook her head. "I know it may feel that way, love-bug, but we've been out here for almost an hour."

"So, time to get out of the sun for a little while, hmmm?" Dimitri asked.

"Do we have to?" Theo asked, not quite whining, but clearly not enamored of the idea.

"I had hoped to play a game of Don't Break the Ice before dinner, but if you would rather swim..." Dimitri let his voice trail off, knowing his son loved the game that required knocking out blocks until the figure in the middle collapsed through.

Phillip was too young to play, but he still loved watching his big brother pound away at the white blocks.

"Oh, I want to play!" Theo swam to the side of the pool and pulled himself out, rushing forward for a hug.

"Theo, dry off first," Alexandra called. "You're going to soak your father's trousers."

Theo frowned, but stopped before throwing himself at his papa's legs. "Philip didn't dry off."

Dimitri dropped to one knee and put his hand out. "Come here, son."

Theo threw himself forward and Dimitri gave him a tight hug.

Alexandra shook her head at him, smiling as she pulled herself from the pool.

Despite holding both his children, Dimitri could not remain unmoved by the sight of his wife's lovely body in a modest bikini. She'd been a very successful model when they met, but was even more alluring now. Her body had changed with each baby delivery, her curves fuller, her hips womanly and sexy, each stretch mark a testament to her role as mother to their children.

Knowing what his smoldering gaze meant, she blew him a kiss before picking up her own towel to pat water away from damp skin. When she was done she took their oldest son from Dimitri and dried Theo off. "I don't know what to do with you boys."

Dimitri grabbed the diaper bag from beside one of the loungers, sat down with his son and proceeded to change Philip out of his swim diaper into a regular one, some shorts and a t-shirt.

"What did me and Philip do, mama?

"I'm not talking about Philip, I'm talking about you and your papa. Neither of you are showing sense getting his clothes all wet."

"They will dry, yineka mou."

She just shook her head again before giving him a searching look. "You were upset when you came out here."

He was not surprised she had noticed. His Alexandra knew him better than anyone else.

"Grandfather wanted to talk about Spiros and Phoebe," he told her.

She finger-combed her wet hair. "Are they coming for Christmas?"

"No, but you, the children and I will see them for the New Year in New York with your sister." Spiros and Phoebe had become fast friends with Alexandra's sister, Madeleine, and brother-in-law, Hunter.

Phoebe and Alexandra were now as close as, or even closer than, Spiros and Dimitri. While his brother had finally forgiven him for almost marrying the woman Spiros loved and made an amazing uncle to Dimitri's children, the women had developed a deep bond that was both special and inexplicably strong.

"Your grandfather is upset they aren't coming to Greece for the holidays?" Phoebe guessed as she helped their older son change into dry clothes.

"He's not happy about it, but he's really upset that Phoebe isn't pregnant yet."

"That's Phoebe and Spiros' decision, surely."

"You don't have to tell me, but he's a stubborn old man."

"Did he and Spiros argue?"

"Yes, and apparently my brother made it clear that he's still harboring resentment over pappous' attempt to force a marriage between me and Phoebe five years ago."

"But everything worked out."

Dimitri frowned. "Not without a lot of people getting hurt, you most of all."

"I don't know if that's true, but you're right. It wasn't one of your grandfather's smarter moves." Alexandra had never held his grandfather's efforts to force Dimitri into marriage against him.

And he loved that about her, but he understood Spiros' attitude. Phoebe had been hurt too. Badly. And Dimitri understood the need to protect the woman he loved. Phoebe was still being hurt because pappous and her parents continued to treat her like her happiness and desires weren't what was important.

It was no wonder that his brother and sister-in-law kept their visits back to Greece at a minimum.

Alexandra tsked. "You'd think he would have learned his lesson about trying to emotionally blackmail his grandsons."

"He didn't." Dimitri put his arm around his wife as they walked as was his habit. "He told Spiros that all the stress of waiting for him to do his duty could bring on another heart attack."

Alexandra gasped. "No."

"Oh, yes. Then pappous said if they didn't have children right away, he might not live long enough to see those children."

The children had run ahead into the big villa that had housed his family for more than three generations, Phoebe and Dimitri following at a slower pace, so the young ears missed the French curse word his lovely wife uttered.

"At his last checkup, the doctor said he had years yet," she said with outrage. "His heart is doing great after his surgery five years ago."

"I know that. So does Spiros, but I don't imagine that makes my brother any less angry that pappous tried to pull the health card again to get what he wanted."

"Doesn't Theopolis realize the cost of his earlier attempts? How much he hurt you? Me? Phoebe and Spiros?" Her words were laced with shock and a measure of hurt that Dimitri was determined to erase. "He's always been so welcoming of me."

"Pappous adores you, but five years ago, he ultimately got what he wanted, grandchildren, the Petronides and Leonides families connected through marriage, his lifelong dream." Dimitri ticked the things important to his grandfather off on his fingers.

"But he wants more grandchildren now?"

"Apparently."

Alexandra fluttered her eyelashes up at Dimitri. "Maybe we can help him out with that."

"Are you ready for another child? Philip is just fifteen months old." But Dimitri would not pretend that the idea did not excited him.

Dimitri found great joy in being a father, thought his wife made the most estimable of mothers, and thought both of his sons would no doubt adore having another sibling. Theo was a natural big brother, nurturing, teasing, kind and keen to help his little brother learn. Phillip was social and fascinated by other babies. It was really very sweet.

"And even if I got pregnant tomorrow he'd be nearly two and half when the baby was born. I love the idea of having another baby with you."

"You aren't saying that to get Phoebe off the hook with Grandfather, because it won't work, you know."

Alexandra laughed, the sound rich and warm, going straight to his libido, despite knowing they could do nothing about it for hours and hours yet. "I love my sister-in-law as much as my own sister, Madeleine. And honestly? I adore your brother. He's very protective of me and the children, just like he is of his wife."

"He's a good man."

"He is."

"But..." She paused for effect. "I want more babies with you because I love you. Full stop. No other reasons."

"Then by all means, let us see what we can do about that."

And later that night, after the children were in bed, they skipped dinner with his grandfather to make love...and maybe make a baby.

#

Ten years after Spiros & Phoebe's wedding.

Phoebe rushed to answer the door before the bell pealed again. The doorman had called to say her brother was on the way up, but he hadn't mentioned that Chrysanthos was agitated enough to ring her bell incessantly until she opened the door.

She flung it open. "Stop leaning on my doorbell, Chrysanthos."

"Did you even look in the peephole to see who was in the hall?" he demanded, sounding a lot like her over-protective husband.

"My doorman let me know you were headed up," she responded, closing the door behind him.

"You couldn't be sure it was me at the door."

"What in the world is the matter with you, Chrysanthos?"

Before he could answer, the door opened behind her brother and Spiros stepped inside their Parisian penthouse.

His beautiful, muscular body encased in a designer suit, his golden-brown gaze was filled with curiosity and wide with surprise at the sight of Phoebe's brother. "I didn't know you were coming to visit, Chrysanthos."

Her brother's lips twisted in something between a frown and a grimace. "I didn't either, until a few hours ago."

Spiros gave Phoebe a questioning look. She shrugged. She didn't know why her brother was there.

"What prompted you to make the trip?" Spiros asked.

Chrysanthos gave Phoebe a look, his dark brown eyes the same dark shade as hers, filled with an anguished anger she didn't understand. "Our father sold you."

Even ten years later, the words alluding to her father's actions sliced shallow cuts into her heart. But she didn't understand why this was coming up now. "The circumstances around our marriage were not a secret."

Well, not exactly. She'd never told her brother the details of the deal. Why would she? He'd been a teenager at the time. He didn't need the burden of that knowledge.

"I knew the company was in trouble, that your marriage to Dimitri would get Leonides Shipping out of the red, but then you married Spiros. I thought you loved each other, that somehow you'd managed to avoid our father's plans for you."

"I do love him," Phoebe said, her voice ringing with all the passion of her soul.

"I read the contract, Phoebe. You were protecting yourself, from both Spiros and Dad. I read the other one too, the one that outlined just how much money Spiros would give our company in exchange for you becoming his wife."

"I would have loaned the money, regardless, if Phoebe asked for it." Spiros put his arm around her waist, pulling her close. "I loved her then. I love her now."

Chrysanthos inclined his head, like he believed Spiros' words but wasn't particularly moved by them.

Her younger brother, now the head of Leonides Shipping, focused on Phoebe. "But would you have married him? Right out of university? If mom and dad hadn't guilted you into sacrificing your life for theirs?"

"It wasn't like that." Only hadn't it been?

"It was just like that. Father had choices."

"Not by the time I married Spiros, he didn't. We'd left it too long to go public. There was no way of saving the company without a huge infusion of capital."

"One our father had no intention of getting from a bank. You didn't leave anything too late. I remember the long hours you worked back then. It was our dad who wasn't willing to sacrifice his pride, or his control of the company to save it. Just his daughter. "

"The banks would have said no."

"He didn't even try."

"That's not the way he saw it."

"But you knew. You knew he'd made some idiotic decisions based on the same kind of archaic thinking that allowed him to sell his daughter." Chrysanthos spun away and stormed into the living room, plopping down on one of the armchairs. "That's why you insisted on a seat on the board. To protect our company."

"Our father didn't see it that way."

"Our father," Chrysanthos said with disgust and a shake of his head. "Tell me the truth, would you have married Spiros when you did if you hadn't been under pressure from our family and his?"

Phoebe opened her mouth to speak, but then let it close again, realizing she didn't have an instant answer to that.

"That's why you've waited so long to have children. You didn't want to get married." Chrysanthos shook his head, frustration rolling off of him, anger permeating the air around them.

Phoebe spoke the only truth that mattered, to her. "I love Spiros. I have always loved him."

"But that is not what I asked."

"No, it's not." Phoebe sat down, letting out a sigh as she rested her hand against her slightly protruding belly.

Of all her family, Chrysanthos was the only one she was still close to, the only one she cared what he thought of her and her life. He'd always supported her, believed in her. Been there for her, as a little brother, but been there all the same.

"No. I wouldn't have agreed to the marriage under those circumstances, if I'd had a choice."

Spiros sat down beside her, his expression more appropriate to a hostile board room than to their living room. He didn't say anything, simply looked between her and Chrysanthos.

"I'm sorry I dropped in on you unannounced like this."

"I'm surprised you could get away. Being CEO is a big job."

"Yeah, you pretty much did it for dad while you were waiting to get married. I always thought it was strange you didn't want to work at the company after."

Phoebe shrugged, her arm rubbing against Spiros, finding comfort in even that small contact. "I made him give me a seat on the board, but after what happened, I didn't want to work with him."

"Why would you? You didn't trust him any longer."

"No, I didn't."

"You still don't."

Phoebe grimaced, not answering.

"If you did, if you felt close to him and mom, they'd know you're pregnant."

"Don't you mean finally pregnant?"

"They've been putting pressure on you for years to get pregnant, haven't they?"

"Yes."

"Is that why you waited so long?"

"It was part of it."

"And the forced marriage?"

"That was part of it too. I needed to feel like I had a say."

"And Spiros, he never pressured you?"

"What do you think? I see my beloved wife as a brood mare? She was not having our child until she was ready, and if that time never came, then it never came." Spiros slid one arm around her waist, pulling her close, putting the other hand over the small mound of her belly.

Phoebe put her hand over Spiros' against her stomach.

Her brother sighed and then smiled at them both. "I know you love Phoebe, Spiros. It's one of the reasons I was so shocked by those contracts."

"Contracts that had no bearing on our life together from the day we said our vows," Spiros said with conviction.

"If that were true, I believe, my sister, who is so good with children, who talked all the time about the family she was going to have until she went away to college, the type of mother she was going to be, would already have children." Oh, Chrysanthos sounded sure of his hypothesis.

"No," Phoebe said firmly. "No. I have enjoyed my career, but I didn't want to be a mother when I was working fulltime. Spiros understood that."

Chrysanthos fisted his hands. "I would never have allowed our father to trade you for our company. If I'd been older, none of this would have happened."

"You make it sound like our marriage was a tragedy when I assure you, it was not." Every word vibrated with furious affront from her husband.

She turned so she could look up at him, holding his hand tightly against where their baby grew inside of her. "That's not what he's saying."

"Do not speak for your brother, you are doing fine speaking for yourself." Spiros golden brown eyes were dark with anger as he stared at her.

Phoebe gasped. "What are you so angry about?"

"Am I angry?"

"Furious, more like."

"Why would I be angry? You and your brother have agreed that you would not have married me if you had a choice."

Well, darn it. "I didn't say I wouldn't marry you ever, just not right out of university. You know I loved you, but marrying because of the money, to save my family, being pressured into marrying Dimitri by everyone, not knowing how you felt. It hurt me."

"Would you want the same for your child?" Chrysanthos demanded indicating her belly with his hand.

Spiros gave her brother a sulfuric glare. "I would never put my child in that position, but that does not mean Phoebe should not have married me."

"Neither of us said that." Phoebe implored her husband's understanding with her eyes. "But do I wish we'd dated like other people? That you'd asked me to marry you with words of love? Yes."

"How long?"

"How long, what?"

"How long would you have wanted to wait? How long would you have wanted to date?"

"Months, a year, I don't know. I loved you so much, it wouldn't have been long."

"But it would have been different. Better for you."

"I don't regret a single day of our marriage."

"I am glad to hear that." He didn't sound glad. He sounded...off.

"Spiros?"

"What, yineka mou?"

"I am your wife. I am glad I'm your wife. I'm excited about this baby."

"But you wish we had gotten to this point a different way."

"It doesn't matter, Spiros. We are here. Married, having our first child."

He looked down at her and leaned forward, kissing her until she snuggled against him.

"You two." Chrysanthos laughed. "I'm still furious with our dad, but there's no question you two were meant for each other."

#

Chrysanthos couldn't stay overnight. He had too many things going on with Leonides Shipping to take any extra time away from the company. And apparently as upset as he'd been by the contracts he'd found and read, he was content now to believe that Phoebe was married to the man she was meant for.

Her husband wasn't so sanguine and Phoebe didn't know how to make it better.

She was still thinking about it when she got home from work. She'd planned to ride with Spiros today, but had ended up taking a car instead because he went in early and said he'd be leaving at a different time than her.

He had, leaving the office a couple of hours before he usually did, so she was surprised to find the apartment empty when she got there a few hours later. Only a gorgeous dress by one of her favorite designers was on the bed, along with a note.

The note told her to be dressed and ready to go out...she looked down at her watch, in thirty minutes. She'd left work a few minutes late, then her car had arrived even later. Phoebe was sure her husband had intended her to have more time to get ready. She didn't and if she didn't get a move on, he'd show up and she'd still be in her slip.

Which wasn't such a bad scenario, but Phoebe was curious what her husband was going to happen.

What happened was that her perfect, romantic, loving husband dated her. At least once a week until their baby was born, Spiros courted her with dinners, live theater, trunk shows (they lived in the fashion capital of the world after all), concerts, date-night movies, and gifts. Lots and lots of little and big gifts that showed just how well he knew her, how much he thought about her.

They also took birthing classes together, shopped for the nursery and made plans for the future in this amazing bubble of happiness she'd never realized could be as wonderful as it was.

And the night she delivered their baby, a beautiful little girl they named Clea (which meant gift of God) because she was their gift, timed to their life and their love, that happiness bubble was complete.

#

"She is beautiful," Alexandra told Phoebe as she looked down into the face of her new niece, delighted Phoebe had allowed her to be one of the first people to hold Clea. "And her name is perfect."

Dimitri put an arm around Alexandra's waist and looked down at the hours-old-infant like the besotted uncle he was. "She's got your looks," he said to Phoebe, who glowed with a giddy, infectious happiness. "Which she will no doubt be grateful for, but she's got my brother's eyes."

"She's perfect," Phoebe replied, reclining in her private hospital bed, wearing a lovely nightgown that Spiros had helped change her into after she gave birth to Clea.

Spiros, who sat on the bed beside his wife, touched her lovingly. "Just like her mama."

"You two are so sweet, I'm going to get a cavity looking at you." Dimitri's teasing tone belied any acerbity to his remark.

Spiros grinned at his older brother. "Like you and Alexandra are any different."

Her husband shrugged, his muscular chest rising and falling against her.

"Do you think Theo will stand in as her big brother?" Spiros asked, emotion lacing his tone. "Only he's been trained in the role by the best. Both Philip and Alexandar are lucky to have him."

Dimitri went silent beside her, clearly moved by his younger brother's words.

"He can't wait to meet his youngest cousin," Alexandra answered, giving her husband a minute to collect himself. Madeleine's children were of an age with Alexandra and Dimitri's three. "And he's positively vibrating with the chance to watch over a little girl."

Dimitri cleared his throat, wiping surreptitiously at his eyes. "He was hoping Alexandar would be a girl."

"Well, he treats little Alex like a big brother should, being protective and teaching him. You'd never know he wanted a little sister."

"He didn't, not by the time Alex was born," Alexandra said. "Theo really loves his role as oldest."

"He certainly shares your protective streak, and willingness to teach his younger siblings." Spiros smiled. "If he has half your ruthless attitude to business, he'll take Petronides International places neither of us have done."

Alexandra knew how healing these words her brother-in-law was speaking were to her husband. Though Spiros had long ago forgiven Dimitri for almost marrying the woman he loved and being less than honest about his own relationship with Alexandra and what she meant to him, her husband had always harbored a sense of guilt where his brother was concerned.

"S'gapo, adelfós mou." Dimitri's affirmation of his love for his brother came out in tear-choked Greek.

Spiros got up from the bed and came to hug Dimitri, his own tears running unchecked down his cheeks. "You have always shown me what it means to be the best in family and I am very glad my daughter will know you as her uncle."

Alexandra knew Spiros meant his words sincerely. After all, he and Phoebe had packed up their apartment in Paris and moved back to Greece near the end of the pregnancy, so their daughter could be raised near Dimitri, Alexandra and their children. Theopolis was over the moon to have both his grandsons living in the family home again and his excitement at Clea's birth had actually exhausted him so much, he had to go home to rest.

At eighty, he was still going strong. He'd even stopped pressuring Phoebe and Spiros into having children after his fight with his youngest grandson five years prior. Most importantly, he'd taken Phoebe aside and apologized profusely to her for ignoring her personal happiness in his quest to see the Leonides and Petronides families united.

Phoebe still had a distant relationship with her parents, a lot like Alexandra's with her own mother, but like Alexandra, Phoebe was close with her sibling and in-laws.

They were two incredibly blessed women to have married the men they did. The Petronides brothers were the best Greece had to offer, and she knew Phoebe agreed with that sentiment.

Sebastian & Rachel Kouros

from The Greek's Innocent Virgin (2005)

Aristide & Eden Kouros

from The Greek's Christmas Baby (2005)

Not quite 16 years after Sebastian and Rachel wed.

Sebastian Kouros finished signing the deed documents with a sense of great satisfaction. He'd tried to gift the island and Kouros villa on it to his beautiful wife, Rachel, since first courting her. She always refused it, saying she didn't marry him for his billions and real estate, but because she was foolish enough to love him more than life itself.

He had no problem believing her, not only had she exhibited that love in her giant, giving heart for many, many years, but he felt the same way. A love as powerful as they shared could not be faked or denied.

But Sebastian was a competitive man and he'd finally found a way to gift the island to the woman who should have always owned it, in his mind anyway.

He had signed it over to their youngest child, with the stipulation it could not be sold outside the family until she was thirty, and named Rachel as the executor of the property until Phyllida turned twenty-one. Since their youngest had just turned four, that would make Rachel the de facto owner for nearly two decades.

"What are you up to, Sebastian? You've got that just conquered the world business tycoon look on your face." Rachel came into his office, her beautiful, curvaceous body encased in a long, lightweight, cream-colored sweater and caramel leggings.

She'd call them mom-clothes, he called them enticing as hell.

"Just finishing up the children's Christmas gifts."

"I thought we finished shopping for them in Athens last week?" She gave him a look. The one that said she thought he spoiled their four children shamelessly. "Did you buy them more stuff after we agreed we were done?"

