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‘You don’t have the key, Serena,’ he said as he kissed her gently on the lips, making her tremble even more.
‘I don’t?’
‘No. You are the key. The key to my heart and to my love.’
EPILOGUE
‘I CAN’T BELIEVE Sally is finally coming here to Santorini.’ Serena couldn’t keep the excitement from her voice as she looked up at Nikos.
He put down the paper he’d been reading whilst sitting in the shade, keeping a watchful eye on his sleeping young son. After satisfying himself that Yannis was still asleep he walked over to her, his sexy laugh sending a spark of pleasure all through her. It intensified when he put his arm around her, pressing his lips gently against her hair.
‘It will be our first family occasion here at the villa. A chance for Yannis to meet his cousins.’
Nikos glanced across at their son and Serena’s heart filled with love and happiness.
‘I just hope her flight was okay...’ She couldn’t quite keep the anxiety from her voice.
‘Sally has twins—and, knowing what it’s like to travel with one baby, I would imagine flying with two is difficult. I did ensure extra staff were on board to help with the babies.’
‘I can never thank you enough for giving her the chance of motherhood, despite the fact that I left.’
‘I did it for you, Serena, to make you happy—and because I’m a man who honours his promises,’ he said gently, looking down at her, his expression filled with love.
She loved how understanding Nikos could be. As soon as Sally had told them she was expecting twins he’d done everything possible to enable them to marry in England, so that Sally didn’t have to fly to Greece. His grandmother had been disappointed, but a lavish blessing on the island on their return had soon made amends.
Serena couldn’t possibly love him more for everything he’d done—not just for making Sally’s wish come true, but her own. She loved everything about him, and often silently thanked Christos for contacting the newspapers when he had, even if it had been with malicious intent. If he had not Nikos might never have confronted his past, nor even come to London.
She wondered again if the headlines created by his mother to tell her own story, bringing Nikos’s past so harshly into the open, had been her way of trying to make amends. She’d counteracted the attack Christos had launched and put her life under the microscope of the press, admitting that what she’d told Nikos had been an attempt to stop him looking for her, or waiting and pining.
‘You should have invited your mother to the christening.’
She looked at him reproachfully but he shook his head, still not yet able to come to terms with all he’d found out about his parents’ marriage.
‘It’s early days, and we both agreed that a big family celebration wouldn’t be the best time for her to meet everyone.’
‘I think it would be the best time. If christening a baby isn’t a day for letting go of the past and moving forward, I don’t know what is.’
She smiled at him as he stroked her face, his love for her shining from the blue depths of his eyes.
‘I understand that she wants the past forgotten, especially now it’s come out just how cruel my father was to her.’
A shadow of regret chased across his face and she knew he was thinking of the revelations about his parents’ short marriage.
‘You can’t punish yourself for ever, Nikos. You were a young boy. How were you to know the truth? Besides, your grandmother wants her back in the family.’
‘You and my grandmother are conspiring against me, I see.’ A hint of amusement lingered in his voice.
Serena laughed. ‘Would I do such a thing?’
‘Yes, you would.’
He made a show of annoyance, but Serena was too excited about the arrival of her family for the christening—including her parents, who were, amazingly, travelling together—to let anything spoil it.
‘Okay, you get your way. She didn’t see our wedding or the blessing, so I will ask her to come to the christening.’
‘You could both fly back from Athens together after your meeting tomorrow.’ She dropped the suggestion lightly as she took a sip of her iced water, pretending not to notice the suspicion narrowing his eyes.
‘We could...yes.’
Nikos looked reproachfully at his wife, but she just laughed, and he fought the urge to silence her with a kiss. He thought of the long, painful talks he’d had with his mother, which had revealed that whilst she hadn’t wanted to remain married to his father she’d never wanted to leave her son. At first he hadn’t been able to understand why she hadn’t tried to mend the marriage, but then all the sorry truth had come out and bit by bit he had learned to forgive her.
