Page 42 of The Reason for His Wife's Return

Granted, Mira had grown up in affluence all her life but her grandparents had never been given to excess and had always encouraged their three granddaughters to save for a rainy day and give back whatever they could to the community. She’d never forgotten how many of her fellow medical students had overwhelming debts, or that her alcoholic father had blown through his trust fund and every bit of allowance he got from his daughters—after his grandfather had washed his hands of him—in a matter of days.

Mira herself had always bought classic, long-lasting pieces for her wardrobe but she’d never been one for blowing her savings on clothes and jewelry like Yana did.

Aristos, on the other hand, seemed to believe that no designer label or jewelry was good enough for her.

Beneath the beauty and poise the professional makeup and the designer dress gave her this evening, Mira could see the radiance in her eyes. The last few weeks had done her a wealth of good, physically and emotionally. Whoever had said that happiness made time pass far too fast had been absolutely right. There were barely two months left before the babies were due.

The thought sent a flurry of butterflies through her chest.

Days, almost five weeks, had flown by since she and Aristos had had the showdown, as she liked to refer it in her head. Or rather the moment where she’d been at her most vulnerable.

But her raw honesty had paid off a thousand, no, a million times more than she had ever imagined. Her every need was catered to, her every wish—even the unspoken ones—fulfilled.

Sometimes, in one of those magical moments where they connected, she felt as if Aristos had been waiting for her to ask him to make a commitment to her. Waiting, all these years, for her to come back to him.

Mira didn’t know what to do in those moments—to hold on to them with everything in her and immerse herself in the magic or to let them go as foolish thinking and simply be glad for what she did have.

Her happiness mattered to him and that should be enough. Especially when he showed it in myriad ways.

He’d even arranged the greatest surprise of all for her by flying in her sisters for an entire weekend. It had been the most amazing two days and exactly what she’d needed from the moment she’d locked up their grandparents’ house in California. They’d binge-watched old classics, given the chef that Aristos had appointed just for her a list of dishes to pig out on and generally reminisced about their grandparents. The icing on the cake had been to see Nush so deliriously happy in her marriage to Caio that she practically glowed with it. Yana and she had left with promises to come back for a longer stay as soon as the babies arrived.

Mira had sobbed for an hour after they left, her hormones going haywire with fear, their departure triggering the loneliness and sorrow she never wanted to feel again.

So much so that Leo, Stella and a harried-looking Aristos had spent the entire evening by her side, sitting through old Hindi movies they didn’t even understand—movies that had reminded her of her grandparents and given her a sense of comfort, sending terrified and yet somehow hopeful looks in her direction.

It had made her burst into laughter, her emotions coming the full circle.

And Mira had known then, had understood that despite the fact that she and Aristos had not married for love, her babies would be okay. That she would be okay.

And it was all down to him.

She’d known Aristos at different times in her life, at different milestones in his own. She’d known the feral teenager who did not trust his new family, she had known the daredevil who’d tried his best to make her laugh, she’d known him when he decided that he would study law against Leo’s dictates. She’d known him the night of their engagement when he’d looked at her as if she was the answer to his every prayer. She’d known the smooth businessman who had made her the deal she could not refuse.

But the version of Aristos she had gotten last month... It was impossible to not drown in him. To not weave silly, foolish dreams around his every word, every act, every touch.

Not that Mira ever forgot that it was all for the babies. Aristos might have been afraid that he wouldn’t know how to be a father, but the few he considered important, the few he considered family had all of his loyalty.

Every bit of concern he showed when she complained about her lower back aching, every frown he got when he couldn’t magically make pregnancy easier for her, every smile he bestowed on her when he felt one of the babies kick—they were all for the pregnancy. For the babies.

He was more than she’d ever expected, especially for a man who had always struck her as impossible to pin down. A man who sought one extreme challenge after the other to spice up his life. He was, and had always been, larger than life. And yet, he had taken to the part of being a husband and an expectant father so well. As if it was all he’d needed to ground him.

And he made it impossible not to wish that it was for her too. That she wasn’t just the Carides wife or the mother of his unborn children.

That he would see her as just Mira and still want her.

That he would see her and maybe...even love her. Just a little.

Because she was falling in love with him, all over again.

Mira was jostled out of her wishful reverie when a palm landed on her lower back, exactly where it had begun to ache almost every day. It seemed to have become instinctual to Aristos to knead that muscle as soon as he touched her, to try to give her relief immediately.

“You look beautiful.” He whispered the words at the juncture where her neck met her shoulders. Where she was the most sensitive. Arousal flooded her body and Mira gasped in a much-needed breath.

As always, he stood behind her, one arm gently draped around her waist. Long fingers spread out over her belly. His body was a solid, hard presence at her back. Mira didn’t even know when it had become a thing between them. He would come stand behind her and she would immediately lean herself against him, let go of some of her weight.

It was trust. It was comfort. But it was also much more—one of those thousand little rituals couples engaged in. That Aristos and she were building their own repertoire of those little things made joy beat at her. That they were just theirs.

Arms wrapped around her gently, he did a little thing with his hips that made Mira’s eyes roll back in her head when he was inside her. The thick length of him against her buttocks made her wish he was inside her now, driving them to the edge. “Christos, how do you turn me on so easily,yineka mou?”

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