She'd gotten her way about having more children after Chara had been born, despite his possibly irrational fears about her health. He got his way about spoiling those children. However, that did not mean he was stupid enough to go in direct opposition to his wife's dictates.

"No, naturally not." He'd already owned all four properties he was signing over to their children.

He'd bought the Santorini villa with vineyard he was gifting their fifteen-year-old eldest, Chara, the month after she was born. The penthouse in Athens that Sebastian had deeded to their twelve-year-old son, Achilles, had been the first property purchased for himself after becoming an adult. And the villa outside Athens that he put in his son's twin sister, Leto's name had been the first house he bought for him and Rachel to live in.

She'd thought he'd sold it when they purchased the bigger house, closer to the city center after she unexpectedly became pregnant with Phyllida, seven years after the twins were born.

"So, what are you giving our children, that you didn't have to buy?" Rachel asked suspiciously.

"Nothing of which you will not approve, agape mou, but I prefer you be surprised with the children on Christmas morning." His wife had the endearing trait of loving surprises, whether for herself or for someone she cared about.

She came around his desk and he turned his chair so she could settle onto his lap as was their custom. Rachel laid her arms on his shoulders, locking her hands against his neck and leaning forward to kiss him.

"Not that I'm complaining, but to what do I owe this mid-afternoon visit to my office?" he asked after returning her kiss in a most satisfying way.

She nuzzled under his chin and Sebastian's senses went on alert. He'd learned that his wife was a cuddler, but especially when she was upset, or feeling insecure.

"I wanted to talk to you about something and I didn't want to wait for you to be finished with work," she said, confirming his suspicions that Rachel had something on her mind.

Something that bothered her.

"You have my full attention."

"I got a disconcerting email."

"From who?"

"My sister."

"You don't have a sister."

"That's what I thought too, but according to this woman. I do."

Now, Sebastian's instincts were on high alert. "Who is this woman?"

"Her name is Bethany Stone. She's seven years younger than me. She said Andrea gave her up for adoption. She doesn't know her father is."

"How did she find out about Andrea?"

"She hired a private investigator. I guess the adoption records weren't sealed. It was an open adoption, but Andrea never took advantage of the stipulations for visitation."

"Andrea had another child?" Sebastian asked, just to confirm...because honestly? He was shocked at the very idea.

His lovely wife didn't look so steady herself. "According to Bethany."

"Did this Bethany offer any proof, these open records maybe?"

"So far, she's just emailed me and told me about them."

"How did she get your email?"

"She used the one attached to my work with Eden on the Kouros Children's Fund."

That was better than this unknown woman having Rachel's private email.

Rachel bit her lip. "I list the KCF on my social media. It wouldn't have been hard for her investigator to find me."

Sebastian rubbed his wife's back, leaning down to kiss the side of her neck. "How do you feel about all this?"

"Thank you."

"For what, yineka mou?"

"For asking that instead of going all, we need proof, we need to investigate this woman on me."

"That's coming." He could not pretend otherwise. "But first, tell me what you are feeling at the prospect of having a sister."

"It's weird. I hated growing up an only child, but it never occurred to me that I could possibly have a sister, or a brother. I mean, my dad could have gotten remarried."

"But he did not." Not until he'd been reunited with his daughter. He'd met Sebastian and Aristide's mother and married Phillipa about a year later, giving her a new lease on life that Sebastian would always be grateful for.

"No, but he could have and it never occurred to me. Only that would have been so much more believable than Andrea having another child and giving it up for adoption."

"So far, you only have this Bethany Stone's word that happened."

"Right."

"Do you remember Andrea being pregnant?"

"It would have been right after we left my father. I don't remember much from those first couple of years, just searching for my daddy, missing him. Hating being with my mom."

"She was not a good mother. Not like you. Our children know how important they are to you every single day."

Her smile was so warm, so filled with love for him, reflected love for their children. "I love being a mom. I love being a wife. Our life is so good, Sebastian."

To hear her say these things, no matter how many times she'd done so, after their painful beginning, always gave him soul-deep pleasure. "It is, fíltatos mou, Rachel mou."

Her gaze filled with pleasure, reminding him how much she adored when he called her his beloved. She snuggled in closer. "I am yours. And I know it's safe to tell you..." Rachel let her voice trail off, but Sebastian wasn't worried.

She would share when she was ready.

He waited patiently while his beloved wife sat in silence, her hands kneading his chest in the way she did when she was stressed.

Finally, she took a deep breath and then let it out. "I'm not sure I want a sister. I'm thirty-eight years old. I have a family now; I have had for the last fifteen years. Bethany could have found me at any time since she turned eighteen. Why now?"

"You don't trust her?"

"If she's telling me the truth, she's as much Andrea's daughter as I am."

"You're afraid Bethany is like Andrea," he said, even more shocked than at the knowledge his kind-hearted wife might have a sister. "Distrustful cynicism is usually my department."

"I know, right?" Rachel teased, but her emerald gaze reflected worry more than humor.

"You are nothing like the woman who gave you life."

"I know that." Her brows drew together as she went silent in thought, parsing what he had said. "So, expecting Bethany to be like her is unfair."

"But understandable. Your experience with Andrea was filled with pain. This woman claims to be a link to the pain you were finally able to leave behind after Andrea's death."

"She said she wants to get to know her sister, to find out about our mother."

"And the last thing you want to do is spend time talking about Andrea." Again understandable. Rachel had gotten a very raw deal when it came to who she'd been saddled with as a mother.

"Yes. One of the things that gave me comfort about Andrea dying when she did was that she never had the opportunity to hurt my children the way she'd hurt me. I know that sounds awful—"

He wouldn't let her castigate herself. "No, it sounds human. You never wished your mother ill. You didn't want her to die, but the fact she was not around to manipulate and hurt your children was something you could take comfort in even as you grieved the life she could have had if Andrea had the capacity to care about others."

"You know me so well."

"Naturally. You are my wife."

Rachel grinned, her lovely face so enticing he had to kiss her. When he was finished, she had her hands in his hair and his were settled on her hips.

"You've still got that arrogant streak."

He caressed her hip, letting his hand slide around to her backside. "You would have me no other way."

"No, I wouldn't."

He kissed her again, just for that, then said, "Our children's lives do not have to be touched by Andrea even if you tell Bethany the truth."

"If Bethany is like her, if she's got some kind of angle getting ahold of me now, it'll be like my mother is still here, still alive to destroy the lives of those around her."

"And what if Bethany Stone is nothing like Andrea? What if she is like you? A giving, caring woman who just wants to expand her family?"

"Why wait so many years to get ahold of me?"

"You can ask her. After I've turned her name over to Hawk Securities and we've gotten a deep report on her life. After she agrees to a DNA test to confirm the filial link and that test has been done. You are, after all, married to a billionaire."

"And we're not opening our family up to a stranger without confirmation of her claims." There was a lot of relief and satisfaction in his wife's tone.

"Even with those confirmations, Bethany Stone will not be meeting our children until you and I have met her and determined that is the right course of action."

Rachel let out what was clearly a happy sigh. "You know, sometimes I find your distrustful cynicism so incredibly comforting."

She leaned up, pressing her lips to his. Enjoying very much when she initiated physical intimacy, Sebastian's libido spiked. After fifteen years, no matter how often she did it, every time was special. Every time a gift.

Sebastian returned his beautiful wife's kiss, touching her body through the thin sweater, cupping her generous breast even as he slid one hand under the fabric to find the naked skin of her stomach. She made the sound he loved so much, that little moan of feminine need that told him his touch had the same powerful impact on her as hers did on him.

Even after more than fifteen years and four children.

Sebastian broke the kiss long enough to give his smart technology the verbal command to shut and lock his office door. The door closed with a soft whoosh, the lock falling into place with a snick that said their privacy was ensured, the sound freeing his inhibitions even as it had the same effect on his Rachel.

Her kiss turned deliciously heated, the passion in her lips igniting his own, not that he wasn't already turned on. How could he be anything but with her sitting on his lap for the past fifteen minutes?

Sebastian had always found Rachel irresistible, but the longer they were married, the stronger his desire for her grew, the more intrinsic his need to possess her body as well as her heart. He'd heard from other men with wives of many years that physical intimacy became less necessary, that their affection settled into something comfortable.

While his very precious wife gave Sebastian comfort in the deepest part of his spirit, his feelings for her were not comfortable. They were not tame. His need for her body had not diminished as the years went by and she gave him four amazing children.

"I want you more today than I did on the day we made our first child and I thought then, I could never want a woman as much as I did you." He'd been so out of control it had scared him into behaving like a complete and utter ass the next day, but she'd forgiven him and he'd never once taken that beneficence for granted.

"I'm glad, but no more talk." She tugged his tie off, going for the buttons on his shirt. "I need you, Sebastian. Don't make me wait."

"But waiting can be so much fun." He pressed a kiss to the side of her mouth, tugging her sweater up one delicious centimeter at a time. "Anticipation only heightens the pleasure."

"You've said that before," she offered breathlessly.

"And. I. Have. Been. Right. Before." He accentuated each word with a kiss, first to each eyelid, then to her neck, then leaning down to press his lips to the valley between her breasts, then the slope of each beautiful curve, then her lips, claiming her mouth with his own.

His own arousal grew with each shiver, each shudder, every honest, uninhibited reaction of her body.

Sebastian took his time removing Rachel's clothes, smoothing his hands over her satin soft skin as he exposed it, enjoying the goose-bumps that appeared, knowing they had nothing to do with the cold. He groaned as he took off her bra, revealing the pale peach mounds that gave him so much pleasure, her beaded, cherry red nipples, just begging for his mouth.

He lifted Rachel so her nipples were close enough to taste. He nipped at first the sweet, succulent berry on the right and then the one on the left, taking it into his mouth to suckle, knowing the effect it would have on her.

"Oh, yes, that's so good, Sebastian. My love, please, more!"

Sebastian was happy to oblige, nibbling and licking at her hard, little pebbles, caressing her thighs, her delectable bottom, everywhere but where he knew she was craving it most. He left her most intimate flesh untouched, loving the way she rocked against him in her need. He offered all the attention she could want to her sensitive breasts with his mouth and his hands, knowing how aroused that would make her, how much she loved having her breasts played with.

Sebastian pushed both their desire higher and higher with his touching until she was demanding loudly that he do something about the ache between her legs.

Tucking his arm under her knees and lifting Rachel against his chest, Sebastian carried her to the oversized sofa he kept in his office just for this reason. He used to have chairs around the low table for meetings, but discovered he needed a piece of furniture on which he could comfortably make love to his wife.

He settled her over the side of the sofa arm, spreading her legs with his own, her gorgeous curvy bottom on display, and pressed against her entrance with his erection. Lacking any inhibition, her confidence in their intimacy having grown strong over the years, she pressed back against him, silently inviting him deeper inside.

Then, not so silently demanding he pick up the pace, go deeper and make love to her, darn it!

Their intimacy was intense, her responses strong and powerful. He reached around her, finally giving her what he knew she needed most, touching the bundle of nerves now swollen and incredibly sensitive. Rachel keened her pleasure and then shouted, "Finish it!" with imperious demand.

And he did, bringing his sexy wife to a shattering climax even as he exploded inside her, his body going rigid with ecstasy.

#

Eden yawned as she entered her and Aristide's bedroom to change for dinner. Her tycoon husband was already there, his shirt open, no tie yet, his slacks on, but not buttoned or zipped.

She gave him a sincere look of appreciation. "Very nice."

He turned toward her, his usual smile upon her arrival conspicuously absent. "You know what is not so nice?"

She shook her head, her attention still mostly on the gorgeous male body on display. For her eyes only. She would never grow tired of the knowledge that she got to touch and look at this incredible, beautiful man in a way no other woman could.

"My wife standing me up for lunch."

Her gaze flew to his and what she saw there wasn't happiness, or even desire like she was feeling. It was hurt and accusation.

She stifled a sigh. He didn't deserve that. She had cancelled their lunch at the last moment. "I'm sorry."

"For the third time in two short weeks," he continued as if she hadn't spoken.

Really? Three times. She winced when she acknowledged his count was accurate. "I would have come if I could."

The excuse sounded lame, even to her ears.

"And why could you not? You are not only the founder, but the director of the Kouros Children's Fund, are you not? You are the boss."

"Yes, you know I am."

"So?" he prompted. "You are not in control of your schedule?"

"I am, but it's not that simple. I got a call from a potential donor. He wanted a run down on all of our programs. I couldn't just hang up on him."

"A potential donor and the world must stop."

"Don't be sarcastic."

"Was that sarcasm?" he asked, his tone as sardonic as they came. "I thought according to my very busy wife, that was truth as she saw it."

"So, you're really angry. But Aristide, you need to deal with the fact I am not available to you twenty-four-seven."

"When have you ever been at my beck and call like that?" he demanded, sounding really, truly angry, but also seriously hurt. "When have I ever not respected that you had other people and responsibilities you were committed to? We have had Theo since months after our marriage. Regardless of your father's reciprocity, you have made time for him whenever he would allow you to. You have always had some sort of career, whether in a paid position, or not."

"But I was more available before I started Kouros for Children."

"Yes, you were. More importantly, I and our children made it onto the upper echelon of your priority list."

"Are you trying to imply you don't now?" she asked, hurt he could say something like that. Even if he was frustrated by her cancelling lunch plans.

He stared at her like she wasn't understanding something vital. "I am not implying anything. I am not a subtle man. I am stating a fact. Theodore, Angel and I are adjuncts to your very important life as the director of a worldwide children's charity now."

"How can you say that?" she asked with pain and shock. "I love you all more than anything."

He had to know that. She had always loved him, from the very beginning, even when he was fighting his own feelings for her.

"That may have been true at one time." Aristide sighed and looked away from her, his own expression bleak. "I will not disparage your love for your children. Even if they do not play the central role in your life that they once did, you are a loving and compassionate mother. However, the jury is out on your feelings for me."

She didn't like the feeling she got when he said that Theo and Angel weren't the center of her life like they once had been. Because she couldn't deny that her time with them had become more limited in the last two years and she missed events and milestones that at one time she never would have. Still, how could he keep saying he wasn't sure of her love?

She'd never hidden her feelings for him. "That's ridiculous. You know I love you."

"Do I? When a call from a donor, and a potential one at that, was enough to have you cancelling lunch plans. Again? When you miss our family dinners one night out of three and have either cancelled, or simply turned me down for several nights out as a couple? The last four times, not mention the many occasions previous, I have made overtures for lovemaking, you have been too tired, too busy or just too oblivious."

With each example he gave, Eden felt more and more guilty. Because she couldn't deny a single one, or even accuse him of exaggerating.

He frowned. "And regardless of your admiring glance right now, it is clear from the dark circles under your eyes that you are too exhausted for me to entertain thoughts of intimacy any time soon."

"What? I never said I was too tired." In fact, she missed him. Missed making love with her husband so, so much.

"I did. You may have little care for your health, but you are my wife. I would be a selfish bastard if I even considered depleting what little energy stores you have right now with lovemaking."

"It's not like that."

"What is it like? You are so tired, it will be a miracle if you make it through dinner without dozing off."

"I would never be so gauche as to fall asleep at the dinner table."

He shook his head as if her comment saddened him in some inexplicable, inexorable way. "I suppose you have forgotten those months when Angel was up all night with colic every night, and Theo still awoke bright and early the next morning. We both caught ourselves dozing more than once at the dining table."

"No, I didn't forget. I just meant..."

But he was done with the conversation, having turned away to button and tuck in his shirt.

"Aristide!"

"What?" he asked, his back to her, grabbing a tie and creating an expert Windsor knot with deft movements.

"This conversation isn't over."

He turned back to face her, his expression closed off in a way it hadn't been since those first awful weeks after he'd lost his memory when she was pregnant with Angel. "What more is there to say? For two years, we've had conversations like this one. Ever since you started the Kouros Children's Fun. You have made your position clear. What is the point in rehashing old ground?"

"You said you don't think I love you anymore." That was the point. He couldn't believe that. She wouldn't accept it.

He looked at her like he didn't understand what the problem was.

"You and the children are my life," she asserted vehemently.

But her husband looked wholly unconvinced and not even a little impressed with her passionate declaration. "No, your work on behalf of children in need is your life. We are the family you are content to neglect while doing so."

"That's not fair. I never accused you of neglecting the family because of your demanding job for Kouros Enterprises."

"Did I neglect you?" he asked.

She opened her mouth to say of course there had been times, but since he'd regained his memory, he'd turned over a new leaf, cutting back on his travel by more than 50%, and making sure she and the children could go with him comfortably when he did have to leave Greece. She could count on one hand and still have fingers left over, the number of times in the last decade that he'd cancelled any plans with her or the children.

"I guess you're better at scheduling your time than I am," she said, feeling a little defeated.

"You think that is what made the difference? For such an intelligent woman, I'd have to say that you have developed some singularly irritating blind spots."

"What are you trying to say?"

"You don't lack the ability to order your time, or anything else. You've run our family's schedule since our marriage, you've always managed to work at something, whether it was with local museums, or later your work with the charitable funds from Kouros Enterprises and still maintain your family commitments just as I have. But two years ago, your priorities changed when the foundation you'd dreamed of became a reality."

"You supported me starting Kouros Children's Fund."

"Even knowing the personal cost to myself, or the change in your relationship with our children, I would do it again." His tone reflected sadness, but sincerity.

Her own heart was hurting. "Those are some pretty heavy caveats."

"The truth is sometimes a heavy burden."

"I didn't stop loving you." How could she make him believe that?

"Perhaps you never loved me as I thought you did. If your feelings didn't change, you just never had anything in your life more important to you than me. I do not like it, but I would not take it away."

He really believed she didn't love him. Not soul-deep and with everything in her. He thought she cared more about the foundation than him, maybe even than their children, though he'd been careful not to say so.

He let out a weary sigh. "Come, it is time to go to dinner."

"Dinner can wait. We need to finish this conversation."

"No. Dinner cannot wait. My mother and her husband arrived this afternoon. You have not even greeted them. Sebastian and Rachel are going through something and need our support and encouragement."

"What's going on with Sebastian and Rachel?" she asked, worried.

She couldn't change the fact she hadn't been there to greet Phillipa and Vincent upon arrival. Though Eden now remembered that was why she and Aristide had made plans for lunch. So, she could spend time with the older couple.

"Perhaps if you are available to her later, Rachel will tell you."

"Don't be petty. I'm your wife. You tell me."

He frowned, but she could tell he was going to answer and he did. "A woman claiming to be Rachel's sister, the daughter that Andrea gave up for adoption at birth, has contacted her."

"I didn't know."

"Naturally not."

"What is that supposed to mean?" she demanded. "Rachel and I are friends. She's been like a sister to me since you and I got married. We see each other several times a week at the foundation offices. She could have said something."

"At work?" he asked with clear censure. "That is when she should have told you something upsetting and highly personal?"

"I saw her last night at dinner."

"And were late arriving, missing cocktails before dinner, then left directly after eating to work on your computer."

"The New Year's gala is our biggest fundraiser and happening in less than two weeks."

"Did I ask what kept you from us? I did not because I am not stupid. I knew. I merely pointed out why it might have been difficult for Rachel to share anything important with you."

"I'm not my father," Eden claimed with an inner painful uncertainty that scared her as much as her husband's lack of belief in her love.

Aristide shrugged into his suit jacket, looking every bit the part of the billionaire tycoon. "You are your own person, Eden. Your children know you in a way you have never known your father, even since he came to live with us after his stroke. You are mostly aware of your children's needs and do not hold yourself distant from them as he did with you."

"He's a very different grandfather."

"Since his stroke left him partially paralyzed, yes, he is. He wasn't any more interested in the children than he was in you, his only daughter, before that though."

Aristide stepped to the door. "Are you ready?"

She'd managed to freshen her makeup and brush her hair, but had only removed her suit jacket. She still wore the heather grey silk top and eggplant purple skirt from the designer suit she'd worn all day at work.

"My skirt doesn't look too crushed, does it?"

"It is fine."

"Why are you wearing a suit? You usually dress down for dinner." She loved that part of her day, when she got to see her tycoon husband in a cashmere sweater, or untucked short sleeved shirt.

"Leiandros and Savannah are hosting their annual Christmas party tonight. We agreed to go last month."

