Page 33 of Billion-Dollar Baby Shock

Dion felt cold inside. Tara had said she would be back but he knew he’d driven her away, exactly as he’d planned to do all along.

But of course he didn’t feel remotely triumphant or relieved.

He felt bereft. He was a coward. She’d offered herself to him and what had he done?

Nothing. Offered her half a marriage in a moment of panic at the thought of not having her in his life.

He smelled a familiar pungent smell and looked at Niko, who was regarding him warily with huge eyes. His mother’s eyes. He brought him into the bathroom with his bag of supplies and set about changing his nappy.

Niko freshly cleaned and changed, Dion went back into the main living area. No sign of Tara.

Damn it. Had he really driven her away? No.

Dion refused to believe it for a second.

That woman was the bravest woman he knew.

She’d told him she loved him. And he loved her.

Of course he did! It surged through him now, like an unstoppable cleansing force.

He had nothing left to hold it back. Deny it.

He did know love.

He had felt love before—for his mother—but after what she’d done, he’d buried it so deep that it had calcified and become hard and impenetrable. Unrecognisable.

Niko had started changing that. And then Tara had burst into his life and completed the process. And her wild family. Wild with love and fierce loyalty. He’d seen it in that hospital room and it had made him run. The fear of rejection too much to bear. He was a coward.

Panicking, Dion quickly loaded Niko into his pram and left the suite, taking the elevator down to the lobby. He was almost out of the door with no idea where to start looking for Tara when he heard her voice. ‘Dion!’

He turned around. She’d come in another door.

He went straight over to her and cupped her face in his hands, words tripping over themselves.

‘I’m so sorry, I’m such an idiot, of course I love you, I think I’ve loved you since that first night when you blew my world wide open and me and how could I have not seen it?

But I’m a coward and I was afraid of you abandoning me, but I hid behind Niko and I’m just…

’ He drew a breath. He could see her eyes shimmering, a smile on her mouth.

He looked up and down again, trying to control his own emotions.

‘I just love you, and you could walk away right now and I’d still love you and—’

She shook her head. ‘I’m not going anywhere. I have something to ask you.’

She slipped out of his hands and suddenly she was on one knee at his feet. Niko squealed happily to see his mama. Tara quickly leaned over to kiss him, and then took something out of her back pocket. A small velvet box. She opened it and Dion saw a golden band. Plain, simple.

She said, ‘The only marriage I’m interested in is one based on love… I was going to say that if you really didn’t feel the same, I’d settle for legal custody but that we couldn’t continue to be lovers—’

Before she’d stopped talking, Dion reached for her and pulled her up, covering her mouth with his.

She’d said enough. He wanted her for love.

They were oblivious to the small crowd around them who clapped and cheered.

He pulled back and said, ‘Yes, yes, yes. You are the only woman I want to ever marry.’

Tara was laughing and crying. She took the ring and put it onto Dion’s finger. He felt its weight and relished it. The weight of love. He said, ‘We’ll have to go out again.’

Tara leaned against him, arms around his neck. ‘Why?’

‘Because I want to get you a ring.’

Her eyes were bright. ‘You don’t have to.’

‘Yes, I do.’

‘Okay, and then can we come back, and maybe when Niko is napping we could—?’

‘Oh, yes, we’re not leaving this hotel for at least a couple of days.’

They went out of the main door, arms wrapped around each other, Dion pushing the buggy that held their beloved son in one hand.

Much later, while Niko slept in a cot in a little anteroom beside their room, Dion and Tara lay entwined together. On her finger sparkled a ring, an emerald-cut aquamarine stone, with two smaller white diamonds on either side.

Niko vowed never to remove his gold band. Well, apart from on their wedding day. But they were in no rush to get married.

In fact, the marriage wouldn’t happen for another three years, when Tara was pregnant with Niko’s little sister, Lexie, and they both realised they should probably regularise their situation.

Because they’d been too busy living and loving and becoming a family.

And working together. Tara had undergone a rigorous interview process and had found work with the eco resort project on Nisos, and had loved every second of being involved with the project.

She was almost fluent in Greek, helped by the fact that she was in love with her very attentive tutor.

So, now, at five months pregnant, with her bump just starting to pop under the loose empire line of her stunning cream wedding dress, with her hair piled high and a bouquet of flowers from the villa garden in her hands, Tara walked down the aisle of the Greek church in Athens, to Dion, with Niko in front of her flinging rose petals with abandon.

All of her family were there—Daniel had come back from working in Australia to give her away, thankfully not with a tropical bug this time.

Mary and Lucy were her maids of honour, and Oisín, who had since moved to Athens too, to work for Dion’s company in its tech section, was Dion’s best man.

He was the new resident of Tara’s apartment.

Needless to say, even with the apartment, the villa in Athens had become a frequent port of call for everyone and Dion had got used to returning home to find any number of the Simons family in residence.

And he loved it. His life now didn’t remotely resemble his life before and he gave thanks every day for the mishap that had brought him and Tara together.

Not that he’d ever admit that to Mary, of course. But she knew.

Tara reached Dion at the top of the church. Daniel melted away. One of the aunts took Niko and his rose petals to the pews. Tara faced Dion, smiling. Joy bubbling up. Love tangible between them.

He lifted a hand and touched her face and said simply, ‘Thank you.’

She shook her head. ‘I did nothing. I just fell in love with you.’

‘You brought me back to life. You gave me a life.’

‘You are my life.’

‘Gattina…’

Tara blushed.

Someone—probably Daniel—whispered loudly, ‘Sheesh, get a room, guys.’

Tara giggled. Dion grinned. He looked so much younger.

The priest cleared his throat and they got on with the business of getting married. And living happily ever after.

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