‘It’s none of my business who he marries.’ He met her gaze. Held it with the intensity of his own. And prayed that she could read the truth in his next words. ‘I’m not doing the control thing with other people any more. I was a fool to ever think I could.’
The room was very quiet and Emma’s heart turned over as she stared into the brooding contemplation of his grey eyes. ‘Not a fool, Zak,’ she said softly. ‘Never that. You only wanted to protect him, the way you’d been protecting him all your life. But Nat’s an adult now and he has to do it all on his own. You have to let him go.’
A terrible pain tore through his heart as he thought of another scenario—one which was just as likely. ‘And what about you, Emma?’ he questioned unsteadily. ‘Am I going to have to let you go, as well? Has my controlling nature and my instinct to push you away succeeded? Am I too late?’
She shook her head, her throat too thick with emotion to speak—and maybe he realised that because he crossed the room to stand before her, but didn’t pull her into his arms with his usual wild passion. Instead, he framed her face with his hands—more tenderly than he’d ever touched her before.
‘Am I?’ he repeated, because she needed to be sure about this. And he needed to show her that he was capable of humility, as well as love. ‘Am I too late?’
‘No, Zak,’ she whispered. ‘You’re just in time—and I’ll stay with you for ever. That’s if you want me to.’
‘And what else would I want?’ he questioned simply. ‘When I love you so much?’
‘Oh, Zak.’
He swallowed down the stupid lump which had risen in his throat. ‘Is that the only response I get to the declaration of my life?’
Biting back her tears, she nodded, still too overcome to speak. And besides, she didn’t want to tell him that she loved him merely as a sort of tit-for-tat thing, because surely he knew by now that she loved him with all her heart? But perhaps she ought to tell him anyway …
‘Zak,’ she whispered.
‘Shh.’ His smile was soft but his lips were hard as they claimed hers in a kiss.
Zak realised that the most important moments in his life had all been about Emma—but none was quite as profound as that first kiss they shared after he’d told her that he loved her.
EPILOGUE
THEY were married in the wedding room at the Pembroke, because it seemed crazy not to—although to Emma the idea felt a little spooky at first.
‘Why spooky?’ Zak had questioned curiously, his fingers stroking idly through her long hair.
‘Oh, because it’s almost as if, in my subconscious, I was designing it for me.’ She glanced over at the statue of the Greek goddess, Aphrodite—which the trade press had made so much fuss about—and she smiled. Maybe she had.
In fact, she was exactly the four-hundredth bride to marry there—because she’d wanted to enjoy the two of them just being together for a while, and because the Pembroke was currently the place for couples to exchange their vows. The waiting list was over a year long and Zak’s competitors were eyeing him with ill-concealed envy. There had been a big spread in one of the financial magazines all about the Greek tycoon with the ‘Midas touch.’ But he told anyone who’d listen that it was his fiancée’s touch which turned the world to gold. His ‘chrisi mou.’ His golden one.
It was a big, noisy Greek wedding and it seemed to symbolise the warmth of a family life which neither of them had ever had. Nat was there with Chara, his fiancée. A very different Nat from the one Emma had left behind in London. When he’d discovered that she and Zak were in love, he had squared up to his big brother—threatening to pulverise him if he ever harmed one hair of Emma’s golden head, or made her cry.
And Zak had let him. He had stood there and taken it. It had been sweet and rather primitive to watch, thought Emma. Like two mighty beasts of the jungle each marking out their own territory.
Leda came too, with Scott, her face wreathed with smiles—although she did murmur, ‘I can’t believe it!’ as she leaned forward to give Emma a congratulatory kiss.
Zak and Emma honeymooned on his beautiful island in the Myrtoan Sea, just off the southernmost end of the Peloponnese. It was the island which the Constantinides family had once owned—and then lost—until Zak had bought it back again. He gifted it to Emma on the morning of their wedding and she looked at him with shining eyes and some bemusement.
‘But why? Why are you giving me this?’
‘Because I want you to own a part of my country,’ he replied simply. ‘And therefore, a part of me.’
What woman wouldn’t thrill to such a declaration? thought Emma delightedly as she wound her arms around his neck.
It was later that same year, during Nat’s own wedding to Chara, that Emma discovered she was pregnant—but not wanting to detract from the newly-weds’ excitement, she waited until they were back in England before she told Zak the news. In fact, she waited until she’d done two tests and the doctor had told her that she was in the best of health. And still she felt as if she had to keep pinching herself—as if she couldn’t quite believe how lucky she was.
The Garden room at the Granchester had just been awarded another Michelin star and Zak and Emma were going there for a celebratory lunch being hosted by Xenon—to the place where their love affair had started.
Outside the main entrance, she paused for a moment and laid her fingers on his arm.
‘Zak?’
He turned to look down at her, his eyes tender—wondering if this much contentment could possibly be good for a man. ‘Mmm?’