Her shoulders slumped at yet another reminder her plans with her family were not at the top of her priority list. "I forgot."

"If you would prefer to stay home and get some rest, no one will blame you."

Eden wished she could, but she now did as much work at parties like this, as regular socializing. "I'll change after dinner."

"If that is your wish." Aristide didn't try to dissuade her as he once might have done.

And Eden realized she missed her husband's arrogance in thinking he knew what was best all the time and the way that arrogance came out to play when he was protecting her.

He said he didn't want her so exhausted, but he wasn't laying down the law about her getting rest and she realized it had been a long time since he'd done anything like that. Was the problem not only that he doubted her love, but his own was starting to wane after two years of what he considered neglect?

Two years.

It didn't feel like that long since she'd started the foundation. In the beginning, Eden had justified the hours she put in because it was all new. She'd believed that once things settled down, she could go back to being part-time like she'd worked when her only job had been oversight of the Kouros Enterprises' charitable endeavors.

That had never happened. Eden now worked longer hours than ever, with no end in sight. Not unless she made some significant changes to how she'd been doing things.

She'd missed Theo's last soccer game. European football, but she'd never gotten used to the term, thinking of pigskins and helmets whenever the word football was used. Angel had invited Eden to come to her school for her class's Christmas party, but Eden had to say no. Despite his demanding schedule as Director of International Development for Kouros Enterprise, Aristide had made the time to attend both though.

What did that say about how Eden prioritized her time? She could miss an event here and there, that's what she'd always told herself. And frankly still believed. But she hadn't been simply missing one or two important things in her children's lives. She'd actually only made one game for her son's team this whole season. And she'd missed more parent-child opportunities at school with Angel than Eden had made.

She wasn't a single parent, fighting to eke out a living for herself and her children, or a parent in a necessary two-income household that had to put in long hours to put food on the table, with little to no choice about these things. She was a singularly blessed wife and mother who was finally realizing that maybe her choices over the past two years had been a little messed up.

They reached the dining room and the whole family was there. The Kouros clan ate early, with their children and that was something Eden had always liked.

Angel came rushing over for a hug. "Did you see Chara's new dress? Isn't it pretty. I want one like it."

"You are far too young to wear a dress like that, though your fifteen-year-old cousin looks quite lovely in it." Aristide smile at their oldest niece.

She smiled back, blushing at the compliment to her pretty green holiday dress.

"Are you going to the Kiriakis Christmas party with us?" Eden asked her, noting that the other adults in the room were also dressed for a party later.

"Papa said I was old enough to go this year." Chara hugged Sebastian, looking delighted to be included in the adult entertainment for the evening. "Bea and Leo are going to be there and they're the same age as me."

She'd named Savannah and Leiandros' younger children, twins like Achilles and Leto, and the same age as Chara.

"I don't know why she wants to go to a boring adult party," Leto, Chara's younger sister, said with a frown. "They aren't going to have any video games, or even board games. What's the point?"

"Yeah, you won't catch me going to stuff like that until I don't have a choice," Leto's twin brother, Achilles said with all the assurance and certainty in his own opinions of a twelve-year-old boy.

"Chara is going to have fun with her friends, even if it is at a stuffy old grown-up party," their mom, Rachel teased. "I'm sure Savannah will have arranged for other teens their age to be there as well."

"She did," Chara agreed. "Mrs. Kiriakis let Bea and Leo each invite three guests. I was one of them."

"Which one invited you?" Achilles asked with a teasing grin. "Bea or Leo?"

Chara's blush went peony pink. "Leo did, if you must know, but I'm friends with both of them."

"Are you going to grow up and marry Leo?" Angel asked, her sweet innocence so on display that Eden just wanted to hug the stuffing out of her daughter.

"I don't know who I'll marry. Papa said I had to get through university before even thinking about stuff like that."

"And you're listening?" Aristide asked with a warm smile. "Well done, Chara." Then Aristide turned to his brother. "I'll need pointers on how to convince Angel of the same thing. She's obsessively fascinated by romance and becoming a mother."

"Papa!" Angel protested, but privately Eden had to agree with her husband.

What other nine-year-old child did she know who wanted to watch documentaries on childbirth and parenting customs in different cultures? Angel made up stories about the people around them when they were out, and those stories were inevitably about love found, lost or hoped for.

Eleven-year-old Theo was not similarly inclined, far too interested in his science experiments and technology to even see girls yet. And frankly, Eden was perfectly content for her son to be that way. Crushes and crushing romantic disappointment would come soon enough.

Dinner was pleasant, everyone chatting about what they wanted to do on the island for the holidays. Eden apologized to Phillipa and Vincent for missing lunch with them.

"We missed you, of course, but Aristide told us something important and unavoidable had come up for the foundation." Phillipa smiled at Eden with obvious affection. "And we are seeing you now."

Important and unavoidable. Had her discussion with the potential donor been those things? If Eden were honest with herself, she'd have to say no. She'd simply got so used to putting the foundation first, she'd forgotten how to assess and prioritize the way she should.

Aristide was right. Eden did know how to keep a schedule, but she'd spent two years sacrificing everything on hers for the sake of Kouros for Children and the good it could do.

The question was: why?

What had made her feel like she could never say no to anything to do with the foundation? And more importantly, was this the way she wanted to keep living?

She knew the answer to the latter, if not the former. And it was a resounding no.

Smothering a yawn, she looked around guiltily to see if anyone else noticed.

Rachel was looking at Eden with an expression of sympathy mixed with worry.

And suddenly Eden realized Aristide wasn't the only one who saw the change in her and was concerned by it. For different reasons, no doubt, but still concerned.

He'd never wavered in his commitment to her since regaining his memory, but Eden could not say the same. She hadn't meant to deprioritize her family, but that is exactly what she'd done and she'd put the deep, abiding love she shared with her tycoon husband at risk because of it.

Two tears leaked out past her eyelids, no matter how hard she'd tried to blink them away. She swiped at her cheeks unobtrusively, hoping again that no one else had noticed.

"That's it!" Aristide exploded up from the table and pulled Eden's chair out. "You are going to bed. No party tonight, no talking to the guests about your eminently worthy charity. You are so exhausted, your emotions are a mess."

"Is Uncle Aristide mad? Why is Aunt Eden crying?" the four-year-old Phyllida asked, her own expression looking like it was going to crumble any second.

Her father, Sebastian, pulled the toddler from her chair and into his lap. "Your aunt and uncle are fine. Aunt Eden is just overtired, and you know how I get when your mama neglects herself."

Eden wanted to comfort the little girl, but she was afraid if she opened her mouth, she'd start sobbing. And that would scare all the children.

"I'll give your regrets to Leiandros and Savannah," Sebastian offered.

"Thank you," Aristide said as he swung Eden up in his arms.

"You're not going either?" she asked, hopeful and teary at the same time.

His jaw looked hewn from granite, his expression saying she shouldn't even have to ask, but her husband answered with a quick negative jerk of his head. Then he turned to their children. "Theo, Angel, your mama is fine. Just tired. I'm taking her to bed, then I will be down to see you both tucked in."

"I don't need tucking in, dad," Theo argued, using the more grown-up, Americanized address he'd adopted in the past year.

"Nevertheless, I will be back to tell you goodnight and make sure your sister is tucked in."

Angel didn't make any demurs, her little girl gaze fixed on Eden with relief that implied an understanding beyond her years that her mother needed this. Eden gave both her children a wobbly smile and blew them kisses.

Angel caught hers and hugged it to her chest and her son, who was not as affectionate as he'd been when he was little actually returned the gesture.

Eden felt the tears more imminent and let her head fall against Aristide, turning her face to hide it in his neck. She didn't even think of making a protest as her husband carried her from the dining room and up the stairs to the bedroom they always shared when they were staying at Sebastian's island villa that he'd inherited from their uncle.

#

Aristide laid his wife on the bed, the expression in her rainwater grey eyes so tragic it was all he could do not to growl. He removed her clothes with little help as she seemed so drained, she was incapable of doing it for herself.

When he went to put a nightgown over her head, she looked up at him with a grief that broke his heart. "I miss you, Aristide. I miss us. And I'm sorry I let it get this bad."

"Then stop."

"Stop?"

Tucking her arms through the holes of her sleeveless white gown with embroidered neck and hem, Aristide just looked at her. Eden loved the innocent looking cotton gowns and Aristide had to admit he found them even more sexy than the titillating lingerie she donned occasionally.

Understanding reflected in her grey gaze and the tension seemed to drain out of her. "I'll stop."

He nodded, believing her. Believing that she'd finally awoken to what her actions and priorities were doing to their marriage and family.

He did not need to beat a dead horse rehashing it all.

"Will you come to bed with me?" she asked.

"Yes, after I see to the children." He leaned down and kissed her chastely, but with purpose, reminding her that he loved her, that she was his woman. "I may even make love to you after you've gotten some rest."

Her smile was pure, provocative woman. "I may even let you."

She slept for eleven hours straight, Aristide never leaving her side, once he'd put their children to bed and once again allayed their concerns about their precious mama. Though he did bring his laptop to bed, working for a while before watching some news reports and then a late-night comedy talk show that helped him to wind down and sleep himself.

He felt Eden stirring in the early hours of the morning and came out of slumber with one thought on his mind.

Making love to his wife.

She turned toward him, her hands exploring his body, her kiss so hungry he couldn't doubt she wanted this as much as he did. Finally.

They made love in the hushed light of early dawn, their bedroom a sanctuary for intimacy they'd both been missing for too long. Aristide caressed his wife's silky-smooth skin, mapping the changes in her body over the past months. She'd lost weight she could ill afford to on her slight frame, but he craved her on a cellular level that saw nothing but beauty and perfection when he looked at her, that felt nothing but the same when he touched her.

She was eager, but he wanted this to last. He'd gone too long without his hands on her and he wasn't about to rush things now.

"Darn it, Aristide, make love to me!" she demanded, her body bowing toward him.

"What do you think it is I have been doing?"

"That's not what I meant. I want you inside me, part of me. I need it, husband!"

He looked down at her flushed face, beautiful grey eyes liquid with lust, her mouth parted, inviting his kiss. "You need me? Are you sure?"

"Of course I do. I love you!"

Once he would have accepted those words fully and at face value, but after the past two years, doubt tinged the joy he felt at hearing them. "I love you, yineka mou. With every beat of my heart."

And not when it was just convenient. Not that he thought she loved him that way. But part of him, a small part barely worth noting, was unsure.

He didn't like the feelings of insecurity, so he ignored them, focusing on the passion building between them. He wanted to be inside her as well. Wanted to feel the ecstasy of swollen, silken tissues stretching around his sex, accepting him and pleasuring him. Two becoming one in a way that was both mystical and profoundly prosaic.

"I am your wife. I am your woman." Eden's tone was fierce, but her gaze was fiercer. "I do love you, my husband. Things will get better. I promise."

She'd promised other things over the past two years, promised trips that got cancelled, dinners and lunches that she didn't show up for. Could he trust his beautiful and oh so precious wife now to keep this promise?

Did he have a choice?

Aristide loved Eden so deeply he did not know where he ended and she began. She was the center of his life, her and their two children.

Pushing his doubts, his thoughts, his worries aside, Aristide aligned his sex with the entrance to Eden's body and then pressed forward.

She gasped and then told him how wonderful it felt. He gritted his teeth, holding back a shout of pleasure that would have woken the children down the hall. Even with the sound dampening walls of the villa.

"This, between us. It is a gift neither of us should ever take for granted."

"No, never," she agreed, her face contorted in pleasure, her body straining toward his.

They made love then, only words of love and pleasure whispered between them until he felt the imminence of her orgasm. He twisted his hips on each downward thrust, lifting her legs and spreading her thighs wider so he could get that last couple of centimeters of penetration.

His own body wanted to explode, but Aristide would not allow the climax to come. Not until she'd come apart in his arms.

Eden's scream was loud and long, her body's convulsions testimony to how powerful this pinnacle of pleasure was for her. He kept thrusting through her pleasure, drawing more from her body until she whimpered and went lax under him. Only then did he give in and thrust more powerfully once, twice, and three times, exploding in ecstatic pleasure, his own shout also loud.

When the last vestige of climax had ebbed from his body, he withdrew from her body, taking his place beside her on the mattress, his arms staying locked around her in a hold he couldn't even think of breaking. He needed this closeness.

She laid her head on his chest, her hand over his heart and just breathed for long moments, her body as close to his as she could get it. Then she spoke. "I don't know why I've felt I couldn't say no to anything to do with the foundation, how I could let my priorities get so messed up."

"It is a worthy cause that you feel deeply about." That much he understood. The fact that the cause had taken her from him so completely, not so much.

"It always feels like there's more that I can do, more that I should do."

"Perhaps you need more help to do it?"

"I don't really want to be the director anymore," she said, like she was admitting something shameful.

"You can still be involved without taking on the most demanding position in the hierarchy."

"But if I gave it up, wouldn't I be quitting?" she asked with clear pain.

He shook his head. "No, sýzygos," he said, calling her beloved because she was. "You began a foundation that does a lot of good for children that would have no hope otherwise. It will continue to do that good with you as the guiding light. You're not giving up your position of President on the board of directors, right?"

"No. No, of course not. That role takes a lot less time." She sounded like she was admitting a terrible secret. Again.

"This guilt is misplaced, Eden. You can still impact Kouros Children's Fund in all the ways that matter, just not as the manager of day-to-day operations. Our lifestyle, it is not like other people's. I travel. I prefer to have my family with me as you once did too."

"I still do!"

"That is good to hear. Eden, sýzygos mou, We have commitments that come with great wealth and responsibility. The foundation is only part of that."

"I know. Really. I do. I just...I didn't want to be a quitter."

"Delegating is not quitting. How do you think I cut back so drastically on my travel when I regained my memory?"

"You delegated?" she asked, not sounding too sure. "Only I can't imagine you letting someone else make decisions you'd always made."

"And yet that is exactly what I did. You know your father has worked for me in a part-time capacity since a month after coming to live with us."

"I thought that was to make him feel like he was still useful."

"And to give me someone I knew I could trust to cover important meetings and the like, so I could spend more time with you and the children."

"Wow. That...that makes sense. You really did delegate, and not just when Dad came to live with us."

Hadn't he just said so? "Ne."

"For me."

"And our children, and the life we wanted to have together. Yes."

"I can delegate." She sounded so relieved, so happy at the idea.

He had to shift her up his body so he could kiss her again. He didn't stop at her mouth, but covered her face in the baby kisses she loved so much. "I want my wife back."

"I didn't mean to go anywhere."

"I wondered," he admitted.

"What? What did you wonder?" She propped herself on her arms on his chest so their eyes could meet.

"If this was payback?"

"Payback?" she asked, sounding truly horrified. "For what?"

"For the way I treated you in the beginning, for how I didn't commit to our family until after you were pregnant with Angel. For my stupidity in believing Kassandra was my friend and yours."

"I'm not big on revenge, Aristide. I forgave you a long time ago for your mistakes. I knew you loved me."

"And yet you still pulled away from me. For two years, no matter what I said, or did."

"It was tunnel vision, I think. This desperate knowledge what I was doing was important and the fear of letting not just the people at the foundation down, but all the children we help."

"And now?"

"Now I understand what I've been doing to you, how I've hurt you. You've got to believe I never wanted to hurt you, my darling. You are the very air that I breathe." Her expression was so wounded, so sincere.

Aristide had to believe. And in doing so, his own pain was diminished, his fears allayed. "Then believe you too are the very air that I breathe. I suffocate when you are not around."

Tears filled her rainwater eyes, their grey depths dark with true and deep love for him. "No more suffocating. No more missing. From now on, I remember that you need me as much as any child the foundation serves."

"More, because they can be helped by others. Only you can give me what I need."

#

Eden felt her heart expand in her chest. How could she not be moved by her husband saying such amazing, loving things?

Her fear of not being enough, her intrinsic need to be everything to everyone, began to break apart inside her. She needed to be wife to this man. She needed to be mother to her children, sister-in-law, aunt, daughter-in-law, and yes, daughter to her mostly reformed workaholic father. And yes, there was room for her to be the guide for her foundation, the heart behind it, but she didn't need to be its primary hands, feet and brain. Not when there were so many talented, generous people who wanted to help.

Eden suddenly knew exactly what she needed to get her husband and children for Christmas.

#

Rachel walked hand in hand with Sebastian on the private beach outside their island villa. The sun was just starting to lighten the sky, turning the water golden orange with its light, the morning air briskly cool.

"This is my favorite time of day," she said happily to Sebastian.

He squeezed her hand. "For me too. I like the quiet and the cool of the morning, knowing our family is safe and secure in our home, but you and I have these moments of privacy."

"Do you think Eden and Aristide are going to be okay?"

Sebastian pulled her close, putting his arm around her shoulders, like he knew she needed that extra bit of comfort. "Ne, fíltatos mou. My brother loves his wife and he is too stubborn to lose her to her own desire to help others."

"She's so driven with the foundation. I thought when I agreed to work there, she would step back a little, but she just took on more commitments in other areas."

"She cares so deeply, she's gotten a little lost, but she adores her family. Perhaps even as much as my own ideal wife."

Rachel smiled. "Maybe. That's a lot of adoration to compete with though."

Warm, masculine laughter rumbled from his chest.

Unmistakable cries of ecstasy sounded from open windows on the second floor of the villa and Rachel felt relief pour through her.

"I believe they have found the reconnection Aristide was looking for."

"Sex doesn't solve everything," Rachel felt the need to point out.

"But between two people who love each other so deeply, it can be very healing."

She couldn't argue with that outlook. Glad that Eden and Aristide had found some sort of rapprochement, Rachel let her mind wander back to her own issues.

"Did you get the report from Hawk's company?" she asked her husband.

"It came in last night while we were sleeping."

"What did it say?"

"According to the documents, Bethany is indeed your mother's daughter."

Rachel felt her knees give way.

Sebastian swore in Greek even as he swept her around to lean into him. "Are you all right, agape mou?"

"Yes...I just...I didn't expect her to be telling the truth."

"The DNA test has not come back yet, but the likelihood is it will be a match for half-sisters."

"I..." Rachel didn't know what she wanted to say.

Andrea had had another child. A daughter, whom she'd given up.

"Did Bethany have a good life?"

"According to the report, her parents were salt-of-the-earth type people who adopted late in life after losing one child and being unable to get pregnant again."

"How awful for them."

"Ne."

"So, she had a good childhood."

"From what they investigators could put together, yes."

"You said, were."

"Her father died five years ago from a heart attack. Her mother passed this last year, after a prolonged illness that ended in organ failure."

"That's terrible."

"You are so compassionate, fíltatos mou. It is one of the many things I love most about you." He brushed her hair away from her face, the touch a caress. "According to her social media and the reports of neighbors, Bethany cared for her mother at home to the very end."

"And that's why she went looking for her genetically related family? She was alone in the world," Rachel guessed.

"She has a couple of cousins, aunts and uncles, but the age difference is significant. Her cousins are closer to the age of your mother."

"I doubted her," Rachel said painfully.

"With good reason, but I believe this Bethany is, in fact, a decent person who is looking for a connection to someone she can love after losing her parents."

"She's not married?"

"She's never even been engaged."

"But she's thirty-one."

"And she's spent the last ten years taking care of her parents."

"She's nothing like Andrea."

"But she is clearly a lot like her half-sister."

"What? I've never taken care of an ill relative."

"If my mother, or your father, became ill, would you place them in a facility?"

"No, of course not!"

"Even a very good one with a private nurse?"

"You know I wouldn't."

"Because your love is more than a feeling, it is a hundred and fifty small actions every day and any big ones necessary to make life better for those blessed enough to fall under its umbrella."

She turned in his arms and put her arms around Sebastian to hug him. "Sounds a lot like your brand of love."

"Perhaps. That is undoubtedly why we are so well matched."

"Or it could be that I fancy you something rotten and always have."

His laughter cascaded around them, making her smile in response. He leaned down and kissed her with satisfying passion. "The feeling is entirely mutual."

"I believe you."

"Do you want to meet Bethany before, or after, Christmas?" he asked.

