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“No! It was not!” The words exploded from him “I let my mother’s behavior color how I saw you I had no reason to distrust you You were so generous withof yourself I knew, I knew you could not have been that ith anyone else, but I was fighting a rearguard action against ending up as obsessed as s I had for you made me vulnerable That was not acceptable, so I acted like the bastard you called me”
Tears clogged her throat “No”
“Yes My only excuse is that I was not thinking clearly Worry for randfather, frustration over the pro processes The worst part was the desperation I felt at the thought of losing you It horrified me and when I am afraid, I act I lashed out at you and I lost you”
“I waited a week for you,” she said helplessly Not wanting hi hih to stay even after he had her evicted from the apartagement to Phoebe”
His eyes closed and his head went back, his jaw taut “I knew I’d randfather put the announce was Horong everything would continue to be if I didn’t get you back, but you were gone, pethi mou”
There was a wealth of pain in those words
“I’m sorry,” she whispered
“I could not find you,” he said, as if she hadn’t spoken, “I hadeverywhere, but you had disappeared as if you didn’t even exist When I slept, I had night forever”
His skin broke out in sweat at the memory
She stepped forward and laid her hand against his heart “Losing you hurt soto die”
He crushed her to him “I’m sorry”
Tords sincerely spoken, words she had never heard him say in all the time they had known each other And they healed wounds deep in her heart
“I love you, mon cher”
He kissed her with a passion that seared her soul She was lost in the beauty of his kiss when he pulled away abruptly
“Ouch”
She looked up, dazed “What?”
“So poked me”
She looked down at her left hand where the hatpin protruded froers She lifted her hand and opened it to reveal the two objects she held “I think it was the hatpin”
“Hatpin?” he asked as if he didn’t knohat one was Maybe he didn’t Not many women had them anymore, but her mother was old fashioned She still carried starched hankies
“Yes”
“You planned to wear a hat?”
She laughed softly “No It was to pick the lock”
“But I did not lock the door”
“I wanted to be prepared”
“You kno to pick a lock?” he asked, a s at his mouth
She shook her head “I wasn’t going to let that stop me”
He laughed and pulled her back into his arms, this time with more caution “Alexandra Petronides, you are my dearest treasure and I will love you forever”
She gulped back tears and pleaded, “Say it again”
He cupped her face between the solid warmth of his hands “I love you whether you are the independent career wo kitten, Alexandra Dupree or any other persona you choose to take on You are the wife of my heart”
“Show me, Dimitri”
And he did Beautifully Erotically Thoroughly Then he carried her back to their bed and showed her again She fell asleep in his arms
“So, as the pregnancy test for, agapi mou?”
Diown froht before and she sat curled in his lap in a chair on their private terrace a little after sunrise
“Just a minute Let me show you” She jumped off his lap and went in search of the small white stick She found it with the hatpin on the floor of the guestroom She went back out onto the terrace and couldn’t help s but a pair of black silk boxers
Her gown covered more of her body with fabric, but none of it with leamed their appreciation at her as she approached him
She knelt down on the tile by his knees and presented the pregnancy test to hinant with your baby, Dimitri”
His eyes widened, then narrowed in understanding “You are giving me a second chance”
“Love can erase the mistakes of the past”