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“My father loved you, you and your father.”
Athan nodded, and she could see the hurt in his gaze, hated that she put it there.
“And we betrayed him. I cannot argue with you. Perhaps you can never forgive me for my role in that. I would hate this, but I could understand, I could accept. If you told me you do not, could not love me, I will accept it. This has always been your choice.”
She wanted to. Wanted to find the words. She didn’t want to determine if they were true. She didn’t want to understand her feelings.
But he said one last thing, one last thing that upended everything that she’d so desperately been holding on to.
“Choose me, Lynna. I cannot change what I have done, I cannot fix the past, but I can build us a future. All of us. You and me, your family. I promise, I would do everything in my power to make it right.”
Six years ago, she had stood in front of her father and begged him to stop. Begged him to choose his family instead of his revenge. The people who loved him, instead of the people who didn’t.
Choose us.
He had refused.
He had died.
If she lied, if she turned away from Athan, would it eat her whole? Would she be making her father’s mistakes? Would she become him? Would she be ruining a future all because of their past?
The answer was simple. She could keep running from it, but that wouldn’t take it away. As Athan had once told her, no matter how she boxed it up, it was still there.
So maybe the lesson was to deal with it. To take it out andfeelit.Choosethe people who loved her—perfectly or not.
“I will still work,” she rasped out.
He was so still. So careful, and he studied her with that gaze that reminded her too much of yesterday, when it had seemed as if his mother’s betrayal had made him fragile.
He wasn’t. He was here. But still, she couldn’t stand to be the thing that made him careful. Not anymore. “And I think we should live in Athens,” she continued. “If I am to choose you, if we are to stay married, that is the house to do it in.”
“Are we to stay married,omorfiá mou?”
“Naturally,” she returned, meeting his gaze and studying his beautiful face. It seemed surreal to end up here, but here she was, and wasn’t she an expert at making the best of her situation?
Maybe she was afraid, but she had been afraid for so many years now. She had survived. Helped build a business. Kept her family afloat. And now here was someone who wanted to add to that, support that, be her partner in that.
It would be stupid to ignore that because she wasafraidof everything she felt, everything she’d been through.
“I love you, Athan.”
He enveloped her in a hug, hard and with a relief she felt wash over her too. All that tension, all thatfight, for what? When this was what was waiting for her?
It wouldn’t be easy or simple, but it would be right. It would be…a partnership. Where they each carried some of the weight, instead of her insisting it only be on her shoulders.
“Come home with me, Lynna,” he murmured into her ear. “We’ll stop fighting the past. We will build a future. Forget AC International. Forget Constantine. It will be us.”
Lynna let out a long, steadying breath.Us. Future.Yes, that was exactly what she wanted. It was exactly what they’d have.
EPILOGUE
AthanAkakioshadnot always been a man of his word, but he built himself into one. With his wife by his side, it seemed a foregone conclusion even when things were tough.
After Rhys’s graduation, he partnered with Athan in his new business venture. Instead of trying to hurt Constantine, they focused on building themselves. Lynna continued to work for Your Girl Friday, taking the jobs that suited and refusing the jobs that didn’t.
There was not a moment of regret that he had married her, regardless of the circumstances in which their marriage had started.
When she was pregnant with their first child, her mother came to live with them, and Rhys often did as well on breaks from university. With the Carew family under their roof, Athan felt he finally had a real family. One built on forgiveness. Joy. Even in the face of loss and pain.