Page 130 of Modern Romance September 2025 1-4

His lids closed in silent reverence before his stare locked back onto hers.

Bringing her face to his, she looked deep into his eyes. ‘I have told my parents everything. They know I’m yours. Because Iamyours. I’m yours, Alexis Tsaliki. Now and for ever.’

His jaw tightened. Long fingers caught the hand palming his cheeks. His breathing had become heavy.

She slipped her other hand around his neck and threaded her fingers through his hair. She could feel the tremors in his powerful body and dimly marvelled that this man, this titan of a man, loved her. Her.

‘I love you,’ she said, willing with every fibre of her being for him to feel her words and not just hear them. ‘I love you, and there is nothing anyone can do or say that will ever stop me loving you, and there is nothing I wouldn’t do for you. I would walk on broken glass for you, and I give my heart into your keeping of my own free will and I trust and have faith that you will keep it safe for ever because I am yours and you are mine and I can’t go on without you.’

Alexis’s fingers tightened around the dainty hand holding his cheek, his heart thumping so hard it threatened to burst through his ribs.

The hazel eyes gazing so intently into his filled with tears and then her voice broke. ‘Please forgive me.’

Air expelled from his lungs in one long exhalation and for the first time in so, so long, Alexis found he could breathe. Bringing his mouth down to hers, he kissed her, closing his eyes and letting his senses fill with the softness of her lips and beauty of her scent.

‘My angel,’ he groaned before cupping her cheeks to stare into the eyes that were finally shining openly with love for him. ‘You will never know how much I have longed to hear those words.’

Her arms slid around his neck, but the smile she gave still contained fear. ‘Can you forgive me?’

With another groan, he brushed his lips to hers. ‘There is nothing to forgive. You are my heart, Lydia, and I should have had more faith that you would feel the truth of it.’ He rubbed his nose to hers. ‘And more patience. My pride…my stupid pride pushed you away from me again. If you hadn’t come to me tonight I would have come to you and got down on my hands and knees to beg you to come back to me. Forgive me?’

She sighed, and it was like she was expelling all the air from her own lungs in one long exhalation. ‘There is nothing to forgive. Your impatience and pride are a part of you and you wouldn’t be you without them.’ And then she smiled, and it was with such dreaminess that the last of his own fear turned to smoke and vanished. ‘I love you.’

‘And I love you.’

Her smile shone straight into his heart. ‘Can we go home now?’

‘As long as you’re with me, I will go anywhere.’

Her lips fused to his in a kiss full of all the same passion and tenderness brimming in his heart. ‘Then take me home and love me for ever.’

If the intercom hadn’t been buzzing so incessantly, Alexis wouldn’t have been woken from the best sleep of his entire life. Holding firmly to his wife, who was curled into him, he reached over to the bedside table and lifted the receiver. ‘This had better be important.’

Once his butler had relayed the news, he muttered a curse and said, ‘Let him in.’

Lydia lifted her head and sleepily asked, ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Your brother’s here.’

She blinked. ‘What? Now?’

‘Yes. He’s refusing to leave until he speaks to me. You stay here. I’ll—’

He never got to finish saying that he’d deal with Thanasis, for Lydia had shot off the bed as if she were turbo boosted, snatched her robe off the floor where she’d dropped it, and was shrugging her arms into as she stormed out of the bedroom.

Half laughing at this newly found terrier side to his wife, Alexis pulled his discarded trousers on and followed her. He was halfway down the stairs when he saw her steaming over to her brother, who was standing by the apartment’s main entrance.

‘If you lay a hand on him then you and I are through,’ she blazed, not letting him even open his mouth. ‘So if that’s what you’ve come here to do, then turn around and go. I love Alexis and he loves me. We come as a package now, so deal with it.’

Alexis stood behind her and wrapped his arms protectively around her waist while Thanasis folded his arms around his chest and arched an eyebrow. ‘Have you finished?’ her brother asked.

That nonplussed her. Folding her arms in turn, she nodded primly. ‘Yes.’

‘Good. Because I’m not here for a fight.’ His eyes fixed on Alexis. ‘My parents told me everything and while I will never forgive you for the way you treated Lucie, I love my sister and I want her to be happy.’ His lip curled. ‘Apparently she loves you and thinks you’re going to be faithful to her, so if you can look me in the eye and promise that youwillbe true to her and that you’ll always love her and take care of her then I will give you both my blessing.’

Alexis actually felt his wife go rigid in shock.

‘Is this some kind of joke?’ she asked.