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He let his hand fall.
She stared at the ground, wet-eyed, scraping her sandal in the dust.
“The sun comes out when you’re around, agape mou,” he said softly, watching her. “I don’t know how you did it, but you took my pain and guilt away with your laughter and kisses. You showed me that we have so much to live for, and that sometimes bad things just happen; it doesn’t have to be somebody’s fault.”
He forged ahead, hoping against hope that she would forgive him. “But now I want my future back. A future with you, our children, our horses, our cats. I want it more ferociously than anything I’ve ever wanted before. I know it’s going to be the biggest battle of my life to convince you that I love you. I’ve behaved like a bastard toward you. Now somehow I’ve got to capture your heart and make you love me back.”
Kizzy let the canister finally drop with a dull thud. “I can’t—”
“Wait!” He dragged his cell phone out of his pocket and started urgently unfolding a piece of paper. “You want to travel, I understand that, and I won’t stop you. You can have the jet, the yacht, the car. But everyone needs roots, a place to return to, somewhere to call home and a nursery with a rocking horse.”
He thrust a document toward her and held his breath as she began to look at it.
“Those are the plans I’ve been working on,” he said, barely daring to hope. “Look, there are stables, grazing, and hectares to gallop across. An enormous swimming pool, a vineyard, a wooden playground for the little one. You can have all the freedom you want. You can come, go, stay, do as you please. All I ask is that you visit me as often as you can. As often as you want to, and that—that you call this place your home.”
“It looks beautiful,” Kizzy stammered, looking up from the plans. “But it’s all too much.”
“I’m not going to let you say good-bye, I won’t let you, I can’t. Listen, everyone has to have somewhere to call home. Even you. You don’t realize it now but when you’ve wandered around as much as I have, you’ll see that I’m right. And besides, once you’ve chosen your horses, they will miss you…” He swallowed painfully. “I’ll wait for you. For as long as it takes.”
Quickly, he showed her a photograph on his cell phone. “I bought the island last week. The building work can be finished and ready before the baby comes if we start soon.” He flicked to another photograph. “And here’s the new canvas, an impression of our dream home, and this time it is something beautiful—totally inspired by my love for you. Or at least it will be if you say yes.”
“Andreas,” Kizzy began unevenly as she studied the picture with blurred eyes, “I don’t believe this is—”
He was suddenly breathless with dread that she would turn him down, walk away again. “It was wrong of me to try to force you into marrying me, so let’s forget all about that. All that I ask is that our child bear my name, Baby Lazarides.”
“No,” Kizzy replied rigidly, tears now trickling down her face. “That’s just not good enough.”
She shushed him as agony streaked across his features and he tried to interrupt.
“Let me finish, please. It’s not good enough because I love you more than anything on this earth and—and I want your name too. I want to be Mrs. Lazarides. I want strings attached, legal ties, and never-ending roots. So,” she placed her palm flat over his pounding heart and stared purposefully into his eyes, “I think it’s time we started to do things properly. Will you marry me, Andreas Lazarides?”
“I have no choice, Miss Dean,” Andreas replied with a slow incredulous smile, and his heart soared with joy as he closed the most important deal of his life, binding them both together, forever, with a kiss.