He took a deep breath, the warm exhalation brushing along her cheek. His hands fell on her hips and he drew her to him. “Then by all means come closer, my dear.”
She brought her hands up, putting them on his chest to keep some space there. Why had she thought she could take control of the situation and Christos?
“This isn’t what I meant,” she said, but there was a rightness to his hands on her. She wanted to lean forward and put her head on his chest. To feel his arms around her once again. Oh, man, this hadbad ideawritten all over it, but she didn’t want to move away.
“This was always right between us,” he said, the words uttered under his breath.
Yes, she thought. Yes, it was. She tipped her head back to meet his gaze. His lips were firm and full and so close to hers. She remembered the way he’d kissed her, and she sucked her lower lip between her teeth, biting down on it before she did something really stupid like lean forward and touch her lips to his.
Someone cleared his throat and Christos held her firmly against him when she would have jerked away.
“Yes, Antonio?”
“Master Theo is wheezing,” Antonio said.
“He has asthma,” Ava said, pulling away from Christos and running back toward the house. She had left her purse in the study and she hurried to find it. She grabbed her bag and found Antonio and Christos in the hallway. “Where is he?”
“Kitchen.”
She ran down the hall in the direction that Antonio had pointed. She skidded to a halt, seeing her little boy sitting on the chair, his little chest going in and out as he struggled to breathe.
“Hey, baby,” she said, sinking to her knees next to his chair.
“I’m fine,” he said, the words breathy and not at all in his normal tone.
“No, you’re not.”
He shook his head. “Mama, I don’t want to use the inhaler.”
She didn’t argue with him. She struggled with Theo and his asthma all the time. He hated the weakness and refused to acknowledge when he needed the medicine. “I know, baby.”
She pulled out the inhaler and the long chamber that attached to it. She shook the inhaler. She was dimly aware of Christos standing quietly in the doorway, but she paid him no mind.
Theo glanced over his shoulder at Christos and then leaned into her shoulder. “I don’t wantBabato see.”
“It’s okay,” she said.
Theo shook his head.
She turned to ask Christos to leave but he’d come further into the room, leaning back against the table. “Mind your mother, Theo, we’ll talk about this after you’ve had your treatment.”
She lifted the inhaler toward Theo and he took it into his mouth. She dispensed the medicine, counting quietly and watching him the entire time.
Christos put a hand on Theo’s shoulder and when they were done, she looked up at him and saw a shadow of the same worry she felt for her son. It was a moment that brought them closer together after the nonsense on the patio.
Well, it hadn’t been nonsense, she thought, but when faced with something like their sick child, it seemed silly. She wanted to marry him. It was all she’d ever wanted, so even though she wanted to know what had changed his mind about being her husband, she wasn’t going to ask any more questions.
Theo needed the stability that having two parents would bring him. She saw the seeds of caring in Christos’s eyes when he looked at Theo and she wanted that directed at her again.
She wanted to find a path back to the passionate couple they’d been that long-ago summer, and, without the outside influences of Stavros and Nikki Theakis, they might just have a chance.
“Tell me what’s up,paidi mou?” Christos said.
Theo shrugged in that little-boy way of his. Ava put her arm around her son, struggling not to pull him tight against her chest because his breathing was easier now.
“I want you to like me,” Theo said.
“Why wouldn’t I?”
