Before You Say I Do

Chapter 7 The Ends of the Earth

It shouldn’t be possible to fall in love this quickly. It shouldn’t be possible to feel so strongly, so movingly, about anyone this quickly at all. Love isn’t like that. Love isn’t lust, which can hit you like a tonne of bricks. Nor is love like anticipation or excitement, both emotions that crash over you in waves, building upon one another in your bloodstream like a tidal pool of pleasure. Love is more than that. Love is slow-building, slow-moving. Love isn’t an ocean wave, but a gentle stream, a river that carries you away gradually. No, Ari thinks, staring at Tom while he sleeps. It can’t be possible to fall in love so quickly. It just can’t.

So, why then does she feel it? Why then does her stomach twist in knots in his presence? Why does her heart pound quicker, her blood run hotter? Why does the mere sight of him fill her with gladness? With happiness? With excitement and so many other emotions that she feels full to the brim with them? Why is that?

They’re lying in a hotel room in Oslo, the sheets knotted around them. Tom’s hands are in Ari’s hair, her head cradled lovingly against his chest. Absently, she runs her fingertips along his skin, tracing a pattern into his hip. He stirs against her, and she smiles, inhaling the smell of him in the warmth of their bed. It’s heady, his smell. Almost intoxicating. She could live off his smell, she thinks. Give up food and drink forever in exchange for a lifetime of this aroma.

She frowns at that, shaking her head. Five days with Tom and she’s become nonsensical, her mind turning to butter around him. Rational thoughts are all but gone, replaced by ridiculous ideas of love and romance. It’s infuriating. It’s demeaning. But it’s also wonderful.

She hadn’t come to Europe to look for love. No, that hadn’t been on the plan at all. This was her year to be wild and free. Her year to travel and have adventures. Her year to explore, to paint, to follow in the paths of great artists. Her pencils were packed, her paints securely fastened into her luggage. This was her year, a gift of time she’d given to herself. One day, soon enough, she would settle down to work. A meaningless role in graphic art, or marketing, or maybe web design. Something moderately well-paid and secure, in a generic London office. Grey work in a grey city, she’d always wryly thought. Ari, who’d had independence thrust on her from a young age, was realistic about the future. And grey was fine. It was safe and non-threatening, after all. Grey offered security — after a lifetime of stark black and white, of bleak prospects and even bleaker day-to-day living, security was all Ari could ask for.

It was all she wanted, really.

But not yet. Not just yet. First, she would have this year. She would give herself this one year, so that in the years of grey ahead, she would have the memory of something colourful to cling to. Something bright, something vivid. To prepare for the years to come.

Falling in love like this, so quickly and so completely, had not been part of that plan at all. She wasn’t ready to settle down just yet. Wasn’t ready to give herself so utterly to anyone or anything. Every morning she woke, her mind made up, her resolve strengthened by sleep, to turn to Tom and tell him to go.

“We had fun,” she would say, more flippantly than she felt, “but it’s time to go our separate ways.”

And then Tom would open his eyes, those damnably brown eyes flecked with amber and gold, before smiling that lazy smile of his, and Ari’s resolve would falter. By the time he ran a finger down her cheek and pulled her in for a kiss, her resolve was all but gone.

“Tomorrow,” she’d think. “I’ll tell him tomorrow.”

From Oslo they go north, travelling across the country to Kristiansund. It’s a coastal town, a palate of greys, whites and ocean blues, and Tom sits by Ari’s side while she tries to capture the colours. He’s silent for the most part, and occasionally she looks back to him, only to find him staring out to the ocean, seemingly lost in thought. Towards the end of the day, when the sky starts to streak pink and purple with the coming night, her curiosity gets the better of her.

“What are you thinking of?” she asks, absently adding colour to her canvas, and he startles at her words. His face instantly sharpens, and there is a hint of a scowl to his mouth, as though unhappy at being caught in a moment of self-reflection.