"Before if we can manage it. I mean, it doesn't sound like she's close to the rest of her family. I don't want her spending the holiday alone."

"What did I say? Compassionate almost to a fault."

"Almost?"

"I can find no fault in you. To me, you are perfect."

"That's a lot to live up to."

"Only if I expect perfection and that is not the same thing as believing you are perfect for me."

"I love you so much!"

"And I love you!" He kissed her again, and then said, "I'll contact Bethany and send the jet to fetch her if she's amenable."

"Okay."

"Now, I think it is time we returned to our room so we can make some of those noises that show how very in tune we are."

Rachel spun around and started running across the beach toward the villa. "Race you!"

Sebastian caught up with her before she'd stepped onto the flagstones of the oversized back patio. He swept her up and threw her over his shoulder. "I've got you now!"

"What are you going to do with me?" she demanded breathlessly, her laughter making it hard to speak.

"If you have to ask, I'm not doing my job right."

"Papa! What are doing?" Achilles demanded, sounding thoroughly scandalized finding his father carrying his mother through the kitchen.

"Having some much needed alone time with your mother."

"Aren't you two too old for that?" their son demanded sarcastically.

"Bite your tongue," Rachel told her son. "Romance is alive and well in our marriage, thank you very much."

Her son made gagging noises as Sebastian carried her through the kitchen.

"He'll change his tune one day and won't I enjoy reminding him of this?" Sebastian carried Rachel up the stairs.

"He's our son, he's always going to think romance between his parents is gag-worthy."

"I do not think so. I am very happy my mother found your father and it makes me very pleased to see them holding hands, or kissing."

"You're a special guy, Sebastian Kouros."

"I am happier than I can say that you feel that way."

#

Eden had offered to come with Rachel for her to meet Bethany for the first time and Rachel gratefully accepted. She was sorry if her sister found two Greek tycoons and their wives a bit overwhelming, but she was finding it very hard to adjust her thinking to having a sister she'd never known anything about.

The driver brought Bethany to the restaurant in Athens that Rachel had picked out for this first meeting. The food was good, but more importantly, there was a small room they kept in the back for business meetings or small social gatherings.

The table easily sat ten, but was laid for five at one end.

Bethany had Rachel's green eyes. Her hair was a really pretty honey blond, though and while she dressed kind of dowdily, her figure was curvy like Rachel's too, maybe even a little more so. But it was the look in her wary green eyes that told Rachel they had plenty in common.

She looked shell-shocked, hopeful and a little terrified all at the same time.

Rachel jumped up and rushed to her half-sister, offering her arms for a hug which Bethany returned without hesitation.

"Oh, it really is you. I wondered...you being married to a mega rich tycoon, if he'd insist on meeting me first, putting me through all kinds of security stuff first."

Rachel smiled as she stepped back. "You've been thoroughly investigated. Don't let his friendly countenance now fool you. But the result of the investigation was that he's decided you and I are a lot alike."

"Being investigated should probably offend me, but it doesn't." She smiled at Sebastian. "I like that you're protective of my sister. A loving husband should be."

"Agreed," Aristide said from the other side of the table with a significant look at Eden. "Even when it means protecting those we love from themselves."

Rachel made the introductions then.

The more introverted Eden surprised Rachel by offering Bethany a hug too. "It's very good to meet the sister of the woman I've considered my own sister for more than a decade."

Bethany looked between them, her eyes soft with approval. "I always wanted a sibling, but mom and dad were in their late forties and early fifties when they adopted me. It wasn't going to happen."

"I hated being an only child," Rachel admitted.

Bethany nodded. "Your husband isn't the only wary one, though I was more curious than worried. I had my own investigation done, not maybe as thorough as what you all could make happen, but I learned one thing for sure. You definitely got the raw end of the deal staying with our mother."

"That is what I have told her," Sebastian said.

Rachel shrugged. "Being her daughter led me to the family I have now. It was worth it."

"I'm glad you feel that way, fíltatos mou, and I love you very much, but I must agree with your sister," Sebastian said.

"Andrea was not a nice person," Aristide offered, with uncharacteristic restraint when discussing the woman who had given Rachel birth.

"My parents were truly wonderful people," Bethany said, sounding a little guilty about that fact.

Rachel gave her a reassuring smile. "I'm glad. I wouldn't have wished growing up with Andrea as a mother on anyone else, no matter how much I wanted a sibling."

"I guess we're both really lucky we got the best of our genetics from our father."

Rachel grinned, sitting down at the table. "You're right."

Bethany took the chair to Rachel's left. "I just wish I'd been able to figure out who mine is. But according to my investigator, Andrea was big on one-night stands with nameless strangers that year after she left your father."

"She actually stole me, hiding me from him," Rachel offered.

"What a truly awful woman."

Sebastian had a strange expression on his face.

"What is it?" Rachel asked.

"The DNA test came in while we were waiting for Bethany to arrive."

"Oh," Rachel cocked her head. "No surprises?"

"Actually, there was one," Sebastian said giving her and then Bethany a very careful look.

"What is it?" Bethany asked, looking ready to cry.

Did she think they might not be sisters? Rachel knew better. Their looks, their mannerisms, their viewpoint on the world? They were related. They were sisters.

"You did not match for half-siblings."

Bethany made a wounded sound.

But Sebastian wasn't done. "You matched for full sisters, who shared DNA from both parents."

Bethany turned whiter than the stucco on their island villa, while Rachel felt faint. "She's dad's daughter too? That bitch didn't just steal me away, she gave away his second child?"

"It looks that way, yes."

"We share a dad?" Bethany asked faintly.

"It appears you do," Sebastian confirmed.

#

"Can you believe Rachel's mother?" Eden asked Aristide that evening as they were once again getting ready for dinner.

They had spent the day together as she had planned, but unlike past times when she'd made such plans, she had not checked her email or checked-in with social media. In fact, she'd left her phone in their room while they went on an early morning swim with the children, then flown to Athens in the helicopter with Rachel and Sebastian. They'd gotten back to the villa only a half an hour before, but their children along with Rachel and Sebastian's were still busy Christmas shopping with their grandparents and a bevy bodyguards.

It was a yearly tradition, allowing the two couples to have a date night during the busy holiday season.

Aristide came over to do up the catch on her necklace. He met her eyes in the mirror. "Andrea was a terrible woman and I thank God, daily, that he gave me a woman like you for my wife."

"You think I'm a Heavenly gift?" she asked, disbelief he could shock her with stuff like this after so many years coursing through her.

"I do."

"Even after the way things have been the last couple of years."

"The foundation is important to you. I understood that."

"But you needed me too."

"I did. I do." He turned her around and pulled her into his body, his unbuttoned shirt allowing his naked chest to press against her hands trapped between them. "And I have you, ne?"

"Oh, yes. You always have. I just got lost for a little while."

"I know, sýzygos mou. You love me, ne?"

She reached up to cup his face, meeting his gorgeous Agean-blue eyes. "I love you with everything in me. My dreams are dry sand blowing on the beach without you by my side."

"You know I feel the same. Of what use is my wealth or my business if my family is not here to share the benefits?"

"You're a special guy, Aristide. I'm sorry I ever made you doubt my love." Her heart was still bleeding from that knowledge.

He kissed her until she melted into him, then it was his turn to meet her gaze, his own intense and dark with emotion. "I am sorry I ever doubted your love. Your heart is what gives my life joy, to doubt its beauty, generosity or passion, hurt both of us and I never will again."

"My dear tycoon husband, even with all your self-confidence, I don't expect you to read my mind or my heart. I have to show you my love, just as, honestly? I need you to show me your love and tell me you love me often. You deserve everything from me that I expect to get from you."

"I will never withhold what you crave to feel secure in our marriage," he promised her.

And that was what it was, wasn't it? He needed to know he and the children came first and she couldn't just say it then turn around and put her work ahead of them on a regular basis and expect him to believe her.

"Neither will I."

He smiled down at her. "That sounds very much like a vow."

"You can take it as such."

"I think tonight, my brother and sister-in-law will have to do without us for dinner."

Eden was laughing with joy and anticipation as she landed on the bed with her very amorous husband.

#

Sebastian watched his wife walk aimlessly around their bedroom. She'd removed her clothes from earlier, but had not yet donned her dress for dinner. As much as he knew she was in emotional turmoil, so he could not act on it, his libido was sparked into heated need by the sight of her in nothing but a skimpy pair of panties and pretty, matching bra.

"Are you all right, yineka mou? You had a very emotionally challenging day."

She turned to face him, her body silhouetted in the setting sun out their balcony window. "That's a good way of putting it. How could my mother do that? Not only did she steal my sister from me, but she gave away her child, a child my father would have been thrilled to raise if she didn't want to. He's going to be so devastated when he learns what Andrea did."

"Perhaps, but he will also be thrilled to have another daughter to dote on. I anticipate a great deal of matchmaking from him and my mother."

"Your mom is an old hand at matchmaking."

"She succeeded with us, yes?"

"Oh, yes."

Sebastian doubted the sensual hunger he heard in his wife's voice. That was just his mind playing hopeful tricks on him.

"Do you want me with you when you tell Vincent what Andrea did?" They'd agreed to wait until his mother and Vincent returned to the villa after their overnight shopping trip with the children to tell the older man he had a second daughter.

"Yes. I think Phillipa should be there as well. He'll need the support." Rachel crossed the room toward him, her hips rolling seductively.

Sebastian did his best to tamp down the lust surging at the sight of his beautiful, scantily clad wife. "Did Bethany agree to come to the island for Christmas?"

Rachel nodded. "I arranged with our helicopter pilot to bring her over the day after tomorrow. I wanted to give Vincent some time to adjust to the news and she wanted a chance to do some last-minute shopping in Athens."

Rachel's sister had taken careful notes on the names, ages and interests of all her newly discovered nieces and nephews. She'd informed Aristide and Eden, she considered their children her niece and nephew by default as well.

Sebastian had been touched by the woman's attitude and could tell his brother and sister-in-law felt the same way. He was convinced Bethany had a great deal in common with his generous hearted and loving wife.

Rachel stopped in front of him, stopping his hands from finishing the buttons on his shirt. "I don't want to talk about anyone else right now."

"You don't?" he asked, his tone going husky without his volition.

"Oh no. I want to focus entirely on you and me right now."

"You do?" He couldn't quite mask his shock.

"You shouldn't be surprised. I have always found the most amazing comfort in our intimacy."

"But I didn't want to be the tactless, over-sexed male in the face of your emotional distress."

His wife's laughter ended against his lips as she kissed him with unfettered passion. Sebastian gave himself permission to give into his own desire and swept her up onto the top of the dressing table, scattering jars and feminine detritus with a sweep of his hand.

She moaned, shoving his dress shirt down his arms, making him glad he hadn't gotten to his cufflinks yet because the offending fabric dropped right off his body without hindrance.

Rachel's hands were everywhere, sending fire along his nerve endings and ratcheting up his arousal.

Sebastian undid her bra with a flick of his wrist and then peeled the garment from her body, sucking in a heated breath at the sight of her plump breasts tipped by turgid nipples. The scent of her musk reached him and he groaned.

His sexy wife was as into this as Sebastian.

She lifted her hips for him as he pushed her underwear down, helping him to get rid of the panties completely in a couple of wriggles that about sent him into the sexual stratosphere.

"You are so darn sexy, Sebastian Kouros!"

"Pot? Meet kettle, Mrs. Kouros."

She grinned, her expression filled with passionate delight. "Oh, I do love you, Sebastian."

"Always."

Her answer to that was another mind melting kiss. Then she demanded, "Take off your trousers, Sebastian. I want you naked and inside me."

How could he do anything but what she asked, shucking his slacks and underwear in a couple of jerky movements. He reached down to touch her silky, wet flesh, loving the heat he found waiting for him.

She moved against his hand, abandoned to pleasure. He didn't believe any other woman could be as generous in her passion or open to his touch. And she was his.

All his, for the rest of their lives.

He lifted her thighs, spreading them wide and tilting her back so he could press the head of his sex against the core of her body.

"Yes, oh yes, Sebastian. Please, I need you inside me, connected to me, keeping me connected to our life, our love, the present, not the past."

Damn. He understood exactly what she needed and was touched beyond measure she trusted him enough to tell him.

He thrust forward, seating himself inside her tight, slick, heat. She cried out and dug her nails into his shoulders.

Their lovemaking was wild and abandoned, shaking the heavy dressing table with their movements.

She came faster than he expected but with all the signs of satisfied passion and brought him inexorably over the edge with her, his shout echoing around them in the room.

"I think Eden and Aristide will have to be content on their own for dinner tonight," he said with deep satisfaction as he lifted her into his arms and carried her to their bed, with every intention of repeating what they had just done as soon as possible.

Her soft laughter washed over him as she snuggled into his arms. "From the look in Eden's eyes when we landed, I doubt they made it to dinner either."

Nothing would make Sebastian happier. His little brother and wife deserved to be as happy as Sebastian and Rachel were.

#

Rachel watched her children open gifts from their newly discovered aunt, her heart so full, she could barely keep it in. Bethany had come to villa couple of days ago and she fit in with the family like she'd always been there. Nothing like their mother, she was clearly awed by the Kouros wealth, but not greedy for it. She gave love and affection to her father, healing something inside him that Rachel hadn't even realized was still wounded.

Bethany was a natural caretaker, wanting to help with the Christmas preparations, and delighted to add her modest gifts to the others under the giant tree in the main living room. She'd bought each of the children books and it was obvious she'd put a lot of thought into what every child would be interested in and like best. No generic classics or hottest book for this age group in the bunch, but each one clearly a personal gift from a woman who admitted to finding solace and joy in her own reading over the difficult years of caring for elderly parents and having very little social life outside those responsibilities.

Vincent had been heart broken when Rachel first told him about Bethany, but learning she'd been raised by loving, affectionate parents who had always treated her like a miraculous gift had helped him to come to terms with Andrea's actions.

He'd taken Rachel's hands and looked at her with utter sincerity, then said, "Honestly? My dear daughter, if I could have prevented you being raised by that woman, I would have done it, even if it meant giving you to someone else to raise. I cannot grieve the fact your sister had a chance at a happy childhood."

Though he could grieve the fact he had his children stolen from him, Rachel loved her father even more for thinking of them before his own emotional pain.

"You're the best dad, you know that?"

Vincent's eyes turned suspiciously glossy and he hugged her tight. "Thank you, sweetheart, hearing that heals my heart."

So, now her dad was just clearly delighted to have both his daughters and the rest of the family around him, and Rachel felt just absolutely happy to be exactly where she was.

"Your smile is such a pleasure to see," Sebastian said from beside her.

"I'm happy."

"Clearly."

"Are you?"

"If you have to ask, I'm doing something wrong."

"No, I just, I guess I want to hear it."

"Then let me say it. I am deliriously happy with to be here with our families, to have our wonderful children showing such warm appreciation for their gifts, no matter how big or small."

"Big gifts like a house, or an island with a house?" she teased.

"We already owned all of them. It was natural to provide for our children as they prepare to leave the nest."

"We're years away from even Chara moving out. You just wanted to make me the de facto owner of the island and villa after me refusing it all these years."

"You know me well, but the point is, our children showed the same level of excitement for their gifts from their cousins as they did for the biggest ones from us."

"They are good kids, aren't they?" Rachel sighed happily.

"The best."

"As much as I love my nieces and nephew," Aristide said with a smile, "My son and daughter definitely compete for that moniker."

"What a moniker, papa?" Angel asked her father.

"It means a name, what you call someone. I was saying that to me, and your mama, you and your brother Theodore are the best children in the world."

Little Angel jumped up from her pile of presents and ran to her father, giving him a giant hug, the expression on Aristide's face so touching Rachel felt tears at the back of her eyes.

#

Eden sighed happily as her daughter embraced her husband with such enthusiasm. He was such a good, loving father. And an amazing husband. She hoped he understood that intent behind her gift to him and the children, hoped it settled once and for all his worries about their relationship.

She'd meant it when she said she was done putting her commitments to Kouros Children's Fund ahead of her family.

"Theo, love, will you come here. Your papa has a gift to open that is also for you and your sister."

Aristide gave her a questioning glance, but Eden just smiled. "You'll see."

He opened his arms and their usually too old to cuddle son, joined him and Angel beside Eden on the sofa. Eden handed Angel the box, but she showed her loving nature offering it to Theo to open.

Eden's son grinned at his little sister. "Let's open it together."

So they both ripped the Christmas themed paper from their end of the box, tearing it away and then handing the box to their dad to finish opening.

What a family she had!

Aristide lifted the lid and looked inside, his expression warming with unmistakable delight at what he found inside. "We are going on a family vacation?"

"Two weeks in Southern California."

"We're going to Disneyland!" Angel screamed.

"And Universal Studios, Lego Land, the San Diego Zoo, all of it." She'd bought tickets to all the major family centric attractions. "I spoke to your executive assistant and we've cleared your calendar. Whatever she couldn't move, my father has agreed to cover for you."

"I would offer to cover for you," Sebastian piped up. "But my wife has been in collusion with yours and our family will be joining you for the trip."

All of the children went nuts at that point, while their grandparents looked on with indulgent love and Rachel's newly discovered sister, Bethany showed no embarrassment at the happy tears tracking down her face.

"Bethany agreed to come with us too," Rachel offered.

"Even though I grew up in California, I've never actually been to most of the theme parks. My parents weren't keen on crowds."

"We'll have time just for us, too," Eden said to her beaming husband. "Vincent and Phillipa have agreed to come and watch them so we can have adult time."

The children all squealed in joy at the idea of their grandparents going.

"Your father does not mind not coming?" Aristide asked in a low tone.

"He would find the walking onerous and you know how he feels about being pushed in a chair or using a scooter." Her father's left leg had never fully recovered from his stroke and he could only walk with the steadying use of a cane.

No way would he enjoy day after day at theme parks and zoos that required miles of walking to see and experience.

"I am genuinely happy to do this for you and Sebastian, Aristide," her father said, proving he was far more aware than he used to be. "My daughter deserves some time with just her family after the long hours she's put into establishing the foundation. Rachel too."

"Well, I appreciate you making this trip possible," Aristide said with respect and warmth for her former workaholic father.

Then he turned to Eden. "And I will show you just how happy I am with this gift later when we are alone, agape mou."

"I can't wait."

"Mom," Theo said, drawing the word out to three syllables.

"What?"

"Your mother and I adore each other, this is not new." Aristide's arrogance was back in full force.

And Eden was thrilled.

"Not new at all," she said with a wink.

Angel giggled. "Mama loves papa," she sang in her sweet little girl voice.

Theo rolled his eyes, but the smile curling the edges of his mouth said he was pleased at his parents' affection.

#

The trip to Southern California was incredible. Aristide was surprised and very happy when his wife hired not only a new Director for Kouros Children's Fund but also a full-time personal assistant to help her free up time to spend with her family.

But this?

Was beyond anything he had expected. Eden had arranged for them to renew their vows in Cinderella's Castle, about sending his daughter and nieces into ecstatic rapture. The boys pretended to be less impressed, but their eyes were wide as saucers when they'd all first arrived to discover her plans.

He had been given a tuxedo in a style that made him look like a living Prince Charming, his son decked out in something similar as his best man and their daughter was wearing a Cinderella style ball gown when she walked down the white runner that two ushers had unrolled just before the Wedding March started. Then Eden was there, her dress decadent and beautiful, reminding him that she loved fairytales as much their children.

Aristide went halfway down the aisle to meet her, irresistibly drawn to the beautiful woman he had married.

He heard his brother's laughter, his sister-in-law's joining him and did not care. He had to have his hand on her. Now.

He reached out with his hand and she took it, her grey eyes filled with love and joy.

They spoke their renewal vows before their family, her father having flown over for the ceremony. They promised to always put the other first, speaking words of love and commitment that they'd spoken before with a few new promises thrown in.

It was a beautiful ceremony and the dinner after in one of the character restaurants had an air of celebration.

Not caring if other diners understood his need to do so, Aristide pulled his wife into his lap, the voluminous skirts of her gown cascading over his thighs. "Thank you, my very precious, delectable wife, for loving me, for showing how important that love is and for being the mother of my wonderful children."

