Mairi was dying of anticipation. Oh my God, the wait was killing her!!!
“I just want to tell you that—”
Thaaaaaaaat?
The pilot’s voice suddenly boomed out of the speakers, cutting Damen off as he announced that the jet would be starting its descent in a few minutes.
Mairi wanted to scream. Nooooooooo!
But there was no going back. The moment was gone, the mood broken, and it was time for her to “wake up”. She tried to channel Sleeping Beauty as she did, thinking she should flutter her lashes several times before she could open her eyes.
So f**king hard, Damen thought, not to laugh out loud when Mairi seemed to be aiming for a Guinness record for the most number of times she could flutter her lashes under one minute.
Mairi finally opened her eyes.
And the first thing she saw was Damen’s dazzlingly handsome face, which was too close for comfort and made her cheeks flush red. The second thing she saw was the gleam of wicked amusement in his silver eyes.
She gasped. “You knew, didn’t you?”
“Knew what?” he asked with complete innocence, but the grin tugging at his beautifully shaped lips ruined it.
Her cheeks turned a darker shade of red. Her voice turned into an embarrassed wail. “You knew!”
Damen allowed himself a small chuckle. “Yes, I did know you’ve been awake for quite some time.”
She wailed again, but when she started to cover her face, Damen was there to pull her hands away, and just like that the air between them sizzled, the simple contact of their hands generating enough heat for Damen’s smile to disappear and Mairi to swallow audibly.
Awkward.
Hot.
Awkward.
Hot.
She felt like she was picking off petals from a flower to determine the exact nature of her feelings. Damen’s gaze was on hers, intense but unreadable. It made her feel more self-conscious the same time every inch of her body tingled into life.
Awkward.
Hot.
Awkward.
Hot.
This man was her husband.
Oh dear Lord, Damen Leventis was her husband.
The Greek billionaire she had dreamt of had married her, and she was now Mrs. Leventis.
It was the most bittersweet feeling, but underneath it was the unmistakable sense of joy, quiet and deep. Damen Leventis was the only man she could ever love, and no matter what had happened – no matter what the world thought – marrying him felt right.
She just had to remember that he could never love her – could never trust her – the way someone who was truly in love would.
Damen was so attuned to his new wife’s feelings that he noticed the moment her smile dimmed ever so slightly. His heart clenched at the sight of it. “Mairi?”
Looking at his eyes, Mairi found whatever she had thought of saying dying in her throat. The look of fierce concern on his gorgeous face made her every misgiving fade.
How she loved this man.
Loved him so, so much it was just impossible to explain the magnitude of it.
And so in the end all she could whisper with a tremulous smile, akin to the old days, was, “Hi.”
But the concern on his face did not ease. “Something is troubling you.”
Her smile widened a little at the words. He spoke them as if they were an accusation and that she had no right to feel bad because he was there to go to battle for her.
She said half-honestly, “You’re too close.” When he raised one quizzical brow at her, she muttered, “It’s hard to think when you’re this close.”
Damen only frowned at her.
She frowned back at him. Did the man seriously think it was only his billions that made him hot? If he did, he needed to have his eyes checked.
At her unhappy frown, Damen realized with surprise – and pleasure – that Mairi did mean every word. Satisfaction coursed through him, and mixed with it was more than a good amount of possessiveness. She still wanted him. He could work with that. He would work on that. It would be his topmost priority to make Mairi forget another man’s touch to the point that her mind, body, and heart would only remember Damen.
Mairi’s heart started to race when Damen looked at her with hooded eyes. Oh no, she knew that look. And it spelled trouble.
And her suspicions were proved correct when her husband murmured in a low sexy voice, “You think I’m hot then, ne?”
Oh God, the words had even become a hundred times sexier because Damen didn’t hold back on his Greek accent. The darn man knew how she loved his accent, and he was using it to his advantage!
Thankfully, she was saved from replying by the pilot announcing that the seatbelt sign was on, signaling their descent.
Damen took the seat next to his wife and immediately bent towards Mairi to buckle her belt for her.
“I can do it myself,” she protested weakly, trying not to inhale too much of his wonderfully male scent. God, it was so unfair. Why did Damen always smell so darn good? Damen didn’t answer and when he moved back, she sucked her breath in as the side of his arm brushed against her br**sts, which immediately caused her ni**les to harden under her blouse.
When Damen inhaled sharply, too, Mairi cringed in a mixture of embarrassment and arousal, realizing it meant Damen was aware of her body’s instant reaction to his proximity.
As Damen returned to his seat, she turned away, closing her eyes and biting her lip hard. She had the stupidest urge to bury her head in the sand and plead with him to forget everything and just run away from the problems that haunted them. If he could promise that he would pretend to love her forever, then she was good with that.
The thought made Mairi ashamed of her weakness, and she bit her lip harder, willing herself to get over it. Be strong. Be strong. Be strong. She had to be strong for Damen and for all the people who were silly enough to love her.
The roaring of the jet’s descent cued her to taking deep breaths.
Please God, please make me strong.
“We’re here.”
Damen’s quiet words made her look at him. His face was grim and it struck her then, and she felt even more ashamed at how she had momentarily allowed herself to wallow in her selfish self-pity. It wasn’t only her life that had been turned upside-down.
The last time Damen Leventis had been in his homeland, he had been a Greek billionaire, running his own business empire and flying in his own private jet.
Now, he only had…her.
Damen was bemused when Mairi suddenly held his hand and squeezed it hard. When their eyes met, she gave him a determined smile. “We can do this.”
His chest constricted at his wife’s battle-ready expression. A five-foot former schoolteacher was ready to fight one of the world’s richest women and a power-hungry shipping magnate for him. God, how he loved her. He knew then that he would never deserve her, but he would try his damnedest to at least get close to being worthy of Mairi’s selfless devotion.