“Oh,” he says with a shrug, “I was just thinking about where we are. How far from everything it feels.”

“Too far?” she queries, and he shakes his head.

“Not far enough.”

She pauses at that, chewing on her lip. A question suddenly rears up, one that has been on her lips from the moment he first boarded her plane to Oslo.

She clears her throat. “Tom,” her voice is gentle, “are you running away from something?”

He stares back at her, and his eyes are intent, searching her face as though looking for something.

“Yes,” he replies slowly, and her stomach drops.

“Is that... is that why you’re here with me? Am I just something for you to latch onto? Something to help you escape?”

“No.” This time, his reply is instant. “No. I’m here with you because, from the moment I saw you, something felt different.”

“Bad different?” she asks warily.

“Good different,” he says, a smile creeping across his cheeks. “Wonderful different.”

She nods at that, although she doesn’t understand, not really. She has so many questions about Tom. There’s still so much she doesn’t know about him. She looks back to her painting, to the myriad of greys and pastel sunset tones, and suddenly can’t make sense of it. The colours blur together in a confusing mix of oils and acrylics, and she frowns.

“Ari,” Tom suddenly says, but she keeps her head down. “Ari, look at me.” He’s more insistent this time, and she takes a glance in his direction. He’s gazing at her steadily, his face full of concern. “Ari, you have to understand something.”

“What?” she whispers. “What do I have to understand?”

He sighs. “Life isn’t simple, Ari. It isn’t easy. There isn’t a map to follow, or one road to take. There’s hundreds. Thousands even. And sometimes you can take the wrong one.”

“Did you take the wrong one?” she asks.

A frown briefly crosses his lips. “Yeah.” She’s taken aback by the bitter tone to his words. “Yeah, I took the wrong one. A dozen wrong ones. The wrong career. The wrong girl. The wrong decision. I took them all.”

A dart of pain runs through her, and her skin must pale, because in an instant Tom is beside her, wrapping her into his arms. “You aren’t the wrong girl,” he whispers passionately into her ear. “You’ll never be the wrong girl.”

“But you said . . .”

“I know what I said. But that wrong girl... she isn’t you. You aren’t the wrong road for me, Ari, you’re the right one. The only one.”

She nods, Tom’s heartbeat a steady thump on her cheek. He tilts her chin up, so she’s forced to look him in the eye, and he smiles down at her. “Ari,” he says softly, his voice as gentle as the sea breeze on her face. “Sometimes you have to get lost to find your way.”

“What if I want to be lost though?” she asks, trying not to melt too much into his gaze, his arms or heart. “What if I want to try different roads?”

She sees him swallow, sees a shadow of doubt flicker over his face. “Then you should try them,” he says, and she can see the effort it takes him to speak those words. “You should live your life, exactly the way you want.”

He moves away from her, disentangling her from his arms. Is that it? she wonders. Is that the end for them? It was what she wanted, what she planned, and yet, now that she’s standing away from him — away from him and his smell and his eyes and the heartbeat that sounded so steadily against her — she feels bereft. She feels lost. Her heart is broken, she realises. He’s broken the heart she hadn’t even realised she’d given him.

“Tom,” she says, and when he looks at her, the ocean breeze rippling through his hair, she feels a knot of want in her stomach. “Take the wrong roads with me,” she pleads. “Stay with me.”

She’s in his arms again in a moment, and his lips are hard against her own. He kisses her lips, her cheeks, her neck... every scrap of flesh that is available to him, he puts his mouth to passionately.

“Yes,” he agrees. “I’ll follow you to the ends of the earth, Ari. Anywhere you want to go.”

“The end of the earth sounds good,” she smiles into his kisses. “And it isn’t far from here.” She cups his face in her hands.

“So, let’s go,” he says. “As soon as your painting is dry, let’s get out of here. To the end of the earth and then back again.”