She was too choked with happy tears to reply with anything but a long, loving kiss.

Sandor & Eleanor (Ellie) Christofides

from Bought: The Greek's Bride (2007)

20+ years after Sandor & Ellie married.

Ellie's heart beat a rapid tattoo in her chest as she looked around the new Agape Resource Center in San Diego. The culmination of a decade long dream, ARC was now in twenty major US cities, Barcelona, Athens and two of the smaller Greek Islands. The idea for the resource center had been her daughter's.

Ellie had been complaining yet again to Sandor how the State, which was supposed to help the unemployed get back on their feet and build better lives was too often hampered by red tape, or the client's desire to get a handout, not a hand up. She wanted to help her clients get necessary education, contacts, even proper interview attire, but her caseload was ridiculous and not conductive to focus on the individual. Then there were the clients that habituated a pattern of working just long enough to be eligible for benefits before managing to get back into the system again.

She wanted to be able to offer counseling to workers who seemed intent on self-sabotage, but also to those who suffered from a loss of self-esteem after losing a job they may have worked at for years due to downsizing, or just a shift in their employer's economic focus.

Cynthia, ten years old at the time, had asked why Ellie didn't start her own employment office and make her own rules. Sandor had looked at Ellie in that way he had, the one that said he believed she was capable of anything and said, "Why don't you?"

Ellie had spluttered, talked it over with her sister and ultimately, with financial help from their dad, Sandor, and Amber's husband, Miguel Menendez, they had launched the first Agape Resource Center a year later in her hometown of Boston. Resource Counselors were trained to utilize all resources available, how to assess a client's genuine need and guide their clients toward the most useful and productive resources for that particular client.

The Boston facility was soon at maximum capacity, going to two shifts to double the use of their space, offering programs and counseling to their beneficiaries from 8 a.m. to midnight. Ellie, who had never desired to be a business manager or director of any kind, had been at a loss as to what to do. But her sister had stepped in, offering to take on the directorship so they could open a second facility.

Amber and Ellie shared responsibility for fundraising, applying for grants and the like, while it was primarily Ellie's vision that guided what the ARCs would offer in terms of services and training.

"Did you think we'd see this day?" Sandor asked from beside her.

She smiled up at her husband of more than twenty years. "I never even knew I wanted to, but I can't imagine anything more satisfying."

"You have always had a heartening ability to focus in on the individual."

"While people like you and my father tend to see things globally." She leaned into Sandor and his strong arm automatically came around her. "Amber does that too. It was her idea to expand into cities in other states and countries."

"But without your vision of what these centers could do, the people they could help and the ways they could help them, Agape Resource Center would never have been born."

"You're always so supportive." She reached up and kissed the underside of her tall husband's chin, inhaling his scent mixed with the yummy aftershave she'd bought him for his last birthday.

He turned, pulled her close and dipped his head for a proper kiss as she knew he would. More than two decades of marriage gave a woman a certain amount of knowledge about her spouse. Ellie responded to Sandor's kiss without an ounce of embarrassment, despite the audience they had of the center's clients and even their oldest daughter smiling at them indulgently.

"Don't you two realize you're supposed to have grown out of that kind of thing by now?" Cynthia teased.

Named for the grandmother she'd never met, the woman who had died after giving birth to Ellie and Amber, Ellie's daughter was as strong willed as both her parents combined and smart enough to graduate magna cum laude from university with a degree in business. Unlike her cousin who had married young, Cynthia showed no interest in romantic relationships, preferring to direct her energies toward learning the ropes of her father and grandfather's companies.

Christofides Enterprises and Wentworth Shipping had consolidated a couple of years after her father had married Amber's adoptive mother. Her dad's doctor had been adamant that he not go back to working insane hours and Ellie had been the one to suggest the merger, once she was confident in Sandor's love and commitment to her on a personal level that had nothing to do with her dad's business, or Sandor's.

And while any of his grandchildren could have taken over George Wentworth's interest in the company, it was his first wife's namesake who showed the keenest interest and an amazing business acumen.

"Bite your tongue, daughter. Your mother is never going to grow out of responding to my kisses," Sandor said with a mock growl.

Ellie laughed, but snuggled in closer to her tycoon husband while their daughter rolled her eyes.

"Yes, I'm pretty sure everyone got the memo on that one, dad." The warm smile in Cynthia's blue eyes so like her mother's belied any true mocking intent behind her words.

"You just wait, one day you will fall in love and even Christofides Enterprises will not hold all your attention in the face of that powerful emotion."

Cynthia's lips twisted in patent disbelief, or maybe even distaste. "Not going to happen, Dad. I'm pretty sure I'm one of those people that naff emotion leaves utterly cold."

"You are your mother's daughter, but more telling, you are my daughter. Just because you have never fallen doesn't mean you never will."

"I know, I know, I know...and when I do. It's going to knock me on my butt." Cynthia shook her head. "You're going to have to look for grandchildren from Christo."

"Your brother falls in and out of love with too much regularity to commit to any one woman enough to have children with her."

"Blame yourself and Mom. Christo wants something like you two have and as soon as he realizes whatever relationship he's in isn't that, he goes looking for it with someone else."

"You kids know how rocky your dad and my start was," Ellie said. "You don't start with a relationship like the one we have. We've been building it for over twenty years."

"Twenty-seven this year, but who's counting?" Cynthia cheeked. "Anyway, it's not the same to hear how rough it was in the beginning. All we've ever seen is how much you two love each other, how close you are. Even I know if I ever do get married, I'm not settling for anything less."

Cynthia looked around the new facility for Agape Resource Center and smiled with satisfaction. "Any man I marry will support the things that are important to me, like Dad supports you."

"And you? Will you support him as firmly and lovingly as your mother has always stood at my side and in my corner?" Sandor asked of their pragmatically anti-romance daughter.

A strange look came over their daughter's face, a frown mixed with a vulnerability that Ellie did not understand. "I'm not sure I have it in me to offer the kind of unconditional love Mom does. You have to know she's something special, Dad."

"Oh, I do, but then so are you, my very precious and highly intelligent daughter."

Cynthia smiled. "You're a great dad, you know that?"

"And you are an amazing daughter any father would be proud to call his own, but you are so much like me, I cannot help feeling an extra dose of that pride."

Tension Ellie had just realized was holding her daughter's body taut drained out of Cynthia as her smile reached her eyes. "Thanks. I think I needed to hear that."

"I will say it whenever you need, but remember, spoken aloud, or not, I always feel it," Sandor replied with the intensity and sincerity of feeling Ellie had learned to rely on.

Ellie reached out and hugged her daughter. "Me too. I love you, so much. Don't worry about finding that right person. When he finds you, you'll know and until then? You're doing an incredible job of dominating the shipping industry and beyond."

Cynthia laughed as Ellie had meant her to, her beautiful features showing no signs of tension any longer. "I'll remember that."

"See that you do." Sandor was not joking, even a little. "I'm so very proud of the women in my family."

Ellie knew her husband meant it. He told her of his love and how much he admired the way she'd dedicated her life to helping others frequently.

Billionaire tycoon Sandor Christofides had turned out to be the best sort of husband and lover for a woman like her and she'd never regretted forgiving him his early duplicity, or letting her love for him guide her heart and head when she agreed to marry him. Not once in nearly twenty-seven years, as her daughter reminded them.

Neo & Cass Stamos

from The Shy Bride (2010)

Zephyr & Piper Nikos

from The Greek's Pregnant Lover (2010)

Eight years after the epilogue from "The Greek's Pregnant Lover"

Fairy lights turned the leafless branches of trees downtown into holiday glitter. The soft strains of Christmas music sounded from inside the shops along the street whenever a door got opened to let a customer in or out. Shoppers rushed by, bundled for the cold Seattle winter, with splashes of bright red and green on the more festive lot.

This was why Neo's wife always asked to come back to Seattle in December. Cassandra loved living in the sunny climate of their Greek island, but she'd said she actually missed the cold and uniquely festive atmosphere of Seattle at this time of year.

Unable to deny his brilliant pianist and composer anything, Neo made yearly plans to bring her Christmas shopping in Seattle. Not to be outdone, Zephyr had asked Piper if she wanted to come and they'd been making it a group family trip ever since, something they frequently did for their travels.

And Neo did not mind one bit.

Zephyr was the brother he had chosen and Piper as dear as any blood sister could be.

"Have you decided what to get Cass for Christmas this year?" Zee stood beside him, as they waited for their wives and children to meet them outside one of the many downtown coffee shops that served utterly decadent hot cocoa for the children and equally over the top sweet coffees for the adults.

Neo had never developed a taste for syrups, whipped cream, or even sugar in his coffee, but Cassandra was addicted.

Neo pulled on buttery soft leather gloves his daughter had gotten him for Christmas last year, on a trip similar to this one and during the "no papas allowed" shopping portion. Eight-year-old Alethea had explained in that serious way she had sometimes that Neo didn't spend all his time in Greece and he needed to be prepared. Which was true, but Neo did not do even one quarter of the traveling he once had.

He had a family to spend time with, an incredible wife and two wonderful children who fascinated, delighted and challenged him by turn.

"I'm taking her on a trip to Hawaii," Neo said in answer to Zee's question.

"Isn't that kind of redundant, considering where we live?" Zee asked condescendingly. "She has a paradise of sunshine, perfect beaches and the quiet she needs to compose every day of the year on our island."

Neo shrugged, unperturbed by Zee's teasing. "She told me once that she loved her only trip to Hawaii and thought she'd never be able to return."

"Because of her agoraphobia?" Zee asked, no judgment in his voice for the woman he loved like a sister.

"Ne. She's doing a lot better, but she'll never be comfortable with crowded planes or tourist beaches." And though they'd been many places since discovering her issues with traveling stemmed from flying in commercial planes filled with strangers and staying at busy hotels, Neo and Cassandra had not yet made it to the island paradise she remembered so fondly.

"Which means you rented suitable accommodation."

"For a group of six, yes."

"You want us to come too?"

"What do you think?" Neo looked at Zee sardonically. "It is worth more than my fortune to try to take your son away from my daughter for two weeks of bliss in the sun."

"They are as close as we ever were."

"Perhaps one day they will be closer." It was his and Zee's fondest wish, that his sweet, quiet little daughter would grow up to love and be loved by the already very protective Erastes, who was not quite a year older.

"You'd better not say that where Piper or Cass can hear you," Zee warned seriously.

Neo grimaced. "I am not stupid."

Both women had made it abundantly clear that no one would be pushing their child into anything resembling an arranged marriage. Right now, the two children were dear friends, as addicted to one another's company as anyone Neo had ever seen. Luckily for everyone involved, as in-tune as they were with each other, they did not leave out Cassandra and Neo's second child, Sofia, instead doting on the three-year-old in equal measure.

Alethea had gone right over to Erastes the day his baby sister died in her father's arms while their mother wept silently and without stopping. Neo's sensitive daughter had offered to share the baby sister she barely acknowledged belonged to her parents, she was so possessive of tiny Sofia, with Erastes.

The devastated little boy had accepted and the family bonds had been cemented more deeply than ever between the Stamos and Nikos clans.

It had been a bleak time for all of them, though the experience had drawn the two families into an intimacy of friendship few could understand. Cassandra was one of the only people that Piper would even speak to for months after the devastating event.

Their tiny daughter's death had been their second pregnancy that had ended in tragedy. Piper had miscarried when Erastes was two. They'd waited to try again until Neo and Cass decided it was time. The women had been pregnant together, though once again, Cassandra had gotten pregnant first. Neo had teased Zee incessantly about that, right up to when Piper went into early labor only a few days after Sofia had been born. Nothing the doctors did could stop the baby from coming two weeks later and nearly three months early.

Tiny Adara had been born too early to sustain life. Both Piper and Zee had struggled to cope with their grief while continuing to parent Erastes with an abundance of love and concern.

Four years later, grief was still a part of all their lives and always would be.

"So, what you are saying is that you've used your wife's desire to see Hawaii as a way to finish your Christmas shopping for the rest of us early," Zee teased, unaware of where Neo's thoughts had gone.

Neo laughed. "Not a chance. Casssandra would never let me get away with it."

"Too true, that woman has you wrapped around her little finger with a double knot."

"And you're not as firmly wrapped around Piper's, filio mio?" Neo accused.

But Zee's complacent demeanor said he found nothing bad about that state of events at all. "I'm not ashamed to admit it."

"Yet, the prospect once filled you with a dread I wasn't sure you were going to overcome in time to keep the wonderful Piper in your life."

"Right back atcha, Neo."

They both contemplated their near misses in silence for a minute, before Neo spoke again. "What about you? What are you getting Piper?"

"I have no clue. What do you get a woman who doesn't want anything?"

"Something intangible?" Neo suggested, not at all sure what that intangible gift could be.

"Great idea," Zee said with heavy sarcasm. "Now as to the what? I cannot give her the one thing that might finally dispel the lingering shadows from her beautiful eyes."

"She wants another child?"

"No, that would be too easy." Zee sighed, his body rigid with a sudden tension. "She wants a guarantee the pregnancy would go well."

"The doctor said both the miscarriage and the early labor were unlinked and unlikely to be repeated as they had no root in her health." Neo let his voice say what he thought of such empty assurances. "So then, how can you guarantee against something for which they could not find a cause?"

"Exactly." Zee sighed more heavily this time, a new grief overlaying the old in his eyes. "I do not think we'll be trying for another child."

Neo nodded his understanding, unsurprised, but hurting for his friend and the woman he would consider his true sister for the rest of his days.

Once Zephyr Nikos had bought into the concept of wife and children, having his own family, he'd done it completely and had once shared with Neo that he wanted a houseful of children. But Neo knew that Zee was as reluctant for Piper to get pregnant again as she was. He would be surprised if his dearest friend had not already looked into ways to permanently insure Piper didn't have to face another tragedy on that front.

"Have you two talked about adopting?" Neo asked, as that seemed the most natural answer to the desire his friend had for a big family, a desire Neo had heard Piper claim to share more than once.

"She's never brought it up." And clearly Zee thought that such a suggestion should come from the wife he still considered fragile.

Neo wasn't so sure he would agree with the assessment. Yes, Piper had been unutterably wounded. Yes, the talented designer and loving mom had grieved, but she was strong inside.

Like his Cassandra. Both women had spines of steel. Perhaps it was time Zee came to remember that fact about his lovely wife.

"But you want to," Neo guessed.

"You remember what life in the orphanage was like, Neo. We could make a real difference in the life of a child, or children, that society has thrown away."

"Do you want me to ask Cassandra to feel her out about the idea?" Neo offered.

Zee's expression turned resolute. "Ohi," he denied in Greek. "But thank you for the offer. She is my wife, I must broach this subject with her myself."

#

As it turned out, Zephyr didn't have to open that conversation because Neo just couldn't keep his oar out of Zephyr's pond. However, in this instance, he might have to thank the brother he'd chosen.

Later that night, while the security specialist they hired because of his training in early childhood development, stayed behind in the suite with three worn out and sleeping children, Zephyr, Neo and their wives went out to dinner at one of the restaurants that Cass reveled in being able to go to, now that she'd gotten better at coping with her agoraphobia.

It was the revolving room at the top of the Space Needle, a thoroughly touristy spot to share dinner, but the food was good, the company better and the view magnificent.

Zephyr had been forced to step away from the table to accept a critical call about one of their new properties in Hvar, a property that catered to the elite of the elite. After handling the problem, Zephyr came back to the table to find Neo talking about their years in the orphanage and what a difference it would have made if someone who cared, who understood what it meant to be a parent, had stepped in to adopt some of those children.

"But not you and Zee?" Piper asked, a speculative look Zephyr couldn't quite interpret in her pretty eyes.

Neo shook his head decisively. "We had each other, if one of us had been adopted, we would have lost that."

He didn't say what Zephyr knew he meant though, that it wouldn't have been worth it to have parents but not the brother of their hearts. Zephyr agreed.

"Who needs parents when you have a true brother?" he affirmed as he sat down.

Thoroughly annoyed with that brother at the moment, he glared at Neo, willing him to let it drop.

Neo shook his head slightly and smiled at Piper. "Have you ever considered adoption?"

His beautiful, emotionally fragile wife looked startled, then thoughtful. But maybe not so shatterable. Hmmm.

"No. I..." She stared at Zephyr, hope burning in her blue gaze like it hadn't since Adara's premature birth and death hours after. "You want your own children, you're building a dynasty."

"A dynasty founded by two men who decided to adopt each other as family. Why would I feel the need to have my genes in all my children?" he asked, not understanding her reasoning at all. "There is no dream I would rather realize than to adopt a child, or children, from the orphanage that was my home when I met Neo."

"A dream? That's your dream? Why didn't I know this?" Now she was looking cranky, like she always got if she thought there was some part of himself he'd hidden from her.

Piper had made the transition from obliging, no-commitment lover, to a fully demanding wife who expected to share every aspect of his life. And Zephyr loved it. Loved her.

"I should have, but we were already pregnant when we married, then you had the miscarriage. I put my dream aside to grieve, to help you through your grief. Then we lost Adara and it simply did not feel right to tell you that I want to fill our island mansion with orphans that will never again have to wonder if they are loved by a parent."

"Fill it?" Piper practically screeched. "There are twelve bedrooms in that mansion!"

"Neo and Cass already use three of them. Really, we can only reasonably lay claim to half of them. It wouldn't be fair otherwise, since we share the mansion."

Each family had their own private family communal area and small kitchen, but the large kitchen was staffed on all their behalves by maids, a cook and housekeeper that served everyone living in the large villa.

He smiled winningly at his wife. "And I supposed we must keep one as a guest room for when family visits."

"We can put family up at the resort," Neo offered helpfully as Zephyr's wife paled with shock, but that hope that had sparked, now burning brightly in her cerulean gaze.

"That's four more children for us," she said faintly.

"If they all have their own rooms, but you know, some children prefer to share. Living in the orphanage sends a person one direction, or another."

"What do you mean?" Cass asked, then recognition dawned in her compassionate amber gaze. "Oh, some children need the security of another person in the room after living dorm-style life and some desperately need their own space."

"Exactly."

"You want five more children?" Piper asked, obvious shock making her voice high.

This should not be news to her. There was a reason they'd gotten pregnant when Erastes was two. "I told you I wanted a houseful."

"But I, you...we both have careers."

"I've already cut my hours drastically. I can cut them again, if it means being the parent on the spot more regularly."

"Zee would make a great house-husband," Neo teased tongue in cheek.

But Zephyr had read about other billionaire dads doing exactly that and he knew what he wanted. Time with his family, a big family if he could have it, a small one if he couldn't, but time with them all the same. "Don't knock it, if we can't use our wealth to allow us the freedom to realize our personal dreams, what good is it?"

Neo went very serious. "I was joking, Zee, but not. Any child would be profoundly lucky to have you as a dad, especially the dad who dedicates his days to his family."

"Ditto, but that should go without saying," Zephyr said, tugging uncomfortably at his shirt collar.

"You two!" Cass laughed. "When I first met you, I thought you were surprisingly good at expressing emotion to each other. Only later did I realize how it pained you."

"What do you expect?" Neo leaned over and kissed his sweet, still very shy wife, making her blush since strangers were around. "It should be enough that I never hesitate to express emotion with you, or our children."

"Oh, it is. I know what a lucky woman I am." Cass's amber eyes glowed warmly as she looked at her husband with adoration.

"You really want five children?" Piper asked again, her shell-shocked expression now something he couldn't quite read again.

"Not all at once."

She laughed. "That was a yes."

He shrugged. What could he say? In many ways, he was a traditional Greek man who craved the big, crazy family. The fact he would be happy to adopt most of those children might surprise others, but it should not his wife. She knew every shadowy place in the heart he'd kept encased in marble until they met.

"Oh, Zee...I want more children too, I just couldn't handle losing another one the way we did."

"I am aware, my love. I have spoken to my doctor about a vasectomy. I do not want you worried."

"That's not fair to you!"

Cass smiled like Zee had said something really romantic.

"Well done," Neo affirmed.

"No, he shouldn't have to do that because of my fear. The doctor said it might never happen again."

