her heart, making it beat faster. How could he know of her deeply secret daydreams? It felt as if he was looking straight into her head. ‘Ari—I don’t … What are you talking about …?’
He brought a shaking hand to her face, his eyes so intense it nearly hurt to look at them. ‘Lucy, I brought you here because here is the only place I know how to be me, where I can say what I need to say. I’ve been going crazy these past two weeks. At first I told myself I didn’t need you, that I wasn’t devastated beyond belief when I found out you hadn’t taken the job with Theo. And then one night, at three o’clock in the morning, when I found myself driving to your flat and sitting outside like a stalker, I had to face up to myself.’
He took a deep breath. ‘I think I fell in love with you when you appeared like a whirling dervish to defend me against Helen. I’ve never had anyone stand up for me before—care about me before. I’ve never needed it. But you made me realise how lonely I’ve been all my life.’
His mouth twisted. ‘I thought I had it all figured out. I’d keep you on in the company if you insisted on working, but essentially I wanted you as my mistress. It was only when I said the words out loud I realised what an insult it was—especially to you, after all you’ve been through. And it was then that I knew I wanted much, much more than that. I wanted everything. A life together. A marriage.’
He laughed harshly. ‘Of course I denied it to myself. Love? I’d cut myself off from anything like that when I was sent away to England and it became my home. Helen effectively cut me off from my father, wouldn’t even allow a normal relationship to develop between me and my brother. That’s why I’d locked away my memories of here and my mother … I couldn’t believe it had existed. But meeting you, falling in love with you, made me believe in them again. It made me remember the love I felt.’
Lucy was more than shocked. She was in danger of floating away from her body. But at the same time she felt welded to the ground, incapable of processing his words, because she realised just how badly she wanted this. And yet …
‘But I heard what you said to Helen just before she hit you … about never marrying someone like me …’
Ari looked confused for a moment, and then his face cleared. ‘Thee mou, that wasn’t about you. Helen was suggesting I marry Pia Kyriapoulos, which would have suited her ends perfectly and kept me marginalized. Pia is not exactly the epitome of the blushing Greek bride.’
‘Oh.’ Lucy tried to look down, away from his intensity, but Ari wouldn’t let her budge.
He took something out of his back pocket and held it out to Lucy. It was a small velvet bag. She looked at him and he just said, ‘Open it—please …’
She was all fingers and thumbs, so Ari helped her, and then it was open and something fell into her hand. It was the stunning butterfly necklace she’d seen all those weeks ago and it glinted up at her now. She felt her eyes film over with tears. Ari took it and placed it tenderly around her neck, making tingles run up and down her spine. He tipped her chin up again, forcing her gaze to meet his. His eyes blazed into hers.
‘So will you, Lucy Proctor—marry me? Please? Because I cannot imagine going forward from this day or this place without you by my side.’
Emotion was cracking open inside Lucy, and it was the most gloriously painful thing she’d ever felt in her life.
‘I never wanted to feel this much.’
Ari’s mouth quirked. ‘It’s painful, isn’t it?’
It was the sudden complicit feeling of mutual emotion and how similar they really were in their hearts that made Lucy’s eyes water in earnest. Her mouth wobbled precariously. ‘I thought I’d settle for someone boring—someone who wouldn’t make me face up to myself, to the desires I kept hidden. But you made me believe I had nothing to be scared of … I love you, Ari. I fell for you the day you gave that stupidly expensive necklace to two strangers in the street. And it was when you brought me here that I knew I’d fallen in love with you. And, yes, I’ll marry you.’
Lucy could feel the tremor in his hands as they framed her face.
‘Thank God,’ he said huskily, and bent his head to seal their vow with barely restrained passion.
When they broke apart she could still feel his hands trembling, and his face had such an endearing mix of expressions—pure Ari arrogance and then something she’d never seen before, sheer childlike joy—that she couldn’t help smiling at him.
He returned her gaze, and for just a moment Lucy caught a glimpse of something achingly vulnerable cross his face before he said haltingly, ‘That night I was sitting outside your flat, apart from lurid fantasies featuring a certain tight skirt, I found myself imagining you pregnant … having a baby … our baby. I suddenly wanted a family. And not just for an heir … but to create something—a secure foundation. It scared me to death, and it’s the only thing that’s held me back from coming for you sooner.’ He quirked an unsteady smile. ‘That and the fact that you might reject me. But the thing is … I’ve no idea how you feel about kids …’
Lucy looked up at him and wondered how her heart hadn’t exploded into tiny pieces. ‘Funny you should mention that …’
In more or less exactly the same spot where Ari had proposed to her three years before, Lucy shaded her eyes and looked down to the private beach, where her husband was holding their son high in the air before dunking him back in the glittering sea. The childish shrieks of delight made her smile and she sat down, rearranging the tiny baby in her arms so that she could feed her from the other breast.
‘You’re very happy, darling, aren’t you?’
Lucy looked over to her mother, who was sitting in a wheelchair in the shade on the other side of the table, and smiled. ‘Yes, Mum … I am.’ Her mother looked away again, out to sea, with an enigmatic smile of her own.
Maxine had these moments of lucidity every now and then, ever since Lucy and Ari had moved her here to the refurbished villa on Paros permanently, with a full-time nursing staff to take care of her every need. Her Alzheimer’s hadn’t improved, but it seemed to have slowed its development, and sometimes when Lucy looked at her she knew her mother was imagining herself to be in this beautiful place being cared for by one of her besotted suitors.
Lucy had insisted on Ari keeping his mother’s house nearby exactly as it was, and sometimes they went back for a night on their own, and revelled in their private space that no one knew about.
Just then a dripping wet Ari appeared, holding an exuberant Cosmo steadily on his shoulders. He smiled widely, his eyes flashing with secret promise and something much deeper and more enduring—love. Lucy couldn’t remember when she’d once wondered what he’d look like if he smiled. She smiled back, for life was good.
Kept By
Her Greek Boss
Kathryn Ross
About the Author
KATHRYN ROSS was born in Zambia, where her parents happened to live at that time. Educated in Ireland and England, she now lives in a village near Blackpool, Lancashire. Kathryn is a professional beauty therapist, but writing is her first love. As a child she wrote adventure stories and at thirteen was editor of her school magazine. Happily, ten writing