Ari looks at her painting. It’s a mess of colour, with jagged yellows and pinks cutting into the grey of the town and blue of the ocean. It’s nothing like how she intended it to be, nothing like how she saw it in her mind. Just like Tom, she realises.

He’s just as unexpected. Just as unplanned.

“Don’t worry about the painting,” she shrugs. “It’s no good. Let’s just get out of here.”

But Tom shakes his head. “No,” he says firmly. “The painting is wonderful. Let’s wait for it to dry.”

“No, it’s really not worth it, it’s really—”

“Ari,” he says again, patience in his voice. “The painting is good.”

Her body sings at his praise, and she smiles up into his eyes. “Then it’s yours. You can have it.”

He seems momentarily taken aback, and there is a hint of wonder to his face. How long has it been since someone gifted him something? she wonders. But by the expression on his face, she suspects she knows the answer. A long time.

“Are you sure?” he asks tremulously. “I don’t want to presume—”

“Tom,” she interrupts him gently. “It’s yours.”

He nods, shoving his hands into his pockets and swallowing heavily. “Does it have a name? It’ll be hanging in a gallery one day, you know. Right next to all the other great artists.”

She gives a small laugh at that. The idea that one of her works, small and inconsequential, would ever hang in a gallery, next to one of the greats, is ludicrous.

“No name,” she says. “It doesn’t need one.”

“It does.” Tom frowns. “I’ll think of one.”

Two days later, they travel to a small, local airport, where he ushers her into a small plane he’s hired.

“You can fly?” she asks dubiously, watching him settle comfortably into the pilot’s seat.

“Yeah.” He shrugs. “It’s the family talent.”

“What do you mean?” she asks. “Are your family pilots or—”

“Let me check your restraints,” he interrupts, reaching over to pull the straps across her chest. “There are heavy clouds today... It could get bumpy during take-off.”

She nods, and when Tom is satisfied that she’s safely buckled into her seat, he manoeuvres the small plane along the runway and then into the sky. Without meaning to, Ari holds her breath as they rise, and it’s only when they break through the low-hanging clouds and begin to soar through the blue skies above that she allows herself to relax. Behind the controls, Tom is confident and relaxed, keen to share something he clearly loves with her, a wide grin on his face, and she stares at him in amazement. He’s beautiful, she realises. He’s wonderful and beautiful and everything she has ever wanted in life.

When they begin their descent into Troms?, she continues to stare, and Tom grins at her.

“What are you looking at? What can you see?” he teases.

“Roads,” she answers truthfully. “So many roads.”

“And do any of them look good to you?” he asks with a smile. Something about him in that moment makes her catch her breath. He’s a puzzle, she realises. But he’s a puzzle she wants to work out.

“Yes,” she admits with a swallow. “One does.”

He nods — understanding passes through them. Their eyes lock momentarily, and it feels like homecoming. She watches as Tom tears his eyes from her to turn back to the controls, but Ari continues to watch him, relishing in the knowledge that, at last, she’s found her way.

It shouldn’t be possible to fall in love so quickly, Ari thinks. But somehow, she already has.

* * *

An insistent tapping woke Ari from her sleep. Turning over on the soft mattress, buried under a layer of thick blankets, she tried to push the noise from her mind. Although exhausted, she’d stayed awake as long as she could the night before, trying to beat the inevitable jetlag, finally falling into bed a little after midnight. Now, after what felt like the blink of an eye, she was awake again, although her body and mind were tired, weighed down by the long day before. Glancing at her phone briefly, she took in the time with disbelief.

“No,” she muttered into her pillow. “It’s six fifty-three in the morning. Go away, Sebastian. I need more sleep.”

The tapping continued, however, and Ari gave a long, resigned sigh.

“Fine, fine, fine,” she complained. “I’ll wake up. But this had better be worth it—”

She sat up, turning towards the doorway and instantly turning pale. Because standing in the doorway, immaculately made up, her jet-black hair slicked back from her pale face, while one of her heeled feet tapped irritably on the floor, stood Stella Snow.

