He was inside in an instant. He gathered her in his arms and buried his face in her hair.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, yineka mou.”
He kissed her temple, then her cheek and then clumsily found her lips. He kissed her with such emotion that it staggered her.
“Please forgive me,” he whispered. “I love you. I want you and our baby to come home.”
She pulled away, holding onto his arms for support. “You believe she’s yours?” She couldn’t keep the bitterness or suspicion from her voice.
“I don’t care who the biological father is. She’s mine. Just as you are mine. We’re a family. I’ll be a good father, I swear it. I love her already, and I want us to be a family, Jewel. Please say you’ll give me another chance. I’ll never give you any reason to leave me again.”
He gathered her hands in his, holding them so tightly that she was sure her fingers were bloodless.
“I love you, Jewel. I was wrong. So wrong. I don’t deserve another chance, but I’m asking—no begging—for one because there’s nothing I want more than for you and our daughter to come home.”
She stood there, mouth wide open, trying to process everything he flung at her. He loved her. He still didn’t think he was the father. He didn’t care if he wasn’t the father. He wanted her and the baby back.
Her throat swelled, and her nose stung as tears gathered in her eyes. How difficult must this have been for him, to come all this way, thinking that the baby wasn’t his, but wanting them anyway, accepting them anyway.
She should be angry, but the results had confirmed his worst fears, and yet it didn’t matter.
He’d humbled himself in front of her, made himself as vulnerable as a man could make himself. She had only to look at the sincerity burning like twin flames in his eyes to know that he spoke the truth.
He loved her.
“You love me?”
She needed to hear it again. Wanted it so desperately.
“I love you so much, yineka mou.”
She shook her head. “What does that mean, anyway?”
“What does what mean?”
“Yineka mou.”
He smiled. “It means my woman.”
“But you called me that the first night we made love.”
He nodded. “You were mine even then. I think I fell in love with you that very night.”
Tears welled in her eyes, and she swallowed back the sob that clawed its way up her throat.
“Oh Piers. I love you so much.”
She threw herself back into his arms, holding onto him as tightly as she could. He held her just as firmly, his hands stroking her hair. Then his palm slid down to cup her belly.
He trembled against her, his big body shaking with emotion. When he spoke, there was a betraying crack that told her how close he was to breaking.
“How is our child?”
She closed her eyes as tears slipped from the corners. Then she reached down to hold on to his wrist as she stepped away.
“She’s yours, Piers. I swear it to you. I haven’t slept with another man. Only you. Please tell me you believe me. I know what the tests said, but they were wrong.”
He stared back at her, hope lighting his eyes. He swallowed and then swallowed again. “I believe you, yineka mou.”
She closed her eyes and hugged him again, burying her face in his strong chest.
“I’m sorry for hurting you, Jewel. I won’t do so again, you have my word.”
“There is something I must tell you,” she said quietly.
He stiffened against her and slowly drew away, his eyes flashing vulnerability.
“You should sit down.”
“Just tell me. There is nothing we can’t work out.”
She smiled. “I hope you won’t be angry at what I’ve done.”
“We can fix it. Whatever it is. Together, yineka mou.”
She took his hands in hers as they sat on the couch. “I came to Miami to find Eric.”
He went completely still. “Why?”
“I thought you needed closure. I thought if you could see him happy and well adjusted that you could carry that memory instead of the one where he screamed and cried as his mother took him away.”
“And did you find him?”
There was anticipation in his voice that told her how eager he was to know of Eric’s well-being.
“Yes, I found him,” she said softly.
Her grip tightened around his hands.
“Joanna abandoned him two years ago.”
“What?”
Anger exploded from him in a volatile wave. He bolted from the couch, his hands clenched into fists at his sides.
“Why didn’t she bring him to me? She knew I loved him. She knew I’d take him in.”
Jewel shook her head sadly. “I don’t know, Piers. He was taken into foster care and has been there for the last two years.”
“This must be rectified. I won’t allow him to remain in foster care. Not like you were, yineka mou. I won’t allow your pain to be his.”
She stood beside him, touching his arm. “How did you know about me?”
Piers looked at her with such pain in his eyes. “Kirk told me when I went to San Francisco looking for you. Theos, Jewel. I am so shamed by the way I treated you.”
“Piers, Eric is here,” she said gently.
His mouth dropped open in shock. “Here?”
She nodded. “He’s asleep in his bedroom. You see, I couldn’t allow him to remain in foster care either. I knew how much he meant to you, and I know how painful my childhood was. I searched for Eric before we split up. It was why I came to your office that day. I was going to tell you that I’d found him and that he was in foster care. I thought we could both fly to Miami to get him.”
He closed his eyes and let out a groan. “Instead, I drove you away, and you came here yourself to take care of him.”
“He’s here, and he very much needs a mother and a father.”
“You would do this? You would take in a child that is not your own??
?? he asked.
“Isn’t that what you plan to do? What you planned to do when you thought our daughter was not your own?”
He gathered her close in his arms, his body trembling against hers. “I love you, yineka mou. So much. Never leave me again. Not even if I deserve it.”
She laughed lightly. “I won’t. Next time, I’ll stay and fight, which is what I should have done this time. You won’t get rid of me so easily again.”
“Good,” he said gruffly. “Now let’s go see our son.”
Epilogue
“S he’s the most beautiful girl in the world,” Piers said proudly as he held up six-week-old Mary Catherine for his brothers to admire.
“You can only say that because Marley is having another boy,” Chrysander pointed out.
“Listen to them,” Bella said in disgust. “Why is it that babies turn men’s minds to mush?”
“I thought that was good sex,” Marley said mischievously.
“Well, that too,” Jewel said with a laugh.
Eric stood with the Anetakis men, looking absurdly proud of his little sister. Jewel’s heart never failed to swell when she saw the love between father and son.
Eric’s adoption had become final just two weeks before Mary Catherine had been born. A week later, Piers had received a frantic phone call from the laboratory that had performed the paternity test. They had, indeed, made a mistake and mixed up his results with someone else’s. Piers had been horrified all over again over the fact that he’d blasted Jewel, but she reminded him that he’d taken her word on faith long before he knew the results were in fact in error. That was enough for her.
Bella had been quick to point out that all they’d needed to do was wait for Mary Catherine to be born because no one in their right mind would ever deny that she was an Anetakis through and through.
She was dark haired and dark eyed, and blessed with the olive complexion of her father. She was for all practical purposes a miniature Piers.
Jewel looked around at her family, all gathered at her home on the cliff