Before You Say I Do

Chapter 12 Meet You

The call comes on their first morning in Rouen.

Ari is asleep, the morning sun drifting in through the window and lighting her fair skin. Her hair glows like honey in the sunshine, and Tom smiles at the sight, running a hand lightly through her tresses. Her smell is heady, a mix of sex and the fresh linen of their sheets, and Tom resists the urge to kiss her, knowing that once he starts, he won’t be able to stop.

One kiss with Ari will never be enough, Tom knows. He loves her. Adores her.

He wants to be with her forever, he realises. He wants to be with her, live with her, love her and have children with her. He wants to grow old with her.

He wants to marry her, he decides. He wants to marry this woman and keep her forever.

The thought quickly overwhelms him and he licks his lips, running a hand over the naked skin of Ari’s shoulder. He wants to marry her. He can’t be without her. He needs her forever.

Which is a problem. A big one.

Taking a deep breath, he leaves Ari asleep in their bed, stepping into his clothes and heading for the door. He needs to breathe in fresh air — needs to feel the morning sun on his skin. Needs to think and solve the problem that has been hanging over his shoulders since the first time he saw Ari in that airport and decided — against all his better judgement — to pursue her.

He blinks in the morning sunshine, shuffling further into his jacket to keep out the cool morning air. Near their hotel is a river, and he heads towards it on impulse. Before today, neither he nor his mother had ever stepped foot in Rouen.

“Why would I want to go there?” Marnie had asked, genuinely perplexed. “I’ve no interest in seeing the ghosts of the past.”

Rouen should have been strange to Tom, but it wasn’t. For although Marnie had no interest in visiting the town, she still talked about it. The stories she’d been told by her grandparents lived in her heart, and she told Tom about the winding city paths with their cobbled streets, about the imposing gothic churches, and about the cathedral, painted by Claude Monet, no less. Her stories meant that it was no trouble for him to find his way from the Hotel La Reine to the city market, where he sits at a table under an awning, drinking black coffee and casting his eyes over the town that — if not for war and politics — might have been his home.

Not that he wants it, he reminds himself. He’s like Marnie in that respect — happy to let the past die and move on from it. He’s only here in Rouen because Ari wanted to visit, and he’s hoping they can move on again soon. Once the car is repaired, he plans on whisking Ari out of this city and over the border into Germany. He’ll take her to Freiburg, where they can drink beer under the shadow of the Münster and eat noodles in small taverns. Ari can paint landscapes up in the cool shade of the Black Forest, while he sits by her side, happy just to be near her in quiet repose.

If the timing and mood is right, he might even tell her the truth, he decides. He could finally confess to her that he wasn’t the man he claims to be — that he wasn’t really Tom Miller — blackhearted wretch and lost soul, as well as a damned liar — but actually Tom Somerset, still a wretch, still lost, but now and forever a fool for her. He could tell her about the oppressive years of his upbringing, about the heavy weight of family name and heritage upon his shoulders, and about how he finally cracked and rejected it all. He could tell her about his wilderness years travelling the world, living under a pseudonym and searching for his place in it. He could tell her how the boy who once wanted nothing more than to be a pilot like his father turned into the worst kind of trust-fund nepo baby, spending money he hadn’t earned, hiding from the world. He could tell her about the day when he’d seen her by that airport window, lonely and serene, and how he’d been so drawn to her he’d decided, then and there, to claw back a shred of happiness for himself. He’d buried Tom Somerset so deep within himself he thought he’d lost him forever, but Ari had drawn him back up towards the light. Ari had brought him back to himself, he knows. He owes her so much. He owes her everything.

Would Ari still want him though, if he confesses all? Tom worries, staring into the black depths of his coffee. He’s a fool, but also a realist. He knows that in telling Ari all he might lose her forever. But he also knows that he can’t keep her on a lie — that one day she will discover the truth about him and who he really is.

The thought of losing Ari is terrifying, and he runs a hand over his face, rueing the day he’d ever left home and taken on the mantle of Tom Miller.