“Stella,” Ari spluttered, jumping out of bed and snatching up her robe. “Stella, how nice to see you, how nice to—” She stopped, looking at Stella keenly. “Um... What are you doing here? At...” she checked the time once more “. . . six fifty-four in the morning?”

“The little blond-haired man called me,” Stella said smoothly, one heel still tapping. “Some sort of...” she gave a dismissive wave of her hand, “. . . wedding photography emergency, apparently. I checked my calendar. I had a fifteen-minute window of time available, so here I am.”

“A fifteen-minute window at six fifty-four in the morning?” Ari queried. “That’s very, um, precise.”

“The little blond-haired man assured me this wedding would be worth my while. So, I made an effort.”

“At six fifty-four in the morning?” Ari asked again.

“I was in New York on a shoot for Vogue yesterday,” Stella explained blandly. “That finished at 2a.m., at which point I read the little blond-haired man’s message. My next shoot doesn’t begin until 11a.m., so my assistant and I jumped in the car and made our way here.”

“Wow, that’s really, um, good of you to come so quickly. The bride will appreciate it. Obviously, so do Sebastian and I, and I really hope that—”

“I haven’t agreed to do the wedding yet, Ms Lightowler,” Stella reminded her. “You have ten minutes to convince me it’s a good idea.”

“Oh.” Ari frowned. “But I thought you had a fifteen-minute window of time?”

“I did,” Stella said shortly. “But you’ve wasted five minutes of that in making me explain why I had a fifteen-minute window of time. You’re down to ten.”

Ari nodded, mute with terror of this woman. Where the fuck was Sebastian? He was always best at dealing with Stella. There was a reason he was the client manager, while she did the behind-the-scenes work.

“Okay, well, let me just—wait, I’ll get Sebastian, he can at least show the venue and—”

“There’s no need. I’ve been here before,” Stella cut in, and Ari stared at her.

“You’ve been here before?”

“Yes,” Stella replied idly, her face still rigidly unmoving. “I photographed Marnie Somerset for Esquire ... When was it? Four? Five years ago? We took a few shots here, and a few in Paris.”

Paris. The word hit Ari with a jolt, and she bit her lip, hoping the physical pain would stop the emotions from cutting through her.

Stella, however, was as sharp as her nails. “What is it?” she asked. “You look distressed, and your pain is exquisite. I wish I had my camera with me to capture it.”

“Oh . . . I . . . it’s just, I went to Paris once. I went with someone I cared for. I, um . . .”

Abruptly, Stella looked bored. “I have no time for tawdry stories of love affairs, Ms Lightowler. I’m here to photograph a wedding.”

“Isn’t a wedding, um, a love story?”

For a moment, Stella stared at her in wonder. “The very idea.” She laughed, and the sound was odd, coming from her unmoving lips.

Ari licked her lips, standing taller and trying to regain control of this situation. “Okay, so you’ve seen the venue... It’s early, so the bride won’t be up yet — there was a bit of a hiccup with the groom yesterday, she had to see him in hospital and...” She trailed away as Stella began to wave her hand in a ‘hurry up’ gesture. “So, um, I guess I’ll get Sebastian to get your copy of the contract so you can run over it and—” She stopped, staring at Stella anew. “Stella, it’s seven in the morning . Who let you into the house?”

“Why, I let myself in,” Stella answered slowly, as though Ari were some kind of idiot. “My assistant and I arrived, and the gate was open, so we pulled up the drive. And then the decorators were downstairs setting up their ladders, so we just walked inside.”

“Decorators?” Ari asked. “Marnie has decorators in?”

“Mm, so it seems. Something about a room for a little girl and—” Stella stopped, suddenly peering at Ari curiously. “Where’s your small?”

“My small?” Ari asked in confusion, before her mind caught up. “Oh, you mean... Do you mean Reine?”

“Obviously,” Stella said, disdain dripping from the word. “Your small. Where is she?”

