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‘I want to be,’ he said simply, walking once more. He stood at her side, staring down at her, and her heart flipped in her chest, heavy with love, pain, rejection, fear, need.
‘No,’ she whispered. ‘You don’t understand. You can’t be here. It’s too hard. I don’t want you here.’
‘Hannah,’ he sighed, looking at her, perhaps innately understanding she couldn’t bear to be touched by him, not now, not after how he’d rejected her love. ‘I’ve spent the last three months telling myself I was doing the right thing. I knew you were safe, I made sure of that, and I told myself I had to give you what you wanted. I had to let you live your life away from me because I couldn’t return your love.’
Hannah made a small, strangled noise of panic.
‘And then Greg Hassan called and told me you were on your way to the hospital and—Theos, agape mou—I have never felt anything like this fear and panic.’
He pressed his hand to his chest, staring down at her. ‘I was so terrified that something had happened to you and all I could think was how I’d wasted all this time. Christós, Hannah.’ He dropped his head forward for a moment, catching his breath.
‘I’ve been so focussed on what I lost, so angry at what happened to Amy and Brax, at the fact it was my fault, because of who I am, that I didn’t stop to realise how lucky I am to have had that time with them. If I could do it all again, knowing how it would end, I would still choose this life.’
His eyes showed such strong emotions then, and her heart cracked. ‘I had a son.’ His voice was wrenched with grief. ‘A beautiful, perfect boy.’
Hannah sobbed; how could she not? And her eyes shifted to their sleeping daughter, her heart twisting inside her.
‘I lost them, and it nearly killed me. I spent four years afterwards living some kind of angry half life. Until I met you, and something shifted inside me, something elemental and important, and it terrified me because I thought the only way I could atone for what happened to Amy and Brax was to keep myself walled off from anyone for the rest of my life.’
Another sob escaped Hannah.
‘I avoided human contact, I was rude and arrogant, an impossible bastard. And then I saw you...’
His eyes held hers and Hannah was back on Chrysá Vráchia, the power of that moment, of their connection, searing her blood.
‘Greg Hassan called and told me you’d been rushed to hospital and I thought something had happened to you, and I realised I’ve been shutting myself off to what I have no doubt would be an incredible life with the woman I love because I’m afraid of what might happen.’
Hannah’s eyes flared wide, her expression showing disbelief and confusion.
‘That lightning bolt got me too, Hannah. It struck me and I have been trying to pretend it didn’t, fighting you this whole way.’
She shook her head but now he bent down so their faces were level, and so close she could feel his warm breath fanning her cheek.
‘You are so brave—do you know that? To have been hurt like you were by Angus and still put yourself out on a limb, telling me you’ve fallen in love with me—’
She shook her head urgently, and, despite the emotions rioting inside her, she was clear on this point, because she’d had months to think it over, to see it as it was. ‘Loving you freed me up to realise I felt nothing like love for Angus. How I feel for you is so different.’
‘I know.’ He leaned forward a little. ‘You love me, and you love me even though I have pushed you away, even though I have been stubbornly clinging to a kind of anger that is ruining my life. You love me even when I took your love and refused to acknowledge I returned it. You have loved me when I was so far from being the man you deserved.’
Hannah bit down on her lip, her eyes holding his. ‘Love isn’t a choice.’ She frowned, lifting a hand to his cheek, because the words had come out all wrong. ‘And even if it were, I would choose to love you. You deserve happiness, Leonidas. You deserve it.’
‘I wanted to give you everything,’ he said quietly. ‘When you spoke about your aunt and uncle, your cousin, Angus, all the people who had you in their life and didn’t appreciate you, I wanted to scream. You should have the world at your feet; I wanted to give it to you. But you don’t really want private jets to Paris, do you?’
She shook her head. ‘I mean, that’s all well and good, but it’s not what really matters.’
‘No, it’s not,’ he agreed, dropping his head to hers, pressing his lips lightly to her forehead. ‘All that matters is here, in this room, with you and me. Please tell me I haven’t permanently ruined things between us.’
She swept her eyes shut, fear shifting inside her because she didn’t want to be hurt again; she didn’t want to feel pain.
But nor did she want to live a life without Leonidas in it.
‘I’m completely in love with you,’ he said. ‘Madly, utterly, in every way. I was transfixed by you at Chrysá Vráchia but presumed it was just...that. Infatuation. I couldn’t stop thinking about you. I don’t know when I fell in love with you, but I do know that from the beginning you have been under my skin and a part of my being. I do know that I want to spend every day we have together showing you that you are the meaning to my life.’
She bit down on her lower lip to stop another sob—a happy one—escaping.
‘Life is a gift, and I was wasting it. I don’t want to do that any more.’
She expelled a shaky breath, inhaling his masculine fragrance, her stomach swooping and dropping, happiness beginning to flow into her body for the first time in a long time.
