Total pages in book: 247
Estimated words: 234281 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1171(@200wpm)___ 937(@250wpm)___ 781(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 234281 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1171(@200wpm)___ 937(@250wpm)___ 781(@300wpm)
Norah: Have you asked him yet?
She shook her head at the question. Norah had wanted her to ask Damen the percentage of Greek billionaires with and without chest hair. Like heck she’d ask something like that!
Mairi: NEVER. And you mustn’t ask him that either!
Vilma: What about mine? Did you ask him?
Aunt Vilma’s question was just as bad. She wanted to know the average age with which Greek billionaires lost their virginity. Seriously!
Mairi: I love you, Aunt Vilma, Aunt Norah.
Norah: We love you even more.
Vilma: We love you ALWAYS.
HALF AN OCEAN AWAY, Norah and Vilma exchanged looks with each other. They had been enjoying an early breakfast in the kitchen. It was five in the morning and the sun was barely out in the sky. All in all, it was definitely too early for her heart to be broken like this, Norah thought.
“She’s hurting.”
“I know.”
“We must do something,” Vilma insisted.
“Not yet. She’s not a little girl anymore. We need to let her learn from her own mistakes.”
Vilma knew her sister’s words made sense, but it went against everything she believed in to simply stand aside and allow Mairi to be hurt. And she would be hurt, in a way that terrified Vilma.
“Were we so wrong?” Vilma whispered. “It had seemed so harmless at the beginning, letting her dream about stupid Greek billionaires.”
Norah reminded her gently, “You didn’t think they were so stupid before.”
“Yeah, so color me stupid, too.”
Glancing down at her phone, Norah’s heart became heavier. She said quietly, “It can’t ever be wrong to let someone dream.” It was just a sad reality of the world that most people found joy in destroying another person’s dream.
Stay strong, Mairi, Norah whispered in her heart. Please God, let her be strong enough to love and dream even when she was alone.
Chapter 14
“YOU’RE PRONOUNCING it wrong.” He was on his way back to the field, stray baseball in his hand, when he spotted her sitting under the tree, knees up with an open book balanced on them.
The girl was startled into looking up from her Greek language manual. As always, her loveliness struck him. She was not beautiful, but then beauty was skin deep and vastly overrated. He had been surrounded by beauty his whole life, and those people had a tendency to be excessively shallow individuals.
But this girl...
He had always liked how pretty she was, the kind of pretty that came from within. She was quiet but vibrant, a combination that told him she would be a very interesting person to know – if she allowed him to get to know her.
“Sorry,” she mumbled, not looking at him as she shyly tucked her hair behind her ears.
Knowing he would not come by this kind of chance again, he discreetly threw the baseball away from behind. If his teammates came to get him, he’d tell them that he hadn’t found it yet. He took a seat next to her on the grass, which caused her eyes to dart towards him in surprise.
He didn’t blame her. They had never talked even though they were in the same grade. He had always noticed her every time they’d pass each other in the hallway. She tended to have a busy or distracted look on her face, though, which had caused him to hesitate making small talk with her.
With other girls he was confident and assured of their interest in him. But with her... Well, let it be said that he considered it a gift of fate their hitter had ended up batting the ball in this direction.
Pretending he didn’t notice how skittish she seemed in his presence, he leaned close towards her, enough for the sides of their heads to almost touch. Pointing to the word she had mispronounced, he told her gently, “Here’s how you say it.”
Her head cocked to the side as she listened to him, an attentive look on her face.
Liking the feeling of having her look at him, he continued reading the other lines in perfect Greek.
She had a shy smile on her lips when he finished. “Th-thank you.”
The blush was natural, and so was the stammer. He had always been enchanted by her simplicity, and now he was even more so.
“Why are you studying Greek?”
“Because I...like reading about the myths.”
He raised a brow. That was an uncommon answer. “There are English translations.”
“There’s something different about them when you read it in their original language,” she told him seriously.
He did his best not to smile. Like any Greek, he was raised to respect the myths even if they were just myths. It was refreshing to find someone outside Greece who seemed to feel the same. “What are your favorites?”
Interestingly, she blushed.
He was even more intrigued. He told her with a grin, “Now I’m even more determined to know what your favorite myths are.” He looked at her thoughtfully. “I’m going to guess you probably like those with love stories?”