ICYMI: An Excerpt of YURI

Note: This was shared earlier today on my Facebook page. It's a different excerpt from the one I shared in my newsletter.

After shooting everyone deadly looks, Helios curved an arm around the tiny brunette beside him, pulling her closer as he said, “This is MJ.”

“Hi, Kalli.” Her voice had just a trace of shyness in it. “I’m Helios’ wife.” This time, her words had a dreamy quality to it, like she still found the fact surreal.

Kalli shook hands with MJ. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, too. I am Kalliope, but you may also call me Kalli. I am the girl Yuri loves.”

It was Helios’ turn to smirk as a familiar, stoic look fell over Yuri’s too-pretty face. But more than amusement Helios privately felt relief. Whatever doubts he had over the rightness of having someone like Kalliope Antoniou engaged to the club’s vice president, it had been eliminated by the way the Greek heiress so easily kept Yuri Athanas on his toes.

He needed someone like that, Helios thought. Yuri had lived too long behind his self-imposed cage. Even Yuri’s own sister hadn’t managed to completely penetrate Yuri’s rigid control over his emotions, but maybe Kalli was the key.

Hallie Athanas harbored the same hopes. She watched her brother shake his head at exasperation and held her breath. With anyone else, she was sure he would be ruthlessly polite and use his beautiful manners to put the woman in place.

But he didn’t.

“You don’t have to say that all the time, sweetheart,” Hallie heard Yuri say.

To which his fiancée replied in a perplexed tone, “Why shouldn’t I?”

Yuri’s jaw clamped shut. How the hell did he answer that without possibly offending Kalli? But as it turned out, he didn’t have to worry about it at all.

“I like saying it, Yuri.” The grave look that accompanied her words was beginning to be familiar, a sign that she was about to drop another oh-so-truthful bombshell. “I’m proud someone like you loves me.”

And that was that.

Seven words, and it threw his entire world off tangent.

I’m proud someone like you loves me.

Yuri ran a hand over his face. Sweet, beautiful, Kalli. How did she keep doing it? How could she keep breaking his heart when it didn’t even exist?

Are you excited yet???