“How did you find me?” she asked.
“I called your room and you didn’t answer. It didn’t take long to discover you had booked a flight out tonight. My fear was the traffic, that I wouldn’t make it before you left. Which means I would have had to follow you to England.”
“You could have said something before,” she grumbled. “We were on the boat for three hours.”
“I wanted more privacy than can be found on Cassandra,” he said, heading back to the terminal. In less than five minutes they were in the back of his limousine. He flipped a switch, closing the window to the driver’s section. He pulled Sara into his arms and kissed her. Thoroughly.
Breathlessly she pulled back a few moments later and gazed up into his warm brown eyes.
“Is that a yes?” he asked.
“I thought you were going to explain things,” she countered, stalling. She still wasn’t sure he knew what he was doing. He really wanted to marry her?
“Time enough for all the explanations in the world once you tell me you’ll marry me. I love you, Sara. I never thought I’d say those words again. I never thought I’d truly feel the emotion again. But I do—when I’m with you. When I think about you. When I dream about you.
“I want to spend my life with you, and have you with me every day. Maybe we’ll have some babies together—children we can love together, raise together, and who will give us grandchildren that will delight our souls. Or if we don’t, you will always be enough for me. Say you love me. Tell me you didn’t just use me to get to Eleani. That our time meant something special to you—as it did to me.”
“It did. Of course it did! I fell in love with you, too. I was thrilled when you visited me on the aft deck. But your story about Ariana scared me. I knew you were planning to ask Gina to marry you—rumors like that don’t stay quiet long. I didn’t want to repeat the mistake my mother made. I didn’t want to hold on to hope that you would learn to love me. She never stopped hoping my father would return.”
“She loved him that much?”
Sara shook her head slowly. “I’m not sure. Sometimes, and especially after talking with Eleani, I wondered if it was just her pride. She’d given up so much for him, she wanted it to come right. Only, for her it never did.”
“We won’t be like your parents. Nor mine, come to that. I don’t mind entertaining or going to parties, but it’s you I want to be with. Sailing in the Cassandra, swimming in the sea.”
“Working at the resort. I can still cook there, right?”
“If you want. Or not, if you don’t.”
“I do. I love my job. And there’s so much more I can learn about Greek foods. If you adjust your hours, we’ll be together when we’re not working.”
“So you have it figured out?”
She smiled and touched his cheek. “It just came to me. It would be the perfect life.”
She couldn’t believe Nikos Konstantinos was proposing to her. Afraid to pinch herself lest she wake up, she continued to gaze into his warm eyes, brimming with love—for her.
“If we have any children, I want us to raise them, not a series of nannies and tutors. No boarding school.”
“But we will show them the island.”
“Of course. We can teach them to dive in the cove, swim in the sea,” he affirmed. “And explore historic places. Together.”
“You’re serious about this, aren’t you?” she asked with wonder. Who would have expected Nikos to marry a Greek woman who had no money and a job as a chef?
“You still haven’t said you will,” he reminded her.
“Yes! Of course I’ll marry you. I love you, Nikos. Please love me forever.”
“I know how you view promises made. I share the solemnity of a vow. I promise I will always love you,” he said with a kiss that had Sara convinced of his love.
She had the happy ending her mother had missed. She would embrace it with both hands and never take it for granted. Their love would last forever, of that she was sure. Nikos had promised.
About the Author
MICHELLE REID grew up on the southern edges of Manchester, the youngest in a family of five lively children. But now she lives in the beautiful county of Cheshire, with her busy executive husband and two grown-up daughters. She loves reading, the ballet and playing tennis when she gets the chance. She hates cooking, cleaning, and despises ironing! Sleep she can do without and produces some of her best written work during the early hours of the morning.
CHAPTER ONE
THE atmosphere in the Markonos summer villa could not grow any cooler if an ice storm had swept down from the Arctic and in through the open terrace doors.
Eyeing his father across the width of the dinner table, Andreas Markonos delivered a cold, clipped, ‘No,’ with an economy that brought the shutters slamming down on his hard, handsome face.
His father ripped out a sigh of frustration. ‘I do not understand you!’ he muttered. ‘You tell me you are ready to take full control from me and here I sit ready to hand that control over to you! So what is your problem—?'
The problem was simple in Andreas’s estimation. ‘I will not respond to blackmail.'
‘It is not blackmail but good business sense!’ the older man rapped out. ‘If a man wishes to succeed in our world he must have stability in his personal life! Think about it,’ he insisted. ‘We make snap decisions by mobile telephone, we throw our weight around by electronic mail—we can even look our victims directly in the eye via satellite technology. There is a real danger of becoming drunk on one’s own power!'
‘Are you suggesting that I am drunk on power?’ Andreas demanded.
‘Ah—’ the flick of his father’s hand was dismissive ‘—you know very well that you shock and impress everyone with your ability to think at the speed of light,’ he conceded. ‘But I have been there before you, Andreas. I know how it feels to fly so high you are in danger of singeing your wings! I keep you grounded to some extent at present but who will do so when I retire?'
‘Myself?’
It was like waving a red rag at a cantankerous old bull. Orestes Markonos lurched forward in his seat, his seventy-year-old world-toughened expression pinning his son with a ferocious look. ‘Don’t use that sarcastic tone on me, Andreas,’ he warned thinly. ‘You know what it is I am talking about. I had your mother and my beloved children to keep me firmly tethered to God’s good earth. You merely have some very loose ties to some very loose women. It is not good enough!'
‘I still will not marry again to please you,’ Andreas returned coolly.
‘You