Abruptly, his phone buzzes in his jacket pocket, and Tom frowns before pulling it out. It was a phone he’d picked up in Norway with a number he’d only ever given to Ari. He only uses it for the internet, photos and maps, and no one should be calling him, especially not at this time in the morning, while he sits in the Rouen marketplace.

“Hello,” he says into the receiver, expecting to hear the crackle of a machine as it begins a sales pitch, or the tinny voice of an agent as they follow a marketing script.

But no.

“Tom,” a voice says, and he stiffens instantly, automatically recognising the fluid voice on the other end of the line.

Corentin.

“How did you get this number?” he automatically returns, and hears a sigh.

“I’ve had people looking for you,” Corentin replies. “Even for the smallest of movements. Quite the traveller these days, aren’t you? I had an alert for this number from a hotel in...” for a moment, Tom hears his brother rustling papers “. . . ah yes, in Switzerland. The number was used at reception as a contact for a traveller named Tom Miller, but paid for from an account registered to a Tom Somerset. It was easy to follow you after that.”

“You don’t need to look for me, I’m not hurting anyone.”

“Aren’t you?” his brother replies, infuriatingly calm as always. “The hotel said you were travelling with a woman.”

“There’s no woman,” Tom says in a panic.

“Okay,” he hears his brother muse. “So, you’re alone?”

“Alone,” he lies once more. “I’m alone.”

“Right. So, where are you now?”

Tom closes his eyes. “You don’t want to know.”

“I really do, Tom. I really do.”

“Rouen.”

For a moment, a stunned silence comes over the line.

Eventually Corentin clears his throat. “Well now, that is a surprise. Rouen. Mom will be thrilled—”

“Don’t tell her,” Tom pleads. “She doesn’t need to know. She doesn’t need to know anything.”

An uneasy quiet follows. “Tom, with all due respect, that’s unfair. You broke Mom’s heart, leaving the way you did. We’ve had nothing on you for a long time. It was only when you got to Iceland that I picked up a trail.”

“How do you know I’ve been to Iceland?” Tom demands.

“I told you,” Corentin replies patiently. “I’ve had people searching for you.”

“You’re a Druid,” Tom snarls. “Not a fucking detective.”

“Watch your language,” Corentin says, still calm. “Like I said, you broke Mom’s heart leaving like you did. She entrusted me with... Well, not finding you, not exactly. She always said you would only be found when you wanted to be. But she did ask me to keep an ear out for you, which I have done. For about a year there was nothing, and then, nearly six months ago, Tom Somerset suddenly appeared on the radar again. An old bank account of yours was reactivated, and a significant sum of money was transferred into it days later. I’ve been seeing digital receipts from your travels ever since. Norway, Finland, Sweden, Belgium, Italy, France... Like I said, quite the traveller these days, aren’t you?”

“I’m on my European tour,” Tom replies through gritted teeth. “Taking some time to myself.”

“I’m happy for you — and don’t get me wrong, Tom, I really am happy for you. Hearing your voice again is the best thing to happen in years. Awen — blessings be upon her — answered my calls to bring you home.”

“Don’t, please don’t,” Tom begs, “I don’t need another lesson in goddess paganism today.”

“It wasn’t a lesson, merely a commentary, and you sound so lost—”

“I’m not lost. I told you, I’m in Rouen,” Tom snaps.

“—and so alone that you could do with the goddess lighting your way,” Corentin carries on, as though Tom hasn’t even spoken. “Well, we all find our path in our own time, I suppose,” Corentin sounds almost cheerful, “but Tom, I have to ask you now to cut your European tour short and come home.”

“No.”

“Tom—”

“No,” Tom snaps again. “I’m not coming home. There’s no need for me to come home.”

“There’s nothing to keep you in Europe either,” Corentin says, and Tom swears he can hear his brother shrugging. “Unless there’s something you aren’t telling me?”

Tom says nothing and feels Corentin — damn his intuition — sense something in the void.

