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Mira stared at him. “You did it for me,” she said, butterflies running around in her belly.
“I was thinking about what you said, about raising our children surrounded by family, love and not just us. I want them to have that but I also want you to have it. Everything you’ve ever wanted.”
“I don’t know what to say. But tell me, please. How did it go?”
“It wasn’t as hard as I imagined it would be.”
“No?”
“Looking back, I see now that Tia Sophia has always tried to build a relationship with me. I learned only last year that she’d tried her best to find Mama even though she’d been so stubborn after her fight with Leo. Even after he found me, Tia Sophia fought him on how he was only treating me as the heir he’d always wanted but not his grandson. But back then, I lumped all my aunts together, refused any overtures she made toward me.”
He rubbed his fingers over his face, a tell she had come to recognize when he was disquieted.
“What’s changed now, Aristos?”
“Does it matter what? Isn’t it good?”
“Of course it’s good. I just... I want you to do these things for yourself. Not for the babies or me.”
He frowned before he said, “My inability to trust her, to let her into my life, should not affect my kids. It should not rob you of the things you want. Tia and Stella have agreed to stay with us for a few weeks after the babies are born. Maybe after your sisters leave. That way, the babies and you will have a rotation of people who care about you, around you.”
I only need you, Mira wanted to say, her thoughts in a whirlpool.
How could she ask for more when this gorgeous man had somehow turned making her happy into a competitive game with himself? Why else would he go to such thoughtful lengths after years of shunning his family?
“If you don’t like having her here,” he said, watching her carefully for her reaction, “we can ask them to leave.”
Mira shook her head, giving herself a moment to find her voice. “No, not at all. Stella often talks about how much her mother wants a better relationship with you. And the few times I met Sophia, she struck me as a genuinely kind woman.”
“Good,” he said, tapping her cheek. “I have to warn you, though. It will be third world war between Tia Sophia and Leo but it could also be entertaining.”
Mira threw her arms around his neck.
Gratitude, relief and something else she didn’t want to closely examine engulfed her. She kissed his neck, continued to pepper kisses up his jaw, over the very faint scar on his cheekbone and then his forehead.
Tears filled her eyes as they always did these days—far too easily. She sniffed inelegantly, and then buried her face in his neck. “Thank you, Aristos.”
As he held her tightly, his heart thudding against her cheek, Mira knew it was time to face her guilt and her biggest fear. Before the babies came. Before everything got ruined again.
CHAPTER TWELVE
MIRAHADNOTimagined in her wildest dreams how much she’d like being referred to as Kyria Carides. Or the genuine camaraderie shared among Aristos’s executive staff. Like her, almost all of them seemed to consider him larger than life.
Meeting the Carides family went better than she’d expected. Especially with Stella and Tia Sophia, and even Leo sometimes, running interference anytime Aristos had to leave her side.
With maturity of age and having decided on a fresh, bold approach to life, it meant she recognized people among the extended family and friends who wished Aristos and her the best.
Especially among the younger generation of Aristos’s cousins, most of whom were happily married and didn’t really care one way or the other that Aristos was the heir Leo had picked by spurning the rest of them. Especially when having Aristos head Carides Inc. meant their stock prices soared and their children’s trust funds got fatter and cushier.
The outpouring of love and affection and best wishes from friends and staff and even his cousins who’d once considered him competition only cemented that conviction.
Aristos was a man who inspired loyalty—with his brilliant skills in the corporate law world, his charity works and with his enduring prowess in pitting himself against extremes.
Feeling eyes on her, Mira turned to find Kairos walking through the party with that exaggerated swagger that only made him look like a fool. Every inch of her wanted to get away from him, even hide from him, pretend like he and his foul lies hadn’t messed her up back then.
But for Aristos, she’d face him.
Mira followed Leo the moment he stepped away from family members and friends, and stormed into his study after him. She’d known talking to Kairos, clarifying the past, would be a fool’s errand. Instead, the bitterness and poison he harbored toward Aristos, toward her and their budding family had truly scared her.
