Page 78 of After-Hours Heir

Just like Sylvie had done. Like she had begged for them to take care of the baby, not her.

He looked down at his son, and he understood that love.

He had never wanted to remember it because he hadn’t wanted to miss it. But even now, as grief overwhelmed him, as a tear slid down his face, he was filled with a great hopeful joy.

Because suddenly he could feel everything. And yes, there was pain. Yes, there was sadness. But there was so much hope.

He placed their son in his basinet, and he moved to Sylvie’s bedside. He knelt there, holding her hand. “I love you,” he said. “And I think it was fate that brought us together. Something bigger than the both of us. I think, Sylvie Jones, you might have been why I survived.”

Her eyes fluttered open. “You’re flattering me,” she said.

“No. I remembered something,” he said.

“What?”

“My mother. She begged my father to take care of me. But he didn’t. Sylvie, I believe my mother sent you to me. Because I survived all of those years, but until you, I hadn’t lived. And you have taken care of me… You have no idea how much.”

“Christos,” she whispered. “My love. I love you so much. I have… I didn’t want to chase you away by saying it.”

That broke his heart. Because it would have. It would’ve chased him away. He had been too afraid. But…

“I would’ve come back. I would have. For the same reason I answered the text that first time. I didn’t just need a hand to hold, Sylvie. I needed yours.” He squeezed her hand.

“And I needed yours.”

The baby whimpered in his bed. And Christos moved to pick him up. And for some reason, he moved his finger toward his son’s tiny hand, and the boy curled his perfect fingers around it. Christos stopped, and he found himself weeping again, because apparently after thirty years of denying himself, he did nothing but weep now.

“I needed your hand,” he said. “And I will be his. And I will be yours. I promise it. We didn’t make vows when we got married. But I will make them to you now. Until now I lived for myself. And now I live for you.”

“What should we name him?” she asked, looking up at him.

“Apollo,” he said. “In the Greek pantheon, he was considered the god of healing. And I can think of nothing more fitting.”

Sylvie smiled. “Apollo Onassis. He has your name. Because you started something new with it. And now we’re continuing it. Together.”

He kissed her on the forehead. And after a while, he could no longer keep his eyes open. He dozed in the chair for a time. And then his phone buzzed.

He picked it up and saw that he had a text.

Kid: I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you.

He smiled. And then he turned to her. “I love you too.”

EPILOGUE

Kid: Your son is causing mayhem.

Baby: Impossible. It must be your son doing that.

CHRISTOSCAMEDOWNthe stairs and into the living room of the home he and Sylvie had shared for the past five years, his daughter on his hip, her chubby hand clutching the front of his shirt.

His six-year-old son Apollo was sitting nicely with a coloring book. While his four-year-old son Aries was causing what could only be described ashavoc.

He looked at his daughter, Athena. “You would never do such a thing, would you,agape?”

“She absolutely will when she is more mobile.”

Sylvie was looking at all three children with indulgence. Then she looked up at him. The same love was there. And yet there was more.