For her.
Because he really loved Mairi.
“Just catch me one more time, and I won’t ever give you a reason to regret it. Just please make me yours—”
Mairi threw herself at him.
Damen’s arms wrapped around her waist instinctively the same time Mairi’s arms curled around his neck.
So many questions flashed through her mind, but she pushed them away. There was time to have them answered later. Her faith in Damen Leventis was restored, the love she had tried so hard to quell bursting out of her heart like an unstoppable flow.
Closing her eyes, she hugged Damen tightly, whispering, “Caught.”
For a moment, Damen was frozen, unable to believe that Mairi was giving him another chance. But when she stayed in his arms, never making any move to go, relief exploded inside him, and his hand shook as he stroked her hair. His voice ragged, he asked, “How long?”
Mairi’s fingers curled against his nape tensely. She knew that when she said the words, she would be taking the biggest risk of her life – and of her child’s.
If she was smart, she would leave Damen Leventis and lead a quiet life alone.
But she didn’t want to be smart.
She wanted to take a risk like Damen did.
And so she whispered, “For as long as you love me—”
The rest of her words was smothered in his kiss.
“Then consider me caught forever, Mrs. Leventis,” Damen muttered before ravaging his wife’s lips. “There’s nothing in this life that will make me stop loving you.”
Chapter Sixteen
She said: To wed a Greek billionaire, one shall be ready for involvement with innovative experiments.
He said: You mean kinky.
She said: You said that, not me.
He said: No more innovative experiments for you if you do not say the K-word.
She said: K…I can’t say it. But I’m thinking it and it’s the thought that counts, right?
Hours later, Mandy and Velvet crowded around her, each of them holding copies of Damen’s book. “Pleeeeaaaase sign our copies, Mrs. Leventis,” Velvet begged in an exaggeratedly loud voice as she fluttered her lashes.
“Shut up,” Mairi said laughingly.
Mandy forced her friend to take her copy. “Sign it.”
Velvet handed Mairi a pen. “And don’t forget to sign it with A Greek Billionaire’s Wife.”
She shook her head, trying to be strong. “No.”
Her friends looked at her. “You know you want to,” Velvet said slyly.
“No.” She was a respectable missus now.
They still just looked at her, their gazes ever knowing.
Oh, what the heck!
Velvet and Mandy burst into laughter as they watched Mairi sign their copies with her four most favorite words. When she returned the copies to her friends, she saw them looking at her with expectant expressions.
Mairi blinked. “What?”
Mandy grinned. “Go on, say it.”
Oh, how well they knew her.
And how terribly lucky she was that they had never abandoned her.
Tears stinging her eyes, Mairi said, “Yay me!” She threw her arms around them. “Group hug!”
“Ewww,” Velvet automatically protested, always the one uncomfortable with emotional displays.
“Oh, hush. You should be used to PDA by now after what you’ve been doing with your own Greek billionaire.”
Mandy said promptly, “I’m not married to a Greek billionaire, so you can let go of me anytime.” The ever practical sort, Mandy also saw no valid reason why affectionate displays should be made in public.
Grinning, Mairi hugged her friends more tightly. “Yay me!”
Mandy and Velvet groaned. “We’ve created a monster.”
This made Mairi laugh out loud, the sound drawing the attention of her husband who stood a few feet away, surrounded by his own circle of acquaintances. She sensed the very moment Damen looked at her, and when their gazes met, a devastatingly sexy smile curved on his lips.
Come here.
Mairi let go of her friends. “Excuse me. My Greek billionaire husband is calling me.”
Mandy smacked her forehead. “This is your fault, Velvet. Now she’s going to call Damen that forever.”
Mairi didn’t mind her friend’s words. She was mentally floating as she made her way to Damen. Yay me, yay me, yay me!
Damen captured her by the waist as he pulled her to his side. “I love you.”
Mairi melted. “I love you more, my Greek billionaire husband.”
