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“I feel like a princess.” Trite, she knew, but true. Kayla had never felt so lovely.
“Every bride should on her wedding day.” Miranda gave her a one-armed hug, careful not to crush the beautiful dress. “So, you’re glad you gave in about the stylist and her crew?”
Kayla sighed. “Yes. I didn’t realize how different I would feel.”
“I hope I marry a guy who cares about the details to make me feel special like your fiancé.”
“I hope you find a man you love as much as I do Andreas.” Kayla said nothing about the lack of love on Andreas’s side. She didn’t think a man could make his bride feel more cherished and cared for than Andreas had done for her.
Kayla went to put on the simple diamond studs Andreas had gifted her for Christmas four years previous. A rather personal gift for his employee/business partner, but Andreas made his own rules about life.
Miranda held out an elegant black box tied with a white bow before Kayla could put the earrings on. “Andreas told me to give this to you this morning.”
Surprised, Kayla took the gift. “What is it?”
“I don’t know.” Miranda grinned. “But I’m guessing jewelry.”
Kayla’s sister was right. Inside the box, she found a pair of teardrop pearl earrings, matching necklace and bracelet. The tops of the earrings were a cluster of diamonds, the necklace falling to a gorgeous swirl of diamonds, a single pearl in the center, the bracelet a triple strand of interspersed pearls and diamonds, all the pearls in the jewelry the same soft peach of her dress and shoes. “How did he know?”
Miranda shrugged. “He knows you? I mean what were the chances your wedding dress wasn’t going to have your color in it? But even if you’d gone fully traditional, the jewelry would have complemented it and allowed you to wear your signature color.”
“He can be really thoughtful.”
“I’d say that man spends a lot of time thinking about what is going to make you happy.”
“You think so?”
“Don’t you?” Miranda asked, a small frown marring her pretty features.
Kayla nodded. “Yes, I do. It’s just, he’s not big on the words, you know?”
“You know what they say? Actions speak louder than words.”
Kayla was really beginning to believe they did. She finished putting on the jewelry, leaving off the necklace and wearing the locket he’d given her in New York instead, just before the wedding planner came in to give her the five-minute warning.
The wedding went by in a blur, the promises Kayla and Andreas spoke wrapping her in a fog of happiness she floated on going into the reception. She wasn’t surprised that all of Andreas’s family he’d invited had come. Nor did it shock her that so many of their employees had shown up, as well as the few external friends-cum-business-associates. Even on short notice.
No, the sheer numbers did not surprise Kayla, but they did overwhelm her. Her emotions swirled inside her, with no real outlet. For the first time in her life, she had family. She’d met her grandparents and Miranda’s dad, who assured her they were family too, all of whom sat in the front row across the aisle from Andreas’s father, his wife and grandparents from both sides of his Greek family.
She realized their employees made up the biggest portion of the guests, but knowing all these people had come to see her and Andreas make a lifetime commitment left her feeling both blessed and raw inside. Exposed in a way she’d worked very hard not to be since her years in the foster care system.
Andreas seemed to be in his element, distant but cordial with all of his guests, even Barnabas Georgas.
It was Kayla who felt like the buffer of her newfound happiness wasn’t enough. Despite knowing they all wished her and Andreas well, or she assumed they did, she found being the center of attention wearing and even conversing with her newly discovered family was making her want to hide, rather than be the center of all this attention.
Knowing the wedding planner wanted her and Andreas to cut the cake, Kayla slipped behind a cluster of pots holding live plants taller than she was. She just needed a minute to breathe.
She’d been there only a couple of minutes when she heard a spate of Greek in an older man’s voice, just on the other side of the green foliage.
“Speak English if you expect me to answer you,” Andreas replied in a cold tone, his veneer of cordiality gone.
“You had to choose a nobody to marry?” Barnabas Georgas replied, his Greek accent faint, sounding more English than American.
“Kayla is somebody. She is my wife. I don’t need you to approve of her. I have nothing to prove to you.” Andreas’s tone was firm, but underlined with a sense of wonder.
