Page 79 of After-Hours Heir

Christos had never known happiness like this. He hadn’t even believed it existed. He had spent all of his life believing that love in any real or lasting form was a myth. He had told himself that, perhaps so he would not die of loneliness.

He looked around the room, at his wife, his children. He had not felt a moment of loneliness in more than six years.

It had been such a large part of him that he couldn’t imagine himself without it. A protective cloak that he wore.

And now, he didn’t need it anymore. He let the sun warm his skin and Sylvie’s love warm his heart. He let the weight of his children in his arms ground him, remind him of why he lived.

That was the trouble with survival as a be-all and end-all. It stole the concept of what it meant to truly live. But he had found it with Sylvie. He had found it through love.

“It’s time for bed, tiny monsters,” he said.

He took his children upstairs, gave them a bath, tucked them into their beds.

He stood in the doorway with Sylvie by his side. He luxuriated in the warmth of this moment.

“I was right, you know,” he said as he closed the door to his son’s bedroom.

“Oh, were you?” She looked up at him with skeptical eyes. “About what this time, my lord?”

“If you’re going to be sarcastic, then I won’t tell you.”

“No, please, Christos, I am dying to know all the ways in which you are correct.”

“It was the right thing for you to marry me.”

She paused, there in the hallway of their glorious old home. The one they had bought because of the yard.

It was very different to their life in the city. It was not a symbol of success or all the financial battles he had won.

It was a symbol of happiness. Of love.

It was the sort of safety he had only ever experienced for a small part of his childhood.

And now he got to live it, every day.

“It was,” she said. “You’re right.”

He smiled to himself as they walked to their bedroom.

He began to get undressed as Sylvie went into the bathroom. Putting various creams on her face he always maintained she didnot need. But he thought they smelled nice, and they made her happy.

His phone buzzed on his nightstand.

Kid: If you were here I would kiss you.

Instantly, desire roared through his veins. This was a game they continued to play.

They had played it at various hotels across the world, in fact. Occasional anonymous meetings. Sexual chats on their phones.

This was still part of who they were.

“You could just kiss me,” he called from the bedroom.

Sylvie walked in, wearing a translucent night gown that he hadn’t seen before.

She had only grown more beautiful over the years. Each child had added to her lovely figure, just as the years had added more gray to his hair. They only loved each other all the more.

He only wanted her all the more.