“Luis has her,” Ari explained. “He’s flying over with her now.”

“And she’ll be staying here? With you?”

“Well yes, I have this room and Marnie’s put aside the room next to mine for Reine. Just until the wedding, of course.”

Stella stared at Ari, her crystal blue eyes sharp even in the soft morning light. “Guest quarters for staff? That’s not the Marnie Somerset I remember. When I last saw her, the house was strictly for family only.”

“Oh.” Ari exhaled. “Well, she seemed very friendly yesterday. Very keen on having Reine here too. I was touched.”

“Hmm.” Stella looked around Ari’s room, taking in the soft bed, the plush carpets and the ornate furnishings. “Hmm,” she murmured again.

“Stella, we only have about five minutes left. Let me go and get Sebastian, and a large coffee, and he can run over the wedding details briefly with you. The wedding is in seven weeks, so it will be a tight job, but I know Marnie will pay you well for it and—”

“And my biscuits?” Stella cut in. “You know the rules. When I work on one of your weddings, or a De León wedding, I get two boxes of dark chocolate Leibniz.”

“Yes, I know all about your biscuits, and we will sort it out, don’t worry.” Ari did her best to sound confident. “Please let me go and get Sebastian. He’ll be in his room and—” She stopped, staring at Stella once more. “Um, why did you come into this room? After letting yourself in?”

“Because the decorators were headed here, and I was curious.”

“Right.” Ari thought for a moment. “Because the decorators are coming in to . . . to paint a room for Reine . . . and . . .”

Stella leaned forward, a rare and sudden spark of interest on her face. “Odd when you say it like that, isn’t it?”

It was odd. Marnie hardly knew her, or Reine, and yet had given them two of the best rooms in her home. It was admittedly a large home, and Ari knew she had the space to spare, but still. Something about the situation suddenly sat ill upon her, and she frowned.

“Let me get Sebastian,” she said. “Wait here and I’ll come back—”

“I left my assistant in the gallery downstairs,” Stella cut in. “I shall wait there. Tell your brother he has three minutes.”

“The gallery downstairs, absolutely, we’ll meet you there,” Ari replied, trying not to feel too overwhelmed. Of course, in a house of this size, with all its trappings and riches, there would be a gallery. Of course there would.

Once Stella had disappeared, Ari sprang into action. She hastily tied her robe around her and ran into the hall, passing the room next to her own, in which men with ladders and pots of paint were hanging protective sheets over the carpet. She ran into Sebastian’s room, opening his door without knocking and dashing to his bed.

“ Sebastian ,” she hissed. “Wake up. Right now.”

“But I don’t want pancakes this morning, Luis,” he murmured sleepily. “Feed them to Ari.”

“ Sebastian ,” Ari hissed again, prodding him this time. “ Wake up. ”

“All right, all right,” he muttered, rolling over. “I’ll have one pancake but only if you add the syrup I like.”

Ari stood taller, crossing her arms over chest. “Sebastian,” she said loudly. “Stella Snow is downstairs, and you have three minutes left before she walks out the door and costs you this dream wedding and all associated business.”

Sebastian sat bolt upright in bed, his eyes snapping to Ari. “What time is it?” he asked, before shaking his head. “Never mind. No time for the time. Stella is here. Fuck, where is my suit?”

“Just put on your robe,” Ari replied sharply. “You haven’t got time for your suit. You have three minutes.”

“Get downstairs,” Sebastian ordered her. “No, wait, I need to talk to you—”

“Talk to me after Stella has gone. We need her to sign up for this wedding or the whole thing will be off. I’m going to go sit with Stella and her assistant in the gallery downstairs. Be down in one minute with the contract or—”

“Which assistant?” Sebastian interrupted, looking aghast. “Not Brandon?”

“He’s Stella’s assistant, of course he’s here. And if you let your history with him become an issue—”

“What history? We don’t have history.”

