Epilogue
Mytilene, Lesbos, Greece
“There they are!” Ari said as they moved through the airport arrivals gate toward the small group waiting. He reached for Grace’s hand and squeezed it. It had been a grueling journey from the States to Greece, but the swell of pride that he was arriving here with her as his fiancée gave him all the energy he needed. He leaned in until his lips touched her hair then breathed her scent of shampoo and sunshine and…Grace. “Know how much I love you?” he whispered.
She lifted her chin and grinned. “Enough to close the Palace for a week and take me to a Greek Island to celebrate our engagement?”
He tilted her chin so their lips were closer. “So much more.” As he kissed her long and slow, they were interrupted by whoops of delight from behind the barrier.
Pulling Grace close, he moved over to the small group, and they were engulfed in a welcome.
“Hey, little bro!” Nick hugged him as Grace kissed his sister Yasmin then her fiancé, Lane. “Where are Mom and Dad?” Ari asked when they’d all said their hellos. He looked around. “And Erin’s not here, either.”
“When I called them this morning, Dad said they wouldn’t be able to make the trip to the airport,” Yasmin said as they walked toward the baggage carousel. “Maybe it’s because of the late night we had.” She turned to Grace and Ari and grinned. “Lane and I have decided to get married here next summer, so all the aunties were wanting their say on where and when.”
“Oh, that’s fantastic!” Grace cried as she hugged Yasmin again.
“Of course, we thought long and hard about the Palace, but you know me, happy to do things on a whim.” Yasmin linked her arm with Lane’s.
“And Erin?” Ari asked again.
Nick’s mouth tilted in a broad grin. “Let’s just say it’s morning, and she’s not feeling so well.”
“Oh wow, Nick! Congratulations!” Ari pulled his brother into a tight hug. In only a few months he’d found the love of his life, a whole new direction for his career, and now he’d have the honor of being an uncle. “You’ve told Mom and Dad?” he asked, his hand still on his brother’s shoulder.
“Yeah.” Nick grinned. “Mom cried for the rest of the night, and Dad spent a few hundred euros buying ouzo for everyone at the taverna.”
“So, you’re taking us back to the village?” Grace asked. “I wanted to book a hotel, but your mom insisted we stay with relatives.”
“That’s the strange thing,” Yasmin said as she took one of Grace’s bags. “I just had a text from Dad, and he’s asked us to take you straight to the taverna on the hill behind the village.”
“But it’s only ten a.m.,” Ari said. “You know I’m happy to eat souvlaki any day of the week, but that’s pretty early.”
When they’d loaded the car, they made their way into the brilliant Mediterranean sunshine, and after a long and winding drive past silver olive trees and tiny villages, they pulled up in a taverna parking lot.
“Oh my goodness,” Grace breathed as she looked out over the ocean. “When was the last time you were here?”
“I think I was about six,” Ari said as they walked hand in hand to the cliff’s edge. “The thing I remember most is helping my papou dig his vegetable garden, and the sounds of the doves as I drifted off to sleep for my afternoon siesta.”
Grace tilted her chin and looked up into his face. “You never came here again?”
He frowned and took a deep breath of the salty, earthy air. “The rest of my family did, when I was a teenager, but I guess I was too tied up in my own head to think any of this was important.”
“And now?” she asked, a broad smile lighting her face.
He nodded. “Now it feels like anywhere I am with you will be as magic and special as this.” He bent his head and kissed her again, willing this moment to go on forever.
“Are you coming?” Yasmin called from the top of a rise alongside the taverna. “You’re not going to believe this.”
They made their way to the brow of a small hill and, when they joined the others, looked down into an amphitheater below.
Standing under an archway of flowers, Mano and Pia were beaming up at them.
“What in the name of—” Nick turned to look at the others.
Erin was walking toward them. “Sorry, Nick. Your mom asked me to help arrange this, and I could hardly say no.”
Nick took his wife by the hand. “Trust the old man to upstage every wedding any of us have ever been involved in.”
As Nick and Erin made their way hand in hand to where Mano and Pia were standing, a priest in his golden robes joined the small group below.
“Renewing their vows?” Yasmin breathed. “And they always said I was the radical one! I’m not sure where they found a Greek priest to agree to that, but we’d better get down there before he changes his mind.”
When it was just the two of them standing on the lip of the amphitheater, Ari turned to Grace and grinned. “This is all down to you, Grace Bennett.”
She turned to face him, her blond hair blown back by the warm morning breeze, her dusky-pink lips parted in a smile. “How on Earth is it all down to me?” she asked, laughing. “I’ve never even been here before.”
Ari cupped her face in his hands. “Through the toughest of times, you’ve been there for my family. The only reason my dad could leave to support my mother was because he trusted you to take care of things. And then when both Yasmin and Nick took over, it was you who kept things consistent and helped everyone navigate their own challenges.”
Grace smiled up at him, her soft skin glowing in the sunlight.
“And now we get to support my parents renewing their vows under a beautiful Greek sky, a place where their dreams first began, and it couldn’t be more perfect.”
Grace linked her fingers through his and reached up on tiptoe to place the most sensual kiss on his lips. “You know how you make me feel, Ari Katsalos? Standing on this sacred place with people that you love?”
He dipped his head so their mouths were inches apart.
“Like a princess, in my own Aegean Palace. And the best part is that it isn’t all a dream.” She breathed deep then let it out slowly. “It’s my own personal happily ever after.”
Ari kissed her perfect, smiling mouth. “And let’s go and witness another.”
Did you love this Bliss? Check out more of our fun and flirty titles !
Don’t miss more books by Barbara DeLeo! Sign up for our newsletter .