Chapter 35
C H A P T E R
THE SMELL OF FOOD AND THE SOUND OF LAUGHTER MADE HONEY’S EYES FLUTTER OPEN.
Blearily, she looked around, slightly disoriented from how far the ceiling was from her until she remembered what happened last night.
She stretched like a cat before she sat up, withholding her groan.
This would be the last time she had a sleepover on this hardwood floor that hadn’t been kind to her back even with a thick quilt underneath her.
“What’s that, Nik?”
“Feta Cheese.”
“Feta Cheese?”
“Yes, my friend. In my homeland, you can’t make eggs without them. Pass me another.”
Following the sound of familiar voices, Honey looked to her left and saw Nikos and Kai together in the kitchen.
Nikos hovered over the stove, while Kai stood next to him, looking nearly as tall as the older man because he stood on a stool.
She watched as Kai gently bumped the egg against the kitchen counter before he passed it to Nikos, who cracked the egg harder against the stove before putting it on the hot pan.
The last thing Honey thought she would see when waking up this morning was Nikos cooking in her kitchen with Kai as his helper.
It was a bizarre sight that left her slightly puzzled, if not amused because though Nikos was clearly instructing her son, at times he looked confused himself as he frequently glanced at his phone, which she assumed had a recipe on it.
Honey continued to watch them until Kai glanced behind himself and noticed she was awake.
“Mommy!” Kai exclaimed as he hopped down from the stool before racing over to her. “Nikos cooked!”
“I see,” Honey said as Kai dragged her to her feet and tugged her toward the kitchen.
It was on the tip of her tongue to ask Nikos what the hell he was doing to her kitchen, but then she paused, realizing that she had just literally woken up.
Honey touched her hair and the corner of her mouth, wondering what she looked like right now because she definitely knew it wasn’t radiant.
No woman looked radiant in the morning after waking up, especially from a tough night on the floor.
“Give me a second, Kai,” Honey said, glancing at Nikos, who was still focused on the recipe on his phone while monitoring the eggs on the stove.
Feeling self-conscious, Honey skittered off to the bathroom before Nikos could see her.
She freshened up, washing her face, brushing her teeth, and fixing her hair before she stepped out of the bathroom.
By the time she came out, Nikos had finished cooking and had already set up the table.
Honey came over and examined the food on the table with a critical eye.
There were eggs scrambled with tomatoes and feta cheese, haphazardly cut avocados laid on toast that let her know Nikos had never taken a cooking class in his life, and three small bowls of Greek yogurt with honey drizzled on top.
“I’m not in the kitchen all the time, but I wanted to make breakfast this morning, so you wouldn’t have to wake up early,” Nikos said as he pulled out a chair for her.
“Thank you,” Honey said, slightly touched.
It had been a long time since she had extra time to lay in before taking Kai to school.
She glanced at the clock, realizing she had gotten an extra hour of sleep.
But though she was touched, she couldn’t help but look at the food skeptically as she sat down.
Nikos sat down too, along with Kai, before they all said their grace and dug in.
“It tastes salty,” Kai said, and usually Honey would admonish her son for saying that, but she couldn’t blame him because the eggs were a tad bit salty and had too much feta cheese on them.
“It does taste a bit different from the last time I had it,” Nikos said with a small grimace.
Honey and her son looked at each other before laughing.
Nikos could do many things, but cooking definitely wasn’t one of them.
It wasn’t the worst thing she had ever tasted.
At least he had done a good job with the yogurt, which she focused on.
“Then again, Ira used to always cook it for me, and if not her, Christina would,” Nikos murmured to himself. “God, I miss Ira’s cooking.”
“Who is Ira?” Kai asked.
“My housekeeper,” Nikos said, and Kai’s eyes widened.
“You must be rich, Nik,” Kai exclaimed.
Though Honey knew that herself from all the rumors she heard at work, it wasn’t until this moment that she realized that Nikos must really be rich to have a housekeeper in his home, especially multiple housekeepers with his mention of another woman.
She found herself eyeing him across the table, seeing Nikos in a different light.
“Where do you live? It must be big like a castle,” Kai said, abandoning his food as he turned all of his attention to Nikos. She would make sure to give him some granola bars in the car so he wouldn’t be hungry. She had a feeling he wouldn’t finish his breakfast.
Nikos laughed. “It’s definitely not as big as a castle.”
“Is it as big as this building?” Kai asked, referring to their five-story apartment.
“Oh, no. It’s not nearly as tall as this building,” Nikos said, shaking his head with laughter, and Honey felt herself relax.
Maybe it wasn’t unheard of to have housekeepers in Greece.
“No, each building is only three stories. Not nearly as tall. Much wider than here though because of all of the land my family owns.”
“Do you have a pool?” Kai asked, excitedly.
“Yeah, we have two, and we’re also near the ocean. When we were younger, my brothers and I would jump off the cliffside.”
“Cool!”
While her son was impressed by the cliffside, she was startled by Nikos’s wealth and realized all the rumors people had said about his family hadn’t been exaggerated at all. Nikos was really the son of a rich, powerful man from Greece.
“Can I go?” Kai asked, looking as if he were ready to fly out of his seat and across the ocean to Greece if Nikos said yes.
“No—”
“Of course,” Nikos said over her. Kai jumped with excitement, while Nikos looked at her. “I want you to see my homeland.”
Honey found her heart racing because seeing his homeland sounded way more serious than she thought their relationship would be.
At this point in their relationship, which was still at the very beginning, most couples were not talking about visiting each other’s homeland, which therefore meant meeting their family by proxy.
Taking them to his condo here was one thing, but inviting them to Greece was another thing entirely, and she wasn’t sure how to process that.