“The woman,” Corentin says gently, “is she really not with you anymore, or...”

“She’s gone,” Tom replies. “I’m alone. She was nobody. Just some woman.”

Nobody, but not to him, he thinks. Ari’s everything to him — the whole world, wrapped up in a wonderful package.

But Corentin and the others can’t find out about her. Not yet. He needs to clear the air with her himself first. Tom knows his mother. He understands all too well that if his mother ever got wind of a potential daughter-in-law, she’d be on the first plane to Rouen, ghosts of the past be damned. God knew she had the air miles to use.

“Okay,” Corentin says. “Time to come home then.”

“No, I’m busy, I’m travelling, I’m—”

“Tom.”

“I said no, okay? Just fucking listen to me for once, I’m not coming home. There is nothing on this earth that could get me to leave here and step foot near that miserable pile in New York my mother calls a home—”

“Tom, Dad’s dying.”

At these three simple words, issued so cleanly from Corentin’s plain-speaking mouth, all the air seems to be sucked from Tom’s lungs. He gasps, frantically clawing oxygen back into his body, his fingers gripping his phone with a bruising hold.

“What?” he whispers, and he can hear Corentin sighing.

“It’s Dad, Tom. He’s dying.”

“But he . . . he can’t be. He’s always been so . . . so . . . full of life,” Tom argues.

It isn’t a lie. Doug Somerset, rogue and pilot, daredevil and gambler, is a man so fervently full of zest and life it seems to drip from every pore of his body. He’s spirited and joyous, charming and kind, with a streak of honour within him that puts most others to shame. He’s the sort of man who helps ladies across roads, who stops to open doors for others, who compliments everyone he ever seems to meet. He’d taught Tom to pilot planes and drive cars, and always encouraged him to fly a little faster and take the road unseen.

“You can get this bird up to Vh at least,” Doug would drawl from the co-pilot seat of his Cessna, patting Tom on the back in the pilot’s chair.

“That’s a risk,” Tom would reply, but he’d apply thrust all the same. “Why are you such a daredevil?”

“Hey, don’t knock it. Being a daredevil got me into this plane and married to your mother,” Doug would wink in response, “now get this bird up to Vh and let’s soar, hey kid?”

Douglas Somerset. Dying. Tom takes another desperate breath, struggling with the thought.

“Tom?” he hears Corentin ask kindly. “Are you okay?”

“Fine,” Tom gasps out. “I’m fine.”

“You need to come home, Tom. You need to—”

“I have to go,” Tom says abruptly. He pulls the phone away from his ear and disconnects the call, cutting off Corentin and his protests.

His father can’t be dying, he tells himself. His brother is wrong. He’s just trying to get him home. It’s just another attempt to get Tom back in the family fold — another attempt to control the direction of his life.

When he goes back to the Hotel La Reine, Ari is still sleeping. Tom curls up in the bed beside her, pulling her naked and intoxicating warmth towards him. He allows himself to run a hand over her skin, dipping his fingers between her thighs and stroking her silky and wet heat. She wakes with a moan upon her lips, a moan that turns into a smile when she opens her eyes and sees him next to her.

“You need to stop,” she says softly, even as she opens her legs wider to Tom’s searching hands. “We ran out of condoms last night — we don’t have any protection—”

But Tom is already covering her mouth with his own, silencing her wise words. He wants to bury himself and his troubles within her, wants to feel her gorgeous and slippery warmth clenched around him. He kisses her again, trailing his mouth down to her breasts, and now Ari is out of words, and so is he.

Afterwards, he sees Ari counting days on her fingers, and feels a dart of worry. They’d had slip-ups before, had given in to lust at times they shouldn’t, and it had always been okay. Still, he feels nervous until he sees Ari smile.

“We should be okay,” she tells him. “It’s the wrong time for anything to have — well, it was the wrong time.”

