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responded, approaching an observation window set in the wall connecting the nursery with the outer room. “Does that look like a frightened child to you?”
    Following, Brianna looked through the glass, and what she saw on the other side made something deep and powerful clutch at her heart. Dimitrios sprawled in a rocking chair, reading to Poppy whom he cradled in his lap as easily, as naturally, as if it had been designed for the express purpose of holding a sick child.
    His broad shoulders filled the width of his chair; his long legs, elegantly clad in finely tailored black trousers, poked out from the folds of a pale-yellow gown. Above his mask, his dark brows rose in comical dismay. Wide with feigned astonishment, his gaze swung from the book and came to rest on Poppy, and even with the barrier of glass separating them, Brianna heard her laughter.
    Climbing his torso, she planted her bare little feet on his thighs and reached for the brightly colored balloon bouquet floating almost to the ceiling and anchored by ribbons to the back of the chair. From her vantage point, Brianna could see only the back of the child’s head, covered with thick black hair just like her own. And soon it would be gone, falling away in clumps….
    Again tears threatened, but she blinked them back and managed a shaky smile when she saw that Dimitrios had glanced up and was gesturing for her and Noelle to join him.
    Poppy turned at the sound of the door opening, and for a moment, Brianna froze. Even allowing for illness robbing her of so much, the child was exquisite, her delicate little face dominated by enormous eyes the exact same shade of blue as her own and Cecily’s—but with an innocence to them that Cecily had lost at a very early age if, indeed, she’d ever possessed it at all.
    “ Kalimera ,” Dimitrios said. “Hi. This is a surprise.”
    Until that moment Brianna had deliberately thought of Poppy as his daughter, or the little girl, or the child, or even, may God forgive her, “the patient.” It had been, she supposed, her way of distancing herself from a set of circumstances still more painful to contemplate than they had any right to be. But now, suddenly, the words she’d avoided using were the only ones with real meaning. Closing the distance between herself and the chair, she dropped down to be at eye level with Poppy and said, “I thought it high time I met my niece. Hello, beautiful! I’m your auntie Brianna.”
    Whether or not she really understood what that meant was doubtful, but after surveying Brianna for a long, quiet moment, Poppy smiled and reached out her arms to be held. Almost choking with emotion, Brianna looked to Dimitrios to gauge his reaction.
    In one lithe movement, he was out of the chair. With a jerk of his chin, he invited her to take his place, and when she was comfortably seated, passed her niece to her. Brianna felt the warm little body, the painfully fragile bones, the soft skin. She felt the sweet damp draft of breath against her cheek, the trusting clutch of tiny fingers at the side of her neck.
    A fresh tide of emotion rolled over her. Her entire being filled with something so visceral, so elemental, it left her breathless. Only once before had she known such an instant connection with another human being, and, as swiftly as she had the first time around, she fell in love again. Hopelessly, helplessly. And this time, forever.
    I’m finally where I belong, she thought, dazed by sudden blinding insight. Not on a runway or on location for a glamorous shoot, but in a simple rocking chair, with a child in my arms. Modeling might have been my occupation, but motherhood is my true vocation.
    Swallowing hard, she closed her eyes and held on: to Poppy, and to the tears she didn’t want her niece to see; to the hope that she could be the one to give this little soul the gift of life; and most of all, to the chance to make up for the years she had missed being an aunt to this adorable child. When,