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“On me?” He looked like he’d been shot.

“No! No, I…” She found the leash where she had tucked it under her thigh and bent forward to run her hand down its length until she found the ball of fur on the end of it, curled in the cool grass beneath the bench.

The Yorkshire terrier was fifteen weeks old and not even a full kilo. She yawn-squeaked as Alia scooped her up, then began to wiggle with excitement as Alia stood, holding her with a firm hand around her middle and supporting under her bum with the other.

“This is Gaia,” she said sheepishly. “She doesn’t look big enough to carry a lot of emotional baggage, but you would be surprised.”

“Like you,” Spiro said with a twitch of his lips. “Why didn’t we think of this sooner?”

He offered his hand for a sniff, then rubbed one finger between Gaia’s ears and under her chin.

She squirmed, trying to lick him to death.

“You’re doing well, then,” he said.

“Very,” she lied. “You?”

“Not at all.” He dropped his hand and regarded her gravely.

“What happened? Is Lambros—”

“Forget him. I never want to hear his name again.” He flicked his hand in dismissal. “I thought I was giving you what you wanted, but you lied to me, Alia.”

“No, I didn’t.” She cuddled the puppy into her shoulder.

“This is what you want? To live with a dog and a landlady? Yes, I’ve been to your flat and met her. She told me which park you’d gone to. If you want to live with someone, live with me.”

“I—” She didn’t know what else to say. He made it sound so easy, but it wasn’t.

She gently set the puppy back on the grass and tucked the leash under the heavy book, straightening to face him, trying to find words to explain why she had thought she had to be more independent before he could possibly want her in his life.

“I know I hurt you when I didn’t say the words back to you. That is a failing in me.” He touched his chest, voice equal parts anger and agony. “I spent most of my life giving as much love as I knew how to give and it was never enough. She stayed married to him anyway. Khristos still suffered.”

“Oh, Spiro—”

“Shh. Let me say this.” He cupped her cheek and the way he used the endearment was so tender, so sweet, it made the world tilt under her feet. “I know you love me. I knew it when you said it, but I didn’t want to believe it because it meant I had to let you in. It meant I had to tell you that I want this. I want you. I want babies and a lifetime with you. It meant I would have to give you everything I am—my heart, my soul. What if you didn’t want them? What if that wasn’t enough? But you already had them,” he said on a faint husk of laughter. “You stole them while I was fast asleep.”

She might have felt some chagrin at that, but the gentle sweep of his thumb across her cheek, and the naked emotion in his eyes, made hope rise so high in her, it stung her throat and the backs of her eyes.

“I left half of myself with you when you told me to leave. I’ve been torn apart all this time. I know you will come home if I say I need you. I do need you. But I don’t want you to come home for me. I want you to come because you know that’s where you belong. That we belong together. I am your home, just as you are mine. I have come to get you, latria mou.”

She didn’t know what to say to that. Her eyes filled with tears and her bones turned to sand. She had forgotten how to breathe. Her vision was nothing but a blur, her pulse rushing like a river in her ears.

“I do love you, Alia,” he insisted with a spasm of pain flashing across his features, as though the words broke something within him. “I just don’t know if those words are enough.”

“They are,” she said on a sob-laugh. “You are. You’re everything to me.” She framed his beloved face in her hands. Her mouth was trembling and so were her knees.

“Agapi mou.” His tense mouth eased into tenderness as he swept it across her own.

They both groaned at the sweetness of reunion, the relief from the agony of being parted. The soaring ecstasy that came from pressing their bodies together and holding each other fast.

“I won’t let you go again.” He lifted his head abruptly. “Marry me. I want to say the vows to you myself, so you know I mean them.”

“Oh.” Her chin crinkled and her chest filled with such joy, she thought she would burst. “You don’t have to. I believe you. I love you, too. Oh.” She cradled his jaw when she saw him wince. “Does it hurt when I say it? I don’t have to.”

“No, I want you to. It hurts but I like it. Like walking on a broken leg that’s healing,” he said with an ironic lift of one eyebrow.

They laughed and kissed and he fished into his shirt pocket.