“It’s time to get ready, Kai,” Honey said, glancing at the clock. Kai hopped out of his chair and went over to the living room, collecting his toys. When Honey went to collect the dishes off the table, Nikos came up behind her, grabbing the dishes from her hand before kissing her.
“I’ll clean them,” he said.
Honey watched stunned as Nikos carried the plates over to the trash, dumping the remaining food before carrying them over to the sink. She whipped her head to the left to make sure her son hadn’t seen them, and luckily, he was too busy carrying his toys into his room.
“What was that?” Honey asked in disbelief as she came over to the sink.
“I’m cleaning up dishes,” Nikos said.
“No. What you just did,” Honey said pointedly, placing her hand on her hip.
“Kissing you,” Nikos said casually as if he were speaking about the morning weather. “It’s a hobby of mine.”
He continued cleaning the dishes, ignoring her obvious glare, and Honey turned off the water.
“We need to discuss rules,” she announced.
“Rules?” Nikos exclaimed, laughing. But Honey didn’t find anything funny at all. Now was the time to lay down some ground rules.
“Yes. Rules,” Honey repeated, fixing him with a serious stare, the same stare she gave her son whenever she wanted him to listen. “First, we don’t do anything around Kai.”
Nikos arched a brow, and Honey explained herself, though it should be obvious already. Clearly, Nikos was slow on the uptake.
“I have to be careful bringing men into Kai’s life.”
“Kai likes me,” Nikos argued.
“That is true,” Honey admitted. She couldn’t argue against that even if she wanted to. Instantly, Kai had taken a liking to Nikos and was always asking about him, wanting to know when Nik was coming over so they could play together.
“Kai gave me his blessing,” Nikos added, and Honey rolled her eyes.
“That’s true too,” she said begrudgingly, still in disbelief about that conversation that she was subjected to in front of Olivia, who thought it was so amusing. “But I still don’t want to get Kai’s hopes up while we’re only talking.”
“Talking?”
“You know like we aren’t in a relationship, but getting to know each other,” Honey explained, wondering if there were a similar term in Greek.
“Oh, talking. Like, when you’re uncommitted?”
Honey opened her mouth to protest but quickly closed it because technically that was what it meant, and yet, she really didn’t like the sound of it, but instead of backing down, she shrugged.
“Yeah.”
Nikos turned from the sink, directly facing her. “So, that means I can talk to other women while we’re talking.”
“No,” Honey quickly snapped before blinking in surprise at her own actions. She avoided eye contact, mildly embarrassed, but even still, from the corner of her eye, she could see Nikos’s smirk.
“Then that means we aren’t just talking, and we definitely have something more because I don’t want to talk to other women,” Nikos said as he snaked an arm around her waist, pulling her flush against him. “I only want to spend my time with you.”
She stared into his eyes before his lips met hers, sucking her into another kiss.
She should have stopped him because she clearly just told him the rules, and yet, Nikos was clearly a person who did not live to follow them.
He lived to break them. They kissed and kissed, and Honey’s head went in the clouds, nearly getting lost from the nips of Nikos’s teeth and the swipe of his tongue.
It was so good that she could do nothing else but kiss him back until she heard the patter of soft feet against the floor, and Nikos and her both pulled back at the same time as though they had been burnt.
“Where are my shoes?” Kai asked as he came down the hall now dressed in his school uniform, and Honey nearly breathed a sigh of relief, glad that he hadn’t caught them.
“Check under your bed. Remember you kicked them off last time?”
Kai immediately barreled back down the hall to his room. Honey sighed before turning to Nikos, who watched her with amusement. She didn’t get what was so funny because she found nothing amusing about the situation. She had nearly jumped out of her skin just now.
“Kai already knows,” Nikos told her, and Honey’s eyes widened with shock. “He’s a smart kid. He already told me this morning that he’s happy we’re together now.”
Honey was speechless, but it seemed that Nikos was still full of words.
“But you don’t have to worry,” Nikos said reassuringly. “I wouldn’t have committed to this if I weren’t serious. Whether as a friend, your boss, or your man, I plan on being in Kai’s life as long as you’ll allow me.”
And Honey found herself speechless again, but this time, it wasn’t because of disbelief.
It was because her heart was racing at such an abnormal pace that it was making it hard for her to speak.
She had never heard such words in her life before, especially ones that sounded sincere.
It was as if her worries about Nikos being in Kai’s life instantly faded away.
With other men, she always had to walk on eggshells to protect Kai while also not offending them.
It was always tiring, and ultimately, if Antonis didn’t get to them first, the fact that she always kept a wall up when it came down to her son was enough for them to leave on their own.
But with Nikos, it felt like there was no need for a wall at all.
“Are there any more rules?” Nikos asked.
And though maybe the first rule wasn’t necessary, the second rule definitely was.
“Yes,” she said, and Nikos laughed, not seeming offended at all. He might have been able to worm his way out of the first rule, but he definitely wouldn’t be able to do it this time.
“Really this should go without saying, but I don’t want anyone at work to know about us,” Honey said firmly. It was already a tough pill to swallow that she had become another notch on his belt. Telling the other girls at work was definitely not an option.
“Okay,” Nikos said, and Honey was shocked that he agreed to it so easily. “It would be bad if the other ladies knew how I felt about you.”
If this were the past, she would have rolled her eyes at his flirtatious words, but now, even if she did, the beat of her heart would only go against her.
“Let’s have fun, Honey,” Nikos told her as he grabbed her again, and Honey had to admit that she liked the feeling of being in his arms. Sighing, Honey decided to relax and wrapped her arms around his neck, hugging him back.
It was time to let her walls down and give in to fun too.
She would no longer let fear dictate her relationship with Nikos.
She would have fun with him for however long this feeling lasted between them.