“My great-aunt says you look happy now,” Darius translated. “Like a beautiful bride.”
“How sweet… Did she see me before?” Letty asked.
“When I brought you in. She said you looked like death warmed over.”
She stared at him in horror, then narrowed her eyes accusingly. “She never said that.”
He gave a sudden grin. “She says our island has obviously revived you, all our sun and sea air. Plus, clearly—” he quirked a dark eyebrow “—marriage to me.”
The elderly woman said something quickly behind him. He glanced back with an indulgent smile. “Nai, Theia Ioanna.”
“What did she say?”
Darius turned back to Letty. “She said marriage to you seems to agree with me, as well.” Looking down at her, he hesitated. “Our wedding was…”
“Horrible.”
“Not good,” he agreed. His dark eyes caressed her face, and he leaned forward to whisper, “But something tells me our honeymoon will make up for it.”
Letty felt his breath against her hair, the brush of his lips against her earlobe, and electricity pulsed through her at the untold delights promised by a honeymoon in the Greek villa. In that enormous bed.
She tried not to think about that as he introduced her to the other people around the table, aunts and uncles and innumerable cousins. She smiled shyly, wishing she could speak Greek as one Kyrillos family member after another hugged her, their faces alight with welcome and approval.
One of the younger women grabbed her arm, motioning for her to take the best seat at the table. On learning she was hungry, other relatives dished her out a lunch from the tempting dishes on the table. Tangy olives, salad with cucumbers, tomatoes and feta, vine leaves stuffed with rice, grilled meats on skewers, fresh seafood and finally the lightest, flakiest honey pastries imaginable. After sleeping so long, and having no appetite yesterday, Letty was ravenous and gobbled it all up as fast as she could get it.
The women around her exclaimed approvingly in Greek. Darius sat beside her, smiling, his dark eyes glowing beneath the warm Greek sun.
“They like how you eat,” he told her.
She laughed in spite of herself. In this moment, beneath the pink flowers and warm Greek sun, with the blue sea beyond, she felt suddenly, strangely happy. Finally, she pushed her chair away from the table, shaking her head as his relatives offered yet more plates. “No, thank you.” She turned anxiously to Darius. “How do I say that?”
“Óchi, efharisto.”
“Óchi, efharisto,” she repeated to them warmly.
One by one, his family members hugged her, speaking rapidly, patting her belly, then hugging Darius before they hurried into the villa.
“Your family is wonderful.”
“Thank you.” He lifted a dark eyebrow. “By the way, some of them speak English quite well. They’re just hoping if you don’t realize that, you’ll be inspired to learn Greek.”
She laughed, then looked around the terrace at the flowers and sea view. “I’m feeling very inspired, believe me.”
“They already love you. Because you’re my wife.” He put his arm along the back of her chair. “Not only that, you’re the first woman I’ve ever brought home to meet them.”
Her eyes went wide. “Really?”
He grinned, shaking his head. “For years, they read about my scandalous love life and despaired of me ever settling down with a nice girl.” He sipped strong black coffee from a tiny cup. “Great-aunt Ioanna is delirious with joy to see me not only sensibly married, but also expecting a child. And she remembers you.”
Letty’s smile fell. “She does?”
“Yes.”
“Does she blame me for—?”
“No,” he cut her off. “She remembers you only as the girl that I loved and lost long ago. In her mind, that means our marriage is fate. Moíra. She believes our love was meant to stand the test of time.”
Letty blinked fast. Our love was meant to stand the test of time.
Leaning forward, he took her hand. “You are part of the family. You are a Kyrillos now.”
It was true, she realized. She had a new last name. When she updated her passport, she’d no longer be Letitia Spencer, the daughter of the famous white-collar criminal, but Letitia Kyrillos, the wife of a self-made billionaire. Just by marrying, she’d become an entirely different person. What a strange thought.
But maybe this new woman, Letitia Kyrillos, would know how to be happy. Maybe their marriage, which had been so bleak at the start, could someday be full of joy, as her own parents’ marriage had been.
She just had to change Darius’s mind about her father. It wouldn’t be hard.
Like making it snow in July.
One of Darius’s female cousins came back out of the villa and pulled on his arm, talking rapidly in Greek, even as she smiled apologetically at Letty.
“They need to move the big table,” he explained. “To get the terrace ready for the party tonight.”
“What party?”
“They wouldn’t let us come all this way without making a big fuss.” He grinned. “There’s a party tonight to welcome you as my bride. Only family and friends from the village have been invited…”
“Good,” she said, relieved.
“Which, naturally, means the entire island will be here, and a few people from neighboring islands, as well.”
Her heart sank to her sandals at the thought of all those people judging her, possibly finding her unworthy of being Darius’s bride. She whispered, “What if they don’t like me?”
Reaching out, Darius lifted her chin. “Of course they will,” he said softly. “They will because I do.”
As the hot Greek sun caressed her skin in the flower-dappled terrace, the dark promise in his gaze made her shiver.
As his relatives bustled back out on the terrace, with maids following them, they started clearing dishes, wiping the table and sweeping the terrace.
Letty looked around anxiously. “Ask them how I can help.”
He snorted. “If you think they’ll allow either of us to lift a finger, you’re out of your mind.”
“We can’t just sit here, while they do all the work!”
“Watch this.” Pushing his chair back, Darius rose from the table and said casually in English, “Hey, Athina, hand me that broom.”
“Forget it, Darius,” his cousin replied indignantly in the same language, yanking the broom out of his reach. “You sent my sons to college!”
“You gave me a job when I needed work,” a man added in heavily accented English, as he lifted fairy lights to dangle from the terrace’s leafy trellis. “We’re doing this. Don’t think you’re getting out of it!”
They all gave a low buzz of agreement.
Looking at Letty, Darius shrugged. She sighed, seeing she was outmatched. His great-aunt was now, in fact, shooing them away with a stream of steady Greek, a mischievous smile on her kindly, wizened face.
Letty drew closer to him. “So what should we do with ourselves?”
Darius’s eyes darkened as he said huskily, “We are on our honeymoon…”
She shivered at his closeness and at the tempting thought