“I’ll get condoms as soon as I can,” he promises. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have—”

But Ari silences him with a kiss. “It’s fine,” she says again. “I’m as much at fault. But next time we need to be more careful, okay?”

He nods, but it’s all in vain, because there isn’t a next time.

The second call comes just after they arrive in Germany, and this time it’s his father.

“Tom, please,” his father begs, and Tom looks over at Ari.

“I need to go,” he tells her. “My father is sick. I need to leave.”

* * *

“What didn’t you know?” Sasha said again, and Tom could hear his heart hammering in his chest. He opened his mouth to speak, before closing it again rapidly. He felt sweat beginning to form on both his neck and brow, and he licked his lips, clenching and unclenching his hands at the table.

“What didn’t you know?” Now there was a dangerous tone to Sasha’s voice, and he looked over at his mother desperately.

But Marnie, for once, was silent. She was staring at Tom in shock, horror and something that looked a little like happiness. She was pleased, Tom realised. She was happy at this unexpected turn of events.

“He didn’t know that Ari was bringing her daughter,” a quick and cheerful voice suddenly broke in, and both Tom and Marnie turned to Sebastian, who was all at once by Sasha’s side and refilling her wine glass merrily. “And I know what everyone is thinking, it isn’t professional to bring a child into our work. But I can assure you both, Sasha and Tom . . .” the knowing tone to Sebastian’s voice made Tom snap to attention, and he saw Sebastian shoot him a look “. . . we will be nothing but professional where your special day is concerned. Your happiness is our priority. In fact, I might just call Ari now and tell her to check into a hotel with Reine. Luis can come here, and—”

“No.”

Tom looked up at the sharp tone his mother was using. Marnie was sitting at the table, her shoulders tense and eyes dark, staring at Sebastian dangerously.

“No?” Sebastian asked. “With all due respect, Mrs Somerset, you of all people can see that Ari bringing Reine here would be entirely inappropriate .”

“Because of the wedding,” Sasha piped up. “This is my day and, honestly, I don’t want some brat running around and getting all of the attention.”

At the word ‘brat’ Sebastian seemed to tense. Tom watched as he bit his lip, clearly swallowing down a response. “As you say, darling,” he finally purred, and Tom heard the lie on his lips.

He hates her, Tom realised. He hates Sasha.

He looked over to his mother, who was also staring at Sasha with venom. And my mom hates her too. Everyone hates her but me, and even I sometimes...

Tom swallowed as an uncomfortable thought struck him. He didn’t hate Sasha. But nor did he love her, he realised.

“Right,” Sebastian said, ushering Sasha up. “Let’s go and get you ready for Luis. He’ll want to measure you right away, darling. I know you look dazzling and rake-thin in that trouser suit, but let’s go upstairs and slip you into something a little easier for an initial dress consultation.”

“Yes, you’re right,” Sasha replied, staring at herself critically in a mirror. “I have this summer dress that would be perfect. Bring Stella up too. I want every frame of this moment captured by her camera.” She gave Tom and Marnie a dazzling white smile. “I’m going to have a hardback book produced of the wedding photographs, did I tell you?”

“You have a publisher interested in your photos?” Marnie asked tightly, but Sasha gave a flippant laugh.

“No, of course not, I’ll self-publish — at your expense, naturally, given that you’re paying for the wedding. It should sell like hot cakes though. Me, a one-time model, marrying Tom Somerset of the Somerset family, in a De León dress with Stella photographs. I mean, who wouldn’t want to see those pictures?”

Marnie rolled her eyes, but Sebastian had already laced his arm through Sasha’s and sped her from the room. “Stella!” Tom heard him calling out. “The bride would like you upstairs!”

With a relieved slump, Tom collapsed back into his chair. All at once, Marnie was upon him.

“ You have a child ,” she said fervently. “You have a little girl.”

A child. A little girl. Tom felt himself grow pale.

“Yeah,” he said weakly. “Yeah, I do.”

“Reine,” Marnie said, and now her voice was warm. “Reine. My granddaughter.”

