The Greek Billionaire's Secret Baby (Contemporary Romance) (18 page)

Where they lived didn’t matter. Home was with him. She reached out her hand and he took it. “It’s no cage if I’m with you,” she said. “No cage at all.”

*****

Epilogue

They wasted no time but flew straight to Las Vegas, Nevada, and found a chapel that didn’t have a wait.

“We’ll have to have another ceremony, a proper family one complete with a Greek Orthodox priest,” Alex told her, “but right now I’m not waiting another minute to make you my legal wife.”

They flew next to New York where they together disposed of Nick’s shares, selling them to Damien Favazza and then reinvesting the money and placing it in trust for when Nick turned twenty-five. Nick’s mother approved.

Afterwards they went to Alex’s native Greece, renting a villa on a private island where they could honeymoon as a family for at least a month.

One month turned to two, and Alex gave Lauren the island as a wedding gift. They called their home
Tanos
, which in Greek meant strength in an unbreakable, rigid yet beautiful way.
Tanos
described their love.

It was there on their island that they were married next to the sea in a small private ceremony attended only by Alex’s mother and father and few close friends. It was in Greece that they conceived their second child and that their son Nick first rolled from his back to his stomach.

They returned to New York in late December, in time for the Christmas holidays. But before they met Maria at her house for dinner, they had an important stop to make. It was bitterly cold, so they left a sleeping Nick in the warmth of the chauffeured limo. His parents held gloved hands as they made the short trek across the frozen ground.

Once at their destination, Lauren leaned down and placed the poinsettias she’d brought on Christopher’s gravesite.  “Thank you,” she said simply. “You’ll be happy to know we’re fine.”

She turned to the strong man beside her. He still hid many of his emotions while in public, but the corner of his cheek twitched and Lauren knew this moment had a powerful impact on him. He loved true, for he was her
vrahas
,
and she his.

She reached for her husband’s hand and they began to slowly walk away. She paused and turned one last time to look at the protruding gray stone.

“Do you think he knows it’s a girl?” she asked. She and Alex were having a girl, the first Pappas girl in three generations. Maria was already stocking up on pink and declaring that they really needed to move out of the hotel and into a house. Finding somewhere to live was their New Year’s resolution.

Alex paused a minute as if reading the answer on the brisk winter wind. “I think Christopher knows,” he said simply. “And if I know my brother, I’d say he pulled some strings upstairs to make it that way.”

Lauren smiled. “You’re right. He would.”

And then together they walked off, hand and hand, united for the rest of their days.