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She made a scoffing sound. “In whose universe?”
Andreas had surprised her by agreeing to invite both sides of his family from Greece on her request. However, he’d also insisted on inviting friends like Sebastian Hawk and his wife, and all of the KJ Software employees.
“Would you have rather eloped?” He turned from the mirror and faced her, his hand coming to rest on her waist at it so often did.
If they were in the same room, he was touching her. If he was working in his office and she was in her lab, he texted or called. He was seducing her heart as surely as he did her body.
“No.” She liked the idea of having witnesses to their vows, people who would share the memory of she and Andreas promising a lifetime together.
“So, we invite everyone.”
“I still don’t know how the wedding planner found a venue, caterers, a top-notch photographer and even a pastry chef for the cake on such short notice.” Didn’t it usually take several months ahead of time to order a huge formal wedding cake from the kind of bakery they’d engaged?
“I only hire the best, as you well know.”
Kayla shook her head. “Giving her only two months was insane.” They were a month out from the wedding, and while the last one had been the happiest of Kayla’s life, it had also been nuts with planning.
“And yet she came through,” Andreas said smugly. No one would claim Andreas Kostas was humble.
Good thing she liked his arrogance.
“Only because you were willing to pay such a premium for everything.” Kayla shook her head. “It’s ridiculous how much you’re spending on this wedding.”
“Not to me. The world will know I take this marriage seriously.”
Her heart warmed at his words, further confirmation that despite the fact he still maintained his attitude that love was a weakness, his regard for her was well beyond what it was for anyone else.
“But then why do we have to find a house right now too?” she almost whined, thinking of the multiple viewings they had set up for that evening after work with a property broker. It was sort of her fault there were more than a couple, but she wasn’t settling into some mansion that didn’t feel like a home to raise children. “Don’t you want to stay in and just relax for one night?”
Andreas pulled her body flush with his. “I want you living with me.”
“So, I’ll move in here officially.” Talking was losing its appeal, but if she gave in and kissed him, they’d be late for work. Not something that would help either of their schedules. “I spend all my time here anyway.”
“It is a waste of time and resources to move you twice.” The shrug in his voice couldn’t be more pronounced.
“Says you.” Most of her clothes had already migrated to his closet, but she still had to go to her condo daily to water her plants, sort her mail, etc. She frowned up at him. “So, we are going to rush into buying a house?”
“Only if we find one we both like.” He leaned down and kissed her chastely, though the touch sparked very unchaste desires in her.
Kayla shook her head again, as much to clear it as to let him know she wasn’t buying it. “All of the houses we’re going to look at tonight are amazing.”
“So, presumably it will be no difficulty to choose one for us to begin our family in.”
“I still don’t understand why everything has to happen this minute.” Yes, he was the kind of guy who acted after making a decision, but the pace of these changes in their lives was overwhelming.
“I want you settled in my life.”
She laid her forehead against his chest, just enjoying the connection for a second. “I’m already in your life, Andreas, if you hadn’t noticed.”
“I noticed.”
“So?” She looked up at him again, wanting to see his face.
The vulnerability she found there left Kayla breathless.
Andreas’s mouth firmed. “I want the ties.”
Again her heart filled, nearly to bursting, at the evidence of how much he wanted to cement her place with him. “You make it difficult to stay irritated with you, Dre.”
“That is a good thing.”
Kayla wasn’t feeling so charitable a couple of days later as she headed toward Andreas’s office for a surprise meeting. The last one hadn’t gone so well for her. Bradley had been really cagey when he’d called to tell her Andreas needed her in his office at three o’clock too. Kayla couldn’t help but worry. She wasn’t sure what she thought her new fiancé was up to, but whatever it was, Kayla was not ready for one more change in her life.
Bradley waved her through when she got to Andreas’s office suite, a strange expression on the PA’s face.
“What is this about?” Kayla demanded, stopping at Bradley’s desk.