Kayla felt tears prickle her eyes. He’d finally figured it out. He didn’t have to show the Georgas or Kostas clans anything. Andreas did not need their respect or approval. Now he seemed to realize that.
“She has no family!” Barnabas Georgas was stuck on his theme, ignorant of Andreas’s amazing breakthrough.
“On the contrary, her grandparents and her sister are here. I introduced you, or did you forget?” The snide implication could not be missed.
“I did not forget, but I had her investigated. She grew up in foster care, she has no real connections. I must assume her sister and grandparents are only making themselves known because she’s marrying a very wealthy man.”
Kayla sucked in air, the pain of the accusation acute.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“YOU KNOW WHAT they say about assumptions,” Andreas drawled. “Only in this case, the only ass I see is you.”
“Andreas!” Mr. Georgas did not like being criticized.
But Kayla loved the way Andreas’s words made her feel. He was standing up for her. It wasn’t a surprise, but it did wave that flicker of hope into a bright flame.
“What, Barnabas? You think you can question the motives of my wife’s family when you know nothing of them?” Andreas demanded, his tone colder than Antarctica’s windchill factor. “You think you can put down the woman I have chosen to spend the rest of my life with and I will tolerate it? She is what is important here. Not you. Not your approval.”
Oh, how Andreas’s words seized Kayla’s heart.
“You could have married an heiress, a proper Greek girl.”
Kayla shook her head. Yeah, that was never going to happen.
“Like your wife?” Andreas asked, his tone dangerous if his father only realized it.
Kayla moved some foliage aside so she could see the two men talking, eavesdropping without shame.
“Yes, like Hera.”
“The woman you married, but not the woman who gave you a son,” Andreas pointed out brutally.
Mr. Georgas’s face twisted with pain for a brief moment, then he scowled at his son. “Yes. Even if I had not been married when we met, I would never have married Melia. You need to accept that and move on.”
“Why? Because she was a mere employee? Because she had no money or connections to bring to the table?” Andreas’s tone made it clear what he thought of his father’s reasoning, and it wasn’t complimentary.
“Precisely. I needed a wife who could handle entertaining for my business, who would not embarrass me.”
The sound Andreas made was worse than disgust, it was utter contempt. “Melia Kostas
could not have embarrassed you. She had integrity, goodness and kindness.”
“But no breeding, like the woman you chose to marry, out of spite for me I have no doubt.”
Hearing the words from Barnabas Georgas’s mouth made Kayla realize how silly her own thoughts in that arena had been. Didn’t the man realize that Andreas did not think like that?
Andreas threw his gorgeous head back and laughed. “Do not give yourself so much credit!”
Kayla felt a smile curve her lips.
“Where is your bride right now?” Mr. Georgas asked with judgment. “She is not mingling with the guests, making connections on your behalf as Hera has done for me time and again. I noted how out of her depth she was, you had to see it too.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Andreas didn’t sound angry, he sounded worried.
And Kayla knew he wasn’t thinking about the networking she wasn’t using her wedding reception to do. He was worried about her because his father brought up that he thought Kayla felt out of her depth.
“Your new wife hates being the center of attention,” Georgas said with disdain. “She could not be bothered to greet me, or the rest of your family.”
“I hadn’t yet made the time to introduce you.” And Andreas didn’t sound like he felt badly about that either.
His father rolled his eyes. “She’s a liability.”
“You can say that when she’s the only reason you, or any of my Greek connections, were invited today?”
“We are not connections, we are your family.”
“Which is why she wanted me to mend fences.” His emphasis on she wasn’t lost on the older man, who grimaced. Andreas stepped back from his father, creating more than physical distance between them. “She believes our children should have an extended family, but you’ll have nothing to do with them, or me, if you can’t show Kayla the respect she deserves.”
“She’s pregnant?” Mr. Georgas asked almost eagerly, and like suddenly he understood.
“No, she’s not pregnant.” Andreas got a look in his eye that Kayla knew well. “In fact, we do hope to adopt soon, though.”