"But they couldn't guarantee it and it would break your heart to try for a baby again only to have another tragic ending to your pregnancy. One miscarriage and one baby born only to die, that is enough. There are too many children, in that orphanage alone, that need a real family to care about the simple genetics of our children."

"You're not worried about getting a child that has personality or health defects from their parents?" Cass asked, not sounding like she thought they should be, but wondering all the same.

That was Neo's wife, she would always make them face every issue and deal with it. She didn't do stuffing feelings, or hiding from fears. It was how in her gentle, but firm way, she'd helped to draw Piper back from the precipice of grief that had threatened to steal her life entirely.

So, Zephyr answered with as much honesty as his sister demanded. "I am my father's issue, but I am not my father's son. I carry his genes. I could have taken his path, but I chose a different one. Every child should have that chance."

"Raising children is never easy," Cass said softly. "We can only do our best and hope it is enough."

Piper smiled at her friend. "You're a great mom, Cass."

"Even though I'll never take my children to Disneyland or the waterpark they love so much?" Cass asked in apparent genuine worry.

"What do you think that lout you are married to is for?" Zephyr reassured her. "Neo and I are happy to do the amusement park duty."

"They're as a big of kids as our children," Piper agreed.

Cass smiled. "Agreed, but my point is still the same. We do the best we can with our limitations and those of our children. Sophia is already showing signs of being nearly as debilitatingly shy as her mother."

"She won't have the trauma of performing in front of terrifying crowds at such a young age," Neo pointed out.

Cass acknowledged that point with a smile for her beloved husband. "But there's every chance she will still develop some of my anxieties."

Neo didn't deny it and Zephyr knew that the four-year-old already struggled with interacting with anyone outside their two families. He knew what Cass was saying too. She was implying that she'd passed on flawed genes to her daughter, but wasn't dismayed by that fact. It was simply a part of life and, with her and Neo's love and support, they would do their best to see the daughter was not as plagued by her challenges as her mother had been.

Piper looked from Cass to Neo and then finally at Zephyr. "I want to go to the orphanage next week, before Christmas."

"Just like that?" he asked, a little stunned.

"It hurt Erastes when his baby sister died as much as it hurt us. He deserves a sibling."

"Or two, or you know...four," Neo teased.

But Piper didn't so much as flinch. "The day after we get home. Please, Zephyr."

"You do not need to plead with me, ever."

"Not unless it's for something I really want," she said in that husky voice that always got to him, reminding Zephyr that the passion in their marriage was still red hot, despite grief, despite loss, despite being parents.

Lovemaking between them was intense, emotional and extremely satisfying. Still.

Always.

Forever, if he had anything to say about it. And he did.

He gave her a look that promised things behind closed doors he could not do now on a restaurant revolving above the skyline of Seattle. "If it is your wish, we can cut our trip short here in Seattle."

"Oh, could we?" Hope he would do anything to help burn brighter shone in her lovely blue gaze.

Neo and Cass showed just how deep their caring went, insisting on doing the same so they could be there for Piper and Zephyr from the beginning of the process of growing their family.

#

Piper stood on the balcony of the master bedroom in the island mansion she'd lived in since practically the beginning of her marriage. The Mediterranean stretched out in gathering dusk, reflecting the orange and purple hues of sunset in majestic glory.

Hope kindled during that dinner conversation in Seattle, burned brightly inside her, their talk with Erastes before putting him to bed cementing the idea that adoption would be good for all of them. Piper couldn't believe she had never realized how much her amazingly strong, but surprisingly vulnerable, husband wanted to bring children, who like he had been, were without family or resources, into their lives and make them part of the Nikos family.

Erastes had said of course he wanted a brother, or sister. He thought it was obvious he was supposed to be the oldest, only that was hard since he didn't have a little brother or sister to protect and teach. "Alethea shares Sophia with me, mama, but it's not the same."

"You don't think having little brothers or sisters would be a challenge?" Zee had asked.

"Well, sure, papa. Sophia can be a pain, but she's still great. If I had a little sister or brother, I could share them with Alethea like she shares Sophia with me."

Zee had smiled and told his son he thought that was eminently sensible before tucking him into bed.

When Piper went to kiss their son goodnight, Erastes looked at her in that way he did, like he saw the world through the eyes of an oracle. "If we found more children to share our family, I think you would stop being sad sometimes, mama."

She'd nodded, her heart too full for words, but her sweet son had touched that deep place Piper had been afraid to dwell in for the past four years. Her hope.

Uncertain faith in the future curled like warm tendrils around her heart as Piper waited for Zee to come to their bedroom. He'd insisted on calling the director of the orphanage, despite the late hour, to set up a meeting as soon as possible.

Recognizing the sound of his footsteps behind her, Piper turned to find her husband only a couple of feet away. His smile was pure masculine approval.

She returned it, familiar warmth heating her insides. "You like what you see?"

"Always, agape mou. You are more beautiful today than when I first admitted I could love you."

"You were a tough nut to crack."

"Not any longer. Not for you."

"Are you really thinking about getting a vasectomy?" He'd really shocked her with that pronouncement.

"It is scheduled for the week after next. I believed we were going to be in Seattle for several more days and needed some time between our return and the procedure to catch up on work."

"Other women try again, after miscarriage, even after something like what happened with Adara."

"Those women are not you, Piper. They have their own reasons for risking the pain you've carried with you since losing our first baby, but those reasons are not yours. They are not mine. You are my wife."

"You don't want to go through it again." She should have clued in that she wasn't the only one hesitant to risk tragedy a third time.

Her husband felt things deeply, probably because he didn't like feeling at all, so when something got to him, like her, it got to him good and with three pronged hooks through his heart. When they'd lost their babies, he'd had to grieve that loss as well as for the pain she could not hide, or even minimize. Not even to spare the man who loved her in every way a woman could ever desire to be loved.

"I do not," he confirmed as she had her mini revelation. "I have always dreamed of adopting children from the place that gave me Neo, but it was a dream I couldn't even acknowledge to myself until I met you."

"Then you couldn't acknowledge it to me."

"The timing wasn't right."

"But it is now."

"Ne." He affirmed in Greek. "It is right. We can give a child, or children, with little hope for their future, not only belief that tomorrow can be better, but a loving family to make it better in."

"You know Cass calls Neo 'Superman'?"

"I am aware." Zee pulled Piper into his body, like he'd gone as long as he could without touching her.

She was used to it and reveled in their closeness, even as her own body began to respond to the physical presence of him so near. "I've always thought you were more like Batman."

"Because I have a dark, tortured soul?" he asked, not sounding worried like he might have done once, but definitely curious.

"Because you have a dark, tortured past that made you into a man determined to make the world a better place, especially for those he cares about."

"You know what it does to me when you start handing out the compliments?" He thrust his hips against hers, letting her feel the evidence of his arousal.

"I think that happens when you think about going to bed with me." It certainly seemed to be a nightly occurrence.

"Ne. But also when you say nice things."

"Or when I touch you?" she teased, letting her hand brush along the bulge in his slacks.

He groaned, the sound low and guttural. "Your touch is always welcome, my beautiful wife."

"I'm very glad because I positively adore being able to touch you."

"You cannot know what it means to me that you are not only willing, but eager to adopt a child with me, to give our son a sibling or two to call his own." Zee's words were emphasized with little kisses to her temples, her face, the corners of her lips and then finally her mouth when he'd finished speaking.

Piper returned his kiss, letting the fetters off her passion in a way she hadn't done in a very long time. It was always good between them, but the lingering grief had always muted what used to be incandescent.

That unrestrained joy in physical intimacy was roaring through her again, tonight. Demanding she show this man just how much she loved and wanted him.

#

Cass came out of the bathroom wearing a silk nightgown that brushed the floor, the exact same amber of her eyes, it's plunging neckline exposing her modest cleavage.

Neo waited for her on their bed, fully nude, the covers pushed to the bottom of the bed in obvious anticipation of what was to come. His sex was already hard and flush with blood.

He smiled, green eyes dark with masculine lust. "You look way too tempting in that to wear it long. Did you buy it in Seattle?"

"I did. When Piper and I went shopping the first day without the children."

"If this is what I can expect as my reward for staying with the girls while you shop, consider me on permanent standby for such an event."

"You're their dad, you're already on permanent standby for any and all events related to our daughters, including keeping them occupied while their mother shops."

His laughter sent frissons of pleasure through her. "Point."

She crossed to the bed and climbed onto the mattress beside him, the silk skirt of her gown flowing around them decadently.

Neo pulled her close, running his hand up her thigh, ruching her gown up as he went. "This nightgown is smooth, but not as soft as your skin."

She climbed over him, so she was sitting on his hard thighs, her tender flesh open to him, her body on display above him in a way she knew excited him to the point of breaking his rules about patient and slow. "And nothing is as hard as you are."

Neo growled and suddenly Cass found herself on her back, her husband's hand on her most intimate flesh, caressing and testing her readiness at the same time.

"You're very wet."

"I was thinking about what we would do once I came to bed." And with the inventive lover she married, she'd had a lot of fodder for her imagination. So much so that she'd gotten very aroused from her thoughts alone.

He touched the swollen bundle of nerves that gave her so much pleasure, caressing exactly the way that excited her most. "Did you think about this?"

"Not exactly that." She thought about his mouth on her, like it had been so many times in their marriage, drawing forth ecstasy from her body like she drew forth sounds from the piano.

With the touch of a master.

Neo caught on quick and soon her imagination was reality, her husband bringing her to a climax before preparing her to take him into her body and building the pleasure again for another impending orgasm.

#

Zephyr felt like his brain was going to explode. Piper's uninhibited passion ignited his own desire to an inferno of need. She touched him with an abandon she hadn't shown since losing Adara, her beautiful face glowing with unrestrained pleasure.

She rode him, but just when he thought they were both going to climax, she shook her head. "Not yet." Then she slipped away, the wet heat encasing his sex gone in a second, only to be replaced by her mouth.

She didn't let him come that way either, driving him to a fever pitch before pulling off, pressing a circle around the base of his sex with her thumb and forefinger.

He groaned, long and low, but didn't mind.

However, when she began caressing him in a movement with her hand that emulated making love, he'd had enough. He flipped his gorgeous wife onto her hands and knees and drove into her from behind. She rammed herself backward, letting out a throaty sound of feminine approval when he pressed against her cervix. They made love with an abandon born of overstimulation and deep, abiding affection.

He reached around her to play with her nipples and then caress her clitoris as she met him thrust for thrust, telling him what a wonderful lover he was.

His climax took him by surprise and he was only saved from sexual ignominy by the fact she screamed his name in release at the same moment.

They collapsed on the bed together, the hair at her temples wet with sweat, his back slick with it.

"That was..." Her voice trailed off like she didn't have the words.

He knew what she meant though. "Yes, it was."

"I love you, Zephyr. Thank you for finding a way for our family to be what we've both always dreamed it could be."

"You would have thought of it eventually." Her heart was too generous not to have.

"I was too mired in guilt over not wanting to risk pregnancy again, but I'm so happy now."

"No more guilt?"

"No. I think it's really gone."

"Good." His wife should not hurt. He couldn't prevent what they'd already lost, but he didn't want her feeling any pain he could help.

"What did the director at the orphanage say?"

"That the report we provided from Hawk Securities would be sufficient and more comprehensive than any background check they could run, that while it might take more time to make things legal through the courts, we could meet the children in a non-stressful event and find the one that will be our next son or daughter."

"Really?"

"Really."

She was so happy at the news, they ended up making love again.

#

Neo went boneless on top of Cass after they both climaxed. For just a few seconds, he allowed himself to rest completely on her and she loved this moment, as much as any other part of lovemaking, including the mind-numbing orgasms she found with him.

In these few seconds she felt utterly and totally one with her handsome and loving husband.

After a time, he moved off her to go to the bathroom and get a cloth, fulfilling the second ritual she enjoyed so much, when Neo tenderly cared for her comfort each and every time after they came. She'd told him she could take care of herself. Her legs weren't that wobbly afterward, but he never stopped the ritual that showed how very much he cherished her.

They snuggled after, under the bedcovers they'd pulled back up.

Cass laid her hand on his chest, feeling his steady if still rapid heartbeat. "Did you know Zee dreamed of adopting?"

"No, but it doesn't surprise me. Not after his childhood."

A childhood very similar to Neo's if different in a couple of significant ways. "What about you?"

"What about me?"

"Did you want to adopt?"

"We have two wonderful children."

"That's not an answer."

"If we want another child, we do not have Zee and Piper's tragic past stopping us from trying for another baby."

"That's not an answer either." In fact, the more her husband talked, the more she believed he was avoiding the question, but why?

"Okay, yes. Ne," he repeated in Greek. "I cannot imagine anything more right than to welcome a child into our family that would not have to be alone in the world any longer."

"Like you were alone?"

"I had Zee."

"But no parents, no one to cushion your fall if you failed."

"Neither did you."

She smiled, loving the way he always thought of her, the life she'd led and never downplayed it. "No, I didn't. I think Alethea and Sophia would make great sisters to another child."

"You want to have another baby?" he asked carefully.

"Not particularly. I'm not one of those women who loved being pregnant, but more importantly I think our family has a lot of love to give and there are children that could benefit from that love already walking this earth."

"I agree."

"Does that mean we're growing our family?"

"Are you sure you want to?" He couldn't hide the hope that infused his voice.

Not from her.

"Yes, I'm more than sure. I'm positive."

Neo grabbed her close and kissed her within an inch of her life. "I love you, Cassandra Stamos. My wife. My beloved. My everything."

"And I love you, Neo Stamos. My husband. My life. Father to all my children."

#

Erastes looked around the holiday party at the orphanage his dad told him he'd lived in as a boy. It wasn't a bad place he supposed, but the children here didn't have moms, or dads, or grandparents, or aunts, or uncles...nobody that wanted them to live with them and be their family. That made him sad.

He couldn't imagine life without his strong papa, or wonderful mama. He knew he was lucky to have them for parents. They never yelled the way some parents at the resort did. They didn't want to send him away to boarding school like he'd heard about from some of the children who'd come with their parents to the resort on Erastes' island home.

So, the nine-year-old had known for a while he was lucky to have the mom and dad he did. He'd just never realized he was lucky to have parents at all, not until they came here.

He wanted his own brother or sister, or maybe even one of each. His dad teased his mom with wanting to bring home a whole dormitory, but Erastes didn't think their house needed anymore bedrooms. Wasn't that what a dormitory was?

He noticed another boy, off by himself. His size looked younger than Erastes, but his expression made him seem like he could be older.

Bored with the adults' discussion, Erastes went to introduce himself to the boy. He put his hand out like his papa had taught him. "Hello, my name is Erastes."

The other boy took his hand and shook, but it was like he didn't really know how. "I am Timos." He indicated a tiny girl beside him, with dark curls like his but blue eyes like Erastes' moms. "This is my little sister, Daphne."

"Hello, Daphne," Erastes said to the little girl. "Nice to meet you."

His father said that was the proper way to greet someone new. Erastes thought it was strange. How could he know if he liked meeting someone until he got to know them? Maybe they didn't like playing any of the same games as him. That wasn't really nice to meet was it?

"She doesn't talk," Timos informed Erastes with a scowl.

"At all? Not even to you?" Erastes asked, shocked.

Sophia was really shy, but even she talked to family. Sometimes more than Erastes or Alethea wanted.

"No. She's not broken though," Timos said really loudly.

Erastes looked closely at the little girl, but she didn't have a cast anywhere, so he figured Timos was telling the truth. "I didn't say she was."

"Some people do."

"People say she's broken?" Erastes asked, surprised again. Then he thought about it. "Some people say my aunt is broken, but she's not. Aunt Cass is a master pianist, but she doesn't like to play in front of crowds."

"That's not broken. That's just smart," the other boy said.

Erastes had to agree. "What happened to your mom and dad?" he asked bluntly, then thought maybe he shouldn't have.

Papa said it wasn't polite to ask questions that were too personal.

Mama said no question was stupid, but some could be uncomfortable for other people.

Timos didn't look like he liked that question, his face sort of screwing up in a way that made Erastes think he was trying not to cry. "They're gone."

"I'm sorry."

Timos shrugged. "Why are you here?"

"We're looking for a new brother or sister for me."

"Your parents are rich, aren't they?" Timos asked. "They can take really good care of a little girl."

"Yes."

"Daphne is a really good girl. She never gets into things she shouldn't and she doesn't break toys."

"You want me to make Daphne my sister?"

Timos' eyes filled up with tears and Erastes felt like he'd hurt the other boy again, but he hadn't meant to. "She needs a better home than this place. She deserves a mom and a dad."

"What about you? Don't you want a mom and dad? Maybe a brother?"

"Daphne is more important."

"But don't you want to stay with her?" Brothers should stay with their sisters.

Erastes still cried sometimes because the baby sister his mom was going to have never came home. He did it at night in his bed, but he thought his mom still knew.

"I can't stay with her. Everybody says that older kids don't get adopted. Daphne is still little. She's only three."

"How old are you?"

"I'm seven."

"I'm nine," Erastes said, to make things even.

"Do you want a little sister?" Timos asked in a way Erastes knew he really hoped he said yes.

"I think I want both."

"Both?"

"A little brother and a little sister. Alethea shares Sophia with me, so we have to share Daphne with her. It's only fair, but you would be just my little brother. I can teach you stuff. Papa says I'm smart and I'll make a really good big brother."

"Who is Alethea?"

"She's my best friend. Her little sister Sophia is four and I like being her sort of big brother, but I want my own little sister and brother."

"Both? You want two? Even though I'm seven?"

"You can play games with me. You're not too little. Alethea will like you too."

"Who is this?" his mom asked from behind Erastes.

He turned to face her. "I found my new brother. He comes with a little sister too. It's perfect."

#

Piper couldn't believe her son had picked out a little boy to take under his wing and that little boy fit so perfectly with their family. Timos was seven years old and had been taking care of his sister on the streets when a good Samaritan brought the two children to the orphanage. The little girl didn't speak, but the director was confident that with speech therapy she would one day.

Erastes was adamant that no other child would do.

They'd been back every day to visit Timos and the tiny Daphne, Piper's heart pierced by the two children her son had led her and Zee to. She noticed that Timos had a friend he was fiercely loyal to, another boy, this one a year younger than him. The two reminded Piper so much of Neo and Zee, she wasn't at all surprised when Cass and Neo talked about adopting Basil.

After two weeks of daily visits and a couple of home visits for the children, the Stamos and Nikos households were enriched by three.

Zephyr and Piper adopted Timos and Daphne, thrilling Erastes, who promised to be the best big brother ever in the history of big brothers. Neo and Cass did adopt Basil and the little boy was so happy to have a family, he cried for a solid hour. He got along great with Alethea and even the very shy Sophia treated Basil like the long-lost brother he'd become.

Piper would never forget the babies she had lost, but she would spend the rest of her life rejoicing in the son and daughter she'd found to share her life with Zephyr and their precious Erastes.

Ariston and Chloe Spiradakou

from Not Just the Greek's Wife (2012)

Four years after the birth of their first child.

Chloe leaned into Ariston, their steps silent on the high-end carpet covering the hallway away from the behavioral specialist's office. His arm slipped around her waist, offering unspoken support as Chloe held tightly to the hand of their four-year-old daughter, Helena, the reason for their visit. Despite Chloe and Ariston's best efforts, Helena had grown increasingly more volatile and challenging with each passing year.

She'd spoken late, but not so late her pediatrician had been worried. She still preferred body language to words, but Chloe didn't always know what her daughter meant with her gestures and nonverbal demands.

So, they'd sought help, taking Helena to a doctor who specialized in childhood behavior and development.

The results hadn't been unexpected, but Chloe still wanted to talk with Ariston, to process what the specialist had said. Only not in front of the little girl they'd named for the beloved wife of her favorite grandfather. Though she was only four and wasn't anything like a chatterbox, Helena understood so much. Too much for them to discuss what the specialist had said in her hearing.

Chloe knew her grief would come through and she didn't want her daughter to think she was the cause. Because no matter how difficult life ahead for them might be, Helena was no less perfect in her mother's eyes.

"It will be okay." Ariston tugged her closer so their hips rubbed as they walked. "She's smart. She's no less amazing today as the moment she was born. We'll get her the help she needs."

