“Adopt?”
“Yes, adopt.” Andreas met his father’s gaze, his own stony green. “Our children will know only acceptance, however they come to be part of our family.”
“I accepted you. You never accepted your Greek family.”
“My mother was Greek. I accepted her. She gave me life, but more importantly, she fought and worked so hard to give me a life worth having. She never considered my birth an inconvenience. She did not need me to be a success, or groomed, to approve of and love me.”
Oh, Andreas was having all sorts of insights and breakthroughs. Kayla blinked back tears of joy as she realized the man she loved was breaking the fetters of painful bonds that had held him for years.
“That is not how I saw it!”
“So, why offer her money to get rid of me?” Andreas almost sounded like he didn’t care about the answer.
Kayla knew better.
Mr. Georgas harrumphed. “I was married. You’re old enough to understand the world is not roses and rainbows.”
“I’m old enough to understand that some men are weak and some women are strong. You guess which category you belong in.”
Oh, harsh! Kayla brought her hand over her mouth.
Mr. Georgas turned red, opened his mouth, no doubt to blast Andreas, but Kayla wasn’t going to let that happen.
“This conversation is devolving fast.” Kayla forced herself to speak, coming from around the ficus tree. She looked to Mr. Georgas. “Do you want to be allowed into Andreas’s life?”
The older Greek man made a visible effort to collect himself. “I do.”
“Even if that means accepting his marriage to a woman you don’t consider good enough for him?” Kayla didn’t care if the man approved of her, especially knowing how much that didn’t matter to the man she had married.
“Yes,” Mr. Georgas said, no waffling in his tone or manner.
“You are more than good enough for me, pethi mou, you are the best for me!” Andreas was still glaring at his father with too much venom.
Kayla smiled up at him, reaching out to brush a finger along his jawline. “It makes me really happy you think so, but Mr. Georgas is right about some things. I’m never going to be a social butterfly. This wedding and reception have been really overwhelming for me.”
Andreas took both her hands in his, staring down at her like she was the only person in the room. “I’m sorry. I should have realized. He shouldn’t have had to point it out to me.”
“That is all you got from what I said?” his father asked with disgust.
“That is all that matters,” Andreas said. “She’s mine. And I take care of what’s mine.”
“You’re so possessive.” Kayla couldn’t help the smile she gave her husband. “I like it.”
“You two are ridiculous.”
Kayla met Mr. Georgas’s eyes while moving to stand in the circle of Andreas’s arms. “We are happy. I think if you’d just stop sniping at him, you’d find some happiness in your relationship with your son too.”
“How dare you speak to me that way?”
“Because I’m the one person who has full access. I’m the one person Andreas will change his mind, his plans and his intentions to make happy. Do you really think it’s in your best interests to keep putting me down? He’s not going to divorce me and marry some woman you find more suitable.”
“You’re awfully confident for a woman he broke up with once already,” the Greek man blustered.
“That was before.”
“Before what?”
“Before he realized he loved me.”
Andreas sucked in a breath, his hold on her tightening with near-painful intensity. “You believe I love you?”
She smiled up at him, really at peace for the first time that day so that her newfound joy made her near incandescent with it. “I know you do.”
“He’s never said the words?” Mr. Georgas asked, subdued instead of snarky.
So, Kayla didn’t take offense. “He doesn’t need to. Everything he does is about keeping me in his life.”
“And you believe that means he loves you?”
“I know it does.” Kayla sighed. “Look, I get that you and Andreas don’t have a great relationship, but what you need to understand is that won’t change if you keep up this bullish attitude. For my sake, he invited you to our wedding. Don’t pour your own guilt and self-recrimination all over that like fertilizer. Nothing good is going to grow from it, I promise.”
“You are a very blunt woman.”
Kayla shrugged. Socially inept. Blunt. Lost in her own world. She could be all those things, but they didn’t bother Andreas. He was the one who really mattered. And she’d discovered what others might consider her shortcomings didn’t seem to bother her sister in the slightest either. What more did Kayla need?
Not this man’s approval. But he needed hers if he wanted to be a grandfather someday. “We are going to adopt. That is a given. One day, we may have biological children, as well.” Sooner than later if she didn’t get on some birth control, but she wasn’t going to mention that. “What you need to decide is if you can accept me, our children—all of them—or not?”
