“I heard about that. Was it everything you dreamed of?”
Leonidas looked down at her. “I finally had it, this thing I’d been searching for half my life, and I felt nothing. It was just swirls of paint. And I realized that everything I’d ever feared had come true. I’d lost the love of my life, by being too proud and stupid when you tried to save me, by not being brave enough to risk my heart. Now the only thing I fear,” he said quietly, “is that I’ve lost you forever.”
Her lips parted. “What did you say? The love of your life?”
“I love you, Daisy.” Leonidas looked from her to the small, drowsy baby still cuddled against his hard-muscled arm. “You and Livvy are my life.” He took a deep breath. “And I’ll spend the rest of that life trying to be perfect for you, trying to be whatever you need me to be—”
“No,” she cut him off. His handsome face looked stricken. Reaching her hand up to his rough, unshaven cheek, Daisy said, “You don’t need to be perfect, Leo. You don’t need to do anything or change anything. I love you. Just as you are.”
His dark eyes shone with unshed tears. Taking her hand in his own, he lifted it to his lips and kissed it passionately. “Agape mou—”
Sooner or later, we all learn the truth, Daisy thought later. The truth about others, the truth about ourselves. If you could be brave enough to face it. Brave enough to understand, and forgive, and love in spite of everything.
As her husband pulled her against his chest, into the circle of his arms, with their tiny baby tucked tenderly between them, and their dog leaping joyfully around their feet, he lowered his head and kissed her with lips like fire.
And Daisy really knew, at last, what love was.
It wasn’t about rose-colored glasses or knights on white horses. It wasn’t about being perfect. It was about seeing each other, flaws and all. Loving everything, the sunshine and shadow inside every soul. And not being afraid.
As Leo kissed her beneath the orange trees, with their feet in the grass and dirt, it was better than perfect.
It was real.
* * *
Leonidas looked out of the back window of their West Village mansion with dismay. Amid a snowy January in New York City, another foot of snow had fallen the night before.
In their yard, Sunny was leaping back and forth through the blanket of white, chasing a terrified-looking squirrel. Snow clung to their dog’s golden fur, including her ears and eyelashes.
“This is a disaster,” Leonidas groaned to his wife, who was watching from the breakfast nook.
She looked up at him tranquilly, turning a page of her book. “How so?”
“If we let her inside again, Mrs. Berry will kill us.” He sighed. “Sunny will just have to live in the yard from now on. I’ll build her a dog house.”
“You will?”
“I’ll hire someone,” he conceded. “Because Sunny can never come back inside. She’d track snow and dirt all over the floors and make the whole house smell of dog.”
“No, she won’t,” his wife said serenely, turning another page. “You’re going to give her a bath.”
He looked back with alarm. “Me?”
Daisy smiled. “Who better?”
Leonidas’s eyes lingered on her. Even after a full night of lovemaking, his wife looked more desirable than ever, sitting at their breakfast table in a lush silk nightgown and robe, sipping black tea and reading a book, as baby Livvy, now seven months old, batted toys in a baby play gym on the floor.
Leonidas said with mock severity, “Do you really think you can give me orders and I’ll just obey? L
ike a pet?”
She looked up from her book, her pale green eyes limpid and wide, fringed with dark lashes. Tilting her head, she bit her pink lower lip. Her shoulders moved slightly, causing the neckline of her robe to gape, hinting at the cleavage of her full breasts beneath the silk. His heartbeat quickened.
“Fine,” he said. “I’ll give the dog a bath. Not because you asked me. Because I want to.”
Her smile widened, and she turned back to her book, calmly taking another sip of tea. He watched her lips press enticingly against the edge of the china cup, edged with twenty-four-carat gold.
“Maybe we can have a little quality time later,” he suggested.