Chapter Fourteen
Two Months Later…
Poppy walked down the aisle.
Sunlight streamed onto the path before her through the stained-glass windows, throwing rainbow colours onto every empty seat.
In three days, they wouldn’t be empty.
The chapel would be full.
All eyes would be on them.
It didn’t feel abstract any more.
She couldn’t distance herself from it.
She could no longer trick her mind it was only a job. An event.
It was different.
She was different.
This time she wouldn’t walk up the aisle to meet Konstantinos, knowing it was a marriage of convenience. She didn’t carry the heavy burden of the walls guarding her heart.
Her heart drummed with her every step towards the arch made of wild flowers. The arch where they would meet at the altar.
The arch she’d designed.
In every corner of the chapel, this time, she was present. Last time, others had designed it. Her wedding. And she’d let them.
This time, she hadn’t.
And she felt it now. The room was not a display for others to enjoy.
It was personal.
It was for them.
Had she known even then, weeks ago, distracting herself with these plans, she was in love?
She’d been protecting herself, hadn’t she?
Protecting herself from all that lived inside her.
It had always lived there, she realised now.
Every day, since she’d confessed it to herself, the day she’d let the bud of it sprout, it had bloomed.
It flooded through her like a tidal wave.
It couldn’t be stopped.
She couldn’t build a dam.
Love. All-consuming. She carried it with her. She carried love. In her heart. In her soul.
She loved him.
Konstantinos.
Her feet stooped beneath the arch.
When she was young, she’d thought love fixed everything. But she understood now, standing here, that love was a complicated thing.
It could hurt.
It hurt her now, knowing when she stood here in three days’ time, when she met him here, she’d have to wrap them both in her love, because his love…
He didn’t know how to let it bloom.
He was afraid of it. Its intensity.
But she saw it now. Every day.
He loved her.
He always had.
He’d yanked her into his world. He’d done everything he could to keep her safe—to keep her with him.
Was that not love?
It wasn’t a fairy-tale love.
It was his love.
And she knew she had to accept it.
He’d never be ready to confess it.
She couldn’t force him.
It wasn’t something she could explain or teach.
He had to do that on his own. Feel it. Just as he had to accept his grief.
Her heart, although it was full of love, it still ached.
Ached with the knowledge that she could never tell him the truth. Everything was to go back to how it was before. He wanted that, and she’d promised it.
She closed her eyes.
After the ceremony, he was still going away. He’d go back to his meetings—back to work.
She’d wait for him here. With her love she could never give him openly.
‘Glikia mou.’
Her eyes opened.
She turned.
Between the open doors, he stood. At the opposite end of the aisle, he wasn’t in a suit. He wore jeans and a white T-shirt. He was dressed for no one’s eyes but hers.
Her beautiful husband.
Her heart roared. It was ready. Ready to burst free and land at his feet.
She swallowed. Waited for him as he walked towards her. His eyes only on her and hers only on him.
And there they met at the altar. Beneath the arch of flowers, and her heart, it ached. Ached that when they really did this, it wouldn’t be for them. It would be for his image.
But this, this moment, could be for them.
She could reconfirm her vows today.
And she knew she’d mean every word.
Poppy didn’t speak. Too afraid the words in her throat, her confessions of love, would spill into his ears, and he’d turn away from her, walk back down the aisle without her. Leave her and her love behind.
A tremble raked through her.
He frowned. His dark eyes probing.
But she couldn’t let him see.
She wouldn’t make him afraid.
‘Poppy?’
She shook her head. Reached for him. Placed her palm to his bristled cheek. She leaned in. Brushed her mouth against his.
She kissed him.
Kissed him with all of her love.
And she promised with her lips—her mouth—she’d love him. Always.
Her love would always be his.
It always was.
She thrust her fingers into his hair—her fingers—her hands—moving to cradle his nape.
She could do this, she told herself.
Her love would be strong enough for both of them.
Konstantinos could do nothing but accept her kiss. The intensity of it. It was the same as their every kiss, an explosion, but this was…different.
She drank from his mouth as if it was their first kiss, but somehow their last. As if it were a goodbye, but also hello.
His chest tightened.
He didn’t understand it. These thoughts in his head. And so he ignored them. These things he didn’t understand.
He pushed his fingers into her hair and met her intensity with his own with the sweep of his tongue. The pressure of his lips.
And then her hands were on his chest. Her palms pushing, she pulled her lips from his.
He didn’t want her to pull away.
He wanted her close.
He swallowed. Opened his eyes. Met the blue of hers.
‘After the ceremony,’ he growled, because he needed to tell her. This decision, he realised, he’d made. Right now. Here. In the chapel. ‘I’ll stay here with you.’
She blinked. ‘What about work?’
‘If I must leave, you’ll come with me.’
And he knew that was how it would be between them now.
She would be with him. Always.
‘Yes,’ she breathed. ‘I’ll be with you. Wherever you are.’
His heart galloped.
Her kiss hadn’t been a hello or a goodbye.
It wasn’t a first or a last.
It was a promise.
A promise that she was here with him.
He’d promise the same.
‘We will be together.’