Chapter Fifteen
IT WASN’T EVEN half an hour later when his text came through.
Are you free for dinner tomorrow?
Her heart stampeded through her body, fairly trampling her other organs, and she couldn’t stop smiling as she wrote her reply:
Depends. Where would we go?
He named a renowned Greek restaurant, and she closed her eyes on a wave of memories of dinners in Athens as she tapped out a reply.
Well, a girl does have to eat.
His reply was instant.
I’ll pick you up at eight.
Eight o’clock! How on earth was she meant to wait that long? Particularly given she’d been falling asleep well before that, these past few months.
But there was something about having seen Nikos again, and having the prospect of a date with him on the horizon, that made her whole body hum and buzz with energy all day.
By six o’clock, she was tempted to text him and ask him to come over earlier.
She didn’t, though. She stuck to their original plan, and she took her time getting ready.
A long soak in the tub, shaved legs, body moisturised all over, make-up carefully applied to be dewy and minimalistic, hair loose and brushed until it shone, and an outfit chosen with care.
She was determined to keep him at arm’s length, but that didn’t mean she didn’t want to also drive him a little crazy.
She was pretty sure he knew what he’d been missing, and would do anything to go back in time and change the way things had gone, on the yacht.
Nonetheless, a little reminder would do him the world of good.
She chose a silky slip dress, emerald green in colour, and teamed it with a strappy pair of heels and a matching clutch. The dress was cut on the bias and fell to a couple of inches above the knees, showing her tanned legs and just enough of a hint of cleavage.
When he rang her doorbell, she took a moment to apply a deep red lipstick before pulling the door inwards.
His deep-throated curse was enough to make her body sing.
‘Ready?’ she asked, blinking sweetly, all too aware of the effect she was having on him.
To be fair, though he’d probably spent considerably less time on his appearance, she was no less breathless and hot under the proverbial collar at the sight of him in a suit, custom shoes, with his hair brushed back from his brow.
The thing with Nikos was that no matter what he wore, that ruthless, powerful animalism was just beneath the surface, waiting to burst out.
From nowhere, she imagined him pushing her into the apartment and taking her against the wall, hard and fast, until she was crying his name, and warm heat pooled between her legs.
‘My car is downstairs,’ he said, and her eyes widened as she remembered the time they’d made love in his car.
Suddenly, the idea of keeping him at any kind of distance seemed ridiculous.
She believed that he loved her. She knew he did.
And she also knew he was sorry. Whatever evidence she’d been hoping to attain to allow her to trust him again seemed completely unnecessary.
When she looked back on her time with this man, she saw a thousand ways he’d shown himself to be trustworthy and decent, honourable and kind.
‘Let’s go to dinner,’ she said, against every single wish and instinct she possessed.
As she closed the door to her apartment behind herself, he put a hand in the small of her back, holding her against his side.
To her surprise, he’d booked out the entire restaurant, and their table was in an alcove away from the windows, meaning there was no intrusion into their privacy.
She didn’t want to think about what it would have cost to secure a venue like this at the last minute.
All she could think about was what it meant.
No part of this was to do with their original plan, to put James in his place, and get him off her back.
This was about Nikos and Genevieve, and the love they shared.
‘Do you think it’s weird,’ she asked, after dinner, when they were back in his car, on the way to her apartment, ‘that I still wear your ring?’
His eyes held hers and then he reached for her hand and touched the diamond. ‘On the contrary, it is right, and perfect. My deepest wish is that you will continue to wear it, all the way until such time I can add another ring to be its pair.’
Her heart turned over in her chest and her lips parted.
He swore softly then. ‘I don’t mean to rush you. I don’t mean—it is obviously my wish, but there is plenty of time, my darling, for the rest of our lives.’
She turned away from him rather than answering, because her smile made it impossible to speak.
At her door, he kissed her goodnight on the cheek and then turned to leave.
He couldn’t push this too hard. He knew it would take time for Genevieve to feel safe trusting him again, to know that he was worthy of all the love and faith she’d put in him before.
But hell, he’d wanted to go inside with her more than he could say.
Not just because his body was yearning for hers in a way he could hardly live with, but also because he couldn’t get enough of her.
Listening to her talk about her work, and how proud she was, how obviously good she was. Listening to her talk about anything, hearing her laugh and knowing he’d caused it. He just wanted to breathe the same air as her, for as long as he could.
For now, though, just the whisper of hope she’d given him had to be enough.
Dinner tonight? The text came through the following morning, and her heart lurched in response.
She had barely slept, but this time, her wakefulness had been caused by the most delirious happiness. Genevieve had lain awake in bed and replayed every moment, every touch, every look, until her heart was humming and her insides were twisting.
She tapped out a reply: Why don’t I cook?
I don’t want to put you to the trouble.