Tom could hear the pleasure in her words, and he turned to her worriedly. “Mom,” he pleaded, “don’t get too excited, or carried away—”

“Why ever not?” Marnie cut him off. “I have a granddaughter , Tom. I’m going to celebrate that fact and love her. A little girl, Tom. A little girl.”

She clasped her hands together, closing her eyes, and Tom sighed. His mother was picturing ballet lessons and tap class, horse riding and pink dresses. His mother was picturing a little girl with his eyes sitting primly at their table, with Marnie beside her, brushing out the fine strands of her hair.

She’s already carried away with this, a voice in his head warned him. She’s already redecorated a bedroom and is building a playground, and she hasn’t even met the kid yet.

“Mom,” he said slowly, trying to be gentle, “you must know that Ari might not want us in... in the girl’s life.”

Marnie frowned at him. “Not the girl . Reine. She has a name. A beautiful one. It’s French... It means queen .” For a moment, she paused. “Queen and Country Weddings,” she finally said, “that must be where her name came from.”

“No,” Tom corrected her softly. “Her name is from a hotel. The Hotel La Reine. In Rouen.”

Marnie’s eyes snapped towards his own. “Reine was conceived in Rouen?”

“Yes,” Tom confessed.

For a moment, Marnie looked stunned. “My, my, my... how the world does turn,” she finally whispered, then shook herself together. “But of course, Ari will want us in Reine’s life. We have money and influence. We can give that girl everything and more.”

“It’s not that simple,” Tom argued, and heard Marnie give an annoyed grunt.

“Why aren’t you more excited by this news?” she asked him crossly. “You have a daughter, Tom. A daughter. There’s a whole person out there with your genes, and you’re sitting here like a dull-witted idiot, hardly able to say her name.”

Tom shook his head. Where Reine was concerned, he was without words. “I need time,” he replied. “I just need time to process this—”

“You want time?” Marnie snapped. “In about ten minutes, your ex-lover — sorry, your wedding planner — is arriving with the daughter you sired upon her eight years ago. You want time? You have ten minutes.”

“I don’t — I can’t . . .”

“Tom, you need to get yourself together. I don’t know what happened between you and this Ari all those years ago, why you broke up and why you never knew about the child, but—”

“We didn’t break up,” Tom whispered. “We never broke up.”

“She’s here to plan your wedding to another woman,” Marnie replied waspishly. “I would hardly call that still together.”

“No, I didn’t mean—” Tom stopped, taking a deep breath. “I mean, we were together, and I had to come back because of Dad, and I meant to go back for her and just...”

Marnie stiffened. “You ghosted her?”

“No, not exactly, and — and how do you even know that phrase?”

“I read the internet,” Marnie replied.

“What, all of it?”

Marnie held her head up high. “The bits that count. And don’t change the subject. Did you ghost this woman, Tom?”

“In a way,” Tom replied, “but I didn’t mean to.”

“Well, so long as you didn’t mean to, that makes it okay,” Marnie huffed, sarcasm dripping from her lips.

“Mom—”

“Why did you ghost her?”

Tom took a deep breath, shame suddenly filling him. “Because I lied to her,” Tom said, looking down. “I lied to her about everything.”

For a moment, Tom could feel his mother’s eyes boring into the back of his neck. Finally, she sat beside him, drilling her fingertips against the tabletop.

“Define everything.”

“She never knew who I really was. She thought I was Tom Miller—”

“Well, you called yourself Tom Miller, back then,” Marnie interrupted. “It was just a name, my name in fact. You know my family were the Millets. What does any of it matter though? It was still you, no matter what you were calling yourself.”

Tom shook his head. “No. It was more than that. Deep down, I knew it wasn’t real. Deep down, I was always Tom Somerset. But I never told her. I never told her at all. She knew nothing about you. Nothing about all this,” he gestured around them. “Nothing about Dad. Nothing about Corentin. I didn’t tell her that I went to Cornell, that I was meant to take over the Somerset empire until I absconded to Europe. I didn’t tell Ari anything about the real me.”