“And if I don’t, Andreas will finally cut me off completely. That is what you are saying.”
“Not Kayla, me.” Andreas leaned down and kissed the top of Kayla’s fancy updo. “She’s the only reason I’m giving you any kind of chance now. What you do with that chance is up to you.”
“Family is important.”
“When family isn’t toxic, I would agree.” Oh, Andreas was not giving an inch.
Mr. Georgas finally seemed to realize that. “You are my son, though you refuse to carry my name.” His lips twisted in frustration, but he went on. “I will congratulate you on your marriage as I should have done to begin with. Kayla is right, my own guilt and old pains were at the root of my criticisms.”
It was clear the admission cost the older man.
Andreas inclined his head. “We accept your congratulations, but be aware, there will be no second chances when it comes to any of our children.”
“I believe you.” Mr. Georgas let out a long breath. “You’ve done well for yourself, Andreas.”
“Without the Georgas name or money to back me.”
Kayla elbowed Andreas, but he acted like he didn’t feel it.
“I know you don’t believe it, but I love Hera and always have done. My time with your mother was an aberration and I took out my own guilt on her, as well. We knew Hera couldn’t have children. Accepting you, or even supporting her having you, seemed like a worse betrayal to my wife than the affair. She’d had three miscarriages. Hera was lost in a sea of misery when I turned to Melia for comfort.”
“My mother was a good woman.”
“Yes, she was. She was a better person than me at the time. Do you know she never asked me to leave Hera? Even when Melia realized she was pregnant, she did not want to break up my marriage. I believe she loved me, but she knew I did not love her.”
“She sounds like an amazing and, yes, a very strong woman,” Kayla said.
“She was,” both father and son said together.
Kayla smiled. “So, you’re sorry you asked Melia to get rid of the baby, aren’t you?”
“I am.” Mr. Georgas’s eyes glistened, his face showing so much pain. “If I could take the words back and never have spoken them, I would.”
“Because you want an heir,” Andreas said, anger absent from his voice, but no softness there either.
“Because you are my son and I love you.” Mr. Georgas let out a deep breath.
“It sounds to me like you had the genuine love of two very special women in your life,” Kayla pointed out. “Hera clearly forgave you for the affair.”
“She did. She is and, yes, Melia was, as well.”
“Why try so hard to erase her from my life, then?” Andreas demanded.
“Because I was still feeling guilty. If we could forget your
mother, maybe I could forget what I had done to both her and Hera.”
“You’re being very honest.” Andreas didn’t sound impressed by that, just like he was stating a fact.
“It’s time. I want my son’s regard. Your wife is very smart and she’s right I have to stop sniping at you. Even I can see that.”
“I’ll never be a Georgas.”
“Maybe not on paper, but you will always be a Georgas to me.” With that, Andreas’s father patted him on the shoulder and walked away.
Andreas turned Kayla to face him, his expression bemused. “I didn’t expect that.”
“I did.”
“Oh, really?”
“It’s all a matter of choices, Andreas. He chose to set his pride aside to keep you in his life.”
Andreas made a dismissive gesture. “I realized when we were talking that if he walked away, it wouldn’t matter. I have nothing to prove to him. I have nothing to prove to anyone. I am who I am.”
“You are.” She felt the tears prickling again. “You are an amazing man, who I love very much.”
He brushed the teardrop that had formed on her eyelashes away with a gentle swipe. “My sweet Kay-love. Have I told you how beautiful you look?”
“Only about five times, including one at that altar.” Still, hearing it filled her with pleasure.
“My father doesn’t understand your value.”
“But you do?” she teased.
“You know I do.”
She nodded, so many things making sense. “The reason you didn’t understand that KJ Software was my home was because I have been your home for six years.”
“As long as you were in my life, I was okay.” He leaned down and kissed her, his lips demanding and tender at the same time. He lifted his mouth from hers and spoke against her lips. “I assumed it was the same for you.”
“It was, and then you broke up with me.”
He straightened, but did not release her. “You didn’t understand why I did it.”
“I don’t think you understood why you did it.”
“There was only one way I could see to keep you close, connected to me.” He’d said that before, but she knew now it wasn’t the whole story.
She reached up and kissed him, then said, “You were afraid of what you felt for me, but you didn’t want to let me go.”
“I had a plan, and marriage wasn’t part of it six years ago.”
“Neither was falling in love.”