Nonsense. You cooked for me on the island. It seems only fair.
There was a lengthy pause before he responded: What can I bring?
He arrived with a bottle of wine and the biggest bunch of flowers she’d ever seen. Genevieve buried her face in the blooms to stop from launching into his arms and kissing him with all her passion and love. She arranged them in a vase while he uncorked the wine and poured two glasses.
She had thought she might feel ashamed of her apartment.
She knew it was small, in a rough neighbourhood, and pretty cheaply furnished, but instead, when he looked around and had that same proud expression on his face, she just felt alive.
Adored. Appreciated, for how hard she was working to achieve her financial freedom.
Because she knew he saw that, he would never think she wasn’t someone who wanted to stand on her own two feet.
His money was so irrelevant to what they were. It barely even entered her mind to consider the disparity between them, despite his generosity with the hospital bills.
Genevieve had learned to cook from a young age, and she was very good at it.
She made creamy garlic prawns for entrée, and then lamb for main course, as he had served them in Greece, and he ate it appreciatively, marvelling at how skilled she was in the kitchen, until she laughed and told him he really needed to stop.
His eyes lifted to hers, and the smile in the creases of his face shifted, sobering.
‘I can’t stop,’ he said, shaking his head.
‘I told myself I wouldn’t rush this, but being here with you, in your apartment, there is a part of me that wants, more than anything, to press fast forward and start the rest of our lives now.
’ He closed his eyes then. ‘I know it’s selfish of me.
It’s just…for a brief time, I got to call you my fiancée, to know that you were, at least to the rest of the world, truly mine.
I cannot wait for a time I can do that again. ’
Her heart turned over in her chest and every single piece of her seemed to click in together. She felt the sting of tears in the back of her throat as she took a quick gulp of wine.
‘Well,’ she said, a little unevenly. ‘We never technically announced that our engagement was at an end.’
He stared at her without reacting, but because she knew him, she understood what that took for him to do.
‘I suppose it wouldn’t hurt for you to still refer to me as your fiancée.’
He nodded slowly. ‘Because of James?’
She blanched, and stood then, coming around to the other side of the table and manoeuvring herself into his lap. ‘No, not at all. This would be just for you and me.’
‘Are you saying—would this be real?’
Her eyes sparkled with unshed tears as she nodded. ‘I think that’s a great idea.’
She couldn’t say who kissed whom first, but their lips connected and it was as though every star in the heavens went supernova simultaneously. Lights flashed in her eyes and her body rejoiced, as did her heart, at the certainty that she was with the man she was destined to find.
And the more she thought about it, the more she truly felt that destiny had had a hand in their meeting.
The storm that had blown up out of nowhere, her hiring a sailboat just to feel close to her father—she could never shake the sense that perhaps it had been her parents, and Isabella, who’d somehow created the magic that had brought Genevieve to Nikos in the most unlikely of circumstances.
One week after dinner in Genevieve’s apartment, they were at Nikos’s luxurious Washington home, and without her realising at first what he was doing, Nikos was down on one knee, holding out another black velvet box.
Her heart stammered in her chest as she shook her head.
‘I never got a chance to propose properly,’ he said, clasping her hands. ‘And I want to.’
‘It was proper enough,’ she said, because that night remained in her memory as one of the happiest of her life.
‘Not for you, my darling. For you I would do anything, go anywhere. I kneel before you as a man who has fallen completely in love, with all of my being. You are the beginning and end of my days, the entirety of my hopes. A thousand lifetimes with you could never be enough. Please, say you’ll marry me, because you know that I love you and will always honour you, because you understand that, from this day on, my life will be spent in the service of you and yours. ’
She nodded, tears streaming. ‘Of course, Nikos, of course. But my ring—’
He cracked open the box to reveal teardrop diamond earrings, the same glorious shade of blue.
‘I had them made, to match,’ he said. ‘I could not get you out of my head, and I knew you should have them. Even if you chose to sell them.’
She gasped. ‘I would never.’
‘Good.’ He stood, inspecting her ears before removing one from the box and beginning to insert it. ‘Will you wear them, Genevieve, my darling, and know that they are the beginning of the expression of my love for you, a love that will guide me for all time?’
She could barely cope with the sincerity and extremeness of his sentiment; yet she understood it, because she felt the same.
She waited until he had both earrings in place before she answered, by pressing a hand to his chest to put a little distance between them.
‘How about,’ she said, reaching behind her back and feeling for her zip, ‘I wear them—’ she began to ease it down ‘—and absolutely nothing else, for the rest of the night?’
She saw his Adam’s apple move as he stared across at her.
‘And your ring?’
She stripped out of her underwear, until she wore only a pair of heels, her earrings and diamond ring.
His eyes fell to it and she smiled. ‘Oh, I’m never, ever taking that off.’