Chapter Fifty-Two
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
E VELYN HAD BEEN FIRM, DEVOUT, EVEN, IN HER RESOLVE TO PERFORM at The Empire’s opening, drink gobs of celebratory champagne, and leave without ever even seeing Tom again.
But then … their eyes had met across the busiest room in all of Manhattan. And he’d said her name.
Now, they stood not even a step apart from one another, and she knew in her heart that her entire life led up to this moment.
“Why, hello there, stranger,” she said, her voice trembling. “Do you come here often?”
“I should be asking you that question,” he said, his lips quirking in that familiar smile of his. That smile that looked like home.
“Well, I was in the neighborhood, and—”
“I heard you were leaving for Paris.”
“The damndest thing, wouldn’t you know it? I almost got on the ship, but then I remembered! I get seasick. So I decided to walk.”
“Walk? To France? Across the ocean?”
“I never had a head for geography. Anyway, I was walking down 34th and it occurred to me … I still had something to say to you.”
“Even more than you said last night?” he asked.
“Yes.”
All hint of a joke abandoned her tone. She could not humor her way out of this. She’d almost lost him once. Now that the fates had given her another chance, she could not mess it up.
Thomas cleared his throat. “I have something to tell you, too.”
“Oh, I got the feeling when you destroyed your big society wedding for me,” she replied.
A strong hand cupped her cheek. A few traitor tears threatened to slip when she thought of how she’d nearly gone through an entire life without this. Without Tom.
“I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve last night. You didn’t deserve any of this. I didn’t want to leave you, and I didn’t do it for my ambitions. Alban found out about my past. He threatened you. He threatened all of your friends, Dr. Samson. I was afraid if I didn’t break your heart, that you wouldn’t believe me. That you would keep putting yourself in his path, that he might take any excuse to hurt you—”
“You … you were protecting us?”
Her mind tripped over that. Protecting them. Protecting her .
“You taught me a great deal about how to love people. I thought my life and my heart were a small price to pay if it meant that you could be safe and happy—”
“Happy? You think I could be happy without you? You absolute fool of a man.”
He had the audacity to look sheepish. “You are the strongest person I’ve ever met. Of course you could be happy without me.”
No. She couldn’t accept that. She was strong, but that didn’t mean … “No one could be happy without the man they love.”
Light flooded his face. Evelyn was certain the same happened to her. “You—you love me?”
“Yes, Tom Gallagher. I love you.”
“And I love you.”
How could something so simple fill her with such spectacular joy? Such peace? Such security and warmth?
She didn’t know it was possible to be this happy on the day the man she loved was set to marry another.
No, she didn’t know it was possible to be this happy—period.
“This is quite the publicity stunt you pulled,” she breathed against Thomas’s cheek.
“Do you really think so?”
“Mm-hm.”
He smirked. “Well … I’m about to make it even better.”
And with that, he dipped down and—to thunderous applause—kissed her as she’d never been kissed before.
The kiss of an undeniable love.
A FINAL WORD FROM THE HISTORIAN
And, unlike some of us …
No. Actually …
Unlike most of us, they all lived happily ever after.
The End