“Okay. So, what did you tell her?”

“I may have implied,” Tom cleared his throat, “that I was like her... in that, um, well...”

“Tom,” his mother uttered warningly.

“Her parents basically kicked her out when she was sixteen. I, um, gave her the impression that I was likewise, uh...”

Beside him, Tom saw his mother grow pale.

“You implied that I... that I kicked you out ?” Marnie asked, aghast. “Tom, tell me you weren’t so callous... so damned mean as that.”

Tom felt another torrent of shame flood through him. “I just... I just loved her so much,” he replied pitifully. “I wanted her to love me too.”

Marnie shook her head at him. “Oh, Tom,” she said with a sigh. “That’s not how love works. You know that.”

“I know. And it didn’t work. She moved on. Even with my—” Tom swallowed down another painful lump in his throat “—baby in her arms, she moved on. She didn’t wait for me.”

“What are you talking about?” Marnie asked, confusion written into the lines of her face.

“Ari got married,” Tom said bitterly, “when I went to London for her... when I finally got my act together and went back for her... she was married to this guy.”

“No, that’s not right—”

“Mom, I saw him with my own fucking eyes. I found her address in London — I went to her apartment. This guy answered the door, a baby in his arms. He was wearing a ring. He didn’t look like a babysitter, and there were pictures of him on the wall with the baby and with Ari and—” Tom broke off, struggling for breath. “Anyway, I didn’t hang around to speak with her. She’d moved on, and I knew I needed to as well.”

“But the baby—”

“If I’d thought for a minute the baby was mine . . . if I’d known . . .”

“What?” Marnie snapped. “What would you have done?”

“Stayed,” Tom whispered. “Stayed, whether she was married or not. But the baby was still a baby. Little enough to need carried around still. She was small and I did the maths in my head and realised that she couldn’t possibly be mine.”

“But she is yours,” Marnie replied, drumming her fingers on the tabletop again. “And why you didn’t stay until you ascertained for certain her parentage, I’ll never for the life of me understand.”

“I told you, she was little, still being carried around, she didn’t look like an eighteen-month-old—”

“Because she was still being carried?” Marnie asked, rolling her eyes. “For fucks sake, Tom, your father and I carried you around until you were nearly six, and you were a big kid. You should have demanded to see Ari and asked her for yourself—”

“What, in front of her husband?”

“He wasn’t her husband, you idiot,” Marnie seethed. “He was her brother-in-law. He’s married to her brother Sebastian and helps Ari out with childcare when she’s working. You fucking idiot, Tom.” Marnie shook her head. “You’ve wasted so many years, and all because you lied and then ran away when your pride was hurt.”

“My pride? You mean my heart, Mom. My heart broke when I saw that man and the baby,” Tom whispered, hardly able to look up. “I thought that she was married... She broke my heart.”

“Except that she didn’t,” Marnie snapped back. “You’re the one who did the heart-breaking here, Tom.”

Tom nodded slowly. “Yeah,” he agreed sadly, “yeah, I did.”

“So, what are you going to do?” Marnie asked quietly. “You can’t run from this now, Tom. You have a child. Responsibilities. And Ari, you need to consider her too. You owe her the truth, if nothing else.”

“You saw her?” Tom asked, looking into his mother’s eyes. “You met her?”

Marnie nodded. “Yes, I did.”

“And?”

Marnie’s face softened. “She’s a lovely woman. I can see why you fell in love with her.” She paused. “Can I ask something? Do you still love her?”

Beneath the table, Tom clenched his hands. He could feel his fingernails digging into his soft palms, could feel the hard lines of his knuckles under the pads of his thumbs. He chewed on his lip, contemplating his mother’s words. It would be so easy to lie. So easy to shrug and mutter something about time passing and feelings fading. So easy to wipe Ari from his life and take the easy path, the path that led to Sasha, and life going on much as it had for the past six years.