Chloe nodded, looking down at her daughter who played with the tiny toy in her free hand, oblivious to her parents' concern. Helena spent much of the day in her own head, living in a world where her tiny toy figurines were alive to her in a way the people around her often were not.

She was a loving little girl, though she offered hugs to only four people. Her beloved papa, her mother, her pappous, Takis, and her two-year-old brother, Mateo. She enjoyed the company of Chloe's father, sister and her family when they visited, but retained a reserve with them that had always been a part of Helena's nature. Even as a small baby.

Mateo, who was two years younger, already spoke nearly as much as the older sister he idolized. And though he was going through the challenging transition so common at age two, he had less than half the tantrums of his older sister. It was as her son developed and matured, that Chloe had been forced to face the truth that her precious daughter was not developing apace with her age.

Helena had a hard time controlling her urge to lash out physically when she got frustrated, though she did try. She was so loving, but life was harder for her than it was for Mateo. Helena got upset so easily, but craved the approval and companionship of her family.

It broke Chloe's heart to watch her daughter struggle and she was determined to make it better, however she could.

Ariston had not argued when she'd suggested the behavioral specialist. He'd supported her whole-heartedly and made the effort to arrange with his pappous to watch Mateo, with the help of the villa staff, while they were gone at the appointment.

#

The car was waiting for them when they stepped outside the clinic doors. Ariston had started using drivers more frequently when she got pregnant the first time, so he could focus his attention on Chloe and her needs. It had been terribly sweet as she'd suffered badly from morning-sickness that had turned into all-day sickness.

He'd never broken the habit after Helena's birth, choosing instead to be the doting father who often entertained his children on the drive.

The driver had the back door of the limousine open and Chloe slipped inside with Helena, Ariston following them. Helena got into her car seat and buckled herself without complaint. This time. However, when she couldn't find one of her tiny toys, a now familiar wail sounded throughout the car.

Ariston squeezed Chloe's hand, reminding her what the behavior specialist had said, that they needed to ignore the outburst, but as soon as Helena calmed down, they would give her positive affirmation and encourage her to use her words. So, Chloe did her best, though the urge to comfort her crying child was strong.

As soon as Helena's voice dropped to normal levels, Chloe smiled at her oldest child. "I'm glad you're feeling calmer. Do you think you can use your words to tell papa and I what has you so upset?"

"It's gone." Tears welled up, but Helena didn't start yelling again.

Chloe counted that as a win. "Do you mind if I look in your safety seat?"

Helena nodded her head, dark curls bouncing. "Look, mama. I want Puppy."

Chloe searched around her daughter and found the miniature puppy figurine tucked under the lip of the safety seat. "Here he is. Back all sound and safe."

Her daughter flashed her a smile that was both brief and not as common as Chloe would have liked, but all was clearly right in Helena's world again.

"What do we say now that Mama found our toy, hmm?" Ariston prompted.

Helena looked up from the gibberish discussion she was having with her toy. "Thank you."

"Nicely done," Ariston approved.

"You're welcome. I love you, poppet."

"I no poppet. I Helena."

Chloe smiled at the familiar refrain. Her daughter liked the nickname, but her pragmatic nature wouldn't allow her to allow it without comment. She needed always to point out what she considered to be truth.

"And your mama and I love you very much," Ariston said.

"Love you too." Helena looked at both her parents before returning to her toy.

Chloe took that as another win and flashed her husband a smile she knew the Greek billionaire would understand.

Her own heart warmed when he returned it, his love shining in his cerulean gaze.

#

Chloe and Ariston didn't have the chance to talk until after they'd tucked Helena and Mateo into bed that night. They'd moved to Greece to live with Takis after Helena's birth and Chloe had never regretted that.

The old man needed them, though his medication was still helping with his Parkinson's, Takis Spiradakou deserved to have his family around him in his declining years. He'd been the one truly caring parent Ariston had known, teaching the Greek tycoon how to love, if not how to say the words.

He'd gone to bed early with the children as was his habit these days. So, it was just Chloe and Ariston on the balcony overlooking the sea.

"Are you doing okay, yineka mou?" Ariston asked, sliding his arms around her from behind, settling his chin on top of her head and rubbing in the way he liked to do.

"I know it going to be all right, the speech therapist will help Helena with her verbal and language skills, the counselor will help her learn to deal with emotions that are too big for her."

"Despite your words of assurance, I sense a but."

He was right. Chloe felt nothing resembling equanimity right then, no matter what pep talks she gave herself. None of this fit her view of the way things were supposed to be if she didn't fall into the trap her mother had and Ariston loved her in a way her father had only discovered very late in life.

"Ariston..." She settled back against him, seeking the comfort of his presence. "I thought if I did it right, if I loved my children and married a man who didn't neglect them like my father, they wouldn't suffer pain in their childhood like I did."

He squeezed her, kissing the top of her head. "We cannot protect our children from the happenstance of genetics, or even every circumstance that might harm them, no matter how much we might wish it."

Yeah, right. That's why each of their children had their own bodyguard detail, the giant villa had been childproofed like no mansion before it and even the swimming pool now had an attractive fence surrounding it that the children could not get through without an adult programmed into the biometric lock on the gate.

Still, she knew what he meant. As much as it genuinely pained her tycoon husband when their children fell, skinned their knees and did the myriad of other things usual for childhood, he forced himself to stand back and let them play, let them run. Mr. Control Freak himself did everything in his power to give their children as normal a childhood as possible.

"But I wasn't expecting this. It was supposed to be not perfect, but not..." Not her child hurting. Not her beautiful daughter struggling to contain the urge to smack her baby brother when she wanted a toy he was playing with. "It was supposed to be..." She let her words trail off, unsure what she wanted to say.

"Happily ever after once I admitted how much and how deeply I loved you?"

"Isn't that the way it's supposed to go?"

Ariston laughed, the sound warm and amused, but not condescending. "Maybe in Disney movies, but in real life? That was just the beginning for us." He leaned down and kissed the side of her face. "And it was a fantastic beginning. We have two wonderful, beautiful children. Yes, Helena needs a little extra help, but that is okay too. We'll make sure she gets it."

The tension that had filled Chloe since the specialist's visit began to seep away. "Yes, we will."

She turned in her husband's arms and smiled up at him. "I'm pretty sure she gets her reserved emotions from you," she teased.

"You mean this difficulty she has expressing her emotions is all down to how hard I found it to say I loved you the first time?" he teased back, clearly not offended.

But still the words struck Chloe in her heart. "No, oh, Ariston, no. I was just kidding."

His thousand-watt smile sent familiar and welcome warmth cascading through her body. "I knew that, pethi mou. When we met, I was broken emotionally, incapable of seeing what had developed between us, much less give voice to it. Our daughter? She's not broken, she simply has a harder time with life than a lot of other four-year-olds."

"You don't regret asking me to be the mother of your children, do you?" Chloe wasn't sure where the worry came from. Except maybe she did know.

"What? Chloe what are you saying to me?" His blue gaze burned hot and dark, insisting she listen. "I love you. I have always loved you, even when I didn't know it. You are the only woman I want, the only woman who could be the blessed and beloved mother to my children."

"You sounded so Greek right then."

"That is because at my heart, I am a Greek man."

"At your heart, you are my man."

"Ne. That too."

Again with the Greek. It always came out when he was feeling things strongly and with her, thankfully that was a lot. She'd spent more time learning Greek this time around, so she would understand him when he lost his English, particularly during the more intimate moments of their marriage.

"So, if I was pregnant again, that would be okay with you?" she asked softly, peeking up at him through her lashes.

He stared down at her, his cerulean eyes filled with wonder. "You are pregnant again? I thought we were waiting."

"Apparently my IUD fell out and I didn't even know it." Her gynecologist had told her that it happened, infrequently, but it did happen. Chloe still found it difficult to believe.

Only the proof was in the pregnancy test results and the ultrasound they'd done in the office to confirm the string hadn't just gotten lost, but the IUD was gone.

"How is that possible?"

"It's rare, but my doctor said it happens."

"Did she warn you it could happen?" Ariston frowned. "I do not remember her doing so."

"Um, no. She doesn't make it a habit of telling her patients about every remote possibility and side effects of the things she prescribes."

"You're quoting her, aren't you?"

"I am."

"We'll be finding a different doctor for you."

Chloe didn't argue. She hadn't particularly enjoyed the gynecologist's condescending attitude in the face of Chloe's shock. But that wasn't important right now.

What Chloe needed to know was how her husband felt about the news. They'd agreed to wait and she'd broken that agreement.

Unwittingly, but she'd still broken it. "Are you happy about the news?"

"How can you doubt it?" His blue gaze was so warm and approving, she couldn't doubt his sincerity. "Another wonderful little girl like Helena, or another pistol like our Mateo could be nothing but a delight for us."

The rest of the tension Chloe had been feeling all day, disappeared. She never should have worried how he'd react to the news. Ariston loved their family and plans to wait, or not, he would always be thrilled about adding to it.

He brushed her hair behind her ears in a familiar gesture that still sent little frissons of pleasure through her. "Are you happy?" he asked.

"I am." She nodded, to emphasize her words, a smile breaking over her face as Chloe allowed herself to bask in the knowledge she was carrying Ariston's child again. "I didn't think I wanted another baby so soon, but Takis...he loves babies. I love being a mom."

"You are a wonderful mother."

She smiled, leaned up and kissed him. "Thank you. You're not so bad in the papa department yourself."

"I believe this news deserves celebration."

"What do you have in mind?" she teased, knowing perfectly well he wasn't talking about toasting with the sparkling fruit juice he plied her with during pregnancy.

"I think you know."

She laughed joyously as he swept her into his arms and carried her upstairs to their bedroom. Their lovemaking was intense and filled with a sense of elation.

Like they'd found peace and a reason to celebrate more than her revealing they were going to have another child. They'd found answers about Helena too. Those answers didn't mean everything was going to be fine going forward, they meant that Chloe and Ariston would have help and their daughter would have lots of people affirming that she was wonderful just the way she was.

As it should be.

Kayla & Andreas

from Kostas's Convenient Bride (May 2018)

(a Prequel)

Six years before "Kostas's Convenient Bride"

Kayla darted around her apartment. Andreas was going to be there any minute and she wasn't ready for their date. She'd had a final test in her C++ class today. Taking the test was more of a formality as 75% of her grade depended on the program she'd been working on all fall semester and had turned in two days ago. It wasn't a complicated program, but it was elegant. She could program C++ in her sleep.

Still, she hadn't wanted to be late for her final exam after a night spent in Andreas Kostas' arms, so she'd skipped doing her breakfast dishes and they cluttered the sink. Continuing to ignore the undone dishes, she quickly tidied the books spread out over the two crates with a board across she used as a coffee table for her aged used sofa. Nothing glamorous in her college experience, but that was going to change when she graduated.

Kayla was building a life for herself and she could barely believe that Andreas Kostas was part of it. The best part.

She'd loved him since the beginning, but he didn't want to hear the words. She was no more keen to say them, so that was all right. She found it nearly impossible to trust people, but Andreas had used his overwhelming sensuality and charm to sneak past the barriers she kept around her heart.

And while she might love him, that didn't mean Kayla was all that eager to make herself vulnerable telling him so.

The sound of a firm knock on her hollow door had her rushing to let Andreas in.

He stood there in a suit, all six-feet-four-inches of him looking way too gorgeous, his green gaze narrowed and stern. "You did not wait and look through the peephole, Kayla-love."

"I knew it was you." Warmth suffused Kayla and it wasn't because he was chastising her over an old argument.

She adored when he called her Kayla-love. It was probably the closest she would ever get to him admitting his feelings for her. He maintained that theirs was a friendship, with sexual benefits.

Amazing, mind-blowing, out of this world, sexual benefits.

"How could you be certain without looking?" He was still harping on the door thing.

She rolled her eyes. Wasn't it obvious? "You have your own knock."

"I knock on the door like everyone else."

"Andreas, you don't do anything like everyone else. It's just not in you to be less than more."

"That makes no sense. "

"On the contrary, it makes perfect sense." Sometimes she just argued with him for the pleasure of seeing his green eyes spark with emotion.

Any emotion, even annoyance.

"Did you want to change before we go?" he asked.

From another guy, Kayla would have taken offense that her bargain basement scoop necked peach t-shirt, grey hoodie the same color as her eyes and well-worn denim wasn't good enough. But even though he came from the super wealthy Greek Georgas family, Andreas wasn't like that. Not even a little.

If he was asking her about changing, he had a reason.

His neatly pressed suit and perfectly knotted silk tie implied they weren't eating at one of their usual haunts.

"Are we going someplace special?" she asked. "To celebrate the end of the term?"

While Kayla still had another semester before she got her degree, Andreas would be finished with his MBA this one. She wasn't sure he had plans to walk in June at the graduation ceremony, but she hoped he would. She wanted to cheer for him. He deserved acknowledgement for graduating at the top of his class, if from no one else, than from the school he was graduating from and from her.

"We can celebrate another successful semester, yes, but I have something important I need to discuss with you, about our future. It deserves a special venue."

What was he talking about? Something important? He couldn't mean what it sounded like. "Where are we going?" she asked, doing her best to hide her confusion.

He named a restaurant on the top floor of a building in downtown Portland known for its amazing views and even more impressive food. She'd always wanted to go there and he knew it, because she'd let it slip a couple of months back.

To her, it was the pinnacle in romantic spots.

Kayla's heart nearly stopped as the implications penetrated her mind. No, it couldn't be that. He couldn't want to talk about what she was thinking. He'd been so adamant theirs was just a friendship with benefits, nothing more.

But what else? "That is special," was all she said. "I guess I'll put on a skirt." And try to get her breath back before she hyperventilated.

He followed her into the tiny nook that served as her bedroom, her clothes stacked neatly in plastic bins, her bed a double with no headboard. Kayla'd had a single, but then she'd met him, and she'd saved her money for a bed he would share with her.

Andreas hands landed on her shoulders. "Our reservations aren't for another hour, I can have them pushed back."

She turned around to face him, making no effort to get out of his personal space. "Why would we want to do that?" she asked, all provocation, her hands already mapping his muscular body.

The fact she had the freedom to touch this man was one of the greatest joys of her life.

"Oh, I can think of a few reasons." There was a desperate quality to his kiss, like he was imprinting himself on her, or imprinting her taste on himself.

Either way, she went pliant against him, giving him full access to her mouth, to her body. To anything he needed.

She could trust this man. He would never take more than she should safely give.

Not like other people. People who had hurt her, dismissed her, made her feel like she would never have her own place in the world.

But Andreas just proclaimed her place was with him and she believed him.

He touched her everywhere, stripping her clothes away from her body, caressing her with knowing hands that had long since learned her sexual hot buttons. Now, he used them without compunction, driving her desire higher and higher.

She went after his shirt, yanking it over his head with little concern for wrinkles or the pristine tie he'd been wearing with it. She'd tugged that off first, tossing it over her shoulder.

The incendiary kiss went on and on, their tongues dueling, their lips moving against one another with a quality of emotion she'd never felt from him before. He stripped her. She did her best to return the favor, letting out a curse when his slacks gave her trouble.

He laughed, moving his mouth down her neck, nipping at her now bare shoulder. "Impatient?"

"I'm already naked. You aren't yet!"

He undid the buckle on his belt with a deft flick of his wrist, then shucked his slacks and sexy black underwear in one movement.

Andreas reached around her, grabbing her buttocks and lifting her body against his. "I need you."

"You have me."

He carried her to the bed, where he proceeded to blow her mind with his touch and his mouth on her body.

He surged up, reached down to the floor and grabbed his tie. "Will you let me?"

"You want to tie my hands?" She couldn't think what else he'd want to do with it.

"I want to give you immeasurable pleasure."

Kayla couldn't even begin to think about letting another lover have her so vulnerable. But with Andreas? "Oh, yeah, I want it."

He made a comfortable figure eight loop around her wrists and then guided her hands above her head. "Keep them there."

"If you say so."

His gaze sparkled like the deepest emerald with pleasure. "I do."

Kayla had no idea how hard it would be to keep her hands where they were instead of touching her lover, or using them to pull him to her.

Her body was slick with sweat, her nipples hard and aching from being sucked on and played with, her most intimate flesh hot and wet and ready for him.

"Come on, Dre! I need you."

"I love when you shorten my name like that. No one else does."

"You wouldn't let them."

"You're special, Kayla-love. You're my person."

Oh...oh...man...he was going to ask what she'd been thinking earlier. They'd been together for two years, he never talked about the future, but that was going to change tonight, she just knew it.

Her thoughts splintered into a cascade of sparkling light behind her eyelids when he put his mouth on her, right where she was aching the most.

Her climax came roaring through her, making her buck under him, bringing forth a primal scream she made no effort to stifle. Andreas wasn't done with her yet, though. He wiped his mouth on the sheet and then moved up the bed, kissing her along the way, taking a highly sensitive nipple into his mouth and first suckling, then nibbling, then suckling again.

The pleasure that had left her body limp began to build inside her again, this time in tsunami proportions. He surged inside her just as she came for the second time and rode her through the pleasure, forcing her body to a third, impossible orgasm that locked every one of her muscles, and nearly took her consciousness it went so deep.

Finally, he came as well, her name on his lips, his hold on her nearly bruising.

He fell beside her, the dark hair at his temples wet with sweat. "I think we'll have to wait for tomorrow for that special dinner."

She could wait. Knowing it was about their future. She could wait.

#

The next night, Kayla slid into her seat at the linen covered table, the ambient lighting giving the expensive restaurant a soft glow. Andreas moved back around the table and took his own seat, his expression solemn.

"You've been quiet since you picked me up." Kayla smoothed the napkin over the skirt of the apricot dress that hugged all her curves. She'd found it in resale shop and loved the way it made her feel sexy and feminine. "Are you nervous?"

She couldn't imagine it. Andreas Kostas didn't do nerves. Or fear. Or self-doubt. Or any other normal human weakness that plagued her so much.

"This, what I want to talk to you about. It is very important. My future, our future depends on your answer."

The air disappeared from the spacious restaurant, leaving Kayla gasping. "You don't mean...you're not asking..."

"Now, don't go getting worked up, Kayla." He jumped up and came around the table, cupping her face in both his hands and breathing with her until she was calm enough for him to return to his seat. "This is nothing to have an anxiety attack over."

"It's not?" It sounded pretty serious to her. Their future depended on her answer.

She tugged at one of her kinky black curls, a nervous gesture she'd never quite been able to rid herself of.

He reached across the table and took her hand in his, the difference in the skin tones showing his Mediterranean roots and her biracial ones. Not that she knew the origin of hers, having been abandoned by her mother at age three with no clear memories of the woman, or Kayla's father, if she'd ever known him at all. Kayla had no idea which of her parents had donated the genes that gave her tight, curly black hair, a café-au-lait skin tone and eyes the color of slate.

Andreas tightened his hold on her hand, his green gaze going oh so serious. "You know I've been building my investment portfolio so I could start a business."

"Yes." He had things to prove to his Greek family, the one he'd rejected when he'd gone back to using his mother's surname.

And he'd spent the all of his college years living almost as frugally as she did so he could build up the capital to start his own business. His father had paid for Andreas' school, but he had refused to accept anything else from the Georgas clan. She knew that one day, he planned to pay his father back for the tuition investment, as well.

He let go of her hand, but leaned forward, across the table, his jaw clenched with emotion. "I need your help to make my vision a reality."

"Whatever you need." How could he doubt it? Not only were they lovers, but he was the closest thing to family she was ever likely to have.

His smile was brilliant and maybe even a little relieved. He had been nervous! "I know you mean that. I've never had a friend like you, Kayla."

"You said it. I'm your people. You're my people too." She didn't have anyone else. The only foster mom that had ever cared had died when Kayla was in high school. She'd been alone ever since, until she met Andreas and he pulled her into his life.

"I want you to go into business with me."

"Wait. What?" Business? "I'm a programmer."

"A brilliant one. The project you did for your PEARL class is the beginning of what could be the most effective cyber computer program any corporation has ever seen."

"I don't have any money to go into business with you." Some months she didn't have money for food, not that he ever let her go without.

Andreas always made a way to make sure Kayla had what she needed, and he never crushed her pride to do it.