Behind her, Velvet and Mandy groaned loudly, having heard perfectly what Mairi had said with such gushing happiness.
Mykolas’ lips twitched. “I believe I have to rescue my wife and her friend.” Velvet and Mandy were making slow slashing motions against their necks.
When Mykolas left the group, Damen motioned for Mairi to face him, and that was when she saw the unfamiliar-looking man standing next to her husband. “Mairi, I’d like you to meet Acheron. He is Yehor Kokinos’ nephew and the true heir of the family.”
The introduction had Mairi blinking, but she automatically offered her hand and blushed when instead of shaking it, the man bent down and kissed her fingers.
Damen swiftly snatched his wife’s hand away from the other man’s grasp. “Dammit, Acheron. I don’t want to be kicking your ass on the first day we meet.”
Acheron didn’t appear worried at all by the threat. There was something uncivilized and lethal about him, Mairi thought curiously. He was a Greek billionaire like the rest of the men around him were, but he was also a man apart – a man who hadn’t grown up with a silver spoon in his mouth.
“You should thank your lucky stars that I had not met your lovely wife first. If I had…” Acheron’s voice trailed off, allowing his seductive smile to finish the rest of his sentence.
Despite knowing that the other man was only saying such things because he wanted to irritate Damen, Mairi blushed at the look Acheron gave her.
“Leventis is fortunate,” Ioniko agreed. “I had always thought he was unbelievably lucky to have talked to Mairi first when both of us went to GAYL.”
For some reason, the memory of meeting Ioniko the first time made her blush, too. Or maybe it was because of the naked admiration in the Greek billionaire’s eyes as he, too, smiled at her.
“I think the same,” Stavros murmured in that quiet, calm way of his. “It’s Leventis’ infinite luck that I had not found Mairi’s whereabouts—”
“Lucky or not, none of that matters now,” Damen snapped, irritated at the way the other men dared to flirt with his wife. Pulling Mairi towards him possessively, he stated in clear concise terms, “Mairi is mine.” After a beat, he added generously, “But you are all welcome to form a club of course.”
Mairi blinked in confusion. “A club?”
He grinned down at her before lifting his wine glass in the air. “I propose a toast, gentlemen.” When the other men had lifted their glasses, Damen said, “To the men who were and might have been dumped by Mairi.”
The men laughed even as Mairi wailed in embarrassment. “Damen!”
The party ended at a riotous note, with most of the guests blissfully tipsy as they trooped out of Damen’s house at five in the morning.
When Damen caught sight of Mairi yawning for the second time in five minutes, he muttered, “That’s it.” Without a word of warning, he swung her up in his arms and took the stairs.
“But there are still guests,” Mairi protested.
“The babysitter can handle it.”
A drowsy giggle escaped her even as she snuggled against the inviting warmth of Damen’s chest. “Stop calling Drake that.”
“It’s what his future job will be if he doesn’t leave.”
Inside their bedroom, Damen nimbly took off her clothes and tucked her under the covers before he shrugged out of his. When he joined her in bed, Mairi automatically rolled herself towards him.
Damen kissed his wife, the urge to do so becoming only stronger since Mairi had “caught” him. When he lifted his head, he waited for Mairi’s gaze to meet his before whispering, “I love you, sweetheart.”
She swallowed. “I love you, too…”
The hint of despair in her eyes made him ask quietly, “What’s troubling you?”
Mairi took a deep breath, knowing there was no better time to talk about what had hurt her the most. They had been blessed with another chance to start fresh, and this time she wanted no secrets between them, not even if the truth hurt.
She whispered, “Alina?”
Damen frowned. “What about her?”
“Will you…will you ever talk to her again?”
His eyes narrowed, and what he saw on Mairi’s face made him curse silently. “You knew I met with her yesterday, didn’t you?” He didn’t give her time to answer, guilt for once again unintentionally causing Mairi pain making him press his lips to her forehead in a remorseful kiss. “I’m so damn sorry if it made you doubt me, sweetheart, but I swear it was that one time—”