Page 82 of Modern Romance September 2025 1-4

‘No, no coffee for me, and I’m not ill, it’s nothing like that, although I think you might prefer it if I was. I’m fourteen weeks pregnant with Alexis Tsaliki’s child.’

Stunned silence.

Lydia opened her mouth and launched into the whole sorry story right up to the night she’d left Alexis, the only omissions the details no parent needed to hear about their child.

When she’d finished speaking, more stunned silence bounced loudly between the dining room walls.

After for ever seemed to pass, her mother rose unsteadily to her feet. ‘Get out.’

Lydia closed her eyes, sucked in some air and ground her feet to the floor.

Only when she was steady in mind and body did she open her eyes.

‘I’m sorry. I know this is your worst nightmare come to life but Alexis isn’t who you think he is—he isn’t his father and he doesn’t deserve to be blamed for his father’s sins.

If you want to thank anyone for saving the business, then it should be him.

He’s a wonderful man and he loves me and I love him, and he’s going to be a wonderful father. ’

‘Get out and never come back.’

‘I’ll be out of the cottage by the end of the night.’

She’d reached the front door when a hand gripped her arm. ‘He might not take you back,’ her mother said with a viciousness that’s sting was lessened by the tears in her eyes. ‘And what will you be left with?’

Lydia smiled sadly. ‘The knowledge that I fought for him just as he’s spent the last three months fighting for me.’ And then she kissed her mother’s cheek and walked out of the door.

Alexis approached the booth he’d slid into the first time he’d spoken to her.

Voices echoed.

‘So, Lydia Antoniadis. Tell me why the youngest member of the family at war with my family is here alone in my hunting ground.’

‘Catching my prey, of course.’

He could never have guessed in that moment how deeply and entirely she would catch him.

A hostess passed carrying a large bucket of chips. Just to see them and remember Lydia’s love of them was another punch to his guts, and he made a sharp turn to the bar, unwilling to wait until he’d taken his seat at his personal booth.

He glanced at the tequila on the top shelf…

Only the good stuff.

‘Get me a large Scotch,’ he told the barman, and indicated for him to keep pouring until the liquid was a fraction from the rim.

He drank half of it, looked at the remainder and then thought, to hell with it, and downed the rest before pushing the empty glass back to the barman and telling him to refill it.

He hadn’t touched a drop of alcohol since that first night he’d drunk himself into oblivion, though God knew he’d wanted to.

It didn’t numb the pain but, if he was lucky, it might numb his senses enough to get through a few hours of partying before he could make his excuses and leave, and return to a life now empty of all meaning.

Lydia climbed the wide, rounded stairs to the VIP section. The bouncer guarding the roped barrier checked her name off the list she’d maxed out her credit card to get on and let her through.

‘Is Alexis Tsaliki here yet?’ she asked with a brightness she had to dredge from the pit of her stomach to achieve.

The Alexis she knew would never let a friend down—she doubted he had ever let anyone down in his life.

He’d promised his friend he would host a party for him that night, and so he would be there to host it.

Despite her knowing this, it still came as a relief when the bouncer nodded in answer.

This wasn’t going to backfire, she told herself staunchly as she walked past the booth she’d hired all those months ago. Alexis did love her. If she had to have faith in only one thing then it would be that. The purest, most unconditional love in the world.

The dancefloor was packed and she had to elbow her way through it to reach the DJ.

Catching his attention, she rose onto her toes to tell him what she wanted.

He reared back and looked hard at her, as if satisfying himself that she hadn’t just been released from an asylum, then turned his gaze to the direction of the most private of private booths before looking back at her.

She held the stare unwaveringly.

He inclined his head in dubious agreement.

She expelled a breath and smiled her thanks, then elbowed her way back through the dancefloor until she reached the exact same spot she’d danced at all those months ago and fixed her gaze at the club’s most private of private booths, the one most hidden in the shadows, where a tall, well-built man with perfectly quiffed hair so dark it was almost black was holding court with his sycophants.

Except, if it was a court he was holding, it was a court he didn’t want to be at.

His gaze was fixed in the distance. He didn’t look bored. He looked vacant.

Her heart ballooned.

Why had he bothered to come? Alexis asked himself moodily.