No wonder she loved him.

"You provide the program and I'll do the rest."

"The rest is a lot." Hiring people. Setting up an office. Selling the program that wasn't yet ready for this kind of plan, so that meant financing a development phase. "That's not anything like an equal partnership."

"No, it won't be," he agreed unapologetically. "I'll pay you a salary and give you five percent of the company and as much time as you need to develop the program before we take it international."

He had thought this through and while he was being fair, he wasn't offering Kayla her dreams on a platter.

"Straight to the world markets, huh?"

"Naturally. I cannot outclass Georgas Shipping without taking risks."

Finally, she understood. This was the important thing, their future, he'd wanted to talk to her about. Not marriage. Not them. And while she was painfully disappointed, he was still talking about building a future with her in it.

"So, this business thing. That's what you wanted to talk about tonight?" she clarified.

"What else? It's our future, Kayla. I promise you, you will never regret taking me on as a business partner. I will make sure you are always provided for."

She had no problem believing that. "What about us?"

Things shouldn't change between them, but a sliver of unease made its way down Kayla's spine at the look on his handsome, young face.

"Unfortunately, last night will have to be our final time in bed together. We cannot mix business with a sexual relationship." He looked truly regretful.

That didn't help the shards of pain piercing her heart right then. "Is that one of your rules, like no long-term commitment?"

His eyes widened at her tone. "It is, yes. I know what I'm talking about. Sexual partners are temporary, but business partners are in it for the long haul."

"You're breaking up with me?" she asked, disbelief making a small barrier between the pain threatening to consume Kayla and her heart.

"We have always been friends. We will always be friends." He frowned, as if offended by having to explain this. "That is not breaking up with you."

"But you don't want to have sex anymore."

"We cannot continue to be sex partners and go into business together." There was such certainty in his tone, she could not doubt he meant every word.

And would not be moved.

"And the business is more important to you?" she pushed, unable to accept that was the case.

Being with him was the most important thing in her life, how could he feel so differently?

"Building this business is the entire reason I got my MBA. You know my goals. I will prove to the Georgas clan that Melia Kostas' son does not need them. Not in any way. And I will outshine them in the financial arena, in every way that matters."

Even if it meant giving up their two-year sexual relationship to do it.

"I need to think about it." A vice of pain was squeezing her heart and Kayla didn't know if she could stay friends with Andreas after all.

Andreas nodded. "Take all the time you need."

#

Kayla hadn't given him an answer a week later.

Her heart was fighting a battle with her brain and she didn't know which one was on the side of walking away and which one wanted her to take him up on his business offer.

Andreas hadn't pressured her to make a decision, but he hadn't left her alone either. He texted her throughout the day, like he'd always done. Only now, there were never any sexual overtones to his messages. He'd come over with dinner twice, asking about her plans for the winter break.

Her plans were to stay in her poky apartment. Alone. She had no plans to celebrate the holiday. Holidays were for people with families, even made families. Kayla had no one.

A knock sounded on her door followed by a strange scratching against the battered wood.

She looked out through the peephole, no longer sure it would be Andreas on the other side. What she saw left her as confused as the maelstrom of emotions swirling inside her.

All she saw was something dark.

"Kayla, open the door."

That was Andreas' voice.

She pulled back the chain and opened the door and just stared. There was the man who called her his person with a Christmas tree. A box of decorations at his feet, some brightly wrapped gifts, and if the smells coming from the large brown shopping bag were any indication, a traditional turkey Christmas dinner for two.

"Andreas, what are you doing here?"

"It's Christmas. Where else would I be, but spending it with my best friend?" The words were confident, but the tiny flash of vulnerability that showed in his green gaze hit her right in the heart.

And suddenly, she knew her answer. She would go into business with Andreas. Because one day he' was going to wake up and realize that they were better than best friends.

They were two halves of the same soul.

Kostas's Convenient Bride Excerpt

CHAPTER ONE

Kayla Jones hop-rushed down the hall toward Andreas' office, buckling her denim wedge sandal as she went. She'd stripped out of her clean-room bunny suit in less than a minute, but redressing took longer.

Late for a high priority meeting with the Type-A, ultra-alpha president of KJ Software was nothing Kayla wanted to be.

Even if he was her business partner. Technically.

He'd been weird lately. Cranky. Even more exacting than usual.

Andreas' twenty-something, super-efficient male admin made a stopping motion with his hand. Kayla stopped but let her own widened eyes let him know how little she wanted to.

"I know," he mouthed, sympathy imbuing his expression as some complicated sign language finally clued Kayla in to the fact that her peach cardigan knit jacket was on inside out.

She flipped it with rushed, jerky movements and then Bradley waved Kayla through with a significant nod toward her waistband. She looked down and realized the button at the top of the zipper on her peach damask-on-denim skirt was undone.

With a harried smile of thanks, she quickly fastened it as she opened the door to the big man's office. "Sorry I'm late, Andreas, I was supervising tests on Dolphin." She preferred to name all their projects after marine life and Andreas indulged her whimsy.

Kayla stopped abruptly as she realized her boss wasn't in his usual spot behind his big chrome and glass desk, but sitting at one end of the eight-person smoky glass topped meeting table.

A woman was with him. Blonde hair piled in a sleek, professional up-do and wearing a stylish white suit, she gave Kayla an assessing look.

"This is your business partner?" she asked Andreas her tone tinged with disbelief.

"Yes." Andreas frowned at Kayla. "I told you this meeting was high priority."

"Technically, my smart phone told me. You flagged it." Who was this woman and what kind of meeting were they having?

Andreas gave her that look, the one that said Kayla was being a tad too literal again. She stifled the urge to apologize. She'd been working on that.

Not apologizing for being herself.

"Well, she's here now," the other woman pointed out. "I presume we can get started now?" Her words were take-charge, but her expression toward Andreas was nothing but deferential.

"Get started on what?" Kayla asked as she settled into one of the leather high-backed chairs on Andreas' left, across from the stranger.

Apparently, he wasn't done glowering about Kayla's tardiness, because he did not answer.

Kayla rolled her eyes, absolutely refusing to utter the, "I'm sorry," on the tip of her tongue. While he had marked the meeting as a priority, he'd had Bradley insert it into Kayla's schedule when she'd already blocked off the time prior for the Dolphin tests. She could wait out Andreas' snit. She'd done it before.

With a sound of impatience, the other woman spoke. "We are here to discuss how Andreas' search for a wife will impact his business."

Everything around Kayla came into sharp focus. The sound each of them made as they breathed in the quiet of the room. The floral musk of the other woman's perfume that smelled out of place. The fingerprint smudges on the glass in front of the blonde that indicated she'd pressed her hands on the table for some reason. Kayla wanted to wipe them away, erase the evidence of the woman's presence, even as she sat there.

Kayla shook her head. Denial a scream inside her. That could not be right.

Andreas was no help. He still sat there with his stony, you-were-late expression on his handsome, angular face, his green eyes snapping with disapproval.

"Search for a wife?" Kayla's breath ran out on the final, her entire body going cold and then hot with the implications.

Andreas finally deigned to nod, not one strand of his dark hair going out of place with the short movement. "It's time."

"It is?" Kayla hadn't noticed Andreas being any less focused on business. Any more open to interpersonal relationships.

She would have noticed. She'd been watching for just such a change in him for the past six years.

In fact, lately, he'd been more driven and working even longer hours than usual and expecting her to do the same, wanting Dolphin's launch on time and without a single hiccup.

"I've exceeded my father's net worth. A wife and family are next on the list." He didn't shrug, his perfectly tailored suit clad shoulders remaining ramrod straight, but the sense of dismissal was there in his voice.

Like this decision wasn't something life changing, monumental and the one thing Kayla had been hoping for since they broke up to become business partners.

Kayla looked at the woman who had informed her of Andreas' plans. Who was she? And why did she know Andreas' personal plans when Kayla, a friend, had not?

A truly horrifying prospect popped into Kayla's mind. Was this woman a matchmaker? It would be just like Andreas to hire a professional to find him a wife.

Not that he needed one.

While Kayla had been practically celibate the past years, the same could not be said of Andreas. He'd taken many beautiful women to his bed, each and every one a risk to Kayla's hopes for the future. But he'd never gotten serious, his heart and Kayla's deepest desires remaining unchanged.

"That's what I'm here for," the sleek blonde said confidently, clearly thrilled to have a client of Andreas' stature on her roster.

"You're a matchmaker?" Kayla asked for confirmation, still trying to come to terms with that possible reality.

The woman nodded. "I own the Patterson Group."

It sounded like a firm of lawyers, not a service designed to bring people together in wedded bliss.

"She specializes in millionaires," Andreas added, like that was important.

"You're a billionaire." On paper anyway.

KJ Software was obscenely successful, just like Andreas had said it would be. The company, of which he owned 95% was valued at over a billion dollars. Not bad for six years of blood, sweat and sleepless nights working.

The matchmaker nodded, her expression showing how much she appreciated the distinction and the fact Andreas was her client. Kayla knew being a billionaire rather than just worth millions mattered Andreas, too. A lot. That valuation was what had spurred this particular move toward domestic harmony after all. He was finally worth more than his father, but still had more to prove.

Andreas was giving Kayla that look again. "Don't be so literal. The point is Miss Patterson--"

"Genevieve, please." The blonde's smile was all polish, no substance.

"Genevieve..." Kayla wondered if Genevieve noticed the short pause and the way Andreas' square jaw tightened when using the more personal address. "Specializes in matching wealthy men with women who will make them the ideal wife."

Kayla was appalled and made no effort to hide it. "I don't think it works like that."

She wasn't opposed to matchmakers, was sure that there were plenty in the business who really believed in matching two people meant to be together, but this woman? She was every bit as predatory in her way as Andreas. Kayla had learned to read people very young.

If she hadn't, she wouldn't have survived her childhood.

Genevieve of the Patterson Group did not read as caring about long-term happiness or emotional harmony by any stretch of the imagination.

"My track record speaks for itself," the woman said now, superiority in her tone and the tilt of her head. So, impressed and happy to have Andreas as a client, but arrogant and utterly sure of herself as well.

"If it didn't, I wouldn't consider your twenty-five-thousand-dollar retainer."

Kayla gasped. "I'm pretty sure you can buy a bride who looks like a super model for that kind of money."

Or you know, marry the woman who had loved him for the last eight years and waited in hope for the past six.

"Your employer isn't looking for a trophy bride, he's interested in finding someone to share his life with." The matchmaker's self-righteous rhetoric would be a lot more convincing if she'd protested as vehemently at Andreas referring to finding a wife as the next item on his goal list.

If Andreas was really looking for a soul-mate, he wouldn't look beyond the one woman he'd called friend for nearly a decade. Would he?

They hadn't broken up because they weren't good together. They'd ended their sexual relationship because Andreas had very strict views in regard to business and personal relationships. They'd never had what one might term a romantic relationship.

It had been friends with benefits.

Kayla had thought that was changing, that their relationship was morphing into something deeper.

She had been wrong.

Andreas had wanted to morph it all right, but not into something more personal. He'd wanted her senior project software design as the cornerstone for his new digital security company. And he'd made it very clear that he valued her skills as a programmer above her willingness to share his bed.

The six-year-old rejection she thought dealt with and dormant erupted with the power to leave her heart in ashes.

She had to get out of there.

Forcing her emotions behind the blank face she'd carefully crafted during a childhood bouncing from one foster home to another, Kayla asked, "Why am I here? What do you need from me?"

"You are my business partner," Andreas said, like that explained everything.

"Five percent ownership hardly makes me a material partner." It was an old argument, one Andreas had never given in on.

The expression on the matchmaker's face said she agreed with Kayla though.

Andreas frowned. The man didn't like being corrected and barely tolerated it from Kayla, but she never let that stop her from saying what needed saying. At least when it came to the business.

"You are my partner and this change in circumstance will affect the business and therefore you, by default." Andreas tone brooked no argument.

Kayla was still confused though, something she was used to when it came to interpersonal relationships, but not their company. "Why?"

She wasn't in the running. This whole pay a matchmaker ridiculous amounts of money thing made that very clear. And it hurt. Badly.

But she was confident Andreas had no clue. So, why was he so convinced Kayla's life was going to be impacted?

Once again, he was giving her a look that said she'd missed something. Since he'd missed the fact she'd been in love with him since the beginning, she didn't feel as badly about that as she usually would have.

Genevieve spoke, her tone one you might use with a small child. "Marriage brings about significant changes in a person's life and since Andreas is the heart and blood of this company, it stands to reason his marriage will have a significant impact on the company and its higher-level employees."

Andreas' eyelid twitched at the familiar address, or maybe it was the reference to employees rather than partners, but he didn't correct Genevieve.

"Are we going public then?" They'd been discussing it, or at least Andreas had been telling her he was thinking about it for the past year.

Doing so would make him a billionaire for real, not just net worth. Kayla wouldn't do badly out of it either. She'd be able to fund an entire chain of Kayla for Kids facilities, instead of the single local group home for foster children, with neighborhood after school activities, she currently did.

"No." Andreas frowned. "I answer to no one."

Now, that didn't surprise her. While she might have dreams of funding Kayla for Kids houses in every major city, she knew how unlikely that really was. Andreas did not want to answer to shareholders, or a board of directors. His father had dictated things about Andreas' life when he'd had no way to stop the overbearing Greek tycoon and no way would her Greek-American business mogul ever tolerate someone else having major say in his life again.

"Perhaps you should consider selling the company outright as you spoke about at our first meeting. It would free you up to make your search for the right marital partner," Genevieve suggested, her tone implying she thought it an imminently practical solution. "Being a liquid billionaire wouldn't hurt your chances in the dating pool either. I'm sure we could snag you royalty."

So much for not looking for a trophy wife.

Kayla couldn't get a full breath. "You want him to sell the company?" So he could buy a princess?

"It is one solution."

"To what?" So far, Kayla didn't see a problem that needed solving.

Except the whole, buy a bride thing. And Andreas had plenty of money to do that without selling their company. Without ripping everything she'd spent the last six years building out from under her.

"Andreas cannot continue to put in twelve to sixteen-hour days. It's part of the agreement with my firm." Genevieve tapped her tablet with one long fingernail.

"You signed an agreement?" Kayla asked Andreas.

He gave her that look. The one that implied she was a few steps behind in the business side of a discussion. It had happened before.

But this was crazy.

"That limits the number of hours you work?" she clarified.

"Yes."

"That doesn't mean you have to consider selling the company." Andreas wouldn't give in on this particular issue, would he? It was too important.

He might not love Kayla. Heck, maybe he'd never even really cared about her as anything but a brilliant programmer with a new idea, but he cared about their company. It wasn't just Kayla who'd found stability and a purpose with KJ Software.

Andreas had had always been crazy protective when it came to the company and pure predator in his role as president. The idea that he would even consider selling it should be ludicrous. Only the calculating expression in Andreas' green gaze made Kayla's short nails dig into suddenly sweaty palms.

No. He'd made comments over the past year. Sarcastic one offs about selling KJ Software that she'd given the credence they deserved.

None.

Andreas might be the life-blood of the company, but Genevieve had got it wrong. Kayla's job might technically be Director of Research and Development, but she was KJ Software's heart and she couldn't be that when her own stopped beating. Didn't they realize that?

"Are you all right, Kayla?" Andreas asked, handsome features etched with concern.

She stared at him, not sure she could answer. Her entire world was imploding.

"We've done what we set out to do with this company." Andreas leaned back in his chair, his big body relaxed, his tone satisfied...like his words weren't slashing jagged wounds right into her heart. "Sebastian Hawk has approached me about a merger with his security firm."

"A merger or a buy-out?" she demanded.

Andreas winced, perhaps recognizing his news was not as welcome as he'd expected it to be. "A buy-out is the most likely final scenario."

"Why?" Owner of one of the largest security firms worldwide, Sebastian Hawk was one of their biggest customers and had been since the beginning. "He already licenses our software." For his own company and in a secondary capacity for his own clients.

Andreas replied, "He wants to own it."

"He's a control freak, like you."

Andreas shrugged. "He has three children and a legacy to leave them."

"What about your children?" Presumably if Andreas was ready to get married, he was looking forward to parenthood as well.

He had often said the only reason he would ever marry was to have a real family. Didn't he want a legacy for his own children?

"I'm thinking about going into venture capital investments."

"You've been watching that show again, haven't you?" she asked, referring to a favorite reality television show of his.

They'd watched the show about venture capitalists, who invested in and mentored startup businesses, together many times. Andreas prided himself on being able to guess which entrepreneurs were going to get multiple offers from the sharks and which would leave the "tank" without a single offer at all.

"As fascinating as all this is, we need to wrap this meeting up." Genevieve's voice grated in unwelcome reminder of her presence as she glanced at her designer watch. "I have another client meeting."

Really? Lots of super wealthy guys were looking for bride pimps? "How many clients do you take on at a time?"

"That is privileged information," Genevieve informed her haughtily.

But Kayla had spent most of her life in the foster care system. Haughty wasn't going to intimidate her. "Not with the kind of retainer you charged Andreas."

"I was under the impression you paid out of your personal account?"

Andreas' expression filled with annoyance. "Of course I did."

"Then, I do not see where this is any of your business." The matchmaker's condescending tone might have annoyed Kayla, but she had concerns much closer to her heart right now.

She stood on shaky legs. "You're right. It's not. In fact, I still don't know what the heck I'm doing here at all. If you're going to sell the company, my tiny minority percent isn't going to stop you. If you want to pay this woman more than a lot of people make in a year to find you some dates when I don't see you struggling for company now, that's none of my business."

The cold inside her grew with every word, but so did Kayla's resolve. "I do not appreciate being called away from my work for something you could have handled in a text." I'm hiring a matchmaker.

"You expected me to tell you I was selling the company in a text?" Andreas demanded, sounding shocked.

"I didn't expect you to sell the company at all, certainly not to tell me about it as a fait accompli in a meeting with a third-party." Dismissing Genevieve's presence, Kayla met Andreas' gaze. "But I'm realizing now I've been wrong about a lot of things."

He'd said this meeting was about the matchmaker. The selling of the company had come up as part of the discussion. Or, that was how it had seemed. But apparently, it had been part of his agenda all along.

Kayla turned on her heel and walked out of the office, the numbness spreading with the cold. She been like this a few times before in her life.

The day she realized her mom was not coming back. She hadn't spoken for two years after.

The day her foster mom died and she was placed in the first of another string of homes.

The day she realized Andreas wanted her for her programming skills more than her place in his bed, or even their friendship.

Andreas' personal assistant stood up as Kayla came out of the office. "Are you okay?"

She just shook her head.

"What's going on?"

"He's getting married." Kayla wasn't going to mention the possibility he was going to sell their company. After all, that wasn't supposed to have been the reason for the meeting.

"To her?" Bradley's eyes widened, his face going slack.

"She's the matchmaker."

Bradley laid his hand on Kayla's arm. "I'm sorry."

He didn't say anything else, but he'd been working for Andreas from the beginning. Other than Andreas, Bradley knew Kayla better than anyone else alive. Maybe better, because he'd realized the first year they worked together that she was in love with the oblivious Greek.

About the Author

With more than 7 million copies of her books in print worldwide, award winning and USA Today bestseller Lucy Monroe has published over 60 books and had her stories translated for sale all over the world. While she writes multiple subgenres of romance, all of her books are sexy, deeply emotional and adhere to the concept that love will conquer all. A passionate devotee of romance, she adores sharing her love for the genre with her readers.

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### Look for these titles

### Coming Soon from Harlequin Presents

**KOSTAS'S CONVENIENT BRIDE** \- May 2018

### Now Available from Lucy Monroe LLC

Standalone Contemporary Romance

THE REAL DEAL  
SILVER BELLA

_Corporate Information Systems_ duo  
CHANGE THE GAME  
WIN THE GAME

_The Goddard Project_ Series

SATISFACTION GUARANTEED

DEAL WITH THIS

THE SPY WHO WANTS ME

WATCH OVER ME

CLOSE QUARTERS

For more information on Lucy's books, including her Harlequin Presents, other contemporary single titles, historical and historical-paranormal romance, visit http://www.lucymonroe.com.

