Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 68810 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 344(@200wpm)___ 275(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68810 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 344(@200wpm)___ 275(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
His eyes strayed back to Pollyanna.
So damn young, so damn strong and brave.
He wanted her success more than anything in this world.
Because now he knew what love meant.
If she told him she needed him now, he would drop everything for her. But he also knew she would never ask that because she loved, and her love was true, had been so from the beginning.
Slowly, he reached for her hair, and his hand shook as he let himself feel the silky soft strands.
One last time, psaraki.
One last time.
Tears burned in his eyes, but he didn’t let them fall because he, too, needed to be strong like her.
I love you, psaraki.
I love you, Pollyanna.
Forever.
And then he left without looking back.
Because that was how it was supposed to be.
The twins were waiting for him outside the hospital room, and they started to cry the moment they saw his face.
“Is something wrong with Mama?” Dio asked tightly.
He shook his head, only drawing the twins to him, and when he took his seat, he placed one on each thigh. Never mind if they thought they were too old. They were his babies, and they would forever be his babies.
“Your Mama is fine, just resting, and you can go to her room in a bit.”
“You promise?” Ella whispered.
He kissed his daughter’s hair. “Have I ever lied to you?”
She slowly shook her head.
Inhaling slowly, he said, “I know you know that Mama and I are not okay.” He swallowed. “I hurt your Mama very much, and because of it, she became lonely, and she became...sick. That’s why I need to do something special to make her smile again.” He looked at the twins one at a time. “You understand that, don’t you? When you want to make someone you love smile, you’ll do anything, right?”
The twins nodded.
“Well, what I need to do...it will mean I can’t be with you two all the time.” He saw Dio’s lip start to quiver, and he knew that his intelligent son had been able to read between the lines.
“I’m sorry, son.” He wanted to weep, but he knew he couldn’t because he had to be strong for them. “But I hope you know that just because I’m not with you all the time, it doesn’t mean I love you any less.” His voice was fierce. “You guys are too smart to think that. Right?”
Dio nodded, and his voice was fierce as he said, “Too smart to think that, Papa.” But his voice choked in the end, and Kyr knew it was taking everything his son had not to cry.
He wiped their tears one by one and kissed them on the heads.
Dio suddenly threw his arms around Kyr’s neck. “I love you, Papa.”
He almost crushed his son in his embrace, and his voice was hoarse as he answered, “I love you, too, son.”
Dio started to cry. “I promise, Papa. I’ll take care of Mama for you. I’ll make her smile again, and then you can come back.”
A WEEK AFTER BEING discharged, Pollyanna and her children were on their way to the dinner being held in her honor as the latest Entrepreneur of the Year awardee. Although her first instinct had been to refuse, she had relented in the end when the organizers, representatives of a well-known broadsheet, told Pollyanna that the event would be public and all proceeds to go to charity.
According to the organizers, the public had seen her as a modern-day Cinderella people could aspire to be, with the way she had insisted on working on her own despite having married her own Prince Charming.
Thinking about it made Pollyanna wonder absently what would happen once the world found out the truth, and that she and Kyr were—-
No.
She wasn’t going to think about that now.
She was just going to live her life one day at a time.
In front of her, the twins were busy texting, and based on the ringtone playing out every few moments, she knew that they were speaking with...Kyr.
As always, the thought of her husband made her chest tighten. She knew he had been there the day she had collapsed and taken to the hospital. According to the twins, he had been there the entire night. But when she had finally regained consciousness, he had only made his presence felt with messages relayed by his secretary as well as sending her flowers every day.
And food, she thought, and her heart gave a bittersweet lurch. Kyrillos Gazis, the quintessential alpha who didn’t know his way around the kitchen, had been sending her home-cooked food since she had been discharged. And if not for the nanny accidentally letting slip that she had seen the Greek billionaire personally preparing everything in his yacht’s kitchen, Pollyanna would not have believed it at all.
In front of her, the twins started snickering, and she had a childish desire to steal their phones and take a look at what they were talking to their father about.