Wordlessly, he came over to her. His dark eyes glowed as he lowered his head to kiss her cheek. Turning back to the others, he said in English, “This is Letty. My wife.”
An elderly woman got up from the table. Standing on her tiptoes, she squinted, carefully looking Letty over from her blushing face to her pregnant belly. Then she smiled. Reaching up, she patted Letty on the cheek and said something in Greek that she didn’t understand.
“My great-aunt says you look happy now,” Darius translated. “Like a beautiful bride.”
“How sweet... Did she see me before?” Letty asked.
“When I brought you in. She said you looked like death warmed over.”
She stared at him in horror, then narrowed her eyes accusingly. “She never said that.”
He gave a sudden grin. “She says our island has obviously revived you, all our sun and sea air. Plus, clearly—” he quirked a dark eyebrow “—marriage to me.”
The elderly woman said something quickly behind him. He glanced back with an indulgent smile. “Nai, Theia Ioanna.”
“What did she say?”
Darius turned back to Letty. “She said marriage to you seems to agree with me, as well.” Looking down at her, he hesitated. “Our wedding was...”
“Horrible.”
“Not good,” he agreed. His dark eyes caressed her face, and he leaned forward to whisper, “But something tells me our honeymoon will make up for it.”
Letty felt his breath against her hair, the brush of his lips against her earlobe, and electricity pulsed through her at the untold delights promised by a honeymoon in the Greek villa. In that enormous bed.
She tried not to think about that as he introduced her to the other people around the table, aunts and uncles and innumerable cousins. She smiled shyly, wishing she could speak Greek as one Kyrillos family member after another hugged her, their faces alight with welcome and approval.
One of the younger women grabbed her arm, motioning for her to take the best seat at the table. On learning she was hungry, other relatives dished her out a lunch from the tempting dishes on the table. Tangy olives, salad with cucumbers, tomatoes and feta, vine leaves stuffed with rice, grilled meats on skewers, fresh seafood and finally the lightest, flakiest honey pastries imaginable. After sleeping so long, and having no appetite yesterday, Letty was ravenous and gobbled it all up as fast as she could get it.
The women around her exclaimed approvi
ngly in Greek. Darius sat beside her, smiling, his dark eyes glowing beneath the warm Greek sun.
“They like how you eat,” he told her.
She laughed in spite of herself. In this moment, beneath the pink flowers and warm Greek sun, with the blue sea beyond, she felt suddenly, strangely happy. Finally, she pushed her chair away from the table, shaking her head as his relatives offered yet more plates. “No, thank you.” She turned anxiously to Darius. “How do I say that?”
“Óchi, efharisto.”
“Óchi, efharisto,” she repeated to them warmly.
One by one, his family members hugged her, speaking rapidly, patting her belly, then hugging Darius before they hurried into the villa.
“Your family is wonderful.”
“Thank you.” He lifted a dark eyebrow. “By the way, some of them speak English quite well. They’re just hoping if you don’t realize that, you’ll be inspired to learn Greek.”
She laughed, then looked around the terrace at the flowers and sea view. “I’m feeling very inspired, believe me.”
“They already love you. Because you’re my wife.” He put his arm along the back of her chair. “Not only that, you’re the first woman I’ve ever brought home to meet them.”
Her eyes went wide. “Really?”
He grinned, shaking his head. “For years, they read about my scandalous love life and despaired of me ever settling down with a nice girl.” He sipped strong black coffee from a tiny cup. “Great-aunt Ioanna is delirious with joy to see me not only sensibly married, but also expecting a child. And she remembers you.”
Letty’s smile fell. “She does?”
“Yes.”