He should have stayed at home. The club’s vibe was doing nothing for him, the incessant chatter and laughter of his friends and various hangers-on like sharp needles in his head.

He couldn’t even be bothered to drink himself into oblivion as he’d intended, his second full glass of Scotch mostly untouched.

He slumped back in the booth, lifted his face to the ceiling and closed his eyes.

‘Anyway, Anastasia said…’

He tuned the voice out, would have inched away but was penned in.

He didn’t care what Anastasia had said. He didn’t care about anything.

Only Lydia. He should have been honest about his feelings from the start instead of expecting her to be a mind reader when he’d always known that she didn’t believe him capable of being faithful and had known how much the thought of losing her family was hurting her.

Where his feelings for Lydia were straightforward and uncomplicated, Lydia was not him, and he’d driven her away, punished her for not having the same faith in her feelings and in him as he had…

‘I have a special request for Alexis Tsaliki.’

His eyes snapped open at the DJ’s words echoing loudly through the speakers.

‘Your wife asks that you join her on the dancefloor.’

A loud roaring noise filled his head, louder than the music, louder even than the sudden booming of his heart.

Hardly daring to believe what he’d just heard, Alexis slowly lowered his gaze.

A small curvy figure in a mid-thigh-length silver mini dress was standing directly in his line of sight on the dancefloor. Her blonde hair was loose around her shoulders, wisps of her fringe falling into her eyes.

Their stares locked.

Her chest and shoulders rose.

Slowly, she raised her arm and held her hand out to him.

Unable to tear his stare from her, not at all certain he wasn’t dreaming this, barely aware that the people penning him into the booth had all fallen into stunned silence, Alexis rose to his feet and took the most direct route to the woman shining brighter than any strobe light by climbing over the table.

Lydia fought to keep her feet grounded, and keep her trembling hand held out to him.

Time slowed to a crawl.

There was not a flicker of emotion on his face and yet each slow step he took to her added to the emotions filling her so completely she could hardly breathe for them.

He stopped a foot away from her.

Her extended arm fell to her side.

The blue-grey eyes that had seduced her so completely from that first look bored into hers. The longing making her heart cry reflected back at her.

She took the final step to him.

With a tremulous smile, she palmed his cheek.

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 I am yours. 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 you will be 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.

Thanasis flashed a brief smile at her. ‘No joke. I have no wish to lose you over this bastard and I’d very much like to be a part of my niece or nephew’s life, and I know our parents want the same too.

’ His smile dropped. ‘They love you. Just give them time. It won’t be long, I promise. ’ His gaze fell back on Alexis. ‘Well?’

‘I love her,’ Alexis told him, not wavering. ‘And I meant every word of the vows I made before God.’

For the longest time, Lydia held her breath as she watched her brother eyeball her husband. Whatever he saw in Alexis’s stare must have convinced him of the truth for the hardness in his eyes softened a touch and he extended a hand to him. ‘Welcome to the family.’

Hardly able to believe her eyes, Lydia watched her husband and brother shake hands, and then a moment later she was being pulled into her brother’s embrace. ‘Be happy,’ he whispered fiercely.

‘I am.’ And knowing she had her brother’s blessing and that her parents still loved her completed it for her.

He kissed the top of her head and then turned to leave. ‘I’ll be in touch.’

‘Thanasis,’ Alexis called as he was closing the door.

Her brother looked back.

‘Tell Lucie I’m sorry.’

The ghost of a smile played on Thanasis’s lips. ‘You can tell her yourself at our wedding.’

With the door closed, Lydia looked at Alexis. He met her stare and cupped her cheeks, disbelief apparent on his handsome face. ‘Did that just happen?’

She couldn’t hold back the beam a moment longer and then, just when she thought her happiness couldn’t be more complete, fluttering bubbles thickened in her belly…

‘Our baby!’ Tugging Alexis’s hand down to her abdomen, she pressed it tight to the place where the flutters were happening. ‘Can you feel it?’

His gorgeous eyes lit up with wonder. ‘That’s our baby?’

‘It is!’

He shook his head in awe. ‘God, I love you.’ And then he kissed her and carried her up to their bedroom to show her exactly how much he loved her.