Chapter 11 #2
She smiled up at him, that brilliant smile that made his breath catch in his chest. He couldn’t resist kissing her.
Running his hands down her back and pulling her firmly into his arms. She was his.
His. He’d never had anything that wasn’t given to him because of the circumstances of his birth—aside from Ava and Theo.
“Having your trust has given me a joy that I can’t explain.
” Her optimism made him wonder if he should explain right now about the paternity test. But he didn’t want to dim it.
Hell, who was he kidding? He knew that she’d be angry and disappointed if she learned what he’d done and he wanted more time to enjoy the peace that had grown between them during their honeymoon.
Christos barely had the car turned off when Theo bolted from the house and down the steps.
Ava opened her door and stepped out of the car just as Theo reached her.
He jumped up and she caught him in her arms, hugging his small body close to hers.
Tears burned her eyes as she held him close.
The time spent away from her son had just felt like too long.
Christos came up and Theo immediately wriggled in her arms, trying to get to his father. She handed him to Christos and watched the two embrace. Her life felt complete, so perfect and happy that she almost was afraid to believe it was real.
How had she gotten all of this? She’d been living her single life, so sure that she’d never find a happy ending with Christos, yet here it was. The pot of gold at the end of the rainbow she’d thought she’d never see again.
Christos glanced at her, catching her staring yet again. He gave her one of those long level looks of his and she shrugged.
“I like seeing my guys together.”
Theo had an arm slung around Christos’s shoulder as he walked over to her. “We like seeing you, too, right, Theo?”
“That’s right.”
“We have a surprise for you,” Ava said.
Actually they had all kinds of surprises for Theo. Ava had bought him a stuffed bear in a shop in Paris and Christos had gone wild in another toy store, buying all kinds of things.
“What is it?” Theo asked, jumping from foot-to-foot when Christos put him down.
“I’m not sure we should give it to him,” Christos said, looking very intent and serious.
Ava hid a smile behind her hand, enjoying her son and his father. Just enjoying everything that this moment was bringing her.
“Please, Baba.”
“Were you a good boy?” Christos asked.
The two of them joked around as Christos carried Theo up to the house.
Ava paused there on the circle drive of the large, luxurious house and for a minute flashed back to the small, single-wide mobile home she’d grown up in.
When she’d met Christos, she’d been pretending her past didn’t exist and had built a world based on lies.
But now she saw that some of the things she’d told herself weren’t lies.
Christos was a good man. The kind of man she could safely give her heart to.
She loved him. Heck, she’d always loved him, and acknowledged to herself that she’d never stopped. But now that love felt bigger, more encompassing than it had before, because this time she wasn’t his secret lover.
She glanced down at her left hand and the large platinum and diamond band there. She was his wife.
She’d just caught up to them near the entrance of the house when Ari’s Bentley pulled up.
“I need to talk to you privately, Christos,” Ari said through the car’s open window.
“Can it wait?”
Ava guessed his father wanted to talk about Christos’s dismissal of the nanny Ari had hired. He’d told her about that on the way home.
“No.”
Christos handed her the bag with Theo’s gifts in it. “Why don’t you go inside with Theo and show him his surprises?”
“Yes, I will.”
Christos brushed a light kiss against her lips and then nudged her toward the stairs with a discreet push on her backside. Theo held her hand as they entered the house.
“What did you get me?”
She smiled at the eagerness in his voice and drew him into one of the open rooms on the first floor. There were three long couches and some armchairs in the room.
She sat down on one of the couches and slowly opened the bag, drawing out one of the gifts. “First you have to tell me one new thing you did while I was gone.”
He climbed up on the couch next to her and put the present in his lap. “I went on a speedboat ride with Uncle Gui.”
“Was it fun?” she asked, hearing the enthusiasm in Theo’s voice. He liked having so many men in his life, and their love of boats seemed to be conquering Theo’s fear of water.
Theo’s eyes sparkled. “Yes, it was. We went so fast nothing could catch us. Can I open this now?”
She nodded and he tore the wrapping off the gift box. He opened the lid and pulled out the stuffed bear she’d chosen for him.
“Thank you, Mama,” he said, hugging the bear to his chest and leaning over to give her a kiss.
“What are you going to call him?”
“Hmm…Fluffy.”
“Fluffy it is. Are you ready for another present?”
He nodded. She drew out another package and handed it to him. “Tell me something else you did while I was gone.”
He took the long box and held it with two hands.
She could tell his attention wasn’t on the question she asked but on trying to figure out what was in the box.
She knew he was going to love this present.
It was Spy Gear. The play set contained everything Theo would need when he pretended to be a bodyguard.
“Theo?”
“Yes, Mama?”
“Tell me something so you can open this one.”
He ran his fingers over the colorful pattern on the wrapping paper. “The doctor did a test on me.”
“For allergies?” she asked. “Did they prick your back?”
“Yes and he put something in my mouth and rubbed it on my cheek.”
“What? Why did he do that?” she asked.
Theo shrugged. “I don’t know. Can I open my present?”
“Yes,” Christos said coming into the room.
“What other kind of test did the doctor perform?” she asked.
Christos rubbed the back of his neck and looked away from her and she knew the answer before he said it.
“A paternity test.”
She stared at Christos, unable to really understand what he’d said. “I thought you and I had already come to an understanding on this topic.” Her ears were buzzing.
“We have,” he said.
“They why did you have a test done?”
“Mama, don’t get mad. The test didn’t hurt me.”
She hugged Theo to her side and bent to give him a kiss. Christos had gone behind her back.
This was the second time she’d allowed Christos Theakis to break her heart. When was she going to learn that he couldn’t be trusted?