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‘What’s the rush?’
‘I need to get you out of that damn dress, because there’s no way I’m proposing to you while you’re wearing a wedding dress meant for another man,’ he growled and floored the gas pedal. Her laughter pealed out of the open window as the Aston swept from the palace with a spray of gravel on the driveway as they began the first day of the rest of their lives together.
EPILOGUE
LYKOSSATWITHhis face turned to the sun, legs stretched out before him and his heart filled with love as he listened to the sounds of his children laughing and the delicate notes of the bouzouki being massacred. The high-pitched trill came to a sudden stop and a curse was uttered, low and angry.
‘The children, Marit,’ he called, eyes still closed, knowing that his voice would carry to her.
‘That’s Princess to you,’ she yelled back grumpily.
He smiled as he heard a sigh, before the instrument was put down on the floor of the music room that led straight out onto the long garden, at the bottom of which ran a shallow stream the children adored. Her footsteps sounded closer and closer, her presence raising goosebumps across his skin even after ten years of marriage. He held his arm out to catch her as she passed, hands wrapping around her waist and hauling her into his lap, where his wife did a truly terrible job of trying to escape.
‘You know I could run if I wanted to?’ she said as his eyes finally opened to see her beauty.
‘I know that you can do whatever you turn your heart to,’ he said, knowing the words touched her by the way her eyes flared gold. ‘Just perhaps not the bouzouki.’
She slapped at his arm and he pulled her closer and pressed kisses against her neck that went from playful to passionate the instant Marit groaned and shifted in his lap. He stilled, not because he didn’t want to, but because the children would return soon, eagerly anticipating the arrival of Katy, Theron and Summer. Pressing his forehead to Marit’s, he cupped her cheek and loved the way she leaned into his palm, appreciating how she instantly understood why he slowed his affection.
‘Agápi mou, you just need patience.’
‘It was never one of my strong points. But then you came along and then I learned—’
Marit’s laughter burned bright as he went to kiss the tease from her lips and the passion that burned between them was still as bright as it had been when they had met. The day he’d kidnapped her for the second time, he had whisked her away on his private jet and flown them back to Paris, where he’d divested her of another wedding dress not meant for either of them and later, naked and satiated, he had proposed.
Of course, he’d then had to propose again properly and in the grandest way possible—in part because he’d discovered how Theron intended to surprise Summer and the drive to best him was irrefutable, but mainly because Marit deserved it. She deserved a man who would proclaim his love for her to the world. So each year he found new, devious, attention-grabbing ways to remind Marit that she was the most loved. He’d been doing rather well and even Theron was on the verge of admitting defeat, until Marit had bested them both with a gesture so grand and so impossible it was unbeatable.
As Marit gentled her kiss, she snuggled into his chest and they lay there in the sun, outstretched on a lounger until the sun passed behind the turret and they were momentarily cast in shade.
About a year after they’d married, Marit finally extracted why it was that Lykos had always wanted a castle. He’d never told a living soul, but it had started when his mother had told him stories while his father slept off his hangover. Stories of castles and maidens and an English thief called Robin Hood, the son of an Earl, who’d lost his lands and title when fighting in the Crusades and returned to England appalled by the poverty he’d found there. He’d robbed from the rich to give to the poor and Lykos had known that his mother had told him this story to make him feel better about doing his father’s bidding. As a child, he’d decided that one day he would live in a castle and never have to steal another thing.
And his wish had come true. The last thing he’d stolen had been Marit’s heart and he would never need anything again. Not even the castle Marit had made their home in. Lykos marvelled at how he felt more love now for Marit than he ever had. While she’d returned to university to study music and then later music therapy, he continued to work, but much less intensely. Marit had learned to play every instrument she could find and they had enough musical equipment to outfit an orchestra. Marit’s youth project had been a roaring success even before Aleksander had kept his promise to support it.
His wife had an insatiable curiosity about almost everything and when she’d asked him to teach her how to steal wallets he’d laughed, but she’d been insistent. Aleksander still had not forgiven him for that, making him give his word not to corrupt any other heirs to the Svardian throne.
His phone alerted him to a message from his mother, letting him know that she was set to arrive as planned in the next two days. Finding her had been the easy part. It hadn’t taken Theron long to track her down. But it had been a difficult process. His mother had lost many years to alcohol and other addictions and had refused to meet with Lykos.
It had hurt more than he thought he could stand when he’d felt that sense of rejection from his mother—and if Marit hadn’t been with him he wasn’t sure he’d have survived it. In the end, Kyros had paid a visit to her and had convinced her to let them help her with rehabilitation. For the next few years, she had allowed Kyros and sometimes Theron to meet with her, tell her about the son she had abandoned, and it became clear the guilt and shame she felt over that had been a large contributing factor to her addictions. Patience, time, therapy had slowly begun to ease her feelings and eventually she and Lykos had been able to begin a painfully slow process of getting to know each other again.
But Lykos would never forget what Theron and Kyros had done for him. They had given him the chance to have a relationship with his mother. One late night after the others had gone to bed, on a visit to the Soames estate in Norfolk, England, he and Summer had stayed up, determined to finish the bottle of Limniona, Theron’s favourite wine, and he had confessed how much he felt he owed them.
‘Love isn’t a debt to repay, Lykos.’She’d said it with a hand on his arm and stone-cold clarity in her eyes, before she’d hiccupped and he’d sent her to bed with a laugh. He’d never forgotten her words and instead showered everyone close to him with as much love as possible from that day on.
The doorbell rang, bringing screams of hysterical joy from his two daughters at the bottom of the garden, their little bodies streaking past as they ran to open the door to Theron, Summer and Katy. Lykos went to shift Marit, but she held him in place.
‘They’ve got it, husband.’
‘They will terrorise our guests before I can even get a word in,’ Lykos warned, well knowing how enthusiastic their daughters could be.
‘I know. But there’s something I wanted to tell you first.’
‘What is it,agápe mou? Have you found another instrument you want to learn? Another wedding dress you want to wear? Another list you’d like me to fulfil?’
‘Not quite,’ she said, biting her lip in that way that always drove him wild. He wasn’t concerned in the slightest, because he knew his wife and her rapid heartbeat meant she was excited. Though what she had to be excited about, he... His mind shorted.
‘No. Really?’ he demanded, launching upward, forcing Marit to cling to his shoulders just to stay upright. ‘Are you sure?’ he asked, his heart wanting to explode from pure joy. She nodded, sending her crumpled blonde curls into disarray, and he stood up, bringing her with him, and swept her round in a circle.
‘We’re pregnant again,’ Marit whispered and Lykos’s heart soared.
Theron, Summer, Katy and their children came to stand at the door to the garden.
‘Another one?’ Theron demanded.
‘Yes,’ replied Lykos smugly.
‘Seriously?’
Theron spent the rest of the afternoon muttering the wordRabbits, and one of the most perfect days Lykos could remember settled into a warm, summery haze of friendship and love as he recalled how it had all started with the Princess who stole the pickpocket’s wallet.
