The Greek Billionaire's Marriage Matchmaker by Holly Rayner

campaign.”
     
    “Thank you, Mom,” Zoey choked out.
     
    “I want you to come back,” Melinda continued. “Whenever you’re ready, please come back and work here. I don’t want to do this without my daughter by my side.”
     
    Before Zoey could reply, the office door opened to reveal Stelios, bearing the most enormous bouquet of lilies Zoey had ever seen.
     
    “I thought I’d find you here,” he said by way of introduction, as the women struggled to get themselves into some semblance of order. “Your receptionist said you might be up here. She’s still fighting off a few of the more insistent reporters. These are for you.” He walked over to a still somewhat stunned Zoey, who accepted the flowers almost absentmindedly.
     
    “How did you get here so fast?” she asked, beginning to come back to herself. “The show just went off the air. I just saw you…”
     
    “We filmed that about an hour ago—I’ve been fighting through traffic to get here since. Zoey, I thought about everything you said to me as soon as you left the yacht. By the time you got in the car with Fulton, I was certain you were right. I should never have filed the lawsuit.” He turned to Melinda. “Ms. Forde, I’m so sorry for putting you through all of this.”
     
    “No, it was my fault,” she said nobly. “I shouldn’t have used the images in the first place. I apologize for that. Like I told Zoey just now, I’m going to bring everything to an end.”
     
    “The question of who did what isn’t important,” Stelios returned warmly. “Thanks to Zoey, I know that now. What matters is how we feel about each other, and where we plan to go from here.”
     
    “Then I’m going to do the most decent thing I can think of,” Melinda replied, “and leave you two to discuss that together.”
     
    The CEO smoothed out her crumpled dress, walked over to Stelios and gave him a quick hug. With that, Melinda left the room feeling grateful to her very bones—not just because the lawsuit was over, but because she was certain now that her daughter would never know the pain that a man named William Grant had once forced upon her. The man she had left with her daughter loved Zoey dearly, Melinda was perfectly sure of that.
     
    Back in the office, Zoey found a vase and put the lilies in water. She wasn’t sure how Stelios had known they were her favorite flowers, and she tried to think if she had told him before. Her thoughts were interrupted when she felt a presence behind her and turned to see Stelios with a serious expression on his face.
     
    “I wish I’d listened to you from the beginning, Zoey. I ruined a perfectly good evening out on the yacht.”
     
    “You should have, and you did,” Zoey returned quietly. “I was up all night strategizing, but that’s not anywhere near as important as what you said on that show this morning. Did you really mean it?”
     
    “I meant every word of it, Zoey. I love you with everything in me. From the moment you tried to warn me about the clientele here, I knew you were someone too special to ignore. I don’t think I’ve ever told you this, but those few moments in the kitchen, cutting onions and talking with you, were some of the fondest ones in my life.”
     
    “Mine too,” Zoey admitted. “When the lights went out and we started to talk, it felt like you were trying to show me your soul. I love you, Stelios. And I know in my heart that I always will.”
     
    “I’m so grateful to hear you say that after all of the suffering I’ve put you and your mother through. Can you ever forgive me?”
     
    “Of course I can, Stelios,” Zoey said earnestly. “I already have.”
     
    With that, she drew her lover close to her and kissed him with a gentle passion that grew more intense as her longing for love, so often starved, was finally sated in Stelios’ arms.
     
    The Greek embraced her and felt the heat raiding from her skin. Her heart beat rhythmically against his chest. He could