CHAPTER 73
NERO ZANTHOS
I run my fingertips over the paper in my hand, and its meaning settles one of the final missing pieces of my heart into place. I registered my son. My name is on his birth certificate. I blink, holding back the tears so they won’t fall.
I pull Nina into my arms and kiss her forehead. She lifts her face, offering me her lips. Kael doesn’t quite understand why we’re so happy, but he claps anyway, excited by the brand-new news that his parents were back together.
It took two weeks for us to do things the way Nina suggested—slowly, step by step—but we got here. We’re here. And I don’t think I’ve ever been this happy before.
“Let’s celebrate at home,” I declare, and the smile on my Little Fae’s face fades until it disappears.
“I don’t want to go to the house where your parents lived,” she says, completely misunderstanding me.
“I know they don’t live there anymore, but still, I don’t want to go back to that place, Nero.
Switzerland is close compared to how far away I want even the memory of your parents’ existence to be from us.
” She emphasizes it, making me laugh, because Lysandra and Konstantino really did move to Switzerland.
After the truth spread across the island, Lysandra couldn’t bear the fate she had once condemned Nina to: becoming a pariah. She packed her bags and boarded a plane to the farthest place she could think of. Konstantino followed, as always.
“They’re not my parents, Little Fae. Neither of them,” I remind her.
“Sorry,” she says, and I shake my head, telling her there’s no need.
“And that’s not where I was saying we’re going,” I explain.
“Then where?” she asks, and the only answer I give her is a smile.
***
“It’s… furnished,” are the first words Nina says when she steps into the penthouse, and they make me laugh out loud. We left Kael with my mother before I brought her here—the apartment we were planning to share before everything happened.
“It is. I was never able to live here without you, but I suppose it was waiting for this moment. Waiting for you to come back to it. For you to come back to me. I know your mother decided to stay on the island instead of returning to Pienza. When we come visit her, we can stay here,” I offer.
“We can change anything you don’t like. We can change everything, if you want. ”
Already standing in the middle of the living room, between the sofas, Nina turns back and walks toward me. She leans her side against my chest, resting her head on my shoulder, and I wrap my arms around her.
I kiss her forehead. We stay like that in silence, just absorbing the space around us for a while, until she turns in my arms and aligns our bodies face to face.
“What if we stay for good?” she asks, catching me off guard. “I didn’t leave Khione by choice, Nero. And if I get to choose, I want to raise my son here. We met here, we grew up here, we started our family here. I want it to grow here too.”
“Grow, huh?” I tease, waggling my eyebrows. “Are you telling me you’re finally going to give me another child?”
“Oh, sure, because I’ve been stringing you along for years, right?”
“Yesterday would already have been too long. And now it’s been weeks.”
“You’re insane.”
“Insane about you, Little Fae. I want to see you pregnant, I want to spoil you, take care of you, and give in to all your whims.”
“I do kind of like that last part,” she says with a smile, and I brush the tips of our noses together, smiling too. I love this woman so much.
“Are you sure?” I ask. “About coming back to the island? We don’t have to do this if you don’t want to. We can stay in Pienza or go anywhere else you choose.”
“I am,” she confirms, brushing her forehead against my lips.
“Then I think we need to urgently buy a new bed.”
“There’s no bed here?” Nina asks, confused.
“There is, but we didn’t choose it together.” Her eyes narrow.
“What happened to the other one?”
“I may or may not have had it burned,” I admit, and Nina’s eyes widen.
“A bit dramatic, don’t you think?” she teases, as beautiful as ever.
I lift my hand and caress her cheek. Being able to joke about what we went through is my favorite sign that we truly left it all behind.
“I love you, Little Fae.”
“I love you too, Nero. Every part of you,” she says, rising onto her toes to seal her lips to mine.