Ari stared at him. “Didn’t you and Luis have a threesome with him?”

Sebastian shrugged. “Brandon and Luis had some chemistry — I let them work it out. That’s how you keep a successful marriage.”

“Through threesomes?” Ari asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Don’t sound so dismissive. It worked, didn’t it? I won, didn’t I?”

“It was a threesome. There isn’t meant to be a ‘winner’ in a threesome.”

“No? Then how come I won? Look, we don’t have time for this. Get downstairs, delay Stella any way you can. I’ll be right behind you.”

Shaking her head, Ari quickly ran from Sebastian’s room towards the stairs. She passed the room next to her own again, and this time she stopped, her mouth falling open when she saw the men applying a thin layer of pink paint to a wall. Pink for a little girl, she thought. Marnie was redecorating an entire room just for Reine. Stella was right, Ari realised. This was odd.

Shaking herself, she ran down through the house, searching the ground floor until she came across a room that could only be the gallery. It was long and well-lit by the morning sun, a parquet floor shining cleanly beneath her feet, while on the walls were hung dozens of paintings. This was what money could buy, Ari reminded herself, trying not to gape at the pictures on the wall. One glance told her that many of these paintings were priceless masterpieces, and she reasoned that Marnie’s family had probably brought them over from Europe. Her passion for art suddenly flared, and she longed to take a long stroll through this room, absorbing the great art on the wall.

Business first, she reminded herself, tearing her eyes from the walls and walking towards Stella and Brandon, who waited by a window.

“Ari.” Brandon grinned, swooping her into his arms, and Ari hugged him back. She liked Brandon. He was good-natured and warm-hearted, open and affable, the exact opposite of his formidable employer. How Stella had ended up with an assistant like Brandon, Ari could never work out. “Where’s Reine?”

“On her way,” Ari replied warmly. “It’s good to see you, Brandon. Sebastian’s coming.”

Brandon blinked. “Yeah, of course he is, he—”

“—has exactly sixty seconds,” Stella cut in icily. “I do have other plans today, Ms Lightowler.”

“He’ll be here, I promise,” Ari said.

“Nice digs,” Brandon said, gesturing around them. “It’ll photograph well on the wedding day. Haven’t done a wedding for ages. It’ll be nice to fit one in.”

“Well, the house is lovely, but the wedding itself will be in a field outside. A forest, actually—”

Ari stopped, her eyes suddenly caught by a flash of orange in the corner. Her arms dropped to her side. She froze, her mouth running dry and her heart picking up tempo.

“ What? ” Ari whispered, taking a tentative step towards the corner.

“You okay, Ari?” she heard Brandon ask her, but she waved her hand to quiet him.

Stella followed her, her sharp eyes watching Ari’s until they settled on a painting in the darkest corner of the room.

A dark blue sea. A dark grey town. Whites and blues mixed with a sunset sky above. For a moment, Ari felt faint.

“That’s a good painting,” she heard Brandon say. “Atmospheric.”

A good painting, Ari thought, staring at something she never thought she would see again. She stared at it silently, until she felt Brandon’s hand on her shoulder. She watched as he ran a finger along the frame, tracing the name of the painting in a brass plaque underneath.

“ The Ends of the Earth ,” he muttered. “Cool name.”

Ari nodded, still frozen silent.

“No artist though,” she heard Stella remark. “I wonder who painted it?”

Ari cleared her throat, searching for her voice. “I did,” she answered finally, her words small. “It was me.”

Next to her, she felt Brandon and Stella glance at each other.

“I don’t understand,” Ari said. “It was . . . it was a gift. He would never sell . . . he would never . . .”

“Brandon,” Stella’s voice was clear, cutting through Ari’s anguished babbling. “Clear our schedule for the day and find me a camera.”

“Are you sure? It’s a packed calendar.”

“I’m very sure,” Stella replied. “I have this wonderful feeling that things here are about to get very interesting.”