‘You won’t know until you try.’
She sucked in a shuddery breath. ‘What did I ever do to deserve you?’ Her eyes brimmed with tears.
Vayle blinked away threatening tears of her own. ‘You saved me. You loved me even though I wasn’t yours. Family is originally blood, but often it’s also the people we meet and help and love along the way. You didn’t turn your back on me when you could have. You made me feel more loved than my own flesh and blood did. I will always love you for that. But you also need to not give up on the other family you do have.’
Wrenching anguish kept hold of Agnes for the longest time. Watching her battle through it brought a heavier lump to Vayle’s throat. But the woman who had given Nelios Petralis life, who had had some hand in shaping him despite his insistence that only his trauma had forged him, finally emerged. A steel spine shimmered into being, a little fragile and bendable perhaps, but steel nonetheless. With a firm nod, Agnes grabbed one last tissue and dabbed her damp eyes. ‘We’ve kept him waiting long enough. Let’s get our game faces back on and you up the aisle, yes?’
Vayle gulped as the butterflies reawakened. ‘Yes.’
Agnes walked her down the aisle—another condition Vayle had insisted upon, especially since Andreas the Ogre was Nelios’s best man. In the rush to this wedding, she’d crossed paths with Andreas only twice. She’d sensed he had something to say to her but she’d distanced herself from the interaction, not wanting her already unsettled emotions to be toppled by his caustic opinions.On both occasions she’d been with Nelios, who had also seemed reluctant to leave her alone with his right-hand man.
So, yes, she chalked it up to a win as she proceeded arm-in-arm with Agnes down the aisle.
Of course, all thoughts of winning, losing or otherwise fled the second she clapped eyes on Nelios, in the finest hand-made suit, with his hair combed off his forehead to better display the sheer force of his male beauty. Everything faded to sepia while he blazed in vivid, living colour.
She couldn’t even pick one thing that reigned supreme above another: his eyes, his jaw, his unabashed ferocity; the pristine whiteness of his collar against the rich dark-blue of his wedding suit; or the resolute power that snaked out and compelled her to him, her every step seeming to echo his silent, unyielding intonation ofmine, mine, mine…
She scarcely felt the exquisite bouquet being tugged from her hold, or barely saw Agnes and Andreas retreat to their seats.
She did feel the electric power of his touch when he took her hand and propelled her that last step to his side. Felt every word of the simple yet weighty vows they exchanged. He slid the diamond-and-platinum wedding band onto her finger that perfectly matched the priceless engagement ring, drew her into his arms, fused his lips to hers and rasped, ‘It is done.’
Oh yes; Vayle very much felt that too.
He was married.
As he led his new bride across the dance floor, Nelios finally allowed the landscape to settle; allowed himself to open his mind to what he’d negotiated for these past weeks. What he’d vowed when he’d held his son for the first time.
As he’d looked into Angelos’s eyes, and sworn to do the polar opposite of what had been done to him, he knew he’d allow verylittle to stand in his way. Even if it meant having to deal with his mother and hear more lies from her treacherous lips.
To gain his son, he realised he would even withstand that torture, and more. It would only be a few hours of his life, after all, compared to a lifetime of ensuring that his offspring never suffered as he had. As exchanges went, Nelios believed he’d got the better part of the bargain. So why did that chafing still lurk within him? Why did it feel as if this mission wasn’t quite complete?
As he guided Vayle back across the dance floor, his gaze connected with his friend’s. Andreas still hadn’t lost that shadowed tension in his eyes ever since their heated conversation a month ago after he’d delivered Vayle and Angelos back to her apartment.
It took a lot for his only friend to accept blame, because he’d rarely ever stepped out of line. So Nelios had been mildly stunned when Andreas had come to him and immediately offered his sincere apologies for keeping Nelios from Angelos. He’d thought he was doing the right thing by having his friend’s back, thinking he was protecting Nelios from a threat they’d both faced before from women who’d made spurious claims of being pregnant by them, with only grasping avarice in mind. In their world, gold-diggers like that were ten a penny. Andreas had thought he was dealing with yet another one in Buenos Aires, so he’d ignored Vayle’s calls, had had her emails deleted unread and had discarded her letter.
Nelios truly believed it had been a misunderstanding on his friend’s part, and he’d had to accept that he too had dropped the ball, when all was said and done. He’d also had to accept that missing his son’s momentous milestones thus far was perhaps his penance. He’d grudgingly let it go.
But clearly Andreas hadn’t, if the guilty grimace he slanted Nelio’s way was any indication.
‘Things not all rosy in friendship land?’
He dropped his gaze to Vayle and, despite the tension lurking in her own features, some of the chafing eased. His own grimace he kept to himself. He hadn’t fooled himself into believing this wedding would be an especially happy occasion but, while he didn’t really care what his specially selected business and social acquaintances thought, he didn’t want to start off his marriage anything but impeccably.
Her eyes held a faint wariness but it was the fire in them that snagged at him. That promised that, whatever lay ahead of them, it would be far from boring.
Nelios found himself anticipating that challenge, even welcoming it. His eyes dropped lower to the diamonds encircling her neck and the hint of cleavage that made other parts of him tighten. ‘Have I said how exquisite you look?’
The concoction of ivory satin elevated her glow, and the faint flush to her cheeks and the diamonds only harnessed her stunning beauty. But more than that there was an ephemeral quality to this woman that had enthralled him from the start. That, he was a little disturbed to admit, he’d gone searching for in others, and had failed to find.
‘Not going to answer my question?’ she replied.
‘The issue has been explained and resolved,’ he offered.
‘Has it? And no one bothered to tell me?’ she said sarcastically. ‘What is your deal with Andreas anyway?’
His gaze sharpened. ‘What?’
She shrugged and his gaze moved over her smooth skin again, hunger slowly prowling its restlessness through him.