But he’d lied enough. To Ari, to his family and to himself. He looked his mother directly in the eyes.

“I’ll always love her,” he confessed. “I’m never not going to love her, Mom. She’s my other half.”

Marnie reached over, taking one of his hands in her own. She nodded. “Okay, okay,” she said, and Tom could hear the cogs of her mind working. “So, what will you do?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t even know where to begin with this. I have a daughter ,” he said, and the enormity of the words hit him hard. “I have a daughter, Mom.”

“Yes, you do,” Marnie nodded. “And acknowledging that and acknowledging her seems like a good first step to take right now.”

“I saw her, you know, on the road headed here,” Tom confessed. “She talks and walks like Ari... But she has my eyes.”

“I can’t wait to meet her,” Marnie said softly. “I can’t wait to see her for myself.”

“She’s going to be so overwhelmed by all this.” Tom squeezed his mother’s hand. “So overwhelmed by us, and this house, and—”

“Tom!” A screeching sound echoed through the dining hall, and both Tom and Marnie looked up into Sasha’s giddy face. “Oh my God, Tom, he’s here!”

Tom felt his stomach sink even as his heart began to beat quicker. “Who?” he asked, though he knew.

“Luis De León, my dress designer,” Sasha squealed. She grabbed Tom by the arm and hauled him up, and for a woman who was a quarter of his size, the strength in her grasp was truly frightening. Clearly all the hot yoga was paying off.

“He’s with Ari,” Sebastian added calmly, although Tom could see a nervous twitch to his eye. “And Reine.”

“We can deal with the kid later,” Sasha shook her head, holding her nails up to the light and inspecting them closely. “Come on, Tom, come and greet him. He’s flown all the way from London to design my dress — we have to be nice to him.”

She began pulling him across the room, Marnie following behind, and only stopped dead when they reached the entry hall. She flung her arm around Tom’s waist, and he could feel the excitement through the bones of her thin body.

“Mr De León!” she exclaimed. “You’re so very welcome here!”

Tom looked up, all blood draining from his face. A man was pulling his coat from his shoulders, ruggedly handsome and oh-so-familiar to him.

The man from the road.

The man from Ari’s apartment, Tom realised with horror. The man he’d thought was her husband.

But he couldn’t look at him for long. Because behind the man, standing still and staring at him with a look of heartbreak and longing all over her face, was Ari. His Ari. His Ari.

He met her gaze and held it, hoping and hoping against hope itself to transfer just a little of the love and yearning he held for her from his soul to her own.

There’s still magic between us, he tried to tell her. It’s you and me. It’s always going to be you and me.

But whatever magic still lay between them dissipated when Sasha spoke, turning to dust before his eyes.

“Mr De León, you have no idea how glad we are that you could make time for our simple little garden wedding.”

At the words ‘we’ and ‘our’ all the softness in Ari’s eyes fled, and now she gazed at him with hard eyes. Eyes that were full of recrimination and anger. Tom felt pain strike him hard as he saw himself through her eyes. A wastrel of a man, cold and calculating and with another woman’s arms around his waist. He’d thought he’d sunk low during his years as Tom Miller, but he realised now, with startling clarity, just how much deeper the mire beneath him was.

“I’m glad to meet you,” De León replied smoothly, in that caramel voice of his. “It’s always lovely to meet a bride.”

“This is my fiancé, Tom,” Sasha carried on, stroking his arm possessively, but to him De León only nodded, his eyes narrowing.

“Okay,” De León said, the caramel tone replaced with a voice full of hard toffee. “So, this is him.”

Silence fell, broken only by the occasional click of a camera. Stella, damn her, was collecting every image — a hoarder of raw human emotion and ultra-polite bullshit.

Tom looked pleadingly back to Ari, but her face was still hard and worryingly blank of any emotion but hate.

“Ari,” he finally broke, his voice slamming into the void between them. “Ari, I—”

“Mr Somerset,” she cut in, her voice like brittle glass. “How nice to finally meet you.”