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She wiped the tears from her eyes. She really did love him, really did miss her Greek billionaire, but she didn’t think she could take more of this. Before she knew it, she was sending a chat message to her aunts.
Vilma: Good of you to remember you still have aunts.
Mairi: It won’t work, Aunt Vilma. I know you’re just being cranky because you miss me.
Norah: When can we fly there?
Mairi: Not until I’m convinced that you two would behave yourselves around Damen.
Vilma: How dare you? I admit that both Norah and I find Greek billionaires irresistible, but we draw the line at seducing one who belongs to our niece.
Mairi giggled again, imagining how her two aunts would no doubt have Damen uncomfortable in seconds. They had told her that she better have Damen prepared when they finally flew in for a visit. Nothing would stop them from asking the burning questions in their minds, accumulated over the decades they had spent devouring Mills and Boon paperbacks.
Norah: Have you asked him yet?
She shook her head at the question. Norah had wanted her to ask Damen the percentage of Greek billionaires with and without chest hair. Like heck she’d ask something like that!
Mairi: NEVER. And you mustn’t ask him that either!
Vilma: What about mine? Did you ask him?
Aunt Vilma’s question was just as bad. She wanted to know the average age with which Greek billionaires lost their virginity. Seriously!
Mairi: I love you, Aunt Vilma, Aunt Norah.
Norah: We love you even more.
Vilma: We love you ALWAYS.
HALF AN OCEAN AWAY, Norah and Vilma exchanged looks with each other. They had been enjoying an early breakfast in the kitchen. It was five in the morning and the sun was barely out in the sky. All in all, it was definitely too early for her heart to be broken like this, Norah thought.
“She’s hurting.”
“I know.”
“We must do something,” Vilma insisted.
“Not yet. She’s not a little girl anymore. We need to let her learn from her own mistakes.”
Vilma knew her sister’s words made sense, but it went against everything she believed in to simply stand aside and allow Mairi to be hurt. And she would be hurt, in a way that terrified Vilma.
“Were we so wrong?” Vilma whispered. “It had seemed so harmless at the beginning, letting her dream about stupid Greek billionaires.”
Norah reminded her gently, “You didn’t think they were so stupid before.”
“Yeah, so color me stupid, too.”
Glancing down at her phone, Norah’s heart became heavier. She said quietly, “It can’t ever be wrong to let someone dream.” It was just a sad reality of the world that most people found joy in destroying another person’s dream.
Stay strong, Mairi, Norah whispered in her heart. Please God, let her be strong enough to love and dream even when she was alone.
Chapter 14
“You’re pronouncing it wrong.” He was on his way back to the field, stray baseball in his hand, when he spotted her sitting under the tree, knees up with an open book balanced on them.
The girl was startled into looking up from her Greek language manual. As always, her loveliness struck him. She was not beautiful, but then beauty was skin deep and vastly overrated. He had been surrounded by beauty his whole life, and those people had a tendency to be excessively shallow individuals.
But this girl...
He had always liked how pretty she was, the kind of pretty that came from within. She was quiet but vibrant, a combination that told him she would be a very interesting person to know – if she allowed him to get to know her.
“Sorry,” she mumbled, not looking at him as she shyly tucked her hair behind her ears.
Knowing he would not come by this kind of chance again, he discreetly threw the baseball away from behind. If his teammates came to get him, he’d tell them that he hadn’t found it yet. He took a seat next to her on the grass, which caused her eyes to dart towards him in surprise.
He didn’t blame her. They had never talked even though they were in the same grade. He had always noticed her every time they’d pass each other in the hallway. She tended to have a busy or distracted look on her face, though, which had caused him to hesitate making small talk with her.
With other girls he was confident and assured of their interest in him. But with her... Well, let it be said that he considered it a gift of fate their hitter had ended up batting the ball in this direction.
Pretending he didn’t notice how skittish she seemed in his presence, he leaned close towards her, enough for the sides of their heads to almost touch. Pointing to the word she had mispronounced, he told her gently, “Here’s how you say it.”
Her head cocked to the side as she listened to him, an attentive look on her face.
