AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I know; I know I’ve upset you and you have every right to be angry that I’ve been watching over you, but I would not have stopped even if you’d discovered it long before now. To not know if you are safe is the worst torture I know. Or it was until you married me and made sweet love with me, without ever saying how you felt for me. Can you not say it, we both know you have come to love me…it would not hurt so much, anger you so much if you did not,” Stefano said softly cupping her face as he waited for her to answer him.
“I thought I was going to die when I saw that message…heard the crash…” Hailey said barely seeing his face for the tears in her eyes. “I swore you loved me, have for the longest time, but you never said it and thinking you were gone and that I was wrong…”
“I know my darling, but I’m right here. I have you my sweet, sweet Hailey,” he said softly kissing her closed eyelids.
“I’ve wanted the words since we married…wanted them to be real since…”
“Since when?” he asked when she stopped talking, his eyes boring into hers with need.
“Since we told our parents we were getting married,” she admitted seeing his shoulders relax the slightest bit. “I told our mothers that you wanted to hire a wedding planner but all I wanted was to have you as mine and soon…when our mothers began to push my heart was smiling. When you told me that we would simply have to go ahead and get married I told myself I’d make you mine, refuse to let you go.”
“Oh, my love…”
“Call me it the other way,” she whispered against his lips as they descended to claim hers.
“What way? Oh, you meanagape mou?” he asked around a soft kiss. “I did not know if you knew what it meant.”
“I didn’t until I was out shopping with Olympia and she laughed when I claimed you hardly called me your love.”
“And what about you,agape mou? You have yet to say it,” Stefano said giving her a smile as he brushed the hair back from her face.
“I love you Husband, desperately, but I’m also quite mad at you for lying to me. It is time you make up for all the hurt you’ve caused me. Now while our sons rest, you should sate me,” she stated, and he let out a laugh claiming her lips completely until they were both naked and in desperate need for full fulfillment.
“What if they are girls?” Stefano asked holding her as they came down, feeling the swift kicks start up beneath his hand.
“They aren’t…the Zeno firstborn of love still holds true,” she said turning over to give him a smile.
“So confident now, aren’t you?”
“Naturally, especially since Abigail told me months ago after I called and asked her,” she said with an impish grin that had Stefano’s eyes widening.
“And you still doubted, did not tell me you loved me?” he questioned.
“And risk losing you to Athena? Never, I wanted you even if you never understood the depths of your feeling for me.”
“But I have always known, my darling. You need not fear about the Athena’s in the world. I only want my dearest heart, my innocent wife who still blushes as I gaze on her naked form. You are the only one I shall want until my last dying breath and with it I will tell you how much I love you.”
“You’re not allowed to die before me,” Hailey said shaking her head at him. “I couldn’t live through that news again. I love you too much for that.”
“No talk of death at all, just of life and love,” he whispered before claiming her lips and the time with her before their children came.
Epilogue
“H
ave you ever seen them happier?” Stefano questioned pressing a kiss to Hailey’s temple as they watched Elena and Daniel push the twins, Andreas and Alexandros, in the pram.
“No, neither your parents nor our boys,” Hailey stated smiling as she glanced around at their friends and family. The only one missing was Kyra who hadn’t returned after admitting to Stefano that she’d known for months that Daniel was alive.
It was even harder on Elena to learn that the accident where Daniel supposedly died was arranged by Nikolas in effort to get the Zeno fortune for himself. The only reason he hadn’t killed Daniel in the long years he’d held him, was to use his knowledge of Elena to keep her with him in the hopes that Theo would soon die, and Nikolas could take over the company. If Stefano hadn’t found his father when he did, things could have taken a far more drastic turn.
Nikolas and Demetrius were plotting a new way to use him to get the family fortune, or kill Daniel to spite both Elena and Stefano, hurt them all over again to know he’d been out there the entire time. That news had upset their mother even more when she learnt not only of Kyra’s knowledge of that plot, but also of her attempt to blackmail Hailey into convincing Stefano to open her trust. That hurt had stayed until the boys were born then it was replaced by full love for the two who were nearly identical to their father and grandfather.
They were now five months old, and Theo was trying to decide if he could handle missing out on the coming months to avoid the winter weather.
“He’s a fool over our little fools,” Stefano stated with a nod towards his grandfather as he moved over to take the pram from Elena’s hands.
“You would do well not to keep calling them our little fools, Husband. You wouldn’t want them to get upset with their wonderful father, would you?”
