At cruising altitude, Axios swung me into his arms and strolled to the bed. I curled my arms around his neck and looked into molten eyes blazing with love.

‘I love you, Calypso,’ he said again, as if saying the words filled him with as much happiness as it filled my heart.

‘Se agapo, Axios.

EPILOGUE

A year later

‘WHAT ARE YOU DOING?’

‘Starting on your payback,’ Axios drawled, striding across the master bedroom in Agistros to lay me down on the king-sized bed before trailing his lips over my shoulder to the sensitive area beneath my earlobe.

‘What?’ I gasped, delightful shivers running through me at the wickedness he evoked.

‘You owe me a full pregnancy experience. I can’t think of a better time to start than now. I want to experience it all—from morning sickness to the moment our baby enters the world.’

I made a face. ‘Morning sickness isn’t very sexy.’

He dropped a kiss on the corner of my mouth. ‘Perhaps not. But I made you a promise to be here for the good as well as the bad, eros mou. So I will be on hand to hold your hair when you throw up. To massage your feet when the weight of our child tires you. And everything you need in between. If that’s what you want too?’ he asked, hope brimming in his voice.

I curled my arms around his neck. ‘More than anything in the world.’

The operation to remove what had turned out to be a benign lump in my cervix six months ago had been a resounding success, with every trace of it gone and quarterly scans showing it hadn’t returned.

Today Dr Trudeau had given us the all-clear to try for another baby—a statement Axios seemed determined to capitalise on immediately. And with a doting grandmother to help care for Andreos, in the form of my mother, life couldn’t have been better. Her decision to leave my father hadn’t been easy, but I’d supported her. Yiannis Petras hadn’t resisted for long, busy as he was with frittering away his millions on one bad investment after another.

Ax groaned. ‘Don’t cry. It rips me up when you do.’

I laughed tremulously. ‘Oh, God, then prepare yourself. Because I’m very hormonal during pregnancy.’

‘Hmm, I will have to think of ways to counteract that.’

‘What did you have in mind?’

‘Why, endless seduction, of course. I can think of nothing better than making love to my beautiful wife while she nurtures our baby in her womb.’

More tears flowed. With another groan, he sealed his lips to mine—most likely to distract me. It worked. Within minutes I was naked and gasping, lost in the arms of my true love.

And when, at the height of feeling, he looked deep into my eyes and whispered, ‘I love you, Calypso,’ he went one better and kissed my tears away.

The power of him moving inside me, possibly planting his seed inside me, triggered fresh tears.