Then he rotated, sliding her off his lap and onto the seat next to him. He got to the floor on one knee and took her hand in his.
“I love you, my beautiful Isabella. I adore you. I can’t imagine my life without you. Will you marry me and make me the happiest man alive?”
He slid the ring that she’d given him back on her finger. Then he leaned down and kissed her knuckle.
“This was never another woman’s ring, pethi mou. I never gave Alannis a ring, and the one I intended for her was replaced by this one. I chose it for you. I never asked her to marry me. I was yours from the day you walked into my office. You turned my world upside down, and it’s never been set to rights.”
“You didn’t propose?” she croaked around the swell of tears knotting her throat.
He looked back at her solemnly. “I would have never made love to you belonging to another woman. I intended to propose the night of the party. I had the ring. The moment was arranged. But all I could see was you. All I wanted was you. The morning after we made love, I went to see Alannis. I told her that I was going to marry you.”
Isabella’s face fell. Theron smiled and touched her cheek. “How tenderhearted you are, agape mou. Alannis isn’t in love with me and is in fact, quite anxious for me to find you and put this ring back on your finger.”
“She’s not? You’re not? In love with her, I mean?”
She closed her eyes and shook her head, sure she had to be dreaming.
“I’m in love with you,” he said softly. “Only you.”
“But I heard what you told Chrysander, about you wanting what he and Marley had, a family, a wife. I don’t fit into that anywhere,” she said bitterly.
“What I want is you,” he said simply. “Everything that I ever wanted, what I was so restless for and hoping to find was staring me in the face. I think I knew it that first day you came into my office. I saw that tattoo and it drove me crazy. I wanted to strip every piece of your clothing off so I could see more of it. But I had already started things rolling with Alannis. I fought my attraction to you because I was supposed to be acting as your guardian, not trying to think of ways to get you out of your clothing.”
She raised a shaking hand to his face and cupped her palm to his cheek. He closed his eyes and leaned into her touch. Then he turned so he could press his lips to her fingers.
“Marry me, Bella.”
“You want to marry me even if I don’t want children right away?” she challenged.
“I have a feeling you’ll keep me far too busy to think of children anytime soon,” he said with an amused smile. He leaned in and kissed her again, his lips melting warm and sweet over hers. “We have all the time in the world, my precious love. Just promise me that we’ll have it together.”
She was sure that her smile lit up the entire universe as she stared back at him in awe.
“I love you, too,” she whispered. “So much.”
He sobered for a moment as he cupped her face lovingly. His expression serious, he said in a quiet voice, “You could already be pregnant. Will it upset you very much if you are?”
She grinned, her heart lightening with every breath. “I’m not pregnant.”
“Oh, then you’ve already…it’s that time of the…”
“No,” she said with a slight laugh. “I’m on birth control.”
His brows came together in confusion and then he glared at her, but there was no heat in his scowl. “You little minx.”
“Are you angry that I didn’t tell you when you informed me before that we were to be married?” she asked a little nervously.
“If you can forgive my dimwitted actions and the fact that I didn’t give you the most romantic proposal before, then I can forgive you for effectively capturing me, hook, line and sinker.”
“Yes,” she said as she threw her arms around him.
He laughed. “Yes, what, pethi mou?”
“Yes, I’ll marry you. I love you so much.”
He stood and swept her into his arms. She blinked in surprise when she realized that she’d completely missed their takeoff.
“Now, if that’s settled, why don’t you and I go join the mile high club,” he said wickedly.
She smiled as he carried her into the small bedroom in the back of the plane, her heart overflowing with sweet, unending joy.
And as they came together in body and soul, they whispered their love again and again.
Epilogue
T he bride—and the groom—showed up to their wedding barefooted. Theron stood on the beach of Anetakis Island waiting next to the priest as Chrysander escorted Isabella to him.
She was dressed in a bikini top, and a floral sarong floated delicately down her legs. Her toenails—which Theron had painted himself in a night full of decadence—shone a bright pink. An ankle bracelet caught the sun and shimmered above her foot, and Theron knew that it was his name engraved in the small silver band.
His gaze traveled upward to the diamond teardrop belly ring that he too had purchased and delighted in putting on her. But what took his breath away was her radiant smile. Just for him.
She was so beautiful she made his chest ache.
Piers stood to Theron’s left, having flown in again for the wedding. Alannis and Sophia both were standing on the bride’s side next to Marley.
There was a festive air, and everyone wore broad smiles. He could even detect the glimmer of tears in the women’s eyes.
And then he reached out and took Isabella’s hand, pulling her to him. It didn’t matter that the vows weren’t spoken, or that the priest cleared his throat cautiously. He simply had to kiss her.
Their lips met in a heated rush, soft against hard, sweet against salt. When he finally pulled away to allow the priest to officiate, tears shone in Isabella’s eyes.
There was an odd catch in Theron’s throat as he recited his vows. The words carried on the breeze, firm and clear.
Finally they were pronounced man and wife, and she became his.
There was much dancing on the beach, and later they moved to the gardens. Sophia and Alannis took great delight in teaching both Marley and Isabella traditional Greek dances while the men looked on, their smiles indulgent.
Later the helicopter came and whisked Theron and Isabella away to the bridal suite he’d arranged, a cottage on a cliff overlooking the sea.
He carried her to bed, where she whispered she had one last wedding gift for him.
Intrigued, he reared back as she untied the sarong and pulled it from underneath her.
“Do you remember telling me I should get another tattoo?” she asked with a mischievous glint.
His brow furrowed. “You didn’t. Bella, tell me you didn’t go to some tattoo parlor alone and undergo pain to get another tattoo.”
“I didn’t go alone. Marley went with me.”
“And does Chrysander know this?” Theron asked incredulously.
Isabella laughed. “He might have had a thing or two to say when he barged in after us.”
Theron muttered in Greek as he shook his head.
She hooked her thumbs in her bikini bottom and slowly, sensuously worked it down. There just above the juncture of her legs, right in the center, a straight line down from her belly ring, was an angel holding a pitchfork.
Theron couldn’t contain his chuckle. Then he leaned down and brushed his lips across the design. “My own little demon angel,” he said as he worked downward with his mouth.