“I can’t say.”
“That doesn’t mean you don’t know.”
“Just go in, Kayla. Please.”
Her heart in her toes, sure Andreas had found the CEO to take over for him already, Kayla did as Bradley asked. She wasn’t ready for Andreas not to be working at KJ Software yet. Not that he’d leave immediately, she knew that. He’d have to train his replacement, but still, it was the beginning of the end.
The woman sitting on a leather sofa—not at the conference table—that was part of the conversational group by the window looked far too young and frankly soft to be a corporate-shark CEO. Dressed in a trendy top and calf-length skinny slacks, the woman was Kayla’s age, if not a couple of years younger. Her clothes were stylish, but not corporate sharp or expensive designer label.
There was something familiar about the gray eyes that had locked on to Kayla the moment she walked into the office, though. The woman with delicate features and golden-brown hair, just this side of blonde, gasped and then her eyes filled with moisture.
Kayla did not understand what was happening. She looked to her fiancé and demanded, “Andreas?”
He came toward her quickly, laying a possessive arm around her waist as he guided her toward the sofa and chairs. “Kayla, pethi mou, I would like you to meet your sister.”
Kayla’s knees gave way, her joints and muscles turned to water in her shock. It was only Andreas’s arm around her that stopped Kayla from collapsing to the floor.
“My sister?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper, her heart beating so fast, she thought she might pass out.
Andreas’s hold on her tightened as he guided her to a chair catty-corner from where the other woman was sitting.
“Yes,” both Andreas and the woman said at the same time.
The woman, Kayla’s sister...her sister, leaned toward her, gray eyes so familiar because they were just like Kayla’s, she now realized, filled with what looked like hope. “I didn’t know I had a sister.”
“Then how? No, wait, what’s your name?” Kayla needed that piece of information.
Andreas made a noise that would have indicated embarrassment in anyone else. “I should have said.”
“I go by Miranda Smith now, but my friends call me Randi.”
“Go by...n
ow... What does that mean?”
“She had reason to change her name as a teenager,” Andreas offered.
“Because of our mom?” Kayla realized it was just as possible they shared a father.
Randi’s mouth twisted with disgust. “No. That particular issue had nothing to do with the crazy woman who gave us birth.”
“Our mom is mentally ill.” Kayla wasn’t sure how she felt about her sister using the crazy word.
“That’s what her defense attorney claimed after she tried to drown me in the bathtub at age six. However, I do not believe that a terrible temper mixed with drug abuse is in and of itself a mental illness.”
“She tried to kill you?” Kayla asked in pained disbelief.
Randi grimaced. “I’m not sure abandoning a three-year-old at a truck stop is any better.”
“But someone found me and turned me in to the authorities.” According to her records, Kayla hadn’t been in the best condition when she was turned over to child services, but she could not remember if that was due to her mom or the time between the abandonment and her being rescued.
“She didn’t care what happened. That’s the point. She never cares about anyone else. I’m sorry. I know it hurts to hear, but our mom’s life has always been about what she wants, about her comfort. No one else has ever mattered enough for her to change her behavior. They do say narcissism is a diagnosable psychological condition. I’ll give her that one.”
Kayla could feel Randi’s pain and knew with certainty that life with their mom had been awful, the attempted drowning only one terrible memory.
Kayla looked up at Andreas before meeting her sister’s gray gaze again. “I guess foster care wasn’t so bad after all.”
Randi made a pained sound. “You should never have been raised by strangers. You had a family that selfish bitch stole from you. Our grandparents are amazing. My dad would have accepted you as his own. Marla took away all our choices when she abandoned you.”
“You sound very bitter.”
“I do, don’t I?” Randi’s smile was warm, genuine and big. “I’m not. Really. I may despise our mother, but my dad didn’t allow her to terrorize my entire childhood. He really is a great guy and like I said, Mom’s parents are pretty wonderful. They and my dad’